Am I just 'traditionally style-less?'

[celticmodes]

Had to look up dysphemism

[Akiba]

Arbo, I think you've answered your own question--you don't sound like any particular ITM style because you aren't trying to play in a particular ITM style. I can understand how you might be conflicted/ambiguous in your mind because you are obviously devoted to ITM and yet your end result doesn't seem to be directly connected to it. I think one's style is an individualistic and idiosyncratic phenomenon. My influences are specific--Matt Molloy, John Wynne and locally Jack Gilder. But do I sound like these guys? Perhaps a bit like all three (just a bit mind you; I do not have a delusional sense of my playing). I also know I sound like myself and can't sound exactly like anyone. This is what I love about ITM flute playing: it encompasses such a wide spectrum of players, each one with his/her own personality, style and technical approach to the instrument (particularly when compared to the narrow spectrum within the classical flute world, i.e. you better sound like X or you will get zero work, zero respect, completely shut out of the genre).

I think it may come down to one's goals and aspirations. I reminded of how John Coltrane began on alto sax and sounded very similar to Charlie Parker early in his career. Eventually, of course, he changed horns and found his own style. My point is that John was aiming to achieve at the highest level of jazz music and jazz saxaphone playing. If one's goal is to join the pantheon of great Irish flute players, I would expect one to be firmly anchored in a particular regional tradition, e.g. Roscommon, and extend that tradition (e.g. John Wynne) or take it in whole new direction (e.g. McGoldrick). If one just wants to have fun and enjoy a personal musical journey, no specific anchorage I think is necessary.

Cheers,

jason

[ImNotIrish]

Thank you all for the input. I'm not sure what to do with it other than to stop associating my playing with ITM.

[MTGuru]

Arbo, I think Akiba is more or less right. If you don't know where you're going, you can't know when you've arrived. If you don't mind in particular where you're going, then just relax and enjoy the trip.

But maybe your question is a little like wandering around, then asking people "Where am I?" It's natural for people to want to say where they think you are, or where you are not, or wonder where you want to go.

If music is a journey, then model players and mentors are like guideposts along the way. You can stop a while and read the sign, learn what you can, then move along to the next one that catches your interest. Eventually, many guideposts later, you find you've gone quite far. Then maybe one day you know you're ready to step off the road and make your own path. And maybe not. But there's no conflict between individuality and imitation. Our personal achievements are built on the examples of those who have met and guided us along the way.

I'm not a fluter, but it sounds to me from your clips that you're still at the point where you have technical issues to tackle - clean and well-timed rolls and fingering, phrasing and breathing, the basic stuff common to all good playing. So keep it up. But it may be premature to worry about style. Meanwhile, are there players, if any, ITM or otherwise, you admire and might look to as models?

[Azalin]

Wow, what a helpful bit of commentary, like every other bit under this particular by-line in this thread. How was the initial smack-down of Arbo in any way related to a serious discussion of style and phrasing? Sounded more like a knee-jerk smackdown from the pen of someone a bit too turned on by dysphemism.
Rob

... and what are you doing here beside playing the Superman of the defenseless style-less fluter? I think his question "Am I traditionally style-less" had good potential of starting a debate about style. I brought up McGoldrick as an example of a 'modern' style etc. I'm not sure what you brought up yourself, son of Jor-EL

[Julia Delaney]

Akiba and MTG made a lot of sense to me. Both are deeply within the tradition and pay careful attention to music within that tradition. If all you want to do is sit in a cabin by yourself and play without a community of musical support (what could be called The Tradition) then it doesn't matter. But then why ask on a board with a focus on The Tradition whether or not you are fitting in? Wouldn't you know that? And do you even care about that, Arbo?

as far as this goes:
those who set out to copy another's style fail doubly
first, no one can perfectly copy another
second, they betray their own unique creativity

I have never heard a truly gifted player say this. This is what people say when they’ve never studied with a master of the tradition. Or even with a good teacher. Anybody who plays well has learned from a teacher. If they are to be any good then at some point in their journey they will most certainly copy – and copy slavishly – what the master is doing. How else do you learn? When you learn an ornament you are copying somebody’s style, if only for a specific bar or two. When you learn the tune you are learning it with the teacher’s phrasing and rhythm. MTG says is clearly: ...there's no conflict between individuality and imitation. Our personal achievements are built on the examples of those who have met and guided us along the way. Talasiga, questioning Azalin so forcefully, reveals that he doesn't understand this.

