The art of practicing.

[highland-piper]

Are they saying that the dots on paper are simple? but thats not the music, and try playing these tunes on a double bass, or sousaphone, or any number of instruments , and its not simple at all. So exactly what are they saying is simple?

Compared to nearly any other form of music, Irish music is simple in concept.

It's a lot easier to memorize any traditional Irish tune than any work of Beethoven. Even if you only look at an equal number of bars, it's easier to memorize the Irish. Even people with a classical music background can memorize the Irish tune easier than the Beethoven. It's just simpler in concept than most other musics. Obviously when you get to the part of trying to play in the Irish style, it's something you can spend your life working on, but that's a whole other issue.

Here's a funny story you might appreciate, Will. I was going to a Highland piping competition, and I had forgotten the sheet music for my Piobaireachd, which was one of Donald MacLeod's tunes, so it wasn't likely for the judge to have it. I was there pretty early, so I took a scrap piece of paper and wrote out my tune on the back of it. The judge was pretty impressed by that.

Speaking of double bass, have you ever heard to Edgar Meyer play jigs? The last bit of this streaming program has an example:
http://saintpaulsunday.publicradio.org/programs/514/

[Azalin]

Please stop it with your waflle and beer postings, I just started a diet on a quest to lose ~12 pounds in 12 weeks and I don't have an unlimited amount of willpower! Alcool will the the tough part, I can feel my body shaking already.

[electricmime]

I want a turn on the soapbox!!

Allow me to offer some of my insights into ITM as a beginner (debateably valuable because I'm not taking the same stuff as an obvious given My practical musical background would best be described as symphonic and marching band (trombone and baritone), even though I've taken some classes on music theory and other traditions (piano, classical guitar, highland pipes).. but I'd never claim to be able to actually PLAY those instruments. I'm painfully out of practice on all of them, and was never more than "pretty good" on any of them in the first place.

I have been listening and practicing for around 4 months and am comfortable playing my limited repertoire where other people can hear me without fear of being run out of town (i.e, it's tolerable). That's not because I'm a musical genius, but it's because ITM is so accessible.

ITM is an oral tradition. Because of that, ITM at the beginner level is formulaic and at the higher levels, I suspect it is idomatic.

By formulaic, I mean it tends to be highly structured. Listen to a piece and transcribe what you are hearing. You'll probably end up with an 8bar A part, and 8bar B part with one of a family of rhythmic patterns (jig, reel, hornpipe) that doesn't get very granular. Even if the musician is playing a dotted 1/8th followed by a 1/16th followed by an 1/8th, you'll probably notate it as a 1/8th note triplet... especially if you've heard other musicians playing the tune and recognize his rhythm as variation. Furthermore, the musician themselves will probably agree with your transcription. That wouldn't be the case with classical. Within each part, you'll tend to have a catchy motif that is commonly repeated (with variation) in the part, or within the sister part. It doesn't rely on harmonies, chords or any form of polyphony at all (almost any classical piece with more than one instrument does rely on polyphony). Once I have the music on the whistle, it's the same music for the concertina or the fiddle... I don't have to relearn "Cooley's Reel" for each instrument I may decide to pick up. Again, that is not true of classical... the flute and tuba parts are not interchangable, even with transposition. The structured nature of the music facilitates the oral tradition, and makes it so that a beginner like me can be up and playing in a few months (at whatever level of proficiency).

By idiomatic, I mean that there are certain patterns and techniques that make the music ITM... swing, ornamentation, breathing, bowing, etc. These are the technical performance bits that are layered on top of the raw notes to make the music uniquely ITM. They are often different than classical music (or jazz) played on the same instrument. When you learn the idioms, you can take other tunes and play them in ITM style. The same 1/8th note sequence played in a classical style will be much different than an ITM style. But, they are both the same 1/8th note sequence.

So, I think the discussion here is "apples and oranges".

