Yikes Martin, I was in a few of those rooms and I wasn’t aware that we were so familiar! Well at least now I know why you look at me with a certain level of admiration. On the bright side you can now answer Ava’s question if Az was that hairy all over. But seriously I heard you play in public and you pulled it off rather nicely so you’ve got the sand for it.
And adding to this debate, I’ve been learning all my tunes to this date by a mixture of listening to how the tune is played and then cheating by looking at notes to get my bearings on the tunes. Even this is a horrible method of learning tunes and since this trip I vow never to even glance at sheet music or even ABC’s because it’s holding me back. My ear and brain when it comes to music is so far behind the rest of my playing because of sheet music. Looking at sheet music is the easy way out and the easy way out is not the best in this situation. I mean if you aren’t taking it really seriously or you don’t want to sound itradish, and you’re just out to enjoy yourself sheet music is fine, but if you are serious, depending on sheet music is a handicap.
I guess I’m really not saying anything but I’ll try and make some sense. In most cases the sheet music that you find is inaccurate. It doesn’t really represent the tune and represent how the tune should be played as people have said before. And if you are using sheet music as a guide you often ignore what the artist is doing because it isn’t on the sheet music. You miss tons of stuff that way, you miss phrasing, the breathing spots, variations, ornaments, tongueing, glottals and all the stuff that makes irish music irish. And above all it’s easier to remember tunes if you learned how to play them without ever seeing them written down. I know for most of us learning by ourselves, using sheet music is a good way to get your feet wet but the sooner you get off it the better. I just wish I would have listen to people and bit the bullet a year ago when I started but oh well.
I hate to disillusion you elliot, but ‘those classical string quartets’ make a hell of a lot more than your average decent irish busker - at least they do where I live - and that’s after it’s been divided 4 ways. The weddings probably earn them slightly less per hour, by the time you’ve taken one rehersal into account.
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?
I always wondered if the other trees would point at it and laugh.
Just a thought, but I have found over the years that just because a person can play an instrument / sing and read music, that does not make them a musician. (church choirs decimating black spirituals comes quickly to mind) Nor does playing from a sheet of music necessariliy make someone “mechanical”.
I have seen people who were considered “good muscians” slaughter virtually every form of music, both with and without sheet music. I have also seen some amazing performances over the years, again both with and without music.
I don’t believe true musicianship can be taught - you either have it or you don’t. At some point, those of us who play, hopefully begin to transform into something more than a simple combination of notes on a fingering chart and sheet music. That is the magic. Sadly, not everyone reaches that level, regardless of whether they use sheet music or not.
I find myself agreeing with this more and more. Time was when I believed that, within some limits, just about anybody could be taught just about anything, and the rest was up to the learner’s motivation. I’m not so sure anymore. If that were true, I’d be one crackin’ entrepreneur.
I busk using sheet music—just too old too remember stuff any more!
It also takes all the nervousness out of it. I can look up and pause
for a secnd to say thank you when they drop money in my case.
I would have to stop to say it anyway, music or not in front of me.
I don’t play ITRAD, so no one seems to care.
Lolly
I think there are musical people–they have
music oozing out of their pores, a deep intuitive
feel for music. Musicians have
learned the craft of music. Musical people aren’t
always musicians, nor vice versa. Best of all,
are musical people who are musicians.
Surely Nurenburg was better
that day for these folks with their instruments
and sheet music, and the world a somewhat
happier place. We must wish them well.
Five years ago I played whistle on the
streets of Ireland–I was bloody awful, so
awful that I didnt realize how awful I was.
But I made a fair amount of money and
old people came up to me with shining
eyes and said how grand it was to have live
music on the streets.
On the way back to my hotel one
afternoon I passed an Irish adolescent
whistle busking in an empty storefront,
and I realized in a flash what a wretched musician
I was. But I’m still glad I did it.
I think there are musical people–they have
music oozing out of their pores, a deep intuitive
feel for music. Musicians have
learned the craft of music. Musical people aren’t
always musicians, nor vice versa. Best of all,
are musical people who are musicians.
