I saw (and couldn’t help hearing) a trio busking with sheet music today, trying to sound (I guess) Irish. I begin to understand why some folks here are prejudiced against using musical notation for traditional music. I didn’t realize that anybody who has enough musical talent to master an instrument could and would do something that horrible.
shudders
Sonja
(Oh, one of them even had a practise set of Uillean Pipes - I tried to give him a chance and wait if he, maybe, was better on them than on the whistle, but they drove me away.)
Good point, I would actually kiss you if you were standing beside me Yeah, it amazes me how some people think they are playing irish music when playing from sheet music. It’s so easy to hear and feel the difference. But as long as they do this crappy stuff outside a session, it’s not too bad.
Busking with sheet music sounds incongruous enough, but doing that to Irish music is really “grostecue” . They’ll give us all a bad name . Get the police to arrest them at once for vagrancy.
In my seven years as a busker in Boston, I can tell you that your income is based far more on the connection you make with your audience than the quality of your music. And if you’re playing from sheet music … you’ll make as much money as those classical string quartets whose music is always blowing away (but will at least get an occasional wedding).
Playing from sheet music, outdoors or in, audience or no, is called PRACTICING.
Geez, maybe they were just having fun? If one is judged so harshly then it takes all the fun out of anything we do. I guess there is always someone to make you feel like a dope for trying new things…
There aren’t any Irish sessions round here - so apart from listening to cd’s how else can I get to learn the tunes except from sheet music and books(I only ever went busking with the sheet music once though - and the music doesn’t blow away if you use clothes pegs! )
Well, I didn’t shout at them to please go home and PRACTISE, but silently and peacefully went away. Do I have to like every person’s playing just because it is better than them sitting at home and listening to elevator music? (Which it is, of course.)
Would you go in Ireland, sit with Peter Laban in a session, and start playing the trumpet from sheet music?
Peter
Hu, what are you doing?
You
Well, having some fun! This is what it’s all about, no? Having fun?
Anyway, this is just an example of classical music musicians thinking that classical music is the universal language of music, and other styles just mean different notes on a sheet.
Who’s that philosopher who once said something about the fact that a falling tree in a forest might not actually be falling if no one is around to see it fall?
That’s pretty wild…I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone busking with sheet music before. As someone else mentioned, it’s hard to connect with your audience that way (not to mention hard to be spontaneous…what if someone makes a request you you have to page through your tunebooks to find what they want? Erg!). My guess is they’re fairly inexperienced musicians, period. Notation is a learning tool…like an actor’s script, once you’ve learned the part, you put it away…you don’t take it on-stage with you! There are exceptions (I don’t think I’d want to sing Mozart’s “Requiem” without the music in front of me), but folk musicians of any stripe should be able to perform without the music in front of them.
We have lots of buskers down in Santa Cruz…some are very, very good, most are fair-to-middling, but some are just plain awful. People busk for a lot of reasons…some do it because it’s fun, some for experience, some because it’s a way they can use their talents to make a bit of change and some just because they want the attention (seriously…we have more than a few of that type around here). Fortunately, the fun of discovering a really good act is worth having to walk past all the bad ones.
The fact that people are playing whistle doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re trying to play IrTrad. There are other types of music also played on the whistle, and sheet music may be needed.
In the event that I ever busk, I may use sheet music, I may not. Depends. The other day I was in town waiting on my grandma to get out of her whatever-it-is appointment and I sat in the parking lot and played, about 8 or 10 songs that I know by heart over and over. I only saw two people though, so I don’t count that as busking. And most of the songs weren’t IrTrad.
In a big orchestra playing classical music where you need dozens of people all going in the same direction, sheet music makes a lot of sense. In folk, country, rock, etc, it’s just kind of silly. I think the problem with sheet music is that you end up focusing on the dots on the page and not the little nuances of the tune, and it ends up sounding very flat.
I think sheet music is fine when you’re learning to put notes in the right order on a new tune, but I think you kinda have to just put it up after a certain point and just go by what you hear and forget about the dots.
At any rate, those people obviously aren’t serious Irish musicians, and probably know little about the tradition anyhow. They were probably just screwing around and having a bit of fun (and they weren’t really hurting anything you know). They probably don’t even consider themselves Irish musicians at all. It’s not worth getting offended over, anyhow.
Maybe they were playing fairly new stuff? I always use sheet music. Unfortunately disability means that I have virtually no short term memory and cannot learn tunes off by heart. It’s very tough and frustrating and people that you meet and play tunes with don’t understand this.
the next time you see them sonya, just pretend you put something in there collecting box, humbly bent over and grab all the cash . they wouldn’t have the faintest, they’d be with there noses in the sheets
I’m still in awe of people who play in public, period. Everytime I try, I dang near soil m’ britches (full of stitches). Only way I can do it is shut my eyes and pretend everyone is naked.
I love the way Azalin’s accent and speech patterns come through in his posts! Man, I adore your French-Canadian accent, why, if I were standing beside you now I’d…, no, wait, I’d just buy you a Bulmers, OK? We don’t go in for all that kissy kissy stuff except with the girls, you know?
BTW Does carol singing with the printed words still count as practising? Just a thought…
Actually, I agree with several opposing points of view here so I’ll just keep sitting on my fence and making like Zelig.
I agree with Telegram Sam. Some forms of musical performance are just plain silly when done with sheet music. I once heard a story (ok admittedly this is second hand, but I have faith in the honesty of those who related the story to me) about a couple of principal players (clarinet and trumpt)in a major symphony orchestra who decided to sit in with a very good local dixieland band. They brought sheet music for “When the Saints go Marching In”; the resulting performance was astoundingly bad, although I’m pretty sure they played most of the correct “notes” their style was said to be, umm, rather unusual.
I’m really not trying to bash on classical musicians, well ok maybe a little, but rather I think I am agreeing with some previous posts that swithing from one form of music to another might not be as easy as some people think. Maybe I have some kind of hang-up but if I think I’m going to sound bad, I stay home, so, believe me these whistles aren’t going anywhere for a while!
I really think you are comparing apples to oranges when you compare IRTRAD to classical music. I love both, but, they are just too different.
Now I have nothing against the written notation for whatever form of music, but, some types of musical style cannot be conveyed by anything put on paper, it has to be heard and felt. Otherwise it well never be true to type.
It will only be the production of sound based on the written notes.
Since I am an appalachian native, my only comparison would be to imagine hearing someone sit down and play from written “old time” or bluegrass written music. I will guar-ren-tee that it will bear little resembalence to the real thing played when the real folks are “makin’ music”.
Yeah, it amazes me how some people think they are playing irish music when playing from sheet music. It’s so easy to hear and feel the difference. But as long as they do this crappy stuff outside a session, it’s not too bad.
. They’ll give us all a bad name 
. Get the police to arrest them at once for vagrancy. 
There aren’t any Irish sessions round here - so apart from listening to cd’s how else can I get to learn the tunes except from sheet music and books(I only ever went busking with the sheet music once though - and the music doesn’t blow away if you use clothes pegs! 
)
. they wouldn’t have the faintest, they’d be with there noses in the sheets 