Is "pure drop" B.S.?

[alurker]

This also applies to ensemble performance and sessions as well as recently introduced instruments and back-up playing. If 200 years ago is your benchmark for traditional then there is no such thing as a traditional session. I think even the most avid purist would agree that the session has been accepted into the tradition.

Sessions have been around for 100+ years. .........
Ensemble performance also goes back to the 1910s and 1920s

Indeed. And therefore if 200 years ago is your benchmark for traditional then there is no such thing as a traditional session or a traditional group.

[alurker]

Comhaltas has allowed the misc instruments but also has put a tight fence around that category by grouping them together. While no one is saying that there is a definitive authority on things, Comhaltas would certainly be passionate about preserving as well as advancing the tradition. When Abell whistles showed up in competition with Cnat holes, Comhaltas passed a rule defining a whistle for competition as to not have more than six tone holes.

Comhaltas are passionate about preserving the tradition as they define it. I think their definition requires some honing ( they seem to be particularly keen on promoting the snare and bass drum and piano vamping ) but I do respect the work and efforts they put into promoting ITM.

Don't however make the mistake of equating acceptance by Comhaltas to acceptance by the tradition. Comhaltas do after all have a competition for accompaniment which includes guitar and bouzouki accompaniment. Comhaltas can define their competition rules any way they want but if Mary Bergin chooses to play a whistle with a Cnat, I would not suddenly classify her music as non-traditional. As with any instrument, it is the way it is played that counts.

I don't think that attempts to be precious about the tradition has any real effect on what is accepted into it in the long run. I once had a few very enjoyable tunes with a few members of the band Altan, a sax player and (creid e no na chreid) a rapper. The sax player used the same ornaments that the rest of us were using. Eventually the sax may be accepted into the tradition (even though I think the brass timbre is a potential impediment). I hold out less hope for the rap artist.

[Jim McGuire]

Indeed. And therefore if 200 years ago is your benchmark for traditional then there is no such thing as a traditional session or a traditional group.

That would be accurate to a point. There are people that feel the essence of the ITM is solo performance. Duets with blending instruments, too, have been part of ITM for 100+ years- fiddle/pipes, etc. There are pluses to session playing/group stage playing - not limited to comradery, drive/push/encouragement, massive sound - and negatives - less emphasis on solo artistry being one aspect. Hard to hear nuances in the music with a ton of instruments playing, even hard to hear your own instrument.

Another disappearing rarity is the solo bar performer - not including tourist venues. It used to happen. Group music certainly helps the mission of the bars that seem to host most sessions; sheer numbers of interested ITM players also dictates that session playing become the norm.

So why no group or session playing in the 18th and 19th centuries? It is about numbers - fairly low numbers of performers that were spread out. Some people in Ireland never traveled 12 miles in their lifetime. Emigration reduced Ireland's population by 50% from 1845 on with the musicians turning up in the US, Britain, and Australia.

So, for that Sunday night session that has been going on for many years. This week, due to a mixup, only the bodhran players show up. Would there be an ITM session that night? What if only guitar players show up?

[jGilder]

So, for that Sunday night session that has been going on for many years. This week, due to a mixup, only the bodhran players show up. Would there be an ITM session that night? What if only guitar players show up?

Of course not, but then you have to realize your implication might be that "pure drop" would simply mean 'without accompaniment' or 'capable of playing melodies.' My point is that putting such parameters on the definition might actually counteract a deeper and more significant definition. Many times I have listened to music that included accompaniment that I would consider as "pure drop" because of the way it's being played.

[fiddleronvermouth]

So, for that Sunday night session that has been going on for many years. This week, due to a mixup, only the bodhran players show up. Would there be an ITM session that night? What if only guitar players show up?

Of course not, but then you have to realize your implication might be that "pure drop" would simply mean 'without accompaniment' or 'capable of playing melodies.' My point is that putting such parameters on the definition might actually counteract a deeper and more significant definition. Many times I have listened to music that included accompaniment that I would consider as "pure drop" because of the way it's being played.

I could pull off a session with nothing but guitars and bodhrans. I know buckets of songs that sound great with simple bodhran backing, and I can pick out a tune or two on the guitar. (Slowly, badly, and painfully, but I'm sure it would smooth out over the course of a whole evening ).

Edit: And, imo, if we stuck to Irish songs and tunes it would be a traditional Irish session, since that's exactly what the traditional musicians I met in Ireland would do, given enough pints.

