There are two threads going now in reference to this topic, but hey, let’s look at another one.
If you were to have the choice of sitting in a small venue and listening to someone play in session, would you prefer listening to Jane and John Doe, competent whistlers, or a superstar of the Mary Bergin or Joannie Madden variety?
I personally prefer the whistler off the street, who may have simpler, more accessible renditions. I like hearing what they’ll drop out of a tune to make it go more smoothly, where they’ll stick a flourish, their version of old standards.
I have a real distaste for highly produced music, and though I can appreciate stellar talent and the glories of ‘performance’, I much prefer folk music as music of the folk. Given a choice, I’d prefer going to a good session of locals than going to a concert/performance.
I dont think I would pass on an opportunity like that.It,s a thrilling experience to hear high level players performing live in concert.Seamus Egan played at the Vienna city festival some years ago..I wouldnt have missed that for Jane or John Doe Mike
Er, the way I read the original question, it seems to be asking whether you’d perfer to have average musicians or “superstars” at a session. I will take the superstar in a second, I’d love to hear them perform in an unscripted group environment.
Mind you, I’d include any and all great players in that category. If I ever get the chance to hear Peter Horan in a session again, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it the whole night through – none of this quitting and going to sleep at 3am next time.
(If course, I get to hear good but mortal whistle players in sessions all the time…)
A slightly more interesting question (to me) might be, would you rather play in a session, or hear great musicians play in a session you can’t really keep up with…
The highlight of my Boston vacation… hearing Mary Bergin play in a small session with friends several nights in a row. Not every performer of that caliber is doing ‘performance’ pieces all the time. It was a total education to see the way she plays with friends, just for fun. Much more accessable, and still totally wonderful. Of course that’s only once in a lifetime that I got to see that. So I don’t want to choose! lol
As a one time thing, a superstar. Hearing your favorite artists in a more private venue can be amazing. Hearing them share music in an informal format like a session is also a great way to hear things you normally wouldn’t get the hear them play.
If you’re talking more like a weekly event, I would probably rather hear the same gifted amateurs each week. Then you get to hear the progression musically at a pace you can hope to follow.
I’m always inspired when I hear a wonderful, famous player but they’re so far above my level, I get very little musical grist for my mill. Listening to someone better than me but not multiple levels better gives me a chance to actually hear and assimilate what they do into my playing.
Since I’ve been teaching beginning and intermediate elementary school bands every year for 15 years, I would much rather hear the top performers play. I’ve heard enough squeaks to last a lifetime.
On 2002-10-21 20:06, colomon wrote: If I ever get the chance to hear Peter Horan in a session again, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it the whole night through – none of this quitting and going to sleep at 3am next time.
(If course, I get to hear good but mortal whistle players in sessions all the time…)
A slightly more interesting question (to me) might be, would you rather play in a session, or hear great musicians play in a session you can’t really keep up with…
Didn’t Peter take some competition a few weeks back? He was a real pleasure to hear play last May. Wish I had a mini-recorder with me then! We’ll do better next April.
And given the choice you raised, I’d go for listening, every time. Unless its Barney Brallaghan, which I find irresistible! Heigh ho for a slip jig!
I’d take the competent player. My ears just can’t listen as fast as Mary Bergin can play. I wouldn’t learn anything from her at this stage of my development. I remember Bloomfield’s account of MB’s concert and I was thinking that there was no way in the world I could see or hear the things he was noticing about her playing. She’s just over my head.
On 2002-10-21 22:20, tyghress wrote:
Didn’t Peter take some competition a few weeks back? He was a real pleasure to hear play last May. Wish I had a mini-recorder with me then! We’ll do better next April.
If he did, I didn’t hear about it. Hard to imagine him interested in competing, at his age.
Geez, I’m very disturbed to learn that if you do a Google-search on him, the first link you find which refers to Peter Horan the flute player is one of my pictures from last summer… (Though I did manage to find an Irish-language page which I think is saying he was given some sort of tradition award this year.)
[ This Message was edited by: colomon on 2002-10-21 23:15 ]
On 2002-10-21 22:20, tyghress wrote:
Didn’t Peter take some competition a few weeks back? He was a real pleasure to hear play last May. Wish I had a mini-recorder with me then! We’ll do better next April.
