Hi all,
Yes, I guess my style IS “Lolly” style. Like they say on American Idol,
take the tune and “make it your own”.
Anyway, today I had an hour so I took a walk in the country
with nothing to distract me from listening except the wild Quail and
bunny rabbits. I listen carefully to he whole CD.
Honestly, you WILL have to tell me what I did wrong, cause
everything sounded o.k. to me.
I used several instruments and brought them in , one at a time, on every verse/chorus
to build the song to everyone playing at the end.
I panned, EQd, delayed,
reverbed and mixed everything to the best of my knowledge so
every part could be heard that I wanted to be heard.
I hired 3 different Violin players and 2 different Hammered DUlcimer
players so their variety in playing, wouldn’t have every track sounding
the same.
I had an excellent Tenor Banjo and Mandolin player, that really added
spark to the CD.
I tried to use a different drum beat on every tune so that would make
them sound different.
I wrote echo or counter-melody parts on several to add to the
interest, and even a few sound effects, and lots of harmonies.
In other words, I followed all the rules of arranging/mixing, etc.
that I have learned so far.
Everyone played the right notes at the right time and kept on the beat.
We tried to make it sound “pretty”.
I added very slight ornamentation in grace-notes so that the
tunes would stay simple and even my little grand daughter would
be able to hum along (and eventually play an instrument) with them.
In other words, I had a plan, and I wrote it all down for each tune and worked my plan.
So, besides not being ITRAD, what else could I have done?
Why do you hate this CD so much?
You are just saying negative things, but not telling me what you
hate in a particular tune. I really haven’t a clue!!!
It’s not about “hating” it, and it’s frankly not fair to make it appear like some people have taken an irrational dislike (meaning one that can’t be backed up with specific points).
You’re asking what you could have done. Two things were already mentioned: You could have tuned the instruments. You could have lost the sheet music, not in the sense that it’s bad to use sheet music (that’s another discussion) but in the sense that you are playing these tunes three times exactly the same each time. That’s boring.
Some specifics, although I haven’t gone back to listen: On Redhaired Boy when you come in on the whistle, you don’t come in cleanly on the beat. You’re out of tune against the mandolin. The mandolin playing isn’t clean and while it’s basically in time, the internal rhythms within the tune aren’t clean. On Father Kelly, the bodhran sounds like a kettle drum, and the different whistles and recorders aren’t in tune.
Whatever, I’ll stop here. These are points why I feel this is music that has plenty of room for improvement. I am not saying you shouldn’t have fun, play your music exactly how you want to play it. If you had asked my advice beforehand, I would have said that this is stuff I wouldn’t feel comfortable charging people money for, but that’s just an opinion.
The thing that’s important to me is that if you do put this on a CD and sell it and announce it here, I want to be able to say what I think about it without being treated like I eat little children for breakfast.
So, carry on. If you listen to your CD again and you do find something that could be improved, you’ll find lots of people here willing to help. Not just with the music; I bet Byll could give some useful pointers about the mix.
I think the whistle is sharp in a few tracks (or other instruments are flat), and it’s more obvious to me in the “Sally Gardens” track, but I might be mistaking, I’m not a great tuner. Moxy where are ya???
OK Bloomie and Azalin, those comments were helpful…
Not playing “wooden or with enough feeling”…that will be a hard one;
I hate people who play and sound over-affected. How would I give
tunes more feeling and still make it sound believable that those
WERE my feelings about the music?
Not having perfect rhythms…I guess if I play every instrument myself,
I could make sure they were all together perfectly. That would
be an easy way to improve that.
Me playing the tune 3 times thru the same way. I thought if I
kept up the tune and the other people came and went and there was an
echo/or counter-melody added, that it would be non-boring enough.
O.K. that is a good one to think about too.
As for the tuning, I still can’t hear that one. It just sounds like
how the other instruments sound to me. Maybe it was my EQing
rather than tuning?
OK, these things can be tried next time.
