Poll: How do you learn Irish traditional tunes?

[hoopy mike]

Where's the "I learn tunes through telepathy" option?

Oh and how about a "How do you start a fight on an Irish traditional messageboard?" poll?

[benhall.1]

I don't care about the spelling. Everyone knows what's meant. [Having said which, it's definitely "aural". ]

I think is is one of the most interesting threads I've seen on here in a long time (oh, apart from the one about being someone else, of course ). Thanks Hans.

Some frank observations. Thanks for explaining some more, Nico. We're clearly not going to agree on this, but maybe it's worth me explaining my point of view just a little more. Recordings in a wide meaning, including all sorts of session recordings, Foinn Seisiun, perhaps, etc, have a place in one's musical learning, listening, and in the generality of what makes us individual as musicians. Wouldn't ever argue with that. But CDs, per se, are there to be performances, to be unique, to give a deliberately individual and often deliberately quirky take on the familiar. They also have to at least give a nod in the direction of commerciality. All of this makes them, in my opinion, not particularly good sources for ordinary session tunes.

Now, let's assume that all one wants to do is to have fun with a few other musicians playing some shared tunes. This, I would term a "session". Well, doesn't it just seem obvious that to do that you might as well pick up the tunes from sessions? I mean rather than targeting the quirky, deliberately individual and novel approach of the CD world? Novel, and yet fixed in stone (or, at least, vinyl). To this day one comes across people, in sessions, who still insist on playing, note for note, Planxty or Bothy Band versions of tunes - not as those players played them themselves outside of CDs, but just the way they played them on CDs. Now, that's weird, to me.

Clarinetcat: I think, from your postings on this and on other threads, that what you're doing is trying to rationalise a method of learning (sheetmusic) that you find easy because of your classical music background. But I think that, in so doing, you're missing the point that others have made that that is not the best way to understand this music, and that, with a little perseverence on only a few tunes, you could give yourself permanent insights into the music that you will never get from dot learning. It is an aural tradition, and you have to be able to learn that way, at least, even if, after a while, you choose to use various methods. But learn how to pick up a tune on the fly first. It's easy after a while. And, in my honest opinion, it's easy for anybody who is prepared to put in a little bit of initial effort.

[Mr.Gumby]

To this day one comes across people, in sessions, who still insist on playing, note for note, Planxty or Bothy Band versions of tunes - not as those players played them themselves outside of CDs, but just the way they played them on CDs. Now, that's weird, to me.

Among the people I was playing with on saturdaynight was John Kelly. He played the two Martin Wynne's and the Longford Tinker. Would you suggest he's weird in his choice of material? FWIW, all present(there were five of us playing) knew what the score was (forgive the pun) and played the whole set seamlessly.

Equally, when you play the Wandering Minstrel, you can be sure everybody assumes Fasten the Leg in Her to follow (Coleman) , Cooley's goes into Wise Maid (Cooley). Skylark without Roaring Mary? Do I need mention Tarbolton?

Get the point? Tom Jones had a song about it.

[StevieJ]

The use of oral in this context derives from the expression "oral tradition," a very well-established description of the passing on of folklore etc. by the spoken rather than the written word. Although it is doubtless technically more accurate to describe Irish music as an "aural tradition," use of this expression carries a strong whiff of pedantry and hairsplitting, to my mind.

[benhall.1]

To this day one comes across people, in sessions, who still insist on playing, note for note, Planxty or Bothy Band versions of tunes - not as those players played them themselves outside of CDs, but just the way they played them on CDs. Now, that's weird, to me.

Among the people I was playing with on saturdaynight was John Kelly. He played the two Martin Wynne's and the Longford Tinker. Would you suggest he's weird in his choice of material? FWIW, all present(there were five of us playing) knew what the score was (forgive the pun) and played the whole set seamlessly.

And so would I have. That set has sort of gone into the tradition, hasn't it? It wasn't what I was on about, really. And I said nothing about the material. I love the 'standard' sets - the Kilfenora jigs, the Tarbolton set, whatever. I was on about a different phenomenon - the rigid adherence, not just to the material, but to the exact ways of playing on CDs. I don't think you'd come across it so much where you are, Mr Gumby. Not so much as over here, anyway. There are certain tunes I can't play at a Bristol session, for instance, because somebody will jump all over it with their Eileen Ivers version (usually played badly, to boot).