The music itself is very straightforward, and unpretentious enough to be played by the common man. Classical music is often neither of these things and you'd never imagine trying to teach a symphony by ear because of it. If ITM wasn't "simple" in this way, it never would have taken off as an oral tradition.

The performance of a tune in a highly idomatic way can be quite demanding. The music (and tradition) doesn't require that level of idiomatic playing for the performance to be tolerable. I believe that I could play a tune "as written" with no ornamentation, little swing, breathing between phrases, and still be recognized as playing ITM on a whistle (albeit as a beginner). I could not do the same thing and be recognized as playing Jazz on a whistle. The exact same peformance could be considered a beginner example of the classical style as well. The difference is that as I add more breathing, swing and variation (ITM idioms), the more I will be considered playing ITM and the less I will be considered playing classical.

An example of a tradition that DOES require highly idiomatic playing is highland pipes in a massed band situation. The music must be played with a high level of precision and a low level of variation, or else it will sound like a horrible muddy mess. Another example is Jazz... to me, jazz seems to be entirely about technique due to its highly improvisational nature. I couldn't imagine the average joe playing jazz after only a few months on an instrument and the results being tolerable.

[Azalin]

By idiomatic, I mean that there are certain patterns and techniques that make the music ITM... swing, ornamentation, breathing, bowing, etc. These are the technical performance bits that are layered on top of the raw notes to make the music uniquely ITM. They are often different than classical music (or jazz) played on the same instrument. When you learn the idioms, you can take other tunes and play them in ITM style.

But I think to make it sound "irish" (whatever the definition of that would be) you have to master more than just the ornaments, breathing, or any technical aspect, but also the phrasing, which is very, very subtle. A note that is played a bit longer there, a bit shorter there... and it makes all the different between good ITM and bad ITM. You could have NO ornament at all, just plain melody, and still sound "irish" (or not). But this is something you can only learn by letting the music sink in, and process the language. From my point of view, this is usually the biggest mistake classical musicians make when they try to play ITM (I'm not talking about you!), they think it's mostly about a bunch of ornaments and simple melodies and don't look beyond it.

[fiddlerwill]

Are they saying that the dots on paper are simple? but thats not the music, and try playing these tunes on a double bass, or sousaphone, or any number of instruments , and its not simple at all. So exactly what are they saying is simple?

Compared to nearly any other form of music, Irish music is simple in concept.

It's a lot easier to memorize any traditional Irish tune than any work of Beethoven. Even if you only look at an equal number of bars, it's easier to memorize the Irish. Even people with a classical music background can memorize the Irish tune easier than the Beethoven. It's just simpler in concept than most other musics. Obviously when you get to the part of trying to play in the Irish style, it's something you can spend your life working on, but that's a whole other issue.

Here's a funny story you might appreciate, Will. I was going to a Highland piping competition, and I had forgotten the sheet music for my Piobaireachd, which was one of Donald MacLeod's tunes, so it wasn't likely for the judge to have it. I was there pretty early, so I took a scrap piece of paper and wrote out my tune on the back of it. The judge was pretty impressed by that.

Speaking of double bass, have you ever heard to Edgar Meyer play jigs? The last bit of this streaming program has an example:
http://saintpaulsunday.publicradio.org/programs/514/

So am I ! fair play to you. but what did you write out? the ground? Suibhall how precise did you get in timing ? etc my point is that the dots are just the map.

A sigh of relief that were discussing music again.
My point still stands though that to compare one traditional tune, to a Beethoven concerto is not a fair comparison. take a piece of Beethoven, time it played then compare that length of time with a similar amount of trad music. So with the Beethoven, its written down, mapped out, but with the trad its not, its often an entirely spontaneous arrangement , so in that regard trad is much more complicated. If you can read music, and play your instrument then you can play a part in the Beethoven but that is not the case with trad. you would need to know an awful lot of tunes to be able to join in at a trad session and play for a similar amount of time.
Compared to most other forms of music trad is more complicated IMO, Jazz and western art music being the possible exceptions. Compare trad to reggae, blues, R&R just about every popular genre and in some regards trad is much more complicated.,
Fair enough, some aspects of these genres might be in some regards more complicated , but in other regards trad is more complicated. But so what anyhow? what point is there in this comparison?

