A poll, of sorts: Playing "songs" vs "tunes"

Whistle
1

I’ve noticed recently that I play tunes for which I know words (“songs,” for all intents and purposes) very differently than I do tunes that either don’t have words or for which I don’t know the words. When I’m playing something I’ve also sung (or may sing at some point), I find myself building the music around the words: e.g., the notes I choose to emphasize, the ornamentation I use, the variations I make from “verse” to “verse,” even the decisions as to where to breathe, are designed to emphasize the text…even though, when I’m playing the whistle, there’s no audible text to emphasize.

Probably not coincidentally, I also find that I play “songs” much more expressively than I do “tunes” that have no text. But then, I’m not only a singer, but a wordsmith by profession, so maybe that’s just me.

I first noticed this when I was sight reading an arrangement of “The Ash Grove”…a song that I’ve known and loved most of my life (and one of the first songs I taught myself by ear on the whistle). The arranger had included breath marks, which I quickly decided to ignore because, while they made sense musically, they did NOT make sense from the standpoint of the text. For example, if you were to sing the song using the arrangers breathing pattern, you’d sing:

Down yonder green valley where [breath]
streamlets meander, where [breath]
twilight is fading, I [breath]
pensively roam.

From a musical standpoint, that’s probably a logical place to break for a breath…right between 3/4 measures…but it obviously doesn’t work with the text at all.

Now, this is just an example…I don’t often use recommended breath marks anyway, unless they seem essential to the phrasing of the tune. It just got me to thinking that I play this song differently because I also sing it…then I started looking at the other tunes I know that are also songs (which is also a large part of my earliest repertoire…when I got my first whistle, I didn’t have a tutor or a tune book, and so just started picking out songs I liked), and realized that I play all of them to the text. If I put in a trill here or a slide there, or if I play with the rythmn over there, it’s because that’s what the words seem to suggest.

So, how 'bout you? Do you play “songs” differently than other tunes?

Redwolf

Re

2

Once I have heard the song sung in a convincing way, I never play the tune the same way again.

For example, when I play Mo Ghile Mear, I put it two notes at cadence where there was one in the instrumental version I first learned cause thats how Mary Black (I think) pronounces Ghi-le.

Just an example. And I am comforted in the fantasy that I may someday sing in that language and want the right rhythm in me ears…

Hope the rats are getting ready to scare somebody Thursday, Red.

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Hope the rats are getting ready to scare somebody Thursday, Red.

LOL :slight_smile:. I actually thought about incorporating Bart and Larry into my Pied Piper costume, but they’re really rather shy animals, and would be frightened by all the children, so I’ve found a big (and decidedly more scary) black plastic rat to perch on my shoulder instead. My daughter’s making me a sign for my back that says “Hamelin Pest Control Service and Childcare: P. Piper Proprietor. Humane trapping a specialty. We treat your children as if they were our own.” :wink:

They did give my poor mother a bit of a turn. She knew we had pet rats, but I guess she was visualizing something more like hamsters or gerbils. When she came to visit last month, my daughter asked her “do you want to see my rats, Grammy?” She said “Sure honey!” and went down to Jo’s room…only to emerge screaming “My God! They’re really RATS!!!” (grin).

Redwolf

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Very interesting topic,and quite timely.I was listening to Seamus Ennis’album ‘The fox chase’ last night,paying particular attention to his phrasing on ‘Ned of the hill(Eamonn a Chnoic)’.I have read that Ennis was very fluent in Gaelic,to the point where he could converse in the dialect of various parts of Ireland he visited whilst on collecting/field recording trips on behalf of the B.B.C.and R.T.E.It therefore follows that his phrasing on the pipes should follow the rhythmic cadences of the language(i hope!).I have considered paying more attention to recordings of sean nos singing to improve my understanding of slow air playing.

5

I don’t play any song tunes but back in the days when I followed jazz I read of musicians who insisted on knowing the words to the song tunes they played. Particularly the slow ones which they call ballads. Even while improvising they must ahve been keeping the words in the back of their minds and orienting their solo around them.

You should learn the tunes Rat’s Gone to Rest and Rat Cheer, Redwolf. The first is an old time tune from Kentucky and the second a tune composed by fiddler Pete Sutherland.

Steve

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I also keep the words in mind when I play songs. When I play a song through several times, I hear each different verse in my mind. If the words of one verse have a slightly different rhythm, I modify the rhythm I play.

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I definitely play differently, and better I’d say, if I know the words to a song. I’m a-singing away in my head while I play and I think the emotion comes through more. :slight_smile: Plus, I’m able to sing the songs throughout the day moreso than I’m able to sit down and play-- so that when I do sit down to play them on the whistle, it all seems to flow better. Like I’ve been practicing all day… Does that make sense? :stuck_out_tongue: I think I have brain-fog.

Andrea ~*~

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I think it goes even for the dance tunes, where they have words for them. It makes the phrasing easier if you know the words to Brian O’Lynn, Irish Washerwoman, the Jolly Beggarman (Red-Haired Boy), or An Phis Fluich. (Ok, the last one was a joke.)

