Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
JonM wrote:I don't like country music. In fact, my idea of a particularly cruel hell would be an eternity of having to listen to the stuff. And yet, oddly, it has never occurred to me to go to a website crammed full of country fans and tell them, "Just my opinion, but most of what you folks listen to, study and work hard to master, well, I find it banal, inexpressibly boring, mind numbing and soul deadening. No offense intended, just my opinion, keep your sense of humor, don't get your panties tied in a knot and no particular reason you should care what I think anyway and, oh yes, why did I feel compelled to express this opinion in this forum anyway? What possible contribution did I think I was making to anybody's appreciation of anything?" Since this does not seem a very reasonable or helpful way to proceed, I guess I will stay away from whatever forum country music lovers inhabit. I don't think they would care for me--and I wouldn't blame them.
Ah, get away with you! You with your big ego, your uppity attitude. Yer "your so ignorant, I'm enlightened" approach. You game-playing, hair-splitting forum dweller you!
Oh, I think Country fans would have offerred the OP a sweet tea while they were on the forum. Then later, they would have offerred them a ride in their pick up to go ridge running. That's when they would have knocked some sense in the OP. Not on the front porch. You never mess up Mama's front porch. The blue ticks might get hurt and then how we gonna go hunting?
Rose tint my world. Keep me safe from my trouble and pain. 白飞梦
Mr.Gumby wrote:
Even now he still doesn't seem to have an inkling about why 'The Sash' would get in him into all sorts of misunderstandings and maybe some serious harm if the picked the wrong time and place to play it.
Hint for CW: the differences between 'song-air' 'slow air' and 'ballad' have nothing to do with it.
I didn't listen to the song, but can someone explain what was wrong with it? Is it politcal reasons? Not trying to stir anything up, just want to understand. Thanks
Mr.Gumby wrote:What you shouldn't forget is that both the dance and the song tradition (with in extension of the latter the instrumental rendering of song airs) are both expressions of the same spirit and culture. They are rooted in the same ground and one isn't whole without the other.
Also, Mr. Gumby, I thought this was well put.
"Life is far too important to be taken seriously"
~Oscar Wilde
Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
It's sectarian reasons, Tuscon. (Is that a sub-set of "political reasons"? I guess so, but a special sub-set.) Read the words, and then imagine you're catholic. Any catholic. Then imagine you're an Irish catholic. Or, try it the other way round - imagine you're a member of the Orange Order.
A question to the iTrad Police:
what about us simple folk who heard a slow air played and liked it, or found an interesting slow air in a tutor book and liked it, and learned to play this air, cause we like playing it, but we don't know anything about a song which may possibly be associated with it, nor have we learned Irish or Gaelic, so can't make sense of words or title, if we knew it. Shall we not play it in public? Has the ITP the powers to stop us attempting to play such airs?
And even if there is/was an associated song to a tune, it is by all means not always clear that it was the original. Words have been put to melodies for centuries. And changed. The melody might well be older.
As to interpretation: can't you give some leeway? Why should an air be played with the same phrasing as an associated song? Even singers take great liberties in interpretation. And what you can express through a melody instrument is never the same as what can be expressed through song (even though the feel of it can, and that's what matters, or?).
Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
@ Hans: doesn't it depend on the context? If you're playing it in your own house for your own amusement, do what you want with it. If you're playing it at a gig, again, do what you want - the audience will make up their own minds, and there's nothing anybody can do to stop any old rubbish being popular.
But what about this scenario? The Cobblestone, one of the most famous session pubs in Dublin; some English fella waits 'til the very moment a set of tunes has finished and gives us his ahem 'haunting' rendition of some air or other - hard to tell which (amazingly, it turned out to be the Coulin, but it took a while to fathom that out) ... about an hour and half later, when it finishes and you've managed to unscrew your features which have been tied up in knots by the excrutiating mangling of said air and its well-known phrasing ... what is one then supposed to do with the absolute silence in the packed pub and the tumbleweed floating through? He, of course, just sat back with a smug grin on his face, assuming that he was so good that he'd stunned everyone into silence ...
My point is this: if you play in public, particularly in a session context, you do have a duty, IMO, to at least attempt not to tread too heavily on other people's toes. So it does matter if you just shouldn't be playing that tune at that particular time. Sessions are not supposed to be 'free-for-alls' where anybody gets to do anything they like. It's a question of respect. So - I'm not too hot on the airs, because I know there's something missing from my understanding of them, which there isn't so much with the dance tunes. So I don't tend to play them in sessions. I'm not too fussed on getting the same reaction our friend in the Cobblestone got. And I reckon that, unlike him, I'd notice.
I guess what you're arguing for, Hans, is some 'middle ground', and I think there's plenty of room for that. But too often it's not the 'middle ground' that people are occupying. So, if you learn an air or two and you play it quite nicely, and someone asks you for a tune - fine, play away. If, OTOH, you have no intention of finding out anything about it, but you just barge in to the middle of the session regardless, well that's no good. For me, I don't do it in any case, because I'm simply not good enough at it. But all this has nothing to do with "trad police" - it's just basic manners.
david_h wrote:So how about learning to play the tunes from the singing of native speakers ? Is that a middle ground ?
It seems to me that if you are able to do that you are right at the bosom of traditional music. But if there are no native singers where you live?
Take as an example the Scottish air "Chì mi na mòrbheanna", more commonly known as "Mist covered mountains", popularised among others by Mark Knoepfler's rendition in "Local Hero". I never heard it sung, apart from the English song "Hush, hush, time to be sleeping", which commemorates the Highland Clearances. I like the melody (but not Knoepfler's interpretation).
hans wrote: But if there are no native singers where you live?
Er, I was thinking of Youtube and recordings, rather then peat fires etc.
My problem with 'Mist Covered Mountains' is that the tune is a slow version of the earlier (more like jig time) tune for the English song 'Johnny stays long at the Fair', the first line of which is "Oh dear what can the matter be ? "
My problem with that ? English school kids of my generation would continue "Three old ladies locked in the lavatory, they were there from Monday to Saturday, nobody knew they were there". Actually, its not really a problem because the rhythm and tempo change is big enough.
hans wrote: Should I refrain from playing this air?
I have a clip of a 78 record by Scottish accordion player Bobby Macleod playing it as more of a 'gaelic waltz' . If its good enough for him etc.
Very like the Mark Knopfler version...
Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
hans wrote:But what does it matter if I have not heard a native Gaelic singer singing this song? Shall I refrain from playing this air?
But that's the thing: there is no answer to that question. It depends. If you feel you should play it, maybe you're right. My personal feeling is that airs (even ones you know you can play) are best reserved for those rare occasions when someone asks you to play one. And even then, even really good players are generally circumspect about it.
[Edited to add: I'm talking about sessions here, not playing on your own or in gigs.]
According to the research I've done on the history of Irish traditional music, the slow, mournful brand of Celtic music predates the faster dance styles and even Ireland itself, hearkening back to more ancient Celtic roots. The Celts, if you don't know, came to Ireland from somewhere in continental Europe. The fast stuff was later brought over to Ireland (along with the "Irish" whistle) by the Norwegians, less than 1000 years ago. Surely, 1000 years is long enough to adapt something into your own tradition, but I thought this information would be interesting to the slow air lovers out there.
