This is a strange question. Let me state that I am currently going through a time where I am learning that the apparent simplicity of something turns out to be more and more difficult. My teacher (not in music) was telling us that his daughter was talking about her music instructor and said “to practice the hard parts” to which she said “Oh, the fast parts!” and the instructor said, “No, the slow parts are the hard parts.”
Have any of you had a tune that seemed beautiful and simple, but that the ability of playing the piece just keep getting harder the more you play it? The more you play it now the more you realize the faults in your playing? Is their a simple tune that is still pushing your abilities?
Yes, because as your playing gets better, often your listening gets better too and you start hearing all that the good players are doing with tunes you might think are simple otherwise.
Geehan’s Reel has a very simple melodic profile, starting on a quarter note G and coming to rest on the same note a measure later and more. The Gs are in effect what would be considered a “pedal” in other types of music. But when you listen to masters play it, you realize they are doing subtle rolls on those Gs. If you imitate a fiddle, you find yourself not having space to breathe without shortening one somewhere (which is okay, but once you hear how cool the ornaments are, you want to do them). You may think a reel with a more intricate melody is harder but they kind of equal out as you refine your ornaments.
Many who have joined the Forum over the years start off feeling like they can get Irish music sorta quickly because the melodies don’t modulate and have regular rhythmic patterns and such compared to classical or other kinds of music. And, the whistle produces melodies so easily. Then you find the “devil in the details” and are humbled.
What is a fast part and what is a slow part? I’ve been to sessions and I’ve heard trad music for a while and I’ve yet (Tommy Potts) to hear good people speed up and slow down in a tune.
I’ve never heard someone say “Get ready the fast part is coming!” (never post when az is in the room)
By way of example for me, the G sharps in the second part of Tommy Peeples Jig and finding a place to breathe in the last part of The Musical Priest without taking away from the beautiful flow of that tune.
Weeks sort of said this, but I’ll say it a little differently. The music SHOULD get harder because as you improve, you should be setting your sights higher. My initial goal was to be a mediocre player, now I want to be damn good. I’ve got my own sound, now I want my own style.
One piece that I thought was damn simple when I first learned it, but has become more difficult with time is Hag at the Churn. I’m just not satisfied with the lengths I’m able to give some phrases, nor with my ability to mix up some of the breathing spots.
Interesting thread - and, as several have said, it comes from both being able to hear more and setting your sights higher.
I agree with chas - at first I would have been happy just being a mediocre player, as long as I could play the music. And I would have been thrilled to know that I would be able to play as well as I do now.
But after a couple of years experience, it’s amazing how much more I pick up when I listen to good players (I expect that there’s still a lot there I’m not picking up, too). And along with being able to hear the subtleties comes the need to play them.
It can get frustrating when you know what you want to do, and mess it up with faulty timing, poor breath control, or out-and-out flubs. Tunes that you were at first just proud you could play at all (and equally proud you could memorize) now embarass you because you don’t just want to play it - you want to play it well. And all the beginner mistakes you didn’t even notice before make you wince,
I’ve actually slowed up adding new tunes (from 1-2 a week to 1 every 2-3 weeks) because I’m spending so much time trying to polish the older pieces that I thought I’d mastered. Not every tune - just the ones that I like enough to want to play more often, though the extra work I’m putting in helps them all.
Out of the 60-70 tunes I’ve committed to memory, there’s probably 20 I almost never play because I don’t much care for them (some of the tunes from the Bill Ochs primer in particular - there are some real gems there, but a few whose main value seemed to be introducing a new note or technique). Of the remainder, I’m actually happy with, perhaps, half. But the remainder - 20 or 30 tunes that I really like - seem to offer almost limitless possibilities for improvement. Mind you, I’m playing them all a lot better than I did when I first learned them - but my goals have changed from “play them at least halfway competently” to “play them well”. It may be unlikely my whistling will ever have the fluidity of Catherine MacEvoy on flute or the seemingly effortless ease of Ronan Browne on pipes, but that’s the goal I’m trying to reach.
I went back to one of the first songs that I wanted to play after forgetting it for a while. “The Girl I Left Behind Me” It is amazing how many bad habits I was able to find in that old song. It is like the last few years have stood still for that song.
MurphyStout
What is a fast part and what is a slow part?
As for her question, she is learning the piano and was referring to the sixteenth notes as the fast part and the whole notes as the slow parts. Not proper terminology, but I was hoping to illustrate that as we improve, things we thought were going to be easy are the hard parts, and sometimes the opposite is true.
Wish I could be more specific, but the story has already been filtered through two people.
I guess I was looking for a song equivalent to a good haiku Short simple, but complex.
I have been playing since this past August, and I have improved, but I can listen to many soundclips posted in various places, and be amazed at how far it would appear I have to go to sound right in my playing. Maybe I’m too hard on myself, but I get in a minimum of 5 minutes and a max of maybe an hour each day. For me, I realize part of my growth is simply developing a feel for my instrument. I come from a piano background, and I have to honestly say, I would rather become a really good whistler, than piano player. You may call me nuts, but there is something about a wind instrument that I desire to learn to play. I am curious how long it takes some of you to get to each “plateau”. I am waiting for the MicFlex I ordered yesterday, and look forward to recording myself to see what I sound like, and share with others to get an accessment of my weak spots. I am also thinking about finding a teacher to at least help me over this hump I feel I’m at.