Very well said - definitely where I was heading in my thoughts, but I don’t think I expressed myself well. :roll:
BTW…I think there is a place for anyone who wants to play music. Music, played by all sorts of people at all levels makes the world a much brighter place. I always am reminded of a lady I attended church with many years ago. She was elderly, stooped and very frail. No one would call her voice beautiful by any means…but I LOVED to hear her sing…she used to sing songs in church with such emotion and genuine passion that you found yourself suddenly not caring about the quality of her voice. The music spoke and spoke volumes. I have heard many singers over the years with beautiful voices who didn’t touch me nearly as much as this one frail woman who sang from her passion .
I was going regularly for a while, but I was laid off last summer and in the turmoil of finding a new job, learning the new job, etc. the meetings kinda fell by the wayside. I went last Sunday for the first time in a year. Small turnout, but it felt great to be back. It is almost like starting over again…I’ll have to learn everyone’s name from scratch! :roll:
Last weekend we had a gentleman show up to sit in with us who played Irish flute. That was fun. I have thought about taking my whistle to the Irish Sessions on Wed. nights at Music Folk, but I never seem to get free with the kids’ activities, etc.
Last Saturday (July 26) was the 7th annual edition of SummerTunes, a workshop I developed and organize. It’s a daytime dance band workshop followed by an evening contra dance at which the workshop participants play.
Now, if you’re not familiar with contra dances, the bands play mostly 32-bar jigs and reels, many from the Irish tradition, some French Canadian, New England, Scottish, Old-Time, and new compositions. The regular contra dance bands almost never depend on sheet music. (One exception I can think of is a regional Klezmer group, whose arrangements are a little more complicated than trad tunes. But they’re a killer band.)
But with a workshop such as we had, with an unexpectedly large group (35 registered) and with many of them beginners in the contra dance realm, having everybody on the same page (so to speak) is a real plus. So every year, with the guidance and assistance of the instructors, I create a tune book, with sets already selected and laid out together with no page-turning. The newbies are given advice on how to keep up (leave out notes) and the experienced players are encouraged to go on mic for solos. The clarinet player we had this year could really wail, so he was directed to go off the dots and improvise at one point. The dancers loved it.
So, like in a classical setting, the dots make for a more coherent sound, and having the chords specified keeps the guitar players from clashing with each other. And we just wouldn’t have had the time to teach everyone all these tunes by ear!
That said, our instructor of last year (and a Berkeley School of Music grad) fiddler Alexander Mitchell says you don’t really know a tune until you’ve memorized it.
I didn’t know it was such a faux pas to busk with sheet music! I busked with sheet music, but it was Christmas carols and there was no way I was going to memorize them all. I knew about half from memory but the rest I didn’t feel like working hugely on. It takes me a LONG time to remember tunes.
No one seemed to mind, but I was also at a subway (BART) station that NO ONE ever busks at, so I think the people there were just happy to hear someone. However, perhaps some were silently judging me? Who knows…
I just got back from a music and dance camp and NO ONE had any sheet music. Nada. More than I ever I realized I need to work on my learning by ear skills.
Just because you can’t play music (and I mean PLAY it, not just make sounds in series) with sheet music in front of you, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Just for the record, having the music in front does NOT mean you are depending on it for the feel of the song.
I play trumpet, french horn, and whistles. I have not busked. I go to a session where most people don’t use sheet music most of the time, but sometimes they all do (maybe for one song they don’t know well). I use sheet music just about all the time. I don’t always at the session, but sometimes I will pull it out. I know I sound better with it there, specifically for songs I am playing by myself, or leading. I can look down, or not, and I don’t get lost. But it doesn’t sound mechanical. (this is for all instruments) I know how to read music so that it is “phrased”, “lyrical”, “melodic” and so forth. It is all a matter of feel, and some of that can be learned.
I do not think I am an exceptional musician, and I know I can play by ear. (I learned a lot of songs at the session without ever having seen sheet music, and I play at church without any music for any instrument)
But I also know I will always use sheet music when I want to, or when I am performing.
