EPIGRAPH
I introduce this topic by way of the above as an epigraph.
BTW, I am not a guitarist.
You see I wasn’t just talking about knowledge. See the part where I said “not just factual learnings but …”?
And whats the deal against the intellect? Those of us folks who are highly emotional appreciate the little intellect we have.
Here’s an example, a real one.
I am trying to learn some ITM reels. I have a tutorial with written music (dots) and a supporting CD. Luckily I am quite moved by 8 of the 15 reels presented in the tutorial. (Sadly, yes. I need to feel something for to be inspired to learn to play it).
One of them is “The Swallows Tail”. The dots are notated in D key signature. I follow the dots but it doesn’t sound right. The piece resolves with A. But A Mixolydian is not the feeling of this. Why doesn’t it sound right? I am with feelings so far. Going on feelings it sounds like an A Dorian piece.
Now I bring the intellect in. That horrid, turgid, most despicable intellect, the thing that “forgets the Music”. I have noticed Am chords in notation. You can’t have those chords if the Cs are C#. Obviously the key signature in the notation is wrong. It should be G key signature. Yep, just a little typo there sorted out by the INTELLECT.
Better than blindly following the dots for 1 year and wondering why you sound out of tune.
WORK SMART.
I think some things can certainly be over-intellectualised, which I guess is the problem referred to here.
As an IT professional and a geek I’ve certainly been guilty of it in the past as well.
But personally I think it’s an issue of time and place. Sometimes it IS good to analyse exactly why something works, the modal structure of a tune or the etymology of a name. Other times you really should just shut up and play.
The beauty of this website is that it gives a good place for both types of discussion. Unfortunately not everyone will read the discussions at the right time for them.
If a group of people are playing
The Swallow’s Tail correctly with the notes A B C D E F# G A+ and I, having learnt it from the dots in a tutorial (with a typo), unthinkingly play it out of tune by using C# all the time, I would say that I should “shut up and not play”.
I presume your point is about greater melodic unity in session playing, or for the sake of tight group performance, rather than following the present fashion, if there could be said to be one in this tune. Playing The Swallow’s Tail with a C# is not “out of tune” or incorrect; in the right hands it could be a nice and quite viable variation from the usual. FWIW, although I tend to use the Cnat myself (up to now, anyway 
), my personal version of The Swallow’s Tail, note-for-note, is rather different from that at thesession.org, although the bones remain the same, and the tune is easily recognisable as The Swallow’s Tail. So I’m not getting what you mean by “correctly”.
Really, though, this topic ought to be in the ITM Forum, as that’s the realm from which it’s being discussed.
There’s a difference between “intellectualizing” things and using your intelligence.
Intellectualized, we would have a pedantic discussion around modes or a tiresome argument about dots or perhaps a treatise on the history of the tune.
Using your intelligence you said to yourself, ‘Hmm, this doesn’t sound right, let me try changing the C# to a Cnatural’.
The former produces a lot of pixels and sometimes great entertainment and even enlightenment. The latter probably ignited a lot more of those little cartoon light bulbs hanging over your head.
'least it isn’t s’posed ta be a piper’s C and both C & C# are wrong, eh!
Hey, I always want the rock-solid option of all three: Cnat, C#, and Cneut(ral). But I’m modernish that way.
Oh, wait; four options: I forgot the spectrogaphically rising Cnyah, too.
The version of The Swallow Tail I learned from a friend has no Cs in it…
I like the term “Love Minus Zero.” That phrase is worthy of a song, if only a song will flutter to me, so I can capture it.
/edit to add: Bob Dylan already wrote an epic with the title, darn. Anything any other songwriter comes up with will be compared with Dylan. Yikes.
Love Minus Zero/No Limit by Bob Dylan
My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful,
Yet she’s true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can’t buy her.
In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all.
The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.
The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers’ nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she’s like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.
I know the song well Bill.
We use to sing that when we busked in the 70’s.
Thanks for your comment Nano.
I appreciate it. Seeing you are a guitar player also,
if someone were playing that with a C# would you apply Am chords?
And monkey I am sure there are different versions. The version I have in front of me has about 8 Cs in it.
Also in the tutorial I am using there is “High Reel”, an A Mixolydian piece.
The key signature is D but there is a natural symbol in the G line which is pretty inane. Any comments about High Reel?
Cittern player, Talasiga. Cittern.
But to answer your question, I almost exclusively use open or so-called “power” chords (based on solely the tonic and the fifth, pretty much) due to the tuning particular to my gizmo, so it’s not an issue for me. The melody itself takes care of the fine points and nuances that way, and that’s how I like it. Openish/modal tuning, although it sounds nice and bright and charming and “traditional” and all, really is, when you get down to it, sort of like giving the backup player blunt scissors and crayons to express oneself with so one doesn’t hurt oneself or others. Well, at least the chances are a bit lower. BUT: if I did play discernibly major or minor chords, I would listen first to the player’s setting if I didn’t know it already, and back it up accordingly as my ability provides. It might not be a pure A minor chord, but something altered to fit. I can’t know without having the particular tuning it takes to do that. My point is that it would just be good manners, after all, to play in accordance with the setting, not according to my whim whatever the cost to the result.
The good backup player, socially speaking, is a responsible backup player. Technically speaking: that’s another matter.
Uh, yeah. That’s pretty needless, overtly indicating a G natural (Gnatnat?) in a D key signature.
As to comments, High Reel’s a lovely tune, not the easiest for me to play on flute.