[NicoMoreno]

I can't help but feel you are setting up a strawman, Ben. I am pointedly not just referring to commercial recordings. There is a ton of material out there that is recorded, but is definitely not done with a mind towards any commercial aspect, including some LPs and CDs, but I'm mostly thinking of field recordings and the like.

The reality is not as you have painted it. Most people who learn from CDs, LPs, 78s of Coleman or whoever, field recordings, session recordings, teachers, sessions, workshops or wherever do not adhere strictly to version they learned it from. And as I've pointed out, it's no more difficult to learn to adjust the way you play a tune by learning from a recording than a session. There are pros and cons to both recordings and sessions. I think the best approach is one-on-one with a live teacher, personally. I still think it is very strange to elevate sessions so far above any other source, as you seem to be doing.

As far as those sets having "sort of gone into the tradition", well, how did that happen? A bit of a blindspot, I think!

I'd add more about distinctive and/or personal styles and how many sessions tend to squash that, but I should be working. Another aspect of it anyway.

[Mr.Gumby]

Yes I know. I once saw an American girl outside Pepper's do the Martin Hayes one with the jazzy bit in the middle. That was pretty out of place.

There's a lot of good stuff on CDs as well that gets played as soon as they hit the streets. As I said before, it isn't at all black and white.

There was an English banjo player who was mad about De Dannan and he came to the place we played. We had Jackie Daly, Eamonn McGivney can do a good Frankie impression if he sets his mind to it. We did all their classics for a few nights. Fun. One night we even had a nice bodhran player, 'handy on the drum, that one' I thought, immediately realising : 'Ringo'.

I mean, there's no harm in knowing your way around all sorts of stuff.

[fiddlerwill]

Isnt John a wonderful fiddler, It was interesting to note while we were playing together that he doesnt roll. I asked him about it, his reply was, '' I know I should'' I answered that no, I really like his style . I find that fiddlers in particular fixate on technical aspects of the music, considering rolls for example as ' required' Its refreshing to hear such a cracking player expressing his individuality and forging his own path. I find nowadays so many fiddlers are so busy copying ' 'Irish Fiddlers' that they dont really have their own sound, identikit fiddlers ! There has to be a point where copying is left behind. Its a valuable training aid but basically a crutch. IMO Understanding the fundamentals, alliows one to develope from the inside out. Its a shame IMO that so many musicians are really just copying and its like a jacket, external, not internally developing just going through the motions. They need to realise that this is what they are doing before they can lose the mask, the role, play acting, and actually grow as a player within the tradition within themselves . Its not only fiddlers mind!

anyhow where were we, ah the dots versus ear discussion! carry on....

[benhall.1]

I didn't think I was "elevating" sessions as a method of learning. One on one with a teacher probably is the best. But picking tunes up from sessions is, I reckon, the easiest. You don't have to go to a lesson for a start ...

[cross-posting with Mr Gumby] and I do agree, of course, that it isn't all black and white. It's ... hmmm ... what's the right word? Fluid?

[Ye Gods! Cross-posting with Will now! I'm hitting post now while I still can.]

[NicoMoreno]

Fair enough, Ben, but that's the way it came across (from this thread and other posts of yours, actually).

In fact it came across almost as "learning tunes at sessions is the only right way". I'm glad that's not the case.

[fiddlerwill]

Ben, can you go through the process you use to pick up tunes at sessions? how often would you need to hear/play a tune? Do you record ? Do you go to the same session regularly and pick up the tunes that are played a lot? How does it go with hornpipes? I find them trickiest. I just think that perhaps you might be able to shed some light for those just starting this approach. Are there stages you went through?

One of the things that shocked apparently a lot of the folk at the Brendan Mulkere master class was his emphasis on notation! but to be honest, the tunes we covered, such Brendans settings of as Paddy Fahey tunes, were really very intricate and With so many accidentals and harmonic 'replacements ' that even with 20yrs of ear learning under my belt I would have struggled to get them in such a short time.
I remember I started on the journey of reading music when attempting to pick up a tune called 'Rondo A la Turk, by ear from a Dan Crary recording. I think eventually I would have got there but the combination of accidentals and unfamiliar genre basically defeated me, a friend gave me the guitar Tab and that was the start for me. I mean there only so many time you can press rewind before neurosis seeps in and then its down hill from there!

