I was dicussing piping recordings and good modern day players with a friend and knowledgeble musician recently. We came to the opion that the yard stick on which good young players, and not so young are judged these days is simply on how well they copy the greats. I’m wondering what other peoples’ opion on this is. It seems to me that in order to please the “hierarchy of piping” , playing a note for note 6 part Seamus Ennis hornpipe is the way to go. Or a good copy of Clancy is accepted also. I’m wondering is this the correct attitude. I don’t mean this in anyway to excuse some of the tastless piping that exists which is basically music learned from Cds of big bands etc. However, does merley copying Ennis, Clancy, Reck… brilliantly consitiute a good player. Should there not be something else taking into account, personal expression, lift, life, spirit. Some of these copies can sound nice, but I have yet to hear a piper get the same spirit from pipes that people like Noel Hill, Tony Mc Mahon etc get from there instruments and which the pipers mentioned above also achieved. I would love to hear opinions on this!!
I have never come across this, it’s a ridiculous notion.
Copying the greats is an important part of learning the skills and art of piping, but it is not the benchmark by which pipers should be judged. Of course the ‘greats’ have set a benchmark of various sorts in terms of technique and style, but these vary from ‘great’ to ‘great’.
I was taught very early in the piece that the mark of a good piper was their ability to play the tune with variation and interpretation and so when I listen to pipers the thing that strikes me is how different each piper can make a single tune sound without altering the basic tune itself. It’s the subtle variations which set a tune apart. On first hearing it may sound like a copy of the way a ‘great’ played it, but on subsequent hearings we begin to hear the variations that set it apart. At least, that’s the way I approach it.
Cheers,
DavidG
It seems to me that in any art form—writing, music, painting, etc.—studying and copying great artists might be a way to learn technique and to try out different ways of looking at things. But surely then the artist finds his own voice—I think that can be very hard because that voice has to speak to others—and that is what makes him an artist. A performer who copies someone else slavishly would be said to have a “derivative” style, which is just about the worst thing one could say about an artist of any kind.
That being said, there are many of us who are not artists and who might play an instrument solely for our own personal enjoyment. We might not find our own voice and we might play a tune just as we have found it. That is okay, I think, as long as you know what you are doing and are not deluding yourself—something which is unfortunately quite easy to do.
Edited to say that I am definitely among the non-artist group in case I was sounding pompous.
Eloquently put!
Perfectly right -at least for me
Yup, don’t think I’ll be emulating Clancy or Ennis any time soon. The trouble with access to so many great recordings these days is that we can easily think that were not having fun until we sound like a master player.
I studied the shakuhachi over here for several years.
The first thing my teacher said to me was, “I’m not here to teach you, you are here to steal from me.”
Slavishly copying the teacher is the traditional way of learning in Japan, but, most people end up developing their own style.
Japan was often criticised for its lack of originality because it copied Western technology, and in many cases, improved upon it, but in Japan copying somebody who is better than you was a perfectly normal way to learn.
If you listen to any player who is accused of imitating the greats, I am sure you will soon find many aspects of their playing that are different.
Mukade.
I read somewhere that this is one of the reasons adults have such a rough time persevering with a new instrument (or probably anything). We have, unlike children, a very strong idea of what we want or ought to sound like, and so we are constantly disappointed which leads to frustration and giving up. The thing is it seems as though there are children who come from musically accomplished families who must know they don’t sound like their parents yet they don’t give up. I don’t know.