What is your definition of “intermediate”?

[Wanderer]

I don't buy into the answer that 90% of the folks in North America are "rank beginners" either. To me, that smacks a little of over-glamorizing Irish players. When I was in Houston, we had players from Ireland come to session before. They didn't seem somehow supernaturally better than our session players that'd been playing for a while.

Then again, maybe I was just too much of a beginner to hear the difference

[Wombat]

What those blues guys you name have, as you say, is a deep idiomatic understanding of their music. At least 90%, probably more, of "advanced" North American ITM players do not have that sort of understanding of Irish music. (Though it does depend on the tune type, I think -- lots of us can handle reels more-or-less correctly. Very few can handle slides.) I'm admitting I don't have it, either -- and it took me years of learning to learn I didn't have it.

I agree. I don't have it either and I've been listening to the music to some extent all my life and playing other styles proficiently for most of it. There is something very elusive about ITM even for those of us from a Gaelic background but part of the diaspora. When playing I'll occasionally think 'that's close' but I'm under no illusions about playing convincingly on a consistent basis. In Australia it's especially hard because the Irish and Scottish influence on our own traditional music is so recent it is hard to know when you are playing with a noticable Australian accent. I have some locally recorded teaching materials that rely entirely on Scottish and Irish repertoire but don't sound authentically either Irish or Scottish. They do sound authentically 'something' and that style of playing would sound fine in a bush band I think.

But I wonder how much the term 'advanced' is used consistently. In ITM, there seems to be a requirement of knowing a lot of tunes if you aspire to be advanced. Those children Peter mentions who play beautifully at say 10 y.o. are surely not advanced. Are they intermediate? I should have thought so. Could someone know only a few dozen tunes and play with 'advanced' depth and understanding? Technically possible perhaps in ITM, but perhaps not practically possible. In blues, no problem at all.

I think that it is still helpful to think of people with an understanding of how their style falls short of being the real thing as intermediate. As you correctly point out, it takes a lot of practice and critical listening to get that far.

[Wombat]

... and I'm a member of the mediocracy.

Perhaps, but I'm sure you belong to the height of mediocracy.

[Bloomfield]

I do think that there is something you can't get when entering a tradition from the outside. But that said, stuff can be learned, and learned well if you put the time and effort into it. I hear a lot of terrific players in the US and in a way masses of interested hacks who give up after a few years are the necessary breeding ground for good musicians. I don't think anyone has to think "oh, I'm in America, and my name is Tabaki Zapruther----I can't learn the music!" Listening does wonders. Find players who have the music and listen, listen, listen. ITM is not particularly difficult music to play decently (mastery, as in everything, is another story).

[PhilO]

I do think that there is something you can't get when entering a tradition from the outside. But that said, stuff can be learned, and learned well if you put the time and effort into it. I hear a lot of terrific players in the US and in a way masses of interested hacks who give up after a few years are the necessary breeding ground for good musicians. I don't think anyone has to think "oh, I'm in America, and my name is Tabaki Zapruther----I can't learn the music!" Listening does wonders. Find players who have the music and listen, listen, listen. ITM is not particularly difficult music to play decently (mastery, as in everything, is another story).

Tabaki is a close friend and happens to be an excellent, albeit intermediate, player!

Philo

[Cayden]

Those children Peter mentions who play beautifully at say 10 y.o. are surely not advanced. Are they intermediate? I should have thought so. Could someone know only a few dozen tunes and play with 'advanced' depth and understanding?

It does depend on your definition, I would class most as intermediate but with the note that they all have something that is dearly lacking from anything I have heard posted here or on C&S and that is lift and phrasing, that natural understanding and grace they got from the way they learned and from being around good players. The elder players of the group, Brid's advanced students, would have the same proficiency Brid has herself, minus maybe what comes with years of experience and life. I do remember one occasion nine or so years ago where I played with Brid and her eldest daughter, then six or seven, sat in with us. I particularly remember playing Humours of Lissadell and The Reel of Mullinavat which she had to the note as her mother had it.

[colomon]

I don't buy into the answer that 90% of the folks in North America are "rank beginners" either. To me, that smacks a little of over-glamorizing Irish players. When I was in Houston, we had players from Ireland come to session before. They didn't seem somehow supernaturally better than our session players that'd been playing for a while.