Since this past August? So, you mean like 5 months?
That’s just a drop in the bucket…
When I first started playing, I took the Bill Ochs tutor to heart and worked for a couple years on just learning to whistle before trying to add any ornamentation or anything. In retrospect, I wish I’d put his tutor down and moved on to listening to ITM sooner.
But even so, I spent two years before I felt pretty comfortable with the instrument, two years or so before felt pretty comfortable with basic ornamentation, and a maybe a couple of years after that before I seriously started trying to do rolls, crans, and all of the other stuff.
I’ve been playing about 10 years now, and still don’t consider myself anything that spectacular. I think learning an instrument is much like kung fu, it’s what you get out of the journey more than measuring how fast you get there.
Yeah, its been 5 months, but without being around other players with more experience, it is difficult to tell how well I am progressing. Being me, I tend to expect too much from myself, but amazingly, I have managed, I think, to be a bit more realistic. The thing is I don’t know how big the chasm is between where I am, and where I want to be. Just by listening, it sounds like a big jump. When I look at sheet music, I know I can learn the notes, but it’s the embellishments and subtle nuances, cuts, taps, rolls, and so on, that give a real Irish flavor to the music. This is one reason I am looking forward to being able to record myself, so maybe I can find a few people willing to listen and give pointers. Plus I am interested to see what I sound like when I’m not playing
Wanderer’s right about the Bill Ochs tutorial being a whistle tutor, not an IrTrad whistle tutor. Still very worthwhile, IMHO, and if you listen to his playing in the last section of the CD he does throw in a fair amount of ornamentation - he just doesn’t show the ornamentation in the book.
My first year I mostly worked from the book - I listened to some IrTrad, but I didn’t really absorb much (listening to Mary Bergin doesn’t help at first, I think - she plays fast enough you need to develop an ear for the music before you can even tell what’s going on).
Even though I haven’t wrung everything from Bill Ochs yet (I’m currently polishing up the Steamboat Hornpipe and about to start on Poll Ha’penny, for the curious) I started working on tunes from other sources, and listening to more IrTrad.
I think the various “Ireland’s Best XXXX” book/CD combos are useful (and I’ve picked up some good tunes there) but the one that gave the biggest boost early on was the Packie Manus Byrne tunes in A Dossan of Heather - great, accessible, tunes, and the only issue I have with the accompanying CD is that it only contains 33 of the 85 tunes in the book (compiled and performed by Jean Duval and our own Stephen Jones). Highly recommended!
Now that I have a better ear, I’m starting to pick things up from CDs. Not just whistle CDs, either - although Micho Russell’s Ireland’s Whistling Ambassador and the Maloney/Potts Tin Whistles are good, I’m actually getting as much, both inspiration and ideas for play, by listening to flutes and pipes.
Two things that have been real eye openners (or ear openners):
Recording what I play.
Playing with others.
Each let me hear the little mistakes in timing or tone that my mind too quickly excuses. Also playing with others forces me to blend my version with there’s. In terms of session development, it forces me to work on a couple of setting for any one tune.
I have a tune list of about 100 tunes on whistle or flute; but, most are not ready for sessions play, because I haven’t mastered them well enough to share control with other players. If I’m completely in control, then I may or may not be able to get through them, but the minute others join in that control becomes shared, and an unexpected note, ornament, or chord usually lose me.
I suspect that getting easier and harder is going to continue to fluctuate through out my learning experience. There are days when my journey seems all down hill on steady ground and other days the journey seems all up hill on loose shale. I agree with Wanderer, enjoying the journey is vital.
I can relate the following from Scottish Country dance. Beginners start off with fast dances, reels and jigs. It is only after they have learned some rudimentary technique in terms of steps, are they taught slower stratshpeys. The same might apply to whistles. A beginner might be about to sound out a slow air, but without decent intonation and phrasing it may be painful to listen to. That said, for ITM, speed is a virtue. Getting there with decent phrasing, intonation is a long journey for some.
I sort-of learn tunes in an unusual way on the whistle. (Unusual for me, anyway, when compared to any other instrument.) I first practice the “bare-bones” melody. Then work in good breathing. Then I start experimenting with adding all the flourishes that really make Itrad music.
Now, I have never seen a session and I play the whistle for my own amusement, so this method works for me. In time, what was a simple, pretty melody becomes an emotion-inspiring piece.
I’m not sure what you would consider a simple tune, but because of the experimenting I do after I learn the melodies, I find I can always change up a song. Sometimes it just depends on my mood.
There are some songs who’s melodies I love, but I may not feel like playing that particular style, so I’ll play around with it and turn it into something else. For example, the last time I played (before my current bought of pneumonia) I didn’t feel like playing slow, but I couldn’t get Foggy Dew out of my head. So, I just started playing with it. I sped it up, changed it’s rhythm a wee bit, and threw in a few more rolls. Now, I don’t think the new little creation I came up with replaces the original, but I was having fun and by doing this I’m constantly learning just what can and cannot be done with a whistle, which helps make other songs better.
Now, don’t even get me started on how much more difficult a song can be for me when I decided to switch to a whistle with a completely different personality than the one I was generally playing a particular song on. Then the experimenting starts all over again.
