On another thread about how to speed up our whistle playing—something I wanted to know about although I didn’t think there would be any short cuts—someone raised a topic that interests me even more. They asked: why this obsession with speed? I want to ask that question, as well as it’s constant companion question 'Is it a good thing for the music? (I ask it here so as not to derail the other thread.)
I’m not asking whether the ability to play a lightening fast phrase or ornament is a good thing-obviously it is. But some very good players IMO do that only sparingly. What I’m asking is whether or not it’s a good thing to be aiming to play reels, the main culprits, at faster and faster and faster tempos.
I’m reminded of the white-guy, guitar hero, thing in blues guitar playing. The young Wombat got sucked into that but quickly realised that it was wrong-headed. The faster white bands played, and the more notes they tried to fit in, the more they lost that groove, drive and soul which was what attracted me to African-American styles in the first place. They just sound more wooden, the closer they get to their goal. I play much better now I take my time, but still throw in a fast phrase for effect now and then when it means something. If you know the white guys I mean, but don’t know which black bands blow them away for groove and drive, just listen to the Meters.
Is the same thing happening in Irish trad? A site on Donegal fiddling advises newbies not to even attempt to learn from Altan but to go back and analyse Tommy Peoples. Now I love Tommy Peoples, but I also love Altan. I just think that they’re doing different things. But it would, IMO, be a tragedy if people stopped doing the Tommy Peoples thing for fear of being old-fashioned. Now, you C&F-ers have got to have opinions on this one haven’t you?
Depending on context, a certain amount of speed can be pretty important. For instance, my band primarily plays in pubs. And pub patrons (and owners!) want a rollicking good time…they want fast music and rowdy sing-along songs to get folks fired up.
When we first started as a band, we had a banjo player who was an older fellow. He often talked about how folks just played the music too fast and that it sounded better slower. And he’d just simply wouldn’t kick up anything past “easy going” tempo.
I’m not disagreeing with his opinion; at slower speeds you can definitely put more into the music. But I’m not the one who pays the cover charge at the bar…the audience is. And speaking from experience, the audience would get bored with us or simply ignore us when things were kept at a nice easy going pace. We lost our monthly ‘steady gig’, because folks told the owner of the pub that they’d rather be watchin the sports on TV than have us play (now that was a blow to the ego!)
For work-related reasons, we lost the banjo player, which has let us kick everything up a notch or two speed-wise. Now we don’t play like deranged crystal meth users…but I certainly wouldn’t call muich of our repertoire “easy going” any more. We’ve also taken pains to get the singers a new, faster repertoire of pub songs instead of ballads. It’s very rare these days when I spot someone staring at the TV or checking their watch while we’re playing. And after one performance in June with our ‘new sound’ that pub owner and the regulars liked us enough that we got hired on for regular gigs through december (with possibilities thereafter). We’ve also started picking up regular fans who’ll come see the band wherever we play, rather than just the folks who see the band because we happen to be playing where they already are. I may be wrong, but I attribute a lot of that to our higher-energy performances.
Then again, a pub band isn’t necessarily where you’d wanna go to hear virtuoso performances either.
[ This Message was edited by: wandering_whistler on 2002-10-18 08:32 ]
My whistle teacher heads up a local Ceili band that plays for monthly dances at a local Catholic church. The speeds they have to play some sets is mind boggling. It seems the dancers need the speed so they don’t feel like storks standing on one leg.
Mike Burns
On 2002-10-18 07:49, burnsbyrne wrote:
My whistle teacher heads up a local Ceili band that plays for monthly dances at a local Catholic church. The speeds they have to play some sets is mind boggling. It seems the dancers need the speed so they don’t feel like storks standing on one leg.
Mike Burns
We keep hearing that at our session: dancers need it fa-a-a-a-s-s-s-s-t. Okay if you regularly accompany dancers. We don’t. Yet we seem to have the accelerator stuck to the floor when we play. Drives me nuts. There are some tunes that haveso much going on in them that the speed ruins it! And I’m convinced there’s such a thing as too fast, even for Ceili dancers!
Of source, I also play at a local restaurant/pub and they DO like the reels and jigs. We usually alter the hornpipes and polkas so they’re fairly fast as well. The patrons appreciate the occasional song, but its the faster stuff that manages to penetrate the liquor-induced fog.
[Edited to add that last paragraph.]
Tom Gallagher
a whistling tenor, just fiddling around fiddlingtenor@usa.com
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to say something and remove all doubt” --atributed to Abraham Lincoln</FONT SIZE>
[ This Message was edited by: fiddling_tenor on 2002-10-18 08:29 ]
We had this topic discussed some weeks ago Wombie, and I took some serves for my criticism of Flook who IMHO seem to play almost everything mega-fast, note-perfect (and therefore for me, little “feel”. By way of comparison, listen to Paddy Keenan on the “Poirt an Piobrach” CD).