>>Even if you only look at an equal number of bars, it's easier to memorize the Irish<<

That might be the case, but what relevance does that have? because what's written down is not the music, just a map. So its like comparing 2 maps, one might have more stuff in it so its more complicated, but does that mean the terrain itself is more complicated? not at all. Id agree that of the notation of some Beethoven to trad one is more complicated. Lets be clear here. If you wish to compare trad, with western art music then so be it. But what aspects are we comparing? Surely not the maps?



To remember? well in trad its a bunch of ideas and guidelines we are remembering more than a set piece. So to interpret the dots, the map, is much more complicated because its not written down. Show me a classical musician who can play trad properly and who agrees that trad is 'simple' then I might agree with you. Yes it might be simpler remember the dots to a piece, for some. Personally I have only a limited experience of Western art music, I play some Bach. I was able to remember it just as easily as I do trad. It might have taken longer for the melody to become ingrained . Its simple melodies,just like trad, just like any piece of music be it the flight of the bumble bee or , Honeysuckle rose. Its all simple when you compare it to something more complicated! and conversely, compare it to something simpler and its more complex.

The beauty of trad is that its approachable and manageable at many levels. So someone can think they have got it, when actually they have barely scratched the surface. Its what you want it to be, so if you want it to be simple and easily approachable, it is, but if you wish to render it to its fullest potential its anything but.

This is my point; its actually incredibly sophisticated in its 'simplicity' and its also incredibly complex in its depth. A surface level approach wont reveal this just as a Mandelbrot fractal has deeper and deeper layers , so does trad. Describing something as simple is as I say , meaningless without express clarification of what you are comparing and to what you are comparing and at what level of focus. eg I could say this pen on my desk is simple... but at what level? , its comprised of complex chemical bonds, of incredibly sophisticated atomic structure etc etc. To say its simple is true on one level but false on another. What aspects are simple? well its just a pen! but go deeper and its much more than 'just a pen'.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjVDTqUKWbs

[electricmime]

I meant phrasing as an idiom as well... It was kind of encompassed in the other techniques I listed as examples, and I agree that it is required to play ITM well and that it is not the same as classical music.

I don't know enough to argue how much of the subtle phrasing is required to make the music sound irish, however. My intuition is that it is pretty dependent on the audience. My intuition is that playing for a bunch of irish musicians would require a lot more phrasing to satisfy than if I was noodling at ye olde ren faire. Further, I suspect that the phrasing varies within areas of ireland as well. In the end, it's probably impossible to define exactly where the cutoff between "irish" and "not irish" is because of the width of the grey area.

Having said that (and getting further off topic), I really need to break down and record some of my own halting attempts at tunes. I can clearly hear that the music isn't played straight and even. I'm curious if I am hearing those "subtle differences" or if I'm actually missing them entirely.

Take "Geese in the Bog" as an example (because it's the most extreme example for what I know)... the starting triplets are cee gee. I find myself wanting to play the middle e with a double tap of my left index finger (or the two fingers on my right hand sometimes).

To me, it sounds like the first two notes have an almost triplet feel on their own, and are clearly longer and shorter (respectively) than the last note, while the last triplet in the phrase sounds almost straight, but not quite... it isn't the "Dah dah dah dum" of beethoven's fifth, but it's not as strongly swung as the others: dee-d'dah dee-d'dah dee-d'dah dah-dah-dah, dee-d'dah dee-d'dah dah-dah-dah dum... actually, I hear it as starting with a leading b, but the downbeat starts on the triplets. I tend to vary the rhythm of the 'dah-dah-dah' part a lot, playing it straight the first time through A and with much more swing the second.

