What The....???

Irish Flute
1

I hate when this happens.

I have a few tunes in my brain/fingers now ~ not a huge stash, mind you, but there are some that I at least know quite well from playing them regularly over the last couple of years.

Well, I do have a great sense of rythmn, if nothing else.

So I have been working on trying to add a few ornaments or variations to some of them.

For example, Battering Ram, is a tune I picked out awhile back.

Do you think I can play it any other way than the way I usually do?!?!?
NOOOOOO

Any time I try to vary it, or add anything other than a few cuts here and there, I completely lose it. Everything goes down the toilet, even my rythmn!

I got John Skelton’s A Few More Tunes, and he plays the Battering Ram just slightly different than how I do it ~ it’s like learning a different tune!

I want to be able to change my tunes around on the fly ! WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?!?!?!

Mary

2

Mary, changing tunes around “on the fly” is, IMO, one of the biggest misconceptions of ITM. 99% of the time, it isn’t really on the fly. Jazz is improvisational – ITM isn’t really.

Now, what I mean by this is that variations of tunes are often 1) learned or taught; specific variations exist for that tune, or were invented by a specific player, which you have heard listening to that or another player play the tune, 2) there are many “typical” variations based on certain pedal-type sections or arpeggios/ornaments/etc. used over specific chords or dotted notes that can be used under similar circumstances from tune to tune. These come off as invented on-the-fly, but they’re really learned variations used deftly under appropriate circumstances and 3) calculated, in that you (personally) invent a certain variation that works with a particular tune and use it discriminantly to alter the tune on a second or third go-round to add something new.
There are also players who, when recording or performing, go out of their way to bring something new to a tune, to make it their own. This, then, becomes a different version, which will turn up as a variations of a common tune, in bits and pieces.

Now, the more you do this sort of thing, the easier it is to do with your old tunes, or even tunes you’ve just learned. So, that said, knowing only a handful of tunes will not really get you the breadth of tune experience to switch and swap melodic inventions “on the fly”. More importantly, I think you’re putting the cart before the horse – it is not that important at this stage to worry so much about inventive improvisation when you only have a handful of tunes down well.

Secondly, when you listen the same tune, in your case a tune you know, and then hear it played by someone like John Skelton, it IS, in many ways, a different tune. I knew about 10 tunes from his CD already, so when I learned a few new ones from his CD, I did not relearn his versions of the ones I already know – I like the way I already play these tunes more.
Now, I did steal a thing or two from him on those tunes that I did like, a “variation” to throw into my version and mix things up a bit. This is the sort of addition that will seem “on the fly”, and awfully inventive to someone else. But wasn’t, really. It’s like Robin Williams riffing on a talk show – do you really think those off-the-cuff jokes haven’t been thought through or used in other, similar situations? What he’s really great at is knowing how and when to use them, how to adapt them on-the-fly to a current situation. That’s a skill, too. But no comic, like any musician, wants to try something they don’t have any idea will work. Not on national TV, anyway. That’s for private practice, small clubs, and very friendly sessions. There, you can bomb, get up and try again.

One thing more important, I think, to try is to play the tune(s) you know, but mess around with the rhythm – give it more swing, give it less, give it a hornpipe feel if it’s a reel, etc. This will allow you to loosen up a bit on your already aquired knowledge so that you’re not so rigid you fall apart when someone else plays the tune a bit differently. Very often, at a session, the group or leader will play a tune you know well, but their rhythmic take on it is completely different, depending on their influences. The notes are usually pretty close to what everyone plays, but a different rhythmic feel can make it sound like a different tune, variations notwithstanding. Getting this ability, to change your feel quickly, is far more important, over the long haul, than knowing a few variations.

Gordon

3

You might try learning some new tunes, adding ornamentation to those and then revisit the old tunes. When I first started playing, I had a handful of tunes that I had learned. When I tried to add ornamentation or change them up, I just couldn’t do it. The way that I had learned them was burned into my head and my fingers. I moved on to new tunes, applying what I had learned about ornamentation and variations to those, then I went back to the old tunes and was able to do it.

4

I don’t think that Gordon was implying that every time one plays a tune it’s identical to the last time you play it.
How ever, what seem to us like one is going out on a limb at full speed comes with a safety net of experience.

5

Thanks for the good, common sense advice. I hadn’t really looked at it that way, I have simply been feeling frustrated. I probably should get out more!

