o'flynn/keenan teaching?

[john]

is there anyone out there who has been taught formally by o'flynn or keenan? - I don't mean the occasional workshop, but the opportunity to absorb over months or years their skills and techniques

I never hear of o'flynn doing tionols or classes at summer schools, and I've only heard of keenan doing the odd masterclass

the reason I ask is that when I see them live or on youtube there's so much of what they're doing that i'm unable to process and unpick, and it's frustrating

I sometimes think that they've gained an exalted status that makes them a bit unreachable, perhaps like ennis, who as far I know mainly devoted his attentions to o'flynn

it must be the same for thousands of guitar players desperately scrutinising someone like jeff beck on youtube to try to glean some morsel of technique, and who'll never get the chance to go to the original source

[Mr.Gumby]

I sometimes think that they've gained an exalted status that makes them a bit unreachable, perhaps like ennis, who as far I know mainly devoted his attentions to o'flynn

Ennis would tell you exactly what he did, if you asked (and some would attest that he also would when not asked 'try this, that sounds a bit more like piping').

Here someone asked him about C naturals and he demonstrated different ones to the company:




Liam Og used to teach the Willie week. There no secrecy around the things they do..

[TheSilverSpear]

One could make the argument that summer schools like Willie Week or Catskills or whatever are hardly the ideal learning or teaching environment. The teacher has a class of anywhere from six to eight (give or take) students who he or she has never met before and may not ever meet again, and all will be at quite different levels. They will have to cope with the fact that some people in the class might be quite decent players, while others are struggling with the basics of rhythm and timing. No relationship or rapport can ever really be developed between student and teacher. The teacher can only improve on -- maybe -- what they hear in the student's playing that day, but is unlikely to be the entire picture of the student's playing or progress. Most of the people in the class will perhaps become solidly mediocre pipers, if that, but they will never become great, and I imagine most teachers are well aware of this and don't feel as though they exactly developing nascent talent.

Therefore, if group teaching wasn't really something you liked doing in the first place (I think some people really like doing this and get a lot out of these fleeting interactions; Mick O'Brien comes to mind) and you didn't have to teach at one of these things in order to pay the rent, why on earth would you?

Edited addendum: I would also say that there is no great mystery to anyone's playing. But you do just have to plug away at it for a number of years, both listening and playing, in order to hear clearly what people are doing. And the summer schools aren't entirely useless. Hearing someone explain, "This is how I play a cran/backstitch/ghost D/whatever" is certainly an important part of learning to play, and that is something you can pick up from summer schools.

[CHasR]

Edited addendum: I would also say that there is no great mystery to anyone's playing. But you do just have to plug away at it for a number of years, both listening and playing, in order to hear clearly what people are doing. And the summer schools aren't entirely useless. Hearing someone explain, "This is how I play a cran/backstitch/ghost D/whatever" is certainly an important part of learning to play, and that is something you can pick up from summer schools.

group lessons are an important part of a well balanced instructional diet, containing several essential vitamins & nutrients. At the top of the pyramid, is one on one instruction, best taken in small doses to avoid out & out imitation. At the bottom self instruction & practice, constituting the largest portion of your diet, with analytical listening, transcription, peer criticism, and scholarly research, all somewhere in the middle. usually.
This message has been brought to you by Na PyramidBia Uilleann (the uilleann food pyramid)

[An Draighean]

I was able to get an email introduction to Ronan Browne through a mutual acquaintance. I asked him for a private lesson the next time I was in Ireland, which he politely declined - but he was/is very gracious and willing to listen to and critique recorded clips, and keep up an encouraging correspondence, which I very much appreciate.

[Mr.Gumby]

group lessons are an important part of a well balanced instructional diet, containing several essential vitamins & nutrients. At the top of the pyramid, is one on one instruction, best taken in small doses to avoid out & out imitation. At the bottom self instruction & practice, constituting the largest portion of your diet, with analytical listening, transcription, peer criticism, and scholarly research, all somewhere in the middle. usually.