Then again, maybe I was just too much of a beginner to hear the difference

Bingo. (Unless you had so-so musicians visiting from Ireland -- it's not like living over there automatically makes you an expert.)

Look. In 2000 I would have told you that of course I could play slides, they were easy and fun. My favorite was "Denis Murphy's Slide".

For years I believed I could play slides. The only hint I ever had to the contrary was once when a batch of dancers asked me to play a slide and then told me that what I played didn't sound anything like a slide. In my arrogance I assumed they didn't know what they were talking about -- after all, I knew for sure that the tune I was playing was a slide, it said so right in the book I learned it from. And everyone I knew played slides just like I was playing this one. Maybe my tempo was wrong?

Then this spring, Steph was playing this really old Paddy Cronin recording she'd gotten her hands on. And this tune came on that sounded really familiar, but I couldn't make heads or tails out of it -- I couldn't even figure out what sort of tune it was.

And then on the third time through, I placed it. It was good old "Denis Murphy's Slide". Only it was being played in authentic slide style. And damn, it didn't sound anything like it did when I played it.

That was a huge eye-opening experience for me....

[colomon]

(BTW, I'm not trying to say that non-Irish cannot learn the music. If I thought so, I'd give up on it myself.)

[colomon]

Actually, on further consideration, it seems to me that part of the problem here is that there are two different areas of achievement here which are usually combined to much confusion. Hmmm... three areas, even.

1) Proficiency with the whistle.
2) Musicality in the ITM sense.
3) Knowledge of tunes.

It's quite possible to be good at one or two of these areas and be abysmal at the rest.

In these terms, what I'm trying to say is there are a lot of players around here that achieve areas 1 & 3 without ever getting past first base on area 2. Whereas the kids Peter is talking about probably have a nearly instinctive understanding of area 2 from growing up with the real music all around them.

[PhilO]

Thank you all for making me feel better or at least not alone in this endeavor. I've been at it, to varying degrees, for years and although fun it so difficult to learn this music. I started late in life and was not around the music and the players to soak it up. I have an excellent sense of rhythm (more attuned probably to what I grew up with - soul R&B, rock), but in trying to get what Peter refers to as the phrasing and the lift, there are times I feel hopeless. At times I think I'm really cooking and teacher's stare belies "what was that staccato crap"? Part of the trick here I believe is to get my natural sense of rhythm harnessed to what is needed here. Usually fun and endlessly challenging, but once in awhile a tad disheartening.

Philo

[Bloomfield]

I don't buy into the answer that 90% of the folks in North America are "rank beginners" either. To me, that smacks a little of over-glamorizing Irish players. When I was in Houston, we had players from Ireland come to session before. They didn't seem somehow supernaturally better than our session players that'd been playing for a while.

Then again, maybe I was just too much of a beginner to hear the difference

Bingo. (Unless you had so-so musicians visiting from Ireland -- it's not like living over there automatically makes you an expert.)

Look. In 2000 I would have told you that of course I could play slides, they were easy and fun. My favorite was "Denis Murphy's Slide".

For years I believed I could play slides. The only hint I ever had to the contrary was once when a batch of dancers asked me to play a slide and then told me that what I played didn't sound anything like a slide. In my arrogance I assumed they didn't know what they were talking about -- after all, I knew for sure that the tune I was playing was a slide, it said so right in the book I learned it from. And everyone I knew played slides just like I was playing this one. Maybe my tempo was wrong?

Then this spring, Steph was playing this really old Paddy Cronin recording she'd gotten her hands on. And this tune came on that sounded really familiar, but I couldn't make heads or tails out of it -- I couldn't even figure out what sort of tune it was.

And then on the third time through, I placed it. It was good old "Denis Murphy's Slide". Only it was being played in authentic slide style. And damn, it didn't sound anything like it did when I played it.

That was a huge eye-opening experience for me....