9

I like the words to Miss McLeod’s reel (American Version). In the second part where it jumps an octave the words are “hop high ladies, three in a row”. In the first part the melody is changed to accomodate the words. A guy around here made up some words to some tunes and sang them at a concert I attended. I wish I knew them. One was a song about his infant son sung to The Mason’s Apron.

Steve

10

Definitely there’s a difference in the way we play them. I learned The Rising of the Moon and Star of the County Down by ear, listening to how they are sung, then saw the sheet music and thought they seemed pretty lifeless compared to the way they’re sung. I guess at this point I wouldn’t make a good backup musician because I’d be playing all wrong.

11

There are many songs and balads from the Australian bush music repetoire that I enjoy playing as tunes but I must admit to paying scarce attention to the words while I am playing although I do know the words.I feel if I were only to play and phrase as I would sing,the melody would be too static.I much prefer to observe the whistles voice rather than my own.When a song like “click go the shears” is sung,it can sound rather daggy no matter who the singer is.On the other hand,as a tune, embellishment and invention can realy make this interesting to both player and listener, especialy when played as part of a set.:slight_smile: Mike

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I’m not much into the bush band scene, although that would change if I heard more bands I liked. One thing that puts me off is what I perceive as a tendency in singers not just to avoid ornamentation but to butcher nuances in the melody in order to sound ‘Australian’. I wonder if anyone else sees this as an unfortunate characteristic. If I’m right, it probably started as a reaction to singers who sounded American, or Irish or Scottish or … well foreign. In some quarters, there seems to be an attitude that only the tuneless is authentic. Such a pity.

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Sometimes words are bad words to
begin with–as in Greensleeves
and, at least for the words I know,
Star of the County Down.
Then naturally it’s better
to ignore them and let the
tune sing itself. But if the
words are well crafted
they fit the tune like
a glove and help determine
the phrasing effectively.

Somebody said here once
that it’s helpful to think
of a tune as a conversation,
with one voice answering
another.

14

I haven’t a real point to make [good air-playing is an art in itself and you generally won’t hear me doing it in public] but one quote came to mind reading this thread.

It is generally assumed that a thorough knowledge of the song is a pre-requisite to play a air well. [please note that air is taken here as a slow air associated with traditional singing or sean nos singing I don’t consider the star of the Co Down and the singign of ballads here]Some would go as far as saying it is a pre-requisite to play an air at all. Terry Moylan, always good for a strong statement, took it even further and in a book review in An Piobaire, the newsletter of Na Piobairi Uilleann recently put it as follows:

I have often heard song airs played by pipers who leave out notes or phrases which are needed to bear the metre and words of the associated song/s, or (more often) insert redundant notes or phrases which are not supported by the song metre and for which no corresponding words exist. For the listener who knows the words, this is torture. The listener who does not has no yardstick with which to access the validity of an instrumental rendering of a song air, and is therefore in no position to do so.

I quote this to show how serious the issue is taken by some who think that too often air playing is just a string of notes or, worse, descends into new-agey mood music.

15

Peter, quoting you

I quote this to show how serious the issue is taken by some who think that too often air playing is just a string of notes or, worse, descends into new-agey mood music.

I’d wish the music publishers–at least the Irish–took the same approach. All the popular books on Slow Airs I can get here in Breizh give you just the sheet music, sometimes the guitar chords, but forget the lyrics. I’m also surprised with the slack way they seem to write down the music, too.
I’d be even willing to learn to read (pronounce) Gaellic properly. Are there any good books, complete with the words (enventually translated in English), you’d recommend, since I obviously couln’t learn the words by ear ?

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On 2002-10-29 02:52, Wombat wrote:
I’m not much into the bush band scene, although that would change if I heard more bands I liked. One thing that puts me off is what I perceive as a tendency in singers not just to avoid ornamentation but to butcher nuances in the melody in order to sound ‘Australian’. I wonder if anyone else sees this as an unfortunate characteristic. If I’m right, it probably started as a reaction to singers who sounded American, or Irish or Scottish or … well foreign. In some quarters, there seems to be an attitude that only the tuneless is authentic. Such a pity.

I think Australians are generally uncomfortable about this aspect of our accent when it is put to music.I even find myself cringing at John Williamsons exagerated “strine” but I expect it,s pretty much a refection of his way of speaking.I think our problem stems from having a rather non musical accent to begin with, and in bush music this is simply an accepted fact and played up a bit for the sake of authenticity.Bush music sung in the "Barry Crocker"style would sound a bit “woosy”.Dobe newton from the Bushwackers,although not a great singer technically,has the right voice for the genre and any of the early bushwacker recordings are definately worth listening to:) Mike

17

A couple of songs I can actually play from end to end without a cock-up, are “Adeste Fideles”, and “An Mhaighdean Mhara”. I do decorate differently, since I “hear” the words while playing them. There seems to be less decorating with 'em than with “On Castle Rock”, an air with no words (that I know of).
Just my 2p
Bill Whedon

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This is an interesting thread. I agree with you, Redwolf, on your assessment of the breathmarks in The Ashgrove. As far as phrasing and feel on many “songs” I let go of the words pretty quickly and start having fun with trying to improvise variations on the melody so that if I am playing it in a group setting and there is opportunity for an instrumental break I can come out with something more fun and interesting then merely playing the melody exactly as it is sung. Of course my success ratio varies :smiley:

Cheers,
David