The crucial decider on speed is the dancer; jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc are DANCE tunes, and if the dancer can’t keep up or is losing the feel of the tune and the rhythm, then it’s TOO fast - even if the listeners seem to enjoy it. The fact that the vast majority of us play without a dance troupe is irrelevant.
Getting back to your blues thing, there are faster players around than Clapton, but somehow he just has the feel (“roots man, roots”!) and that’s why he is a legend in his field.
On 2002-10-18 07:49, burnsbyrne wrote:
My whistle teacher heads up a local Ceili band that plays for monthly dances at a local Catholic church. The speeds they have to play some sets is mind boggling. It seems the dancers need the speed so they don’t feel like storks standing on one leg.
Mike Burns
We keep hearing that at our session: dancers need it fa-a-a-a-s-s-s-s-t. Okay if you regularly accompany dancers. We don’t. Yet we seem to have the accelerator stuck to the floor when we play. Drives me nuts. There are some tunes that haveso much going on in them that the speed ruins it! And I’m convinced there’s such a thing as too fast, even for Ceili dancers!
Of source, I also play at a local restaurant/pub and they DO like the reels and jigs. We usually alter the hornpipes and polkas so they’re fairly fast as well. The patrons appreciate the occasional song, but its the faster stuff that manages to penetrate the liquor-induced fog.
[Edited to add that last paragraph.]
Tom Gallagher
a whistling tenor, just fiddling around fiddlingtenor@usa.com
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to say something and remove all doubt” --atributed to Abraham Lincoln</FONT SIZE>
[ This Message was edited by: fiddling_tenor on 2002-10-18 08:29 ]
Tom,
I agree with you. It’s a good musician who can play a tune at a moderate speed as well as light speed. I actually like to hear music a bit slower than one hears played on records by virtuosos. I have to keep reminding myself (I’m a whistle novice)not to rush. I like Lawrence Nugent’s recent CD because he doesn’t play everything at top speed.
Mike
Sometimes you need to be able to play fast and well, and other times you need to be able to play slow and well. It just depends on what you’re playing, who you’re playing it for, and how you’re playing it.
That’s why I always make a point to learn a tune at different speeds (especially Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, ect), so that when I’m performing/jamming somewhere, I can “meld” in with the group.
I guess in a way you could say that speed is a double-edged sword.
Hi John,I think it gets down to ability and limitations dertermined by ones nature as to how fast we play a tune.Often,in a session,its simply a matter of keeping up with the others.I am,by nature a rather slow individual and this is reflected in my own playing style.Others may be a little more hyper and firery in nature and playing style and I,m full of admiration(tinged with a little envy!) when it reaches hights of virtuosity.Someone like Tommy Emmanuel(Ausie guitar player)has it all and I,d not be at all surprised if plays whistle just as well:) Mike
[ This Message was edited by: mike.r on 2002-10-18 10:00 ]
Phil and those who didn’t check the ITM board. Steve and myself have been doing a series of transcriptions and analyses from the playign of traditional players. They are mostly posted on Steve’s site although 5 or so Micho Russell tunes went onto Teri’s site while Steve was on holiday recently [they will end up on Steve’s when he has time].
More is in the pipeline, I recommend checking them out and listen to the soundclips.
I’m getting some interesting answers here, as always. But I’m still puzzled, as always.
If it’s primarily about ceilidh dancing, what’s happened to the dancers in the last twenty years or so? Are they all on speed now? Were they all on weed then? If the older musicians served up stuff with drive, and they certainly did, why was that enough for dancers back then but not enough for dancers now?
I mentioned what had happened to Donegal fiddling—could it possibly get any faster? But it’s happening elsewhere. Just listen to the drive and dynamic propulsion De Dannan get whilst just loping along. Now why isn’t that better to dance to than an uncoordinated sprint to see who can get to the end of the set the fastest? Black dancers would dance all night to James Brown or the Meters but would not be able to dance at all to the faster-then-the-speed-of-light brigade. Drive got mistaken for volume, groove got mistaken for velocity, meaningful melody got mistaken for meandering note salads. Not all younger bands fall into this trap—I wouldn’t accuse Nomos of this. I wouldn’t accuse John Williams either and there are others.
Despite all this I like the younger bands although I wouldn’t listen to their blues-band equivalents. I take Nick’s point about Flook but I still like them a lot. And I like Altan. But I love Paddy Keenan and Tommy Peoples.