It should have been an ear-opening experience. Your story is an illustration of the fact that the Music cannot be learned from a book. If you had learned Dennis Murphy's slide by ear 7 years ago, you would have been able to play it then. It's not harder to play the right way than it is to play the wrong way. People would not find it the music difficult to learn if they didn't think that as beginners they understand how the music should or can be learned. If all the good ITM players say "learn by ear" there's probably a reason for it. (This is a general point, and not addressed to you Sol.)

And it's never too late. Es irrt der Mensch solang er strebt. Start listening and learning by ear today. Embrace intermediacy. Get in touch with your inner Denis Murphy.

PS. I agree there is a distinction between learning the Music (can only be done by ear, takes time & dedication) and learning a tune (may be fairly quick and straightforward, once you have the Music).

[missy]

there's really 3 or 4 different threads and topics going on here.....

One can have proficiency on an instrument.
One can have proficiency in a style of music.
One can be technically good in either.
One can honestly play music.

All of these can be exclusive, or you could be lucky (talented?) and have them all.

I don't play ITM on the whistle, I use the whistle in whatever I feel it sounds good with. I also don't play "traditional" (whatever the heck that means) music on the mountain dulcimer or hammered dulcimer, I play whatever I feel sounds good on them. I took 8 years of piano lessons growing up.

I can do the technical aspects correctly on the instruments. I can do what is termed "advanced" techniques on the mountain dulcimer. Whistle is my "weakest" instrument, but I still get what I'm looking for out of it.

But I had to train my ear to HEAR things such as harmonies, dynamics, phrasing, etc. and figure out the ways to apply that to my playing. Seeing them in print just doesn't work for me (and, as I said, I had 8 years of piano - I know how to read music and scores).

I very rarely take workshops anymore. Unless it's teaching some technique (and not just tunes) I don't want to do it. We also don't teach repetoire - we teach technique (although, of course, we will use tunes to get the technique across).

So - what would I rank my playing as? I don't know - it's just ME.

[Loren]

It should have been an ear-opening experience. Your story is an illustration of the fact that the Music cannot be learned from a book. If you had learned Dennis Murphy's slide by ear 7 years ago, you would have been able to play it then.

I don't fully agree with this, here's why:

Plenty of folks learn tunes by ear, from recordings, and don't sound a bit like the recording. That is to say, they can pick up the notes, but not the nuance. And, if one doesn't already "know" how to play with proper lift and rhythm, then it often isn't learned by listening to and learning tunes from good recordings. There's plenty of evidence to this effect on clips and snips and whistle this (which is not meant as a slight to anyone)

I believe the reason for this phenomenon has to do with the way the brain processes information. If one looks, for example, at what happens when people with no art training attempt to learn to draw, the vast majority simply are unable to make realistic drawings, eventhough everything needed to do so is right before their eyes. It is not that they lack the physical skill sets, it is that they simply are unable to perceive things as they truly are - studies on the brain and perception have proven this out. Place a real person as a model in front of most (untrained) would be artists, and ask them to draw an eye, what you will typically get is a drawing of the symbol of eye, from memory, rather than a realistic drawing. In the end, it is only by being led through a series of exercises, that students seem able to learn the the ability to "See" what is right in fron of them. (For some very intersting reading on the subject, and information on where to find indepth research info, find the latest edition of "Drawing on the right side of the brain" by Betty Edwards)


Likewise, I believe most people who do not grow up around a ITM, or Blues, or whatever, will rarely be able to grasp and reproduce all the nuance of these musics based on listening to recordings and learning tunes by ear alone. The brain isn't going to hear what it isn't listening for, if you see what I mean - that is to say, it's only going to perceive what it is used to hearing, and not much more. So, some guidance from from an instructor or acquaintance who really does have the music down, is going to be necessary, in addition to listening and learning tunes by ear, because the learner will need someone to say "No, that does not sound right. I understand that the way you are playing it sounds the same to you but it is not the same. You need to put the rhythmic emphasis here not there, you need to take a breath after one, not after 4, of the previous bar, listen, here's what you are doing....... now listen again to the way it should be played........... can you hear the difference?" etc


Loren

[Bloomfield]

It should have been an ear-opening experience. Your story is an illustration of the fact that the Music cannot be learned from a book. If you had learned Dennis Murphy's slide by ear 7 years ago, you would have been able to play it then.