The only way I can imagine playing it straight is learning from dots, not from ear... in which case, I'm learning a classical music piece with the same notes, not an ITM tune, and when I do add this swing and phrasing I've relearned it as an ITM tune.... but since the dots don't show that, you can only learn it from listening. If that is the difference in phrasing that we're talking about, then I will still argue that ITM is simple and the any illusion of complexity comes because it doesn't map well to standard notation.

If that's not it, then I still don't hear the subtle differences you're talking about

[highland-piper]

Hey electricmime, great post

One nit to pick: Aural, not oral. It's learned by hearing it, not by talking about it.

An example of a tradition that DOES require highly idiomatic playing is highland pipes in a massed band situation. The music must be played with a high level of precision and a low level of variation, or else it will sound like a horrible muddy mess. Another example is Jazz... to me, jazz seems to be entirely about technique due to its highly improvisational nature. I couldn't imagine the average joe playing jazz after only a few months on an instrument and the results being tolerable.

Now I'll agree that playing highland pipes in a traditional way is very idiomatic, but massed bands isn't a good example. We (in the band scene) frequently call them messed bands, or mashed bands. It's almost guaranteed that each band has a somewhat different setting of any given tune. While out there on the field you'll frequently hear someone playing something considerably different, and sometimes they're not even playing the same tune.

[highland-piper]

>>Even if you only look at an equal number of bars, it's easier to memorize the Irish<<

That might be the case, but what relevance does that have?

That was the whole point of the discussion -- whether it takes "talent" to fit an Irish tune into your short-term memory on one hearing. All the complexity in Irish music is stuff that comes out in the performance -- that's a whole other discussion. The part you memorize is the map.

Interestingly, the same thing is true about classical music. Most classical musicians think they're playing "exactly what's written" but they're really not. They're putting it into the appropriate style for the composer -- they've just gotten so at-one with all these different styles that they don't really realize it when they do it. If you take a piece of classical music and play it through music notation software it sounds just as "wrong" as when you do it with Irish music.

Regarding the piobaireachd story -- it was a ground-only contest. I didn't mean for that story to be related to topic, btw, it just came to my mind.

[fiddlerwill]

Hmm, Im not sure the discussion really fits within those constraints.... If you go back to the first couple of pages where Ben and SS talk about simplicity I think the brush was rather broader.
I think 'this is your mind on music' pretty much conclusively supports your position on that aspect of the discussion anyhow. Thanks for that recommendation.

Everything is related HP! So it might be said that Piobaireachd was simple if you took the ground as representing all there is. and as you said earlier, in some aspects it is!. Its the playing of it thats not so simple eh!

I figured it might be a good idea to ask the opinion of someone fluent in both 'genres' So I just asked a friend who, originally from the Paris Conservatory has spent around 20 yrs here In Ireland learning trad. So he is pretty adept in both styles. his answer;
>>I wd say trad is MORE complex that classical as there is no score or technical stuff to hide from and roots of tradition are infinite to understand!! >>

Who are you listening to EM? Try this guy;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJX4uRwgR4Q

[highland-piper]

The only way I can imagine playing it straight is learning from dots, not from ear... in which case, I'm learning a classical music piece with the same notes, not an ITM tune, and when I do add this swing and phrasing I've relearned it as an ITM tune.... but since the dots don't show that, you can only learn it from listening. If that is the difference in phrasing that we're talking about, then I will still argue that ITM is simple and the any illusion of complexity comes because it doesn't map well to standard notation.

Here's something funny about this whole "you can't learn from the dots" thing:

In Scottish Highland piping, we learn tunes, almost exclusively, from sheet music. We learn the styles of expression for our various tunes aurally from our teachers, and from listening to other pipers, but we learn the tunes from the page.

The way I like to think about notation is that it's similar to having different dialects in language. We use the same symbols as classical musicians, but we use them slightly differently.

[highland-piper]

Everything is related HP! So it might be said that Piobaireachd was simple if you took the ground as representing all there is. and as you said earlier, in some aspects it is!. Its the playing of it thats not so simple eh!