About not feeling that it was good enough o sell, Bloomie, I felt that way
at first too. Then I could visit a craft fair and hear a CD that was
blaaa in my opinion, and see a line of people buying them, as they thought they sounded great. The band I used to play in had a
female singer, that every time she opened her mouth, the hair stood
up on the back of my neck, it sounded so bad to me. But lots of people
love her singing and think its moody or new-age or something.
So the point about not playing good enough, is a real stickler,
isn’t it.
Me again, My husband had a question regarding this.
Remember on Star Trek, Next Generation, when Data was
playing his violin?
Everyone said the performance was in perfect rhythm, but he didn’t
play with any feeling.
So, if we all have to play the rhythm together perfectly,
how can one play with “feeling” without getting off the perfect
beat?
Lolly
Rhythm works in layers, I think. There is the steady beat that you have to keep. But keeping the beat doesn’t even mean that you play the note on it every time: you can be ahead of it a bit (push it) or lag behind subtly. Then there is the layer of the phrases, what notes you link together, like words in a book are organized into sentences and clauses. The periods and commas in music are breaths, pauses, articulation, slurs, any other form of emphasis. There are subtle difference in how you might play the rhythm of a triplet if it’s a pick-up or if it’s on the down beat. It’s like a building that will only stand on a solid foundation, and that solid foundation is keeping the beat. (And I’ll get there someday, I will.)
It is good to see things have come to a more even keel here. Blackwood posted his observations and Lolly, quite understandably, got defensive. After all she was not after critique but just wanting to share her joy of creating something. Okay, I guess I’m being “warm & fuzzy” here but it feels like Lolly got further raked over the friggin’ coals rather than folks trying to back off and figure out a better way to make their points rather than that “define your style” rubbish, etc. What I also found disquieting were the attacks on Lolly like she was trying to put something over on prospective buyers. For chrissake it is all there available to listen to before anybody opens their wallet! Certainly a more honest approach than most commercial offerings. Will I but Lolly’s CD? No, I won’t. Though I haven’t listened to the whole thing I think Bloomfield’s assessment is accurate (judging from what I did listen to and being acquainted with Bloomie’s sense of asthetics). Re: Azalin’s observation about the whistle, it sounded to me like it wasn’t the whistle being sharp but more like the whole tuning of the whistle had problems. Some notes were okay and others were off. I don’t know what you were playing, Lolly, but would recommend a Burke or a Silkstone (the alloy models are really nice).
At any rate don’t lose sleep over any of this and keep having lots of fun with your music! I wish I had the resources to pump out a CD!
Boy, that is a tough one to define. Brings to mind the calligraphy dilemma I used to worry about. How perfect does it need to be before it becomes mechanical (i.e. a font/typeface) and loses its soul. Zen and the art of keeping it organic! I have no words of wisdom on that.
This is a good question. I would almost defer to you because with all your years of life experience, you probably can come up with as good as answer as any you are likely to receive.
There is a difference between playing from sheet music and playing from memory. A difference between a band that has only practiced together a few times and a band that plays together every weekend. Not all of that difference can be measured by beat, rhythm, tuning, though a good deal of it can be.
I make similar comments about a lot of popular commercial CDs and songs on the radio–that they lack heart, they lack spirit. To me, a lot of the music comes from a place of commercialism. The music was created for the purpose of making money and that purpose has imbued itself onto the music. So in my mind intent can play a role, though talent, practice, and musicality are ahead on the list.
There are some performances that make you want to get up and dance, or some that induce a trance, of some that bring goosebumps, or some that bring sad memories and a flood of emotion. There is music like that for everyone reading, and it is not just the piece of music. The performance/performer has a part in those feelings.
You mentioned Star Trek and Data. Eventually, what the android did was study other great violinists and emulated their styles, taking what he felt were the best qualities from three greats. This may be the best way to go about it.
David, I really do think you’ve lost the plot compeletely here. You couldn’t be more wrong, both about the importance of definitional questions and about who is at fault in the debate over them. I’d even venture to say that the main reason the discussion has, as you noted, started to improve is that Lolly has started to be candid about what she is doing.