Agreed. In some genres of music, sheet music is necessary, simply because it would be a logistical nightmare to teach an entire orchestra an entire symphony by ear. Sheet music is also necessary for professional musicians who have serious deadlines, e.g. who are handed a score for a movie soundtrack and have to have it recorded in a week.
Meanwhile, in traditional music, sheet music is simply unnecessary, because the tunes are so short, melodic, and easily communicated. Hence the written music becomes a crutch more often than not. If you don’t have to use it, you shouldn’t, because there are numerous benefits to playing from memory and learning by ear.
Note that this is entirely a practical matter. It’s good for you to avoid sheet music when it is possible, and bad for you to rely upon it when you don’t have to—in that case, it can only interfere with your concentration, and prevent you from developing important musical skills.
Thank you. I am baffled by these remarks that sheet music somehow prevents people from playing soulfully and expressively, after centuries of people doing so without difficulty. Go tell Evgeny Kissin that he is incapable of playing soulfully because he has dots in front of him!
Apparently a lot of people are prejudiced against “classical” music, using the term to mean clinical, robotic soulless elevator music—a sure sign that people don’t actually listen to the stuff. I can understand if people don’t have a taste for classical music, but to claim that it is somehow lacking in soul or spirit is like claiming that one can’t write decent poetry in English—a position one can only hold by ignoring hundreds of years of work.
This is especially funny coming from people who play the tinwhistle. I’m sorry, but I can just imagine a chiffer trying to convince Georg Solti or Andre Previn that his interpretation of Mahler’s Ist or Isle of the Dead lacks soul. “Well then what do you consider soulful??!” “This:” toot toot fwee tweet tweet.
Hmmm…correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a subgenre of classical music that is not entirely dot-dependent?
I’m thinking it may be baroque in which musicians were not only “given permission” to improvise on the theme, but actually expected to, and evaluated on their creativity by knowledgable audiences of the day.
Perhaps to use the dots or not isn’t a real measure of musicianship. It is what the ear hears, not what the eye sees–as in your noticing whether the musician is using sheet music.
M
PS–I use music often, because I haven’t memorized how some tunes begin. But just as often I don’t play what’s written, but what my fingers remember.
Well now, I must admit to busking with sheet music on the boardwalk at the beaches here in Toronto. However, I was playing the Bach Flute Sonatas on my silver flute. Made some money too. It’s not that I’m that good. It’s just that people are very receptive to buskers in that environment
That said, I would be loathe to try playing ITM on my Irish flute or my whistles in public using sheet music.
Dave
It seems to be that there is a lot of knee-jerk reaction around regarding the use of musical notation. Sheet music is only a means to transmit and preserve music. Tablature and ABC are the same thing. They are all tools and only tools, no more no less. In the “old” days of traditional music a musician would visit his teacher, learn a tune and then go home after the lesson. Very possibly the student would forget the tune and would have to go back to the teacher to relearn it. Nowadays, the teacher can play the tune onto a cassette tape or give the student a paper record of the tune, ie, sheet music, tab or some other. When the modern student gets home and discovers he has forgotten the tune he can listen to the tape or look at the sheet music. This seems like an advance to me and I can see no reason this would prevent a student from developing a true feel for traditional music. Most musicians who use music notation during a performance know the music inside and out and are using it as a reminder only.
I really can’t understand some peoples’ antipathy toward musical notation. I figure that I’ll use any tool that’s available and legal that will help me learn to play better and learn more tunes. And I don’t denigrate those who only learn by ear. I have worked over the years with classically trained musicians and with traditional musicians who learned by ear. I can tell you that neither group had a monopoly on virtuosity and genius.
Mike
I have also seen some amazing performances over the years, again both with and without music.
and in the turmoil of finding a new job, learning the new job, etc. the meetings kinda fell by the wayside. I went last Sunday for the first time in a year. Small turnout, but it felt great to be back. 
It is almost like starting over again…I’ll have to learn everyone’s name from scratch! :roll: 