[Martin Milner]

So, for that Sunday night session that has been going on for many years. This week, due to a mixup, only the bodhran players show up. Would there be an ITM session that night? What if only guitar players show up?

Of course not, but then you have to realize your implication might be that "pure drop" would simply mean 'without accompaniment' or 'capable of playing melodies.' My point is that putting such parameters on the definition might actually counteract a deeper and more significant definition. Many times I have listened to music that included accompaniment that I would consider as "pure drop" because of the way it's being played.

I could pull off a session with nothing but guitars and bodhrans. I know buckets of songs that sound great with simple bodhran backing, and I can pick out a tune or two on the guitar. (Slowly, badly, and painfully, but I'm sure it would smooth out over the course of a whole evening ).

Edit: And, imo, if we stuck to Irish songs and tunes it would be a traditional Irish session, since that's exactly what the traditional musicians I met in Ireland would do, given enough pints.

Playing devil's advocate here, but if you're singing, it's now the human voice used as the melody instrument, and maybe the bodhran is still surplus to requirements.

With a foot firmly planted in the other camp, I first got into ITM through playing Irish songs on the guitar to accompany myself and others singing, so if we didn't have this part of the tradition, I might not be playing fiddle today.

I've been to a singing session in Ireland with no instruments used other than the human voice, and a guitar and banjo brought along by two American singers, Dan Milner & Bob Conroy, to accompnay themselves.

[fiddleronvermouth]

Martin, an excellent point. I actually prefer unaccompanied singing myself, but certain songs sound absolutely wicked with a bodhran (and nothing else). For Irish songs, I find guitar backing a little annoying unless it's astoundingly good. Andy Irvine good. That three-chord standard tuning stuff many singers thrash out drives me to drink.

[maire]

If it is just a singer and Bodhrán player, does that constitute a session?
Surely that would be a performance even if the crowds join in for the chorus?

[Jim McGuire]

or a Hooley.

[SteveShaw]

Ok... a lot of people think the guitar doesn't deserve to wear the badge, but can the bodhran be included in the exclusive "pure drop" club?

If you like, as long as it never assaults my poor ear-drums.

I do recall making the point several times that its not the instrument but what you do with it (and how it is received) that is salient. I note that, subsequently, Peter Laban has made a similar point and received approbation for it.

Did you think I meant that it automatically assaults my ear-drums? If well-played it is a thing of beauty, but I'm about as likely to come across good bodhran-playing in a session as I am of finding poo under a rocking horse.

[maire]

HOOLEY!!
Thats the word I was looking for, thanks Jim!

[jGilder]

Playing devil's advocate here, but if you're singing, it's now the human voice used as the melody instrument, and maybe the bodhran is still surplus to requirements.

This is my point: if it's excluded from the "pure drop" club because it's "surplus to requirements" or 'accompaniment' then "pure drop" would simply refer to unaccompanied ITM. This limits the meaning and it becomes more of a mechanical definition rather than being based on a particular style and mind-set relating to Irish culture.

[smithand]

This is an interesting question, hence the huge number of posts in this thread. One factor that I havent seen addressed--though I can't claim that I have read all 200+ posts in the thread--is that we live in a postmodern age, in which the whole concept of tradition is questionable. Peter Laban makes a decent case for someone's music being traditional if it is recognised as such by a traditional musician (and surely Peter's own playing is very traditional), but in doing so he seems to be appealing to the playing of the older generations. I'm picking on Peter in this post, partly because he really knows his stuff, and makes convincing arguments, but I do think it's a somewhat narrow approach. Irish music no longer exists in a purely traditional setting, and the latest generation of Irish traditional musicians grow up hearing recordings of all sorts of music, learning to read sheet music at school, having access to the instruments and traditions of western popular culture and other traditions. And traditions change.

I'm not sure that learning to play orally is even completely definitive for ITM nowadays, since a lot of tunes seem to have died out and been revived from the sheet music transcriptions. If I read Pat Sky's post correctly http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=25201 Tommy Reck, a musician that I know Peter greatly respected, recorded his Stone in the Field album playing from sheet music. "On the appointed day Tommy showed up with a manuscript of tunes that he had collected over the years. Tommy was an excellent sight reader. We spent a couple of days going through tunes and recording, with Tommy and the microphones sitting in a stairwell in Paul’s apartment."