[benhall.1]

Fair enough, Ben, but that's the way it came across (from this thread and other posts of yours, actually).

In fact it came across almost as "learning tunes at sessions is the only right way". I'm glad that's not the case.

In the early days of my interest in this music, I learnt some tunes direct from musicians and some from notation. I would say that all of the tunes I learnt from notation, I've had to re-learn from listening. I now learn most tunes in sessions, although I get a fair few tunes direct from other musicians still, and some tunes from dots from friends. I hardly ever listen to recordings. Most of the time I hate having music on. I'd rather have peace and quiet.

That was my first post in this thread. There's lots of other posts of mine in this thread where I repeatedly say that I don't only learn from session stuff, but I do go on to say that it is easier that way.

How exactly did you form an opinion on what I was saying that is so different from what I actually said? No need to answer - it's head-scratchingly rhetorical.

On a positive note, I still think this is one of the most interesting discussions on this forum, to which we are indebted to Hans. Thanks again.

[benhall.1]

Another cross-post! Would you guys ever just slow down a bit?! [Please don't. This is great.]

I suppose I can shed a little light, Will. I have never recorded a session in my life. I don't possess a recording device, apart from my phone which is rubbish for recording.

It normally takes me one time through a two-part tune before I have most of the shape in my head, and I generally have it by the end of the second time so, if it appeals, I'll play it on the third run through. If it doesn't grab me straight off, and I don't already know it, I might not bother to listen enough to pick the thing up. At something like Ennis, where there are musicians from all over, and loads and loads of tunes, there might be half a dozen or so tunes I don't know in a typical session (sometimes more, especially it seems when the session is made up of youngsters, for obvious reasons, I suppose). I don't find hornpipes particularly difficult. A lot of them, in fact, are quite straightforward. Straightforward, with neat little touches, that is.

At any given session, of the three or four tunes which I don't know that I bother to join in with, I'll probably remember one. This last visit, it was less, but that's partly to do with pain, I'm afraid. I find that it drains my mental facilities to an extent. But if I hear one of the three or four tunes again, even maybe a year later, I'll know it to join in, and I'll remember it after that.

There actually were stages I went through, and I was very lucky to have, very early on, just one evening of superb support and encouragement from one of the greats. It was a session in Doolin in the seventies. Seamus Creagh was holding fort. And I was lost. I thought I knew lots of tunes already, and it didn't seem like I knew any (or hardly any). Because of this, I was totally intimidated, and wasn't even joining in on the tunes I did know. This old fella (well, he seemed old to me at the time) came and sat right beside me, and just sort of whispered in my ear "Come one, it's Cliffs of Moher, you know that one". And he kept sort of verbally prodding me until I joined in on a few. He then started sort of giving me hints as to what was in the tunes I didn't know, and encouraging me to join in. By the end of the evening, I was totally fired up, and adrenaline had kicked in such that I was playing just about anything they started. And the old fella had a broad grin on his face. He hadn't played a note all night. I only realised much later that I'd been sat next to Micho Russell. I'd have learnt a lot from his playing. But I learnt so much more from his prodding and encouragement. [Note: I have told this story here before. Well, why wouldn't I? ]

I'm aware of Brendan Mulkere's reputation for teaching from dots, Will. I should have gone along to that workshop to see what I thought, but by then I'd overdone it a bit and didn't want to 'walk' that far.

[NicoMoreno]

And it does cut out all the middle process of learning the tune from dots (or CDs), listening to different versions of it on the net etc, playing it in sessions and realising you've got it wrong, going back and practising it, taking it back to the session, fine-tuning it again.

I'm slightly stunned by the responses. 38% so far get their tunes from recordings and from sheet music. Presumably, these must be people who are not interested in session playing as such, since neither source is reliable. Sheet music is too sketchy, and mostly wrong, and CD versions are often deliberately slightly 'wacky' versions.

Whereas, if you learn it off a CD, every time you play that CD it will always be the same, one line, never changing. How can you learn to adapt? Why, by playing it at a session, of course.

Mostly from this, and from previous posts on other sections of this board. It is still very strange to me that you think that all recordings are not reliable sources. I realized I've overstated your case, and I apologize. I am truly not trying to antagonize you, either, I really do want to understand why you think what you think, which as it turns out, may not be exactly what I thought it was that you thought... I think that's clear, eh?

[benhall.1]

It's about as clear as I was being, in any case.