If he did, I didn’t hear about it. Hard to imagine him interested in competing, at his age.
On 2002-10-21 19:09, tyghress wrote:
I have a real distaste for highly produced music, and though I can appreciate stellar talent and the glories of ‘performance’, I much prefer folk music as music of the folk. Given a choice, I’d prefer going to a good session of locals than going to a concert/performance.
So you mean folk music that is played with a high standard, a good taste of arrangement, flexibility, fabulous technique isn’t “folkmusic” anymore. So if I understand well, folkmusic is alright if it’s played not too well, not too quickly without any feeling of refinement. Well I’m a little jalous of this fantastic players too, but what you want folkmusic to be, is not exactly my definition of any kind of music. Music is an art, and should be played as fine as possible, even it’s played in a pub or on the street. Of course I appreciate everybody’s personal levelof playing, but that’s got nothing to do with the fact how music should be sounding.
First, why is this an either/or thing? Wouldn’t we want to hear the best just for the sheer joy of hearing magnificent music played as well as it is possible to play. I’d be there for the aesthetic experience alone. I’d be there if I never even contemplated taking up the instrument. But that wouldn’t stop me dropping in to hear a mediocre player the next night partly to learn and partly just for the sheer folksy fun of it. Two different experiences, two perfectly valid reasons to go out on a cold night.
Second, but not unrelated, why do people seem to be blurring the matter of listening pleasure with the question of seeking out a useful learning experience? Surely we’re not going to forgo a chance to see how high the human creative spirit can soar, and be inspired by it, just because we might not ever be able to soar that high ourselves. That doesn’t stop us from seeking out helpful learning experiences on other occasions.
If you were to have the choice of sitting in a small venue and listening to someone play in session, would you prefer listening to Jane and John Doe, competent whistlers, or a superstar of the Mary Bergin or Joannie Madden variety?
Sweetone you have an approach typical for a classical musician. What she said was she doesn’t like over produced overpolished music. She didn’t say liked mediocre music.
This music can be played well and very well with letting the technology of the recording studio take over, the best recording are pften those of players sitting at home in their kitchen playing away.
A solo fiddle recording like Bobby Casey’s Taking Flight [or the 'home’recordings on Casey in the Cowhouse], are the best you can get[just to put a name to some], I wouldn’t be able to think of any fiddle player able to surpass that music, yet it’s just the man and his fiddle enjoying a tune.
As a more recent example you should listen to Kevin Crehan’s CD, just the fiddle and very well thought out but no production to get in the way, plain good traditional music. That’s what we are talking about here.
I agree with Wombat. There’s more than one way to enjoy music and sometimes the participational enjoyment and the enjoyment of a performance can be mutually exclusive. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Trying to keep up in a session of amazing players could be more frustrating than worthwhile–better to just sit back and take it in. In the same way sometimes I imagine symphonies aren’t much fun for the percussionist or the french horn: at least not the same kind of fun as for me in the fourth row.
Also perhaps worth remembering that great teachers and great musicians are not always the same people, and great lessons and great sessions not the same events.
Personally I’d prefer either or. If these particular “whistlers off the street” were quite competent in their skill, then I wouldn’t mind learning from them. I also wouldn’t mind the opportunity to get to play with a competent “star whistler.”
I just like the music, and if it’s good music, then it’s even better!
On 2002-10-22 09:23, Michael Sullivan wrote:
…and great lessons and great sessions not the same events.
While it’s certainly possible (heck, common) to have a lesson which is not a session, I’d argue that any great session is also a great lesson. Seeing how great players handle themselves – what tunes they play, how they play them, the swing and the feel and the little variations you’ve never heard before – that’s utterly invaluable. It’s the purest form of a lesson.
Which isn’t to say that it’s necessarily a lesson the student is ready for. I mean, I learned a lot at those sessions with Peter Horan last year, but I wasn’t really ready for them yet. I would have learned so much more if they’d happened to me now. (Tenses get confused there, but you know what I mean.)
Mike