If you think we were pressing the issue of categorisation for filing purposes, you already misunderstood completely. Answering the definitonal question with ‘Lolly style’ just made things worse, not better. The reason why it is important, as I pointed out earlier, is that it is only when we know what Lolly was really trying to do that we can direct our comments, favourable or unfavourable, to her in a relevant way. That’s why I asked what it would be to get ‘Lolly style’ wrong. If someone can’t give an informative and articulate account of what they are doing, nobody can give constructive criticism. If you don’t know what success or failure is, in your own terms, you simply don’t know what you are doing. So wouldn’t it be time to think about that? If you do know, but won’t say, why would that be?
Obviously, Lolly did know what she was trying to do and now she’s told us. Would that have happened if she hadn’t been forced to reflect on what she was aiming for and tell us candidly? I simply don’t see how it could have happened because it is only by measuring her performance against her criteria that people can say anything worth saying at all. Reading between the lines, it’s obvious that she was aiming for MOR or easy listening music with a Celtic flavour. Now what would be the point and merit of my saying I liked it if I mistakenly thought she was aiming to play Irish/Balinese fusion music? Where’s the harm in just coming out and saying what you are aiming for?
Now, it really is just absurd to think that the people who pressed Lolly for a definition are to blame for any bad feeling here. Let me remind you of how we got to that point. Lolly releases and advertises a CD. People comment critically as they are entitled to do on anything that is published. Lolly replies to the critics—itself a no-no in some circles—by saying that they’ve missed the point; she isn’t playing ITM at all. So what is the next move? Isn’t it obviously just ‘well, what are you playing then?’ Now what do we get? Impatient, vague and evasive answers which are shorthand for ‘shut up and leave me/her alone.’ Who’s being rude here? This is a commercial CD, for heaven’s sake. You can’t have it both ways.
So were you being warm and fuzzy? You just accused me, and a large number of others usually noted for their astuteness, of talking ‘rubbish.’ My reply is that you were being groundlessly insulting, obtuse and thoughtless. That’s as warm and fuzzy as I can get. I could put it more bluntly though. Seriously, David, I really do think you have everything bassakwards on this issue.
Here is a snippet from “Buy CDs not Books” that applies to anyone aspiring to play ITM.
Trumpet Problems and Listening
You know, I get SO MANY emails from people who are having problems with their playing. They are looking for specific advice about what to do with their lips or what to do with their jaw or teeth or breathing that will make them play better. More often than not, these same people either don’t own any recordings of trumpet players or only have like a couple of Canadian Brass “Greatest Hits” or something like that. These guys spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on instruments, hundreds of dollars on books and spend hours and hours reading and practicing. But they spend a grand total of thirty dollars in five years on trumpet recordings - and from my experience with teaching these students, they rarely even listen to those few recordings which they do own.
Of course they’re going to have problems on the instrument. They don’t even know what the trumpet sounds like. It’s like trying to learn to speak a language without ever hearing it. It doesn’t matter how many books you read, you can’t speak the language until you’ve heard what it sounds like. Music is the same exact way.
OK, let me try to venture some constructive comments. To begin, this is a very good place to start. Listening critically, over and over to your own work is really important. Professional producers sometimes listen hundreds of times. Another good idea is to make a test pressing and get a friend with pro or semi-pro recording experience who you can rely upon to be critical to give a frank assessment. They have to know exactly what you were aiming for. On the basis of the comments, you might decide to remix, rerecord some bits, scrap some tunes or resequence for better balence.
Sometimes drtopping some instruments out as others appear can be just as efffective. It makes for even more variety.
One of the hardest aspects of mixing is hearing what the results will sound like on a range of fairly standard stereos. Using expensive monitors is a good way to start but you might consider using a variety of speakers including cheap ones. Go, in the end, for the mix that sounds best, on average, on all of the setups. Note though; different producers will each have their own preferred way of producing a final mix. For my part, I’d prefer to get a real pro to do the final mastering, even though he or she might not change much in what I’ve produced.
Here it’s hard to give advise because harmonisation is one big difference between your music and ITM. When I’m arranging, outside ITM of course, I change the arrangement with each repetition to avoid tedium. Harmonisation often calls for increasing complexity as you proceed but just going for a slightly different counterpoint or harmony without adding instruments can work too. Also, dropping back to something starker can work nicely.