I would suggest you need to be shown some of the essential basics, be it in a group lesson or a private setting. And repeating same over a periods of a few years while working at it in between to add more advanced technique maybe. Essentially doing the work, practice, learning tunes and a lot of listening, on your own, but getting pointers to keep you on track as you develop. Being in the company of musicians who have it, picking up little things, attitudes as well as technical and musical bits along the way is in my experience by far the most effective way of learning more.

I have taken Willie week classes myself for four years from 1980 onward and later taught there and similar events occasionally as well as having taught some private pupils, individually and on a weekly basis for some years. And while teaching is highly rewarding when you manage to light the fire and get someone really into it (and see them develop into a nice musician), they're the rare ones. You can spend a lot of time teaching people who are not self motivated and it can become very frustrating stuff indeed.

On one occasion I had a woman taking my (week long) class who just came to that particular event yearly, each year borrowing a different instrument for the week (she 'did' the flute the previous year) and sitting in as a total beginner without any wish to continue on after the week. 'Just to get a feel for it'. That was not very motivating from a teaching point of view.

[Tilori]

And while teaching is highly rewarding when you manage to light the fire and get someone really into it (and see them develop into a nice musician), they're the rare ones. You can spend a lot of time teaching people who are not self motivated and it can become very frustrating stuff indeed.

I always thought taking up the pipes was automatically connected with being self motivated. You need to find out about the instrument in the first place . Then there is the problem of getting a good set to learn on. Also you'll need to invest quite a bit of money to get started. I wonder how you can do all that and not be at least reasonably motivated.

Maybe it is just the different situation in Ireland. Do parents force their children to play the uilleann pipes there? It's the same with the piano in Germany, haha

[PJ]

Most of the best pipers I can think of are only semi-professional with other 'day jobs'. Quite a few of these seem to work in education (primary, secondary or third-level), so giving regular piping classes might fit more easily into their lifestyle.

For fulltime professional musicians with a touring schedule (like Keenan and O'Flynn), it's probably not possible to schedule regular classes with the same student.

[Cathy Wilde]

Edited addendum: I would also say that there is no great mystery to anyone's playing. But you do just have to plug away at it for a number of years, both listening and playing, in order to hear clearly what people are doing. And the summer schools aren't entirely useless. Hearing someone explain, "This is how I play a cran/backstitch/ghost D/whatever" is certainly an important part of learning to play, and that is something you can pick up from summer schools.

I'm in violent agreement with Silver Spear's post. The more you plug away at it, the better your chances of being able to ask a reasonable question (and at least dimly grasp the answer) when you do catch one of those rare opportunities to hang out with Paddy Keenan or the like. A few years ago I was lucky to be in a weeklong workshop with Paddy, and really, I don't think there was anything he wouldn't have given us IF we'd known what to ask. But some of these great pipers, especially performers like Paddy -- their experience is so vast, I imagine it's hard for them to know where to start.

And if teaching's just not really their bag, well ... I'm okay with that. I'll just soak up whatever I can. In my experience, no matter who's teaching I come home from even one-day workshops with lifetimes' worth of stuff to work on. If I'd actually SPEND more time working on it, I might be half-decent one day!

[CHasR]

.... Essentially doing the work, practice, learning tunes and a lot of listening, on your own, ...

Im amazed at how critical listening is so lightly stressed.....its one thing for an instructor to say "listen to this, this, &this," ...but HOW to listen, WHAT to listen FOR, WHY things are going on in the tune, this is the real meat of the matter regarding listening to master-pipers, & it is rare to find this kind of delving going on.

The ear is an amazing sieve...and unlike the eye, can grasp the tiniest detail and the big picture simultaneously.

I know a lot of you are (lack of better phrase) "anti-notation", or worse yet addicted to that ABC rubbish, but there is *truly* NO BETTER WAY to really, really, really, intimately understand a tune; than to painstakingly transcribe every single nuance one possibly can, write it down in manuscript, and reading that chart on your pipes in an effort to recreate it. IMHO.

