this had me cracking up.Screeeech!!! wrote: Someone without natural groove ability is not going to sound like someone with natural groove ability no matter how much they try, it will always sound put-on.
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I honestly and truly did not mean that as a slight, in any way shape or form - only use that in an effort to establish some point of reference, with regards to the conversation at hand, and I would never have made the comment without you first putting yourself out there, which I hope you can understand.colomon wrote:Thank you for your vote of confidence.
It may very well be that location has much to do with it, and I can't claim to know what the "average" U.S. sounds like, if there is such a thing, all I can do is go by the sessions I've attended. Certainly you'd be in the top 1-5% at a session in Tampa, unless things have changed significantly since I left, however you'd be in the lower 50% in Boulder, Asheville and Boston, as would I, I fear.I think you may be seeing location bias here. I haven't been to Boston, but I know I'm diddly-squat compared to the musicians at, say, John William's session in Chicago. At the same time, I've been to several sessions in Michigan where I was pretty clearly the best whistle player present. There are a lot of players out there who can barely hold a tune together once through at tempo, forget the nuances.
My point was of course that you'd be listening the right stuff. Like learning by ear from MIDI files is not going get you anywhere, on the contrary (we've heard it before on C&F, too). My point is that the instrument isn't hard to learn if you know the Music. If you don't know the Music, the challenge becomes to learn the music as you learn the instrument for which you need three things: (1) guidance as to what to listen to, and what not; (2) the will to learn by ear; and (3) exposure to people who have the Music. If you have those three things and the curiosity to use them, I don't think it's that hard or impossible to learn the music decently (mastery is another thing, of course). I very much doubt that someone coudl learn by ear from good recordings (commercial or kitchen) and go far wrong stylistically.colomon wrote:I think you're missing the point a bit here. If I had learned by ear from this particular recording I would have been a lot better off. But at that point in time, my collection of recordings had few, if any, properly done recordings of slides, and all but perhaps one person I knew played them incorrectly. And I had no way of knowing which players and recordings were right and which were wrong. When I played slides wrongly, it fit in perfectly with all the players I played with every week.Bloomfield wrote: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.)
I don't know the research, but I doubt this undermines what I just said. And I think the example you gave before of people trying to draw an eye and instead drawing symbol of an eye isn't a good comparison. A better comparison would be that you gave someone a series of carricatures by one artist to copy but no instruction book on how to draw carricatures. It would take that person a while to acquire control over pencil and brush enough to be able to do a convincing carricature technically; but if they learned only by learning from carricatures by one artist, their style would match that artist's style.Loren wrote: There's no reason the visual arts examples shouldn't apply, as it's a matter of brain function - the brain filtering and altering info being fed from the senses, and there's lot's of research out there to prove this.
I regret that people are getting the sense that they can never be as good as they would like to be. I hope my last post makes it clear that I don't think you have to be born & bred in Ireland or be a wunderkind* in order to learn to play the music decently: enough to get toes tapping, and engage & delight a listener, and play with others who are proficient in the music. It won't happen over night, but there is no arcane magic to it. The journey is great fun and doable and you meet fantastic people along the way if you do it right.FJohnSharp wrote:The main thing I'm getting from this is that I don't feel a bit bad anymore about how long it's taken me to get to the piddly little level I'm at, but at the same time I'm worried that I'll never really get as good as I'd like. And I'm not shooting for the stars.
Well, see, this is the thing I've learned. The journey is great fun and I have met great people, and wherever the music takes me, I'll glady follow.Bloomfield wrote: The journey is great fun and doable and you meet fantastic people along the way if you do it right.
Worried was too strong a word. There is a yearning to get better and I want to fill it.Bloomfield wrote:I regret that people are getting the sense that they can never be as good as they would like to be. I hope my last post makes it clear that I don't think you have to be born & bred in Ireland or be a wunderkind* in order to learn to play the music decently: enough to get toes tapping, and engage & delight a listener, and play with others who are proficient in the music. It won't happen over night, but there is no arcane magic to it. The journey is great fun and doable and you meet fantastic people along the way if you do it right.FJohnSharp wrote:The main thing I'm getting from this is that I don't feel a bit bad anymore about how long it's taken me to get to the piddly little level I'm at, but at the same time I'm worried that I'll never really get as good as I'd like. And I'm not shooting for the stars.
* both the native Irish steeped in the music and the wunderkind may however be able to go places we can't reach, ultimately; but that's a different point.
Nah, I gave just one example, for the sake of time and simplicity, here's another: You can give a bunch of people several relatively simple Picasso line drawings, for example, and ask them to do their best to copy them. The results will typically be poor. However, when you ask those same folks, to copy turn the drawings upsidedown, and then copy them, the results are startling close to the original Picassos. The brain does not "see" the drawing as such, and thus it does not interpret by overlaying it's preformed "knowledge" onto what is actually there. So, without the brain's interference, the person doing the drawing can actually see and reproduce what is actually there much better. This is why forgers most often copy signatures upside down.Bloomfield wrote:I don't know the research, but I doubt this undermines what I just said. And I think the example you gave before of people trying to draw an eye and instead drawing symbol of an eye isn't a good comparison. A better comparison would be that you gave someone a series of carricatures by one artist to copy but no instruction book on how to draw carricatures. It would take that person a while to acquire control over pencil and brush enough to be able to do a convincing carricature technically; but if they learned only by learning from carricatures by one artist, their style would match that artist's style.
I think it's the same thing with learning the Music: If you learn by doing from the right models, ear to fingers, without crutches like notation or midi files or tabulature, you can't end up far off mark stylistically. And it's not that hard, either.
Shoot for the stars, mon. A few years ago I said on the flute board that my eventual goal was to be a good intermediate-level player. Someone asked why I was limiting my goals. I said I didn't have the time, motivation, etc. Then I got the bug. Honestly I am playing better now than was my goal three years ago. Would I consider myself a good intermediate-level player? Intermediate, yeah, but as has been said, the better I become, the more I see my shortcomings. But as I said, I'm so far beyond where I expected to be, it's just so cool. I owe the guy on the flute board a lot for opening my eyes.FJohnSharp wrote:The main thing I'm getting from this is that I don't feel a bit bad anymore about how long it's taken me to get to the piddly little level I'm at, but at the same time I'm worried that I'll never really get as good as I'd like. And I'm not shooting for the stars.
Coming along!BoneQuint wrote: Here's a practice recording I made today: Kitty Lie Over. And that's the best take out of a few dozen. Sigh.
B part is nice. A little more jig feeling (with perhaps strategic use of tonguing in the A part) and a bit more weight on the big downbeats. Rolls are almost there, could be a bit blippier. That cut on B could be a little crisper, too. Think of the words when playing it and try to bring out the phrasing, esp. the breaks between phrases. 