It’s bad in some ways, I suppose, when one’s only playing influences are those of recorded geniuses. They make everything sound so easy ~ I want to do that, too :slight_smile:

Mary

6

Didn’t I just see a post from Peter disagreeing with Gordon? Was I hallucinating?

Well I disagree, although only slightly. I think we do make up variations on the fly but the scope for doing this tastefully and successfully is much smaller than it is for jazz improvisation. The knowledge of tunes and of your instrument that are required are much the same though; you need to be able to play what you hear in your head without having to work it out slowly. Learning different versions of the same tune, or learning a version which contains numerous variations, gives you a feel for what others have thought will work. You then have to analyse them, not necessarily consciously, and just develop the skills you extract as habits.

The best way to acquire this is to have grown up in the tradition. The second best way is to have come from a jazz background so you have the ear skills and dexterity, if not the taste, before you start. The only other way I can think of is to just practice long and hard until it begins to come. Jazz musicans have to learn cliches and other peoples solos to start with before they can improvise. They first learn a vocabulary, then use it in a fairly inflexible way and finally they transcend cliche and can play what they hear if they are good enough.

7

<<Didn’t I just see a post from Peter disagreeing with Gordon? Was I <<hallucinating?

funny - my post was disagreeing with your hallucination!
wombat - are you and I smoking the same stuff? :laughing:

8

Wombat – I think you slightly misunderstood what I’d said, re jazz and improvisation (or I wasn’t as clear as I should have been) but otherwise I don’t think we’re in particular disagreement. As for Peter disagreeing and then vanishing, I think eilam and you were hallucinating, as I made such great sense it’s unlikely anyone could have posted a truly opposing viewpoint. :wink:

I play, and have played, lead guitar most of my life, before flute and ITM, most of which is/was improvisational, rock, not jazz, but the idea’s the same. The key difference between an improvised solo, in rock, jazz, etc., and improvisation in ITM is that I am (on guitar) creating melodies around a chord or bass structure, and I’m not (during the improvised solo) limited to the melodic or rhythmic confines of any particular tune. I’m not reinventing the wheel there, either, in terms of scales and patterns, but I am creating melodic passages that will (most likely) not be heard the next time I solo, or ever again. I am not playing a variation of a tune, or an embellishment – I do that during a song, of course, diddling like Hendrix on and between chords, but that is not real improvisation. That’s embellishing, being fancy, etc. It’s a skill, it takes taste and timing to do it right, on-the-fly, et al, but it’s not really improvising. It’s just having fun with the structure.

In Irish music, the added triplet, chordal pattern, what have you, has to be worked into a given tune and remain true to the tune in order to return to it, like a singer adding personal touches to a well-known song. What Mary seems concerned about was the embellishments, and the learned variations that come and go and alter the tune briefly, but are still within the tune itself. I feel (and the missing Peter may disagree) that this is not true improvisation. We can all split hairs as to whether an “improvised” note, triplet, rhythmic stutter, etc. are, in fact, improvisations or just variations, or simply playing loose and having fun with a melody. All this (I have no argument) is done in ITM, and some more imaginatively than others.

My main point, to her, was not to worry so much about this. Knowing the tune very well and being flexible with its many possible interpretations is more important than going off on new variations and embellishments. Well-versed ITM players know how to embellish a tune because they know the tune inside and out and they know what variations and embellishments will work. They are doing what comes naturally to a standard tune, in their own personal way, after learning a ton of other such tunes.

If what I’ve said was interpreted to mean that I believe that there’s no ideas or creativity done “on-the-fly”, I was then not clear: Of course there is. But the patterns and variations are not improvisational wizardry, they’re tried and true embellishments, learned passages, mixed and matched, and – this is the part that good players do best – all are done with creative and tasteful discretion. An embellishment or variation can be as simple as leaving out a note or two in the right spot, not just adding stuff. Knowing how or when to do that best is both creative and (often) inspired, and generally unplanned and off the cuff.

All arguments, of course, are valid. You may disagree, and then disappear.
:smiling_imp:
Gordon

9

The kind of full blown improvisation that
Gordon mentions is one of my passions,
and one of my frustrations with ITM
is that there isn’t much room for it–
a bit like trying to ad lib in Iambic pentameter.

I play in an acoustic jam some nights
where we do blues, rock, country,
bluegrass and ITM; that’s really fun.
I enjoy playing the flute improvisationally
in the background to support a tune
that’s being played on other instruments, too.