People complaining noted two things. One was intonation and the other was rhythm. Let me comment on each, keeping your goals firmly in mind.
First, you can use an electronic tuner to make sure everyone is in tune. If just a few notes are out, there is software available that would let you correct the pitch in the mixing stage. I don’t use it but I bet Byll could give you some help here. If an instrument is out of tune then it is usually easier to rerecord their part than to correct electronically. Typically you should record several takes of each part and punch in and out bits that come out better in one take than in others. From several imperfect takes you can assemble a better take than really happened in the studio by pasting over mistakes or poor phrasing.
If you are aiming for prettyness, intonation is very important. Again, get a friend to listen critically and either rerecord or edit any parts that he or she isolates as problems, even if you can’t hear it.
For rhythm, it is best in ITM to get a kind of ragged unison. That doesn’t mean everybody being a bit out, it means the ensemble pressing or lagging the beat in acordance with your instructions. For prettyness though, you can’t have much independence of phrasing I think. If I were going for what you want, I’d want the melody instruments to phrase with the precision of the Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman reed sections where five players think and breathe as one. This doesn’t mean they phrase metronomically. If one presses the beat they all do, to exactly the same extent. If one lags, they all do. This requires lots of rehearsal or recording time though, but it is time well spent.
Perhaps a few of the things suggested above.
I haven’t listened to this CD, so I don’t hate it. (I did make some comments about Bill’s playing on his website.) All my criticisms earlier were directed at aspects of the way the issues were being debated. I don’t think you’ll find a single comment from me about your playing which is as it should be since I haven’t heard it.
Going semi-professional puts you on a steep learning curve. Developing a thick skin is one of the first requirements. But developing sharper capacities of self criticism is another. None of this should stop you from enjoying your music though.
Bravo. I say again, bravo!
What an excellent exchange.
I’m going to have to print Bloom and Wombat’s posts as a reference as well as the Eddie Lewis stuff.
My new thing is Old Time on the harmonica. Like most ITM, the repetition of the tunes produces a challenge. How to keep it sounding fresh every time through. I can learn tunes quickly on both whistle and harmonica, especially harmonica. In three weeks I’ve got 15 new tunes Old Time tunes. But who gives a rat’s patoot? I’ve asked myself, would “I” listen to myself for an hour playing these 15 tunes or would I go make a sandwich on #3 because though played “correctly” and “really fast” they bore me to death? Better still, forget the quantity all together. Would “this” tune, the ONE I am playing right now be captivating enough so I could listen to it over and over?
It occurs to me that I have spent a great deal of time obsessed with quantity. Can I take a simple tune like Stoney Point and make it worth listening to repeatedly? NO NO NO.
I realize that my listening has been concentrating on the notes. I’ve been asking the wrong questions. I need to ask, what makes this tune so compelling, or conversly, boring?
Anyway, the point is, this thread has really provided some great insight and points for introspection.
Well I guess sitting here I my chair I percieved arrogance and bad timing which turned me into an arrogant ass. If any were offended I do apologize. I just didn’t like seeing Lolly needlessly battered while she was down (regardless of the intention of the posts).
No worries David. I was only pretending to be angry in order to make it vivid how impossible it is to be warm and fuzzy towards everybody when these disputes break out.
Speaking for myself, I can only say that I did want to be helpful all along but I was getting mighty frustrated that people trying to protect Lolly seemed to be hindering rather than helping that process.
Okay…you’re right…next time I see a person pushed down and kicked on our playground I’ll try and wait till somebody actually tries to steal their lunch money before I step in
Cheers,
David
P.S. Since it came up in this thread, FWIW, I won’t be purchasing any “Blackwood” CDs either…
I once got a chance to go to a bigshot Nashville producer’s house with my demo tape. I figured since he was a rich music industry dude with a big house he’d play my tape on a state of the art sound system… wrong. He played it on this little tape player with the crappiest speakers i’d ever heard.
BTW he hated the song but complimented my fiddle playing. I never heard back from him.
,
Let me know next time you’re back in the Ultra Groovey Pioneer Valley.