On one occasion I had a woman taking my (week long) class who just came to that particular event yearly, each year borrowing a different instrument for the week (she 'did' the flute the previous year) and sitting in as a total beginner without any wish to continue on after the week. 'Just to get a feel for it'. That was not very motivating from a teaching point of view.

ah, yes..."The Browsers". maybe "bucket-listers" is more accurate... Well, they buy instruments, CD's, books, go to shows, etc.. so, they're good for the pursuit in that resepct

[TheSilverSpear]

If you can hear it well enough to write it down, why do you need to write it down?

Ronan Browne, for one, has done a workshop at Willie Week on attentive listening. This stuff is out there if you look.

Some people have amazing memories and attentiveness. I remember being in a session with Cathal McConnell (name drop alert!) and he played a snippet of some tune, saying, "X [famous player] played it like this," and then he played the same snippet of the same tune, but with a different variation, and was like, and "And Y [also famous player] played it like this." At the time, I was thinking, "Christ, how do you do that? I can't remember the variation *I* played an hour ago!"

[Cathy Wilde]

I've actually been pondering this lately, so find it all very interesting. Thanks, guys!

I heard Gay McKeon give a great talk about Willie Clancy where he'd play bits of recordings and say things like "Listen to this part. I think Willie's taking the piss out of that fiddle player just a little, hear how he's aping the fiddler's triplet? ... Willie usually played his triplets like this ... "

I can only assume this kind of stuff comes from deep, deep listening, having it soak into your bones, and spending eons with a player/tune. Like in Cathal's case ... maybe he knew the tune in question so well before he heard X and Y Players' takes on it that the difference was clear. That would get one off the blocks faster, I imagine.

I guess I'm trying to say is that knowing how a tune goes, and even being able to play it from memory, is not knowing the tune, let alone "having" it. I tend to think that moving from knowing how the music (or tune) goes to truly knowing it is the metaphorical gulf that the more advanced players spend so much time paddling across, and it's where the "grownup" things start happening.

Meh. There's that danged time and mileage thing again. Why do I pick such labor-intensive hobbies? Dressage. Painting. The pipes. WTH is wrong with me???

[TheSilverSpear]

I agree you really have to "know" a tune in order to play variations. I can't really vary the one I learned yesterday -- I play it the way I learned it, and then when we are well acquainted, I can play variations. With ones I really know, I can respond to the variations of someone I'm playing tunes with. If it's a tune I just learned (or one I learned a while ago and forgot), all I'm thinking, "How the f- does the next bit go again?"

[oleorezinator]

Liam O'Flynn did two masterclasses that I attended in the early and mid 80's.
One was as much a concert as a class although he did invite everyone to take
out their pipes to play any tunes in question. The other was conducted very much
as a class.

[CHasR]

If you can hear it well enough to write it down, why do you need to write it down?.....

At the time, I was thinking, "Christ, how do you do that? I can't remember the variation *I* played an hour ago!".....
If it's a tune I just learned (or one I learned a while ago and forgot), all I'm thinking, "How the f- does the next bit go again?"

hmm
trying not to get you out of context, honestly but for me, you've answered your own question.

Intense critical listening to one genre will indeed yield amazing insights, such as those of the pipers in mention; but for voracious, omnivourous listeners (of which I, for better or worse, am one) the indexing becomes hideously entangled.

[tangent] This is why orchestral conductors, (the really good ones at the top, global, level, that are booked up for the next 7 years) are worth all that money. They learn by reading the score, hear it play in their heads, reinforce crucial passages by playing them on piano (recordings, I am told, bring too much of the recorded conductors personality into the mix), and effectively produce the piece with minimal rehearsal time. Cant verify the quotation or source, but the question was asked "How do you keep all these pieces straight, maestro?" His reply was "Do you remember your childhood bedroom?...its the same way, for that moment you are "in" the piece, exactly as being 'in' the room; just knowing, where the lights are, how the sun shines in the window, where the bed is, what is on the walls",.. & ive not come accross a better answer yet. & fwiw, I believe the same response goes on at the higher level practitioners of any musical activity.