Hey, wait a minute, I’m dissapearin

10

Yes, the disappearing Jim gets what I mean, with no lack of appreciation for the versatile Irish players who do, in fact, offer many creative interpretations of tunes. Cathal McConnell once showed me a version of the Wise Maid – said he played it that way 'cuz the usual way was boring to him at this point in his life. My problem was that I didn’t really recognize his version as the Wise Maid. But it was a version, and not an improvisation, although he is one of the best there is when it comes to bending a tune into new shapes, and probably comes closer than most to genuine improvisation when he really gets going.
When I first started playing Irish music, I was very excited at the idea of the improvisations I’d heard about in ITM; like Jim, it was what I was doing on flute first, blues and Tull rip-offs. I was soon to learn that ITM improvs weren’t the same sort of improvisation I thought was meant, and that I did, in fact, need to learn a few hundred tunes and not fake them. I wasn’t disappointed, mind – I actually tend to stay closer to the tunes when I play ITM than many others do. Some players, particularly the younger set, have moved what I’d call variations to an almost freeform art, but at the heart of it, they’re still playing tunes, not making them up on the spot.
Gordon

11

All of this is very sensible.

12

Gordon, you’re right that we don’t disagree; certainly not on anything important. It’s more just a matter of where you place the emphasis. I come from much the same playing background—blues, jazz and rock—and guitar is still my first instrument and saxophone was my second.

Due in part to my background and in part interest, I’d also been listening to moderately authentic Scottish and Irish music most of my life and knew quite a bit about the rules before I decided it was time to start playing in those styles, as best I can. I play jazz and blues on whistle, and will on flute when I’m good enough, and improvise in the way I have all my musical life, which is nearly all my life. I too am very careful not to stray too far when playing ITM, but I can’t resist very subtle ornaments although I try not to make them prominent. My rule of thumb: when in doubt, don’t. Funny, on concertina I can play by ear but I can’t yet improvise, I can only play ITM.

In jazz there are two kinds of improvisation on chordal tunes. One is melodic, you play melody and look for variations, countermelodies and the like. Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk were masters of this style. The other is chordally based; you run the changes and think scales and arpeggios a great deal. John Coltrane in his early to mid-period was a master of this style. I think most rock falls into the second category. Blues can fall into either. ITM variation I think isn’t all that far from the first, done in a very conservative way. It’s a long way removed from the second though.

13

Yep.
I admit I’m cutting a fine, semantic line when I use words like improvisation, variations, etc. in order to differentiate between what is or is not one or the other – I realize that one can just as easily argue that any deviation is improvised, and they wouldn’t really be wrong. I guess it’s just that when I say “improvised”, on guitar or flute, I mean the invention of melodies and rhythms as I go, as opposed to what’s done in ITM, which is the varying (or not varying) of pre-written segments. This does happen all the time in jazz and rock, too – if you’re playing a pre-written melody, whether it’s the opening slide solo to Free Bird, or you’re playing Take the A Train, at some point, like ITM, you’d better touch on the melody. But then there are the improvised solos, where spontaneous invention is the rule; very different from ITM.
So Jim’s iambic pentameter comment is a good one; you can change any word you want, but you are always restricted by the rhythm and form, if not the meaning of the words themselves. ITM, if nothing else, is a celebration of structure and form, even with the occasional exception that makes the rule. The variations need to support the form, not deviate from it.
Gordon

14

Sometimes when I listen to Paddy Keenan especially, I get the impression that he’s improvising or almost improvising, but within the conventions. He seems to be pushing the rules to the limit, but not breaking them. I think this might be a travelling piper thing—I wish we had more Johnny Doran to go by. Not long ago I was listening to Keenan’s version of ‘Out on the Ocean’ which went on and on with no chorus played the same way twice but no sense of any of it being calculated. I just found the whole thing spellbinding and it dawned on me just how deep your understanding of the tradition would have to be to play like that.

15

Deep, or willfully disobedient; no one will, or should, question Paddy Keenan, and I agree that he does stuff with a tune most of us only dream about. But, I think if I could pull that off, there’d be a lot of folks saying I had no idea what I was doing, or, if I did it well, they’d say, hey, that’s good, but it’s not Irish! Paddy, and others like him, they can break the rules and prove me wrong any day of the week.

I think we’ve commandeered this thread, Wombat…

Gordon