Playing piobairechd is difficult, but it's not complex -- in the old days teachers communicated entire tunes through vocable systems. That couldn't be done with complex music.

If you took a look at all the tools available to a musician -- that is, all the different "concepts" you would find in a music theory book -- Irish music, at the "map" level makes use of only a small handful. Classical music pretty much uses them all. Other forms of music fall somewhere in between.

[SteveShaw]

Describing something as simple is as I say , meaningless without express clarification of what you are comparing and to what you are comparing and at what level of focus. eg I could say this pen on my desk is simple... but at what level? , its comprised of complex chemical bonds, of incredibly sophisticated atomic structure etc etc. To say its simple is true on one level but false on another. What aspects are simple? well its just a pen! but go deeper and its much more than 'just a pen'.

To be clear (don't worry, I'm just repeating myself for those who have agendas that involve ignoring what I've said already).

This is music with a simple underlying structure. Simple in that it is mostly consists of equal-length sections which are repeated (OK, to avoid a squabble, repeated with variations). Simple in that it generally eschews accidentals and esoteric modulations. Simple in that it has appeal for instruments of simple construction such as whistles and flutes (and is in keys that sit well on the instruments that it's played on). Simple in that it makes fewer demands on technique than more complex forms - for example, fiddle players play this music in first position almost always. I did not say that you don't need good technique in first position. You do. It's simple in these ways because it is a folk music, a peasant music (in the best sense of the word).

So it's simple music. Now hands up those who would like to elide "simple" and "easy" into one word. These words did not mean the same thing when I last looked them up. Right, a tune 16 bars long (in two equal sections) that has just a few notes of a diatonic scale is simple. Sit down at the back there and stop bloody arguing! But I said, read my lips, that it's simple. I did not say it was easy to play well. It should be relatively easy to get the notes. That's what folk music played on simple instruments is all about. Yes and I know the pipes are not particularly simple (which is probably why piping almost died out in the early 20th century). They are conceivably the exception that proves the rule. Even a fiddle is simple. A box with four strings. You can access this simple music without paying ten grand for something made out of the finest wood that has upwards of 20 or 30 keys. But getting the notes (easy) is not the same as playing well (very challenging). Stop me if I'm saying anything I haven't already said, in many cases more than once. As Ben said, getting really good at this music is elusive. It isn't because it has hard ornaments in it (though they can be a challenge and may need separate practice if you haven't totally mastered your axe). It's because it's been part of a long tradition and long traditions have their own little nuances that have to be understood and appreciated by aspiring players. There are unwritten conventions that look hard at first sight, such as the need to learn all the tunes by ear and in no other way. There are subtleties of rhythm that are famously impossible to represent in notation (yet another reason for avoiding it). There's the need to understand and use ornamentation and variation in a fitting way, and just try defining "fitting way!" There's the need to develop a particular kind of flexibility and unspoken understanding in order to play with other people. It is very challenging. The real work comes (provided you are competent on your instrument) in getting these nuances and conventions and subtleties thoroughly ingrained in your brain. To do that you have to get yourself thoroughly involved in listening to and playing this music (ideally both at the same time).

Right, if anyone wishes to contradict anything I've said in this thread I will refer to this post as this is where I've tried to make myself clear all in one place.

Anything I haven't covered, Will?

[SteveShaw]

So I just asked a friend who, originally from the Paris Conservatory has spent around 20 yrs here In Ireland learning trad. So he is pretty adept in both styles.

Non sequitur.

[Denny]

Hey electricmime, great post

One nit to pick: Aural, not oral. It's learned by hearing it, not by talking about it.

the mime is obviously a singer....

[electricmime]

Hey electricmime, great post

One nit to pick: Aural, not oral. It's learned by hearing it, not by talking about it.

the mime is obviously a singer....

I was actually thinking "Oral tradition" like epic poems... but, mistaking it for "Aural" is cooler, so I'll go with that