I don't fully agree with this, here's why:

Plenty of folks learn tunes by ear, from recordings, and don't sound a bit like the recording. That is to say, they can pick up the notes, but not the nuance. And, if one doesn't already "know" how to play with proper lift and rhythm, then it often isn't learned by listening to and learning tunes from good recordings. Again, there's plenty of evidence to this effect on clips and snips and whistle this (which is not meant as a slight to anyone)

I thought c&sn is dominated by people learning from sheet music. Perhaps not. But I do think that if you learn by ear consistently and for a while exclusively it's impossible to bungle things in a really painful way.

I believe the reason for phenomenon has to do with the way the brain processes information. If one looks, for example, at what happens when people with no art training attempt to learn to draw, the vast majority simply are unable to make realistic drawings, even though every thing needed to do so is right before there eyes. It is not that they lack the physical skill sets, it is that they simply are unable to perceive things as they truly are - studies on the brain and perception have proven this out. Place a real person as a model in front of most (untrained) would be artists, and ask them to draw an eye, what you will typically get is a drawing of the symbol of eye, rather than a realistic drawing. In the end, it is only by being led through a series of exercises, that students seem able to learn the the ability to "See" what is right in fron of them. (For some very intersting reading on the subject, and information on where to find indepth research info, find the latest edition of "Drawing on the right side of the brain" by Betty Edwards)

I don't think the visual-arts example transfers to music, but perhaps it's just that I am not talking about random population samples but a self-selected group of at least rudimentary musicality.

Likewise, I believe most people who do not grow up around a ITM, or Blues, or whatever, will rarely be able to grasp and reproduce all the nuance of these musics based on listening to recordings and learning tunes by ear alone. The brain isn't going to hear what it isn't listening for, if you see what I mean - that is to say, it's only going to perceive what it is used to hearing, and not much more. So, some guidance from from an instructor or acquaintance who really does have the music down, is going to be necessary, in addition to listening and learning tunes by ear, because the learner will need someone to say "No, that does not sound right. I understand that the way you are playing it sounds the same to
you but it is not the same. You need to put the rhythmic emphasis here not there, you need to take a breath after one, not after 4, of the previous bar, listen, here's what you are doing....... now listen again to the way it should be played........... can you hear the difference?" etc


Loren

I agree that it's immensely helpful to hear someone say "wow, that was just amazing!" when you heard nothing in the music, or cringe when you thought it sounded just fine. Taste is formed that way. I also agree that there somethings that you won't get without having grown up where the music lives, just like there are something second-language speakers can't get. But that "something" is the dusting of powdered sugar on the cherry on the frosting on the cake. You can get ther 98% of the way through listening and practicing and listening and immersing yourself and practicing and listening. Lots of perfectly beautiful musicians coming from outside Ireland (or the parts of Ireland where the music is still a part of life). Most of them won't be Paddy Canny, but then most Irish-born musicians aren't Paddy Canny either.

[Wombat]

So - what would I rank my playing as? I don't know - it's just ME.

From your description of what you play, this question wouldn't make much sense. It sounds like you know what you want to do and are doing it.

If you're aiming to play a traditional music, or jazz or classical, there are clear norms of good performance and ways of telling how close you are to achieving them. I don't know what you would count as traditional; I'd have to know a bit more about where your family came from. But I can tell genuine old-timey mountain music when I hear it and I can tell the watered-down, smoothed out, modern ersatz mountain music when I hear it. I can tell genuine blues from something superfically bluesy and genuine jazz from easy-listening, Kenny Gee-style, pseudo jazz. Likewise, I'm getting much better at telling ITM from Irish tunes played inauthentically. Obviously, with each of these distinctions, the genuine trails off gradually into the less genuine. I don't think there is anything evil about people wanting to play music I call watered down; my choice of phrase reflects my own values heavily. I do think it is futile to insist you are playing one thing when you are aiming at playing another. So, to use an example that I face, do I play Irish tunes bush-band style or Irish style or (much harder) whichever way suits the occasion? It just seems obvious that I should know what I'm aiming for and how close I am to achieving it. (When I'm playing rock or pop, this question of authenticity doesn't arise of course.)