MTG's specific advice to Arbo also applies, with regard to what little he has shared, to Talasiga: you're still at the point where you have technical issues to tackle - clean and well-timed rolls and fingering, phrasing and breathing, the basic stuff common to all good playing.

Edel Fox, on the Comhaltas site, specifically mentions and thanks her teachers. You can hear their style in her playing. 95% of young Irish concertina players are playing in the Noel Hill cross-row style. Noel learned in the Paddy Murphy style. 95% of young Irish fluters have tried at some point to copy Matt Molloy, to get at what he does. Kevin Crawford has copied Matt Molloy - before he went on to become Kevin Crawford. If they didn't copy Matt, then they copied Harry – and who has Harry copied? Probably every old fluter he met in his musical journey. He says this. You can hear it in his style.

Eventually the copying of style becomes just another layer of style on top of who the good musician is, another addition to whoever else he has copied in his journey. I have never heard a good musician who at some point hasn’t copied another musician’s style. If you listen to McKenna and want to learn a tune the way he plays it, then how do you do that without copying his style? It is inevitable that, without conscious effort, who you are will determine the way you play. But until that time devotion to a master is the best way to learn.

My advice to a young player, or to an adult beginner, is: find a gifted player. Copy his style down to the last little ornament and grace note. Don’t be afraid of sounding like somebody else at some point- because you won’t be anybody else. You will at some point, inevitably, without even thinking about it, develop your own style. The Irish players know this and accept it, because they respect the tradition and accept their place within it. They don't think about their own style. They do of course think about being good, and becoming a better player - but they think more about fitting in at the session or playing well for dancers, and not about some vain, egotistical thing like "my own style."

[Rob Sharer]

And there it is. Julia drops the true science. Perhaps if our friend North of the border has something of similar import to share, he will abandon his zingers and enlighten us. For my part, I will add only this:

One might detect from my solitary little clip that I have strayed somewhat from the fold. To this I would answer, on that day I certainly did....didn't you hear the drums? By that I mean I adapted my style to suit the mission; had I been sitting down for a quiet tune, you might have heard a different style altogether, something closer to what I learned back in Clare. I did the note-for-note thing, and still do. I've never claimed to have mastered the bloody instrument, much less the tradition, but I know enough to know that any stylistic excursion needs to have a home base to return to, that is if the explorer wants the respect of his peers who stay closer to home.

Frankly, sometimes I don't give a damn about that, and sometimes I do very much give a damn about that; it all depends on context. I play in a band (Craicdown) that is based on 1) exploring different kinds of traditional music, and 2) entertaining people. Either one could potentially get us into trouble with the traditionalists. I'm willing to accept that, but I also know that I can't stand up there, blow it really straight, and expect it to work as well with the drums. It's intended to excite people, and I have to adjust my style to fit the situation. Plenty of folks would call me out for using traditional music as entertainment (ever heard someone have a good go at Altan? Happens a lot.), but I have to be prepared to accept that criticism. In my defense, and this gets back to the topic at hand, I think it's pretty easy to tell that I've spent a great deal of time learning a more proper style of trad flute playing, even if I allow myself to mess about on occasion. And no, I don't want to know what the Brazilians think about my backing traditional Choros on a DADGAD guitar.

The point of all this is, know what your goal is. If you really want to be accepted in the trad world, there are well-defined ways to get there. Turning in on its head, if you can acknowledge that you haven't been on the standard path to learning that style of playing, then you should easily be able to understand why you don't sound like that. Personally, I think you should either devote yourself to digging straight into the tradition, as Julia suggests, or just stop worrying about fitting in and do you own thing. Not trying the traditional way and yet continuing to worry would be senseless. Cheers,

Rob

p.s. See what a nice discussion we can have when we don't have to compensate for a sore lack of cross-border manners?