The generation of Irish traditional musicians who reached adulthood in the 1960s and 1970s produced the Chieftains, Planxty and the Bothy Band, in addition to players who might be seen by Peter as meeting his standards of tradition. I know that Peter doesn't care from Paddy Keenan's output from the last couple of decades, but most of Paddy's playing consists of traditional Irish tunes playes with traditional Irish ornamentation on a traditional Irish instrument. Paddy plays with the pieces a lot, and pushes the boundaries, and certainly he has introduced untraditional elements on his most recent CDs in terms of the backing. But that surely doesn't mean that his music is no longer traditional. In fact, I would assert that tradition can only be defined in retrospect. The innovations of a 20 year old traditional musician can only be seen as untraditional when compared withh the playing of an 80 year old musician, but in another couple of generations the playing of the 20 year old may be seen as a stage that defines Irish tradition.

Peter mentioned that Kitty Hayes enjoyed Lunasa, with a few reservations--does this mean that Lunasa play ITM? If a later band imitate the playing of Lunasa, and Lunasa fall under the umbrella of ITM, than are the later band ITM? Do you see what I am getting at?

Best Wishes

Andrew

[Cayden]

Very quick (it early in the morning now and I have had my tea yet):

I don't think traditional players have had any quibble at any time learning from written music when the occasion arose, a good tune is a good tune, wherever it comes from. I think the internetdiscussionlists are making the mistake of deeming learning tunes from paper as evil. The point of learning orally is really that the nuances of the music are picked up by ear, once that is done nobody will fault anyone for learning from written music.
But again you will need to be able to read the tunes as a traditional musician. Seamus Ennis had an awful lot of tunes that came straight out of O Neill's, Padraig O Keeffe used notation to teach tunes, Martin Rochford has a big collection of manuscripts and he distributed interesting tunes among his friends, notably Paddy Canny. They were never raided by the trad police, at any time.
Tommy Reck by the way hadn't played for a long time when recording the Stone inthe Field, the manuscripts served to bring back his old tunes.

While I don't like the Keenan style/sound the consideration traditional or not doesn't really come into it. You're right though that only in retrospect it will become clear which elements of 'new' styles and fashions will be accepted by the larger community of musicians. And I think I have said as much before (not sure it was on this thread though)
There's a hotbed of young musicians playing brilliant music, experimenting away, great stuff and not so great stuff at times. Elements will stick and elements wil disappear in the long run. That's the way it works, how it always worked.

To be honest I don't think any of the musicians I know would make that distinction between 'traditional' (is good) and 'not traditional' (is evil). The criterium is always 'is it good music?' Which in itself is ofcourse informed by a particular aesthetic. I gave the example of Kitty Hayes enjoying Lunasa concerts to illustrate older musicians do not reject that sort of stuff out of hand. On the contrary. Martin Rochford for example loved what the Bothy Band did (most members of the band visited him often to get tunes off him anyway). Yesterday I was thinking of another Rochford episode related what was going on above about instruments being traditional or not. During the late 1940s PJ McMahon took Martin to Ennis because there was something he needed to hear. He found himself in the company of an accordeon player. Martin had never seen or heard an accordeon so the instrument must have seemed alien to him. The player was Joe Cooley and 50 years later Martin could still get excited at the memory how the music lifted him off his seat. Apparently it never occurred to him to give out to Cooley (and Martin could give out with the best of them if he didn't like something) for playing a strange instrument.
Andrew may think my approach narrow (I am quite sure I did not use the 'traditional'-'not raditional' division so I am not sure why my perceived 'standards of tradition' should be entered here), in fact I am trying to say in this thread, again and again, there's generally a lot more acceptance of all sorts of things among musicians than most of you seem to realise. As long as good music is being played.

[talasiga]

The ferryman in a tradition is one who conveys lovers of it across opposite sides safely without them drowning and polluting the stream.
The fisherfolk in a tradition are those who reap a living from the bounty of the stream
and
The wise woman in a tradition is one who quenches herself with the vapours at the shattering, preformative source of the stream.

Fair enough, but in a conciliatory gesture to the car analogy advocate(s), could the ferry have a dirty big V8 diesel engine?

BTW, I can't help but notice that the gender-neutral political correctness evident in the 'fisherfolk' analogy declines somewhat by the time the 'wise woman' analogy is reached. Are there any wise men around at all?

In every woman is a man .....