I do find that some people play dance tunes much faster than is actually practical for dancers. Personally, I think it’s more a “virtuousity” thing than anything else…a good player can sound extremely impressive at high speed (and often a not-so-good player can more easily gloss over mistakes).
I think it gets overdone as well…sometimes the notes just blur together, so that you can barely tell one tune from another. That may show off the player’s fingering, but it does nothing to enhance the tune.
Reels are the main culprit, but I’ve heard players that seem to think that they need to speed through anything. I once listened to a recording of “South Wind” (a waltz) that was so fast you’d fall on your nose if you actually tried to waltz to it!
Back when I was knee-deep in my classicl training, I was assigned Mendolssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor (one of the toughest pieces for a violinist). The problem was that all the recordings were at lightening speed, sort of like the players were proving their prowess. “Okay, so you can play, I knew that. But look what you did to the music!”
I did finally find one of Isaac Stern, who playing the concerto the way ol’ Felix meant it!
Yes, dancers require faster tempos: otherwise they’ll fall over. Like riding a bike, there is a minimum speed too. But to Wombat’s point, there does seem to be a trend toward faster speeds, and I think the music loses.
That tune sums it about up, it is not fast, there’s nothing much fancy in it, but it is alive, it’s great. What more do you want.
It certainly does Peter; that’s exactly what I’m getting at. And you’re right; I don’t want any more than that. And I definitely don’t want less than that pretending to be more. As for the resources on the IT board (which you mention in another post), I’ve just started posting there and will take a while to catch up. But I think I’m going to enjoy doing it. Thanks for your efforts.
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old piper, I have to say I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that there’s hoards of ceili dancers who prefer faster-than-necessary tempos to hide their lousy footwork. If dancers are going to point fingers at musicians for not being able to play fast enough, the argument can be turned right around, because many of them can’t dance properly at any tempo. I guess it’s a problem of fiscal necessity for musicians-do you want the gig or don’t you?
Yep, playing too fast and losing it. Peter, there’s a couple really good examples of what you’ve pointed out (to my mind), on B. Rings new CD, especially the first track… and then there’s the 4th track. Great whistling, in an energetic way, but not losing it at all.
I don’t really think it’s necessay to try to emulate the blinding speed of “white” boy guitarists who are more interested in becoming legends than anything else. It’s obviously an ego, macho thing anyway, something we definitely need to outgrow.
Ditto for: “Getting back to your blues thing, there are faster players around than Clapton, but somehow he just has the feel (“roots man, roots”!) and that’s why he is a legend in his field…” Clapton having roots? Well, I’m sorry, I don’t think so. If anyone wants blues, listen to the great black blues players… never settle for imitation.
On 2002-10-18 12:09, Pat Cannady wrote:
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old piper, I have to say I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that there’s hoards of ceili dancers who prefer faster-than-necessary tempos to hide their lousy footwork. If dancers are going to point fingers at musicians for not being able to play fast enough, the argument can be turned right around, because many of them can’t dance properly at any tempo. I guess it’s a problem of fiscal necessity for musicians-do you want the gig or don’t you?
What’s the risk Pat? I love grumpy old pipers. I wish there were more grumpy old pipers. I’d like to see a few grumpy young ones as well. But I still don’t get the ‘age’ thing here. Are there more bad dancers now than there used to be? I’m not hearing anybody say that the music is more exciting now. Everybody seems to be saying: we do it because we’re forced to. So, presumably, in the past, musicians weren’t forced to. So, what’s changed?
I love playing anglo concertina. I love the sound. I love the way I can mimic the use of regulators in uilleann piping. But most of all, I love the way it forces me to forget about speed and flashy ornamentation and search for the soul of the tune. Nice to know I’m not alone.
[ This Message was edited by: Wombat on 2002-10-19 05:33 ]
Ditto for: “Getting back to your blues thing, there are faster players around than Clapton, but somehow he just has the feel (“roots man, roots”!) and that’s why he is a legend in his field…” Clapton having roots? Well, I’m sorry, I don’t think so. If anyone wants blues, listen to the great black blues players… never settle for imitation.
That is a rant, sorry.
\
No need to apologise for rants Elbogo, unless you’re Serpent of course. You’re on the right thread for rants. I don’t quite agree with your views about Clapton, even though he wasn’t the sort of blues guy I had in mind. B.B. King, Freddy King and, if you want a white guy, the young Peter Green were musicians whose taste I sought to emulate. I also had in mind soul and funk guitarists whose motto was ‘less is more’. But I do think that Clapton payed his dues, albeit after he was famous, and he certainly got to the point where he could play rhythm behind someone else or just lay back and find a groove.