[Rob Sharer]

Turning in on its head, if you can acknowledge that you haven't been on the standard path to learning that style of playing, then you should easily be able to understand why you don't sound like that.

Okay, I'm quoting myself. How sad. I just wanted to make sure that this statement wasn't misinterpreted as other than rhetorical; otherwise, it might seem as if I was making someone else's argument for them. If you want my personal take, Arbo, and here's where I diverge from the blunt exaggerations emanating from the Great White North, you certainly sound more Irish than un-Irish. Maybe there are some elaborations you might add, or not, but you certainly wouldn't be mistaken for a baroque player. I found the contention that you aren't at all even trying to sound Irish bizarre, and wondered what context the claimant was lecturing from. Then I identified the Old Rose odour of the Pure Drop, and wondered why it would be wafting over from so far in the wrong direction. Again, personally, I think that some explanation is in order, and I don't mean more vague parables of the trials and tribulations of the Great Ones. Shouldn't we have the specifics?


Rob

[Julia Delaney]

I think that some explanation is in order, and I don't mean more vague parables of the trials and tribulations of the Great Ones. Shouldn't we have the specifics?

I can't quite figure out what this means. Are you directing this at Azalin? He could have been kinder in this thread but he isn't mean-spirited. He's a Pure Dropper at heart. I know I am. And you are, too, Rob. We are much more concerned with fitting into the tradition than with standing out - even if that were possible at this point in our journey. Entertaining for money is another thing. As you say, you wouldn't always play flash, for want of a better word, if you were at a Kilfenora session with the old guys. But you might if you were in Doolin with the hot young'uns.

Az has a point when he referred to "sterilized support group." He's right when he asks "...what's the purpose of such thread if only one answer will be accepted?" Nobody had anything specific to offer until MT G made specific suggestions and recommendations that we all should take to heart. It's kind of funny - and not particularly offensive - that Az called Rob "the Superman of the defenseless style-less fluter?" and then called him son of Jor-EL. I don't think Rob was defending the OP, particularly, and I don't think that Az proffered "a knee-jerk smackdown."

Besides, we should all play nice because otherwise the thread will get locked and none us will get to play anymore.

[Rob Sharer]

Here's the vague parable:

For most of the great players out there, failure was an option when they were learning, and they failed often, and worked hard, to achieve what they wanted to sound like.

What's this all about? Which great players? And how cometh Brother Azalin by this information? I though this was a messy argument, is all.

Meanwhile, it's just not true that Arbo isn't trying to play like an Irishman, as Al's snappy first response in this thread would lead us to believe.


Rob

[Kirk B]

I just read this thread and my head hurts. I'm trying to learn tunes by ear. Molloy's "Pull the Knife" vs. Michael Clarkson's are as different as night and day. Dear God, which one do I learn from!?

I'm developing my own style. It's called "Porca Miseria". Our Italian friends will no doubt have a chuckle.

Regards,

Kirk

[crookedtune]

You mean up-and-coming players can develop styles that are traditionally-rooted, but geographically non-specific? Who knew?

Well done, Arbo, and thanks for braving these waters.

[Azalin]

p.s. See what a nice discussion we can have when we don't have to compensate for a sore lack of cross-border manners?

Thank heavens for the Canadians;

Perhaps if our friend North of the border

No matter what you say Rob, you bringing my country and geo location into this thread is at the least tasteless. You might disagree with my bold comments, but at least I kept them about music, however how wrong you think they were.

[Rob Sharer]

You got me there. I only meant to point out that, since you aren't writing from Roscommon, or even Carlow, you might do us the favor of providing a bit more perspective on the source of your fervor. Or fervour.


Rob

[Azalin]

Here's the vague parable:

For most of the great players out there, failure was an option when they were learning, and they failed often, and worked hard, to achieve what they wanted to sound like.

What's this all about? Which great players? And how cometh Brother Azalin by this information? I though this was a messy argument, is all.

You're right of course, I'll retract what I said because I can't speak for them. I assumed things based on my personnal experience with a few musicians but certainly haven't met most of them.