There is a really good discussion currently going on in the whistle form regarding the merits of Just Intonation vis a vis Even temperment. With even temperment the instrument can play everything reasonably well but nothing exceptionally well.
I want to apply the same concept to musicians. I think there is a tendency for classical training to make one “even tempered”. I began learning music be becoming a classically trained musician (I am using the term generically), able to sight read reasonably well, and thought that with enough classical training I could play anything. Not having pursued a career in music I kind of left that assumption forgotten and unchallenged until a few years ago when I heard a symphony orchestra try to do a night of swing music. It was awful! I could not really pinpoint anything specifically wrong but the music just DIDN’T swing. There was stuff not written into the score that made the difference between a mediocre performance and real swing music.
Having begun to learn ITM, I have found it is the same way. I can play the notes like a classical musician, but the result does not sound like ITM, until I hear it done by someone in the tradition. Then I change my playing style to match what I hear and the tune magically changes. I usually know when I am messing it up when the people listening to me practice are not tapping their feet
As another example, the other day I was listening to Frankie Yankovic (The Polka King, not to be confused with Weird Al), and realized that there is a lot of stuff going on there too that is not written on the musical score.
I could give other examples.
So is it possible to play in different genres and still sound authentic? Or is one doomed either to learn one genre well, or play them all mediocrely, with the exception of classical music which classically trained musicians should be able to play well.
Hmm. I can’t answer your question, but I’ll get to hear a good test case in about a month. Our local symphony orchestra is having a “Pops” concert, and the guest performer is Eileen Ivers (who, according to the orchestra’s conductor, plays “seltic fiddle”). Should be an interesting evening.
We used to discuss this in the days of yore in Chiffland.
In my opinion, the imbalance or swing in dance music, exemplified by Irish and Scots trad reels, may have PRECEDED even beats in olde, and I mean olde, European secular music. At least for dance music. Only marches really need to be square. I have found in old Spanish and Italian lute music a seemingly inescapable tendency to play that way. In actual lute technique, some used the thumb and a finger of the right hand to play scale passages, which made the first beat of the two heavier…And when scale passages came along (as differentiated from vocal melismas of sacred music) they were self-consciously presented by the earliest composers in their publications (think about 1500 AD). In Spanish vihuela music, there are instructions on how to play “redobles” which were scale type of passages. There’s a famous Fantasis of “consonancias y redobles” that is basically slow lyrical passages, punctuated by faster scalar stuff that may or may not have been played evenly.
I sometimes think that, along with even-temperament comes regular metric counting and balanced beats with more restrained and regularized downbeats.. It’s taken for granted by today’s classical music ethos, but I don’t think it should be. This is yet another reason that wiser musicians often are suspicious and skeptical about using metronomes too much.
A fascinating observation. Equal temperment and metronomic playing (and the metronome itself) are products of the Industrial Revolution. The symphonic orchestra we know today is a child of the same Zeitgeist, the upsizing of musical performance on a massive, industrial scale.
A single instrumentalist can obviously play with whatever degree of metric variance suits the player. In a small consort musicians can synchronize their individual playing through the kind of verbal and nonverbal communication possible in a small group. But an industrial orchestra is a more anonymous affair, stripped of individual idiosyncracies and organized along military lines, where discipline and regularity of tuning and timing is critical, and the musicians are not necessarily intimately bonded emotionally to the part in front of them.
It’s interesting that even today, music that tends to swing – jazz, Dixieland, trad – is generally associated with smaller groups. Watching a really tight jazz or trad ensemble perform is like watching ESP in action.
I think the aspiration is to make even the big group bend with the expression of the conductor and it CAN happen, it just takes brilliance and training, all cylinders firing. A friend of mine has been lucky enough to record with Tilson Thomas and the SF Symphony as they work through and record/tour the Mahler symphonies. I have to say, he has that group on a fine thread working through the music…But your conclusion is inescapable and correct, imo. The sheer scale prevents some things from happening.
I have played in a flute guitar duo for 24 years or so with a great flute player, though the last few years have been scant as both of us have pursued other things. When we recorded our demo CD about 10 years ago, my ex-bro-in-law was the recording engineer. He plays bluegrass guitar mostly, tours with David Grisman. He was surprised that we didn’t use some kind of metronomic beat drop thing to start our tunes, especially since the technology is available. But we practiced weekly for all those years, played many concerts, worked up arrangements and such , and it was as close to a marriage as a musical collaboration could get. It never occurred to either of us that we would need a count-off to start things we had practiced so hard. Typically, I looked at her, she took her breath and off we went (if I didn’t have some kind of intro). I have really come to appreciate that as I played with other types of musicians…
I don’t think you can beat the tight bounce of a big West Clare fiddle session. There used to be gatherings of Booby Casey, the Kellys, Peter Mackey, John Joe Tuttle, Vincent Griffin, Breandan McGlinchey, Michael Downes, Joe Ryan, Paddy Galvin, Junior Crehan etc. usually joined by Catherine McEvoy, Siobhan ni Chonorain, Ian Roome and whoever was around. Lovely tight music flowing freely and while bouncing around in tight unison. If you know music like these people it’s not so hard to blend nicely. And they’d be a long way from Equal Temperament in any sense.
It’s also quite revealing to compare how for example the Kane sisters play Paddy Fahey’s music to the intonation and rhythm of the man himself. I’ll have the older version thank you.
As someone who comes from an even-tempered background, are there methods to learn playing with just intonation? (Lots of listening, of course, but what else?)
As an aside, I once saw fiddler Mark O’Connor give a masterclass to a 13-year-old boy from West Virginia. The kid owned only one CD and learned all his music from his teacher down the road. To modern ears, he had the most wild, amazing intonation: Mark had to ask him to play something twice, to make sure it wasn’t a mistake, but no, the playing was consistent. The boy’s idea of “in tune” simply had nothing to do with equal temperment. This from a 13-year-old in the year 2000!
As you said “lots of listening” helps. I have also been taking tunes and slowing them to half speed with my computer so I can play along and try to learn every nuance. Then I slowly try to speed it up.
Speaking of the boy from West Virginia if I am not mistaken that is in the Appalachians. Years ago when I fooled around with a banjo, I listened to some Appalachian music–very interesting scales.
One way is to practice a scale, over a drone. When your intervals are pure, you’ll definitely know. Your ears will buzz. Some notes will be more pronounced than others; I’ve found it easiest to start with the pure intervals (unison, octave, and the fourth and fifth note of the scale)
Speaking of the boy from West Virginia if I am not mistaken that is in the Appalachians. Years ago when I fooled around with a banjo, I listened to some Appalachian music–very interesting scales.
Yep.
I grew up with old time Appalachian musicians playing every weekend at someones house. I don’t know the technical terms, but I can tell if a classically trained musician is playing old time. It just sounds too “clean” and no…, I don’t know what word to describe it, I can just tell…
