What to listen for...

Trad Irish Music
21

But one thing - it reminds me of poetry, where the fixed rhyme and meter have to be followed, but are only some kind of > base skeleton or canvas, on which the actual art happens> .

Crucial point that should be repeated. Rules are guidelines and shouldn’t be restrictive. But, you’ve got to know the rules before you decide to break them. Otherwise, you’ve got chaos. I don’t want to blather on about structure anymore. The next step is examples and that’s work. I’ll try to put some visuals together before too long. Here’s a task to try:
Transcribe a tune recording. Transcribe note for note through several repeats. Line up the transcription lines so there are 4 bars per line. Take a look. Some interesting patterns will emerge and some insight into the basic structural elements of tunes. If you don’t have any transcriptions on hand and want a short cut, take an abc file and line up the bars as above and just look at that. For a beginner, it’s instructive.
Tony

22

I’ve been mulling over the responses to the question I posed for several weeks now, trying to synthesize what’s been said so eloquently and sometimes poetically. While recognizing that ITM is, as Brad says, a “deep, deep pool,” and that this synthesis is just preliminary, here’s what I’ve taken so far from the discussion.

  1. What to listen for is inextricably linked to how to listen. This seems to sum up the initial how-to part:
  • *listen passively, subconsciously, while painting if possible :wink:
    *for picking up the elements of ITM, listen to solo, unaccompanied recordings of great players
    *listen to several different versions of the same tune done by great players
    *after many repetitions, let whatever speaks to you speak to you
    *the parts that speak to you are the “what to listen for,” at least for now

  1. Once you’ve identified the parts that speak to you, you can name and analyze them or just go and do likewise, or just enjoy them.

  2. If you name them, you can do so descriptively (wild and sweet, driving and lilting) or analytically, or both, or in some other way.

  3. If you name them analytically, many of the things you find will represent symmetries or variations from symmetry; patterns and expectations or variations from them.

  4. Active listening—trying to put yourself in the performer’s shoes to understand the note-to-note choices—will yield both understanding and a sense of fellowship, which seems to me an ingredient in the ITM listening experience that is worth trying to articulate. Comparing different players’ versions of the same tune is a great way to understand the range of choices.

  5. Learning to play a tune and making conscious, deliberate choices will deepen the listening experience. Learning a few tunes in depth will be more productive than learning many tunes superficially. Transcribing them is a good tool for learning.

  6. The process is cumulative and the parts that speak to you as you become more and more familiar with the tradition will change as you gradually internalize characteristics.

Regarding the “to analyze or not to analyze” question, I’m with Aaron on this one, I think. All the analysis I did as a music theory major did not interfere with my listening; it seemed to me, in fact, to deepen it. It doesn’t matter, of course, if you call that thing that Brahms often does that transports me to another dimension by its musical name (hemiola) or just describe it (that time stretching thing), but it does help, it seems to me, to understand what it is: regrouping rhythmic groups of three into twos (that is, in a jig, for example, placing the downbeat on beats 1, 3, and 5 in a 6/8 time signature instead of the expected 1 and 4). Done only now and then, its effect is like opening the gates of heaven, at least to me, and knowing precisely what happens doesn’t make the open gates seem any less glorious. For the learning it would provide me, I would love to write a book articulating all the specific things experienced listeners and players hear and produce in ITM in all those categories I initially mentioned (melody, rhythm, harmony), and more; whether that’s a book I’d like to read, on the other hand, may be the better question to ask.

Thanks to all for your contributions. This is in no way meant to close the book (so to speak); just to try to pull together the ideas that have surfaced from the deep pool so far.

Carol

23

A footnote:

It occurred to me as I re-read the first few items in my summary that these steps could apply equally to classical music, so something must be wrong. :confused: Then it occurred to me that one of the things that distinguishes classical music from ITM or “folk” music more generally is the performer’s role in creating the work: although classical performers certainly do interpret the music, they have far less latitude than ITM players in what they play, dependent as they are on the written score. This gets at another discussion currently underway on this board, related to preserving the tradition, and, buying myself a little more Inuit time first, I’ll try to jump into that thread too, especially on the idea of musical fellowship.

Carol

24

I often think of traditional Irish music in this sense as lying on a continuum between classical music and jazz. There’s not as much melodic freedom as in jazz – in most cases (with some exceptions like Tommy Potts) Irish musicians try to keep the tune recognizeable as they go through their variations, and you also don’t have much freedom with rhythm. But in general there’s much more room for interpretation and variation in Irish music than in classical.

I think this blend of freedom and constraint – this “limited freedom” if you will – can lead to tremendous creativity. Removing all constraints (which John Cage did in his however many minutes of silence) can lead to boring music, as does imposing too many strict rules and standards. Irish music strikes a great balance in this regard: there’s enough freedom for variation and creativity, but enough constraints to force the musician to really work at it. To me, Irish musicians who work within the rules tend to produce music that is more creative and exciting than those who take the easy way out and ignore all constraints.

25

Carol, I think you have an beginning outline for a book! The steps that you mention could be applied to anything you want to learn well, well enough to make music or art or a quilt.

Brad, I agree with your view on ITM (folk music) being a continuum not so much between classical and jazz but of itself. From its beginnings in the fog of history, to what we see and hear today e.g Martin Hayes’s fiddle playing on the Lonesome touch album, to the orchestrated symphonic pieces of Paddy Maloney, each try to keep the piece recognizeable but bringing something totally different in experience.

Art, any art is about limits — well don’t tell John Gage! As a painter I am limited always by the edge of the canvas, what paint can do and not do. I may work with a very limited pallette and a very structured idea. But with those confines great works of art have been done - not necessarilly by me :smiley:

Talking about limits — I absolutely love the bodhran (of all ITM instruments, it is the most limited one) and it has only been in the last two years (out of ten) that I am now understanding what I can do on it besides just keeping time. And it has open areas of expression that I could not have conceived nor could the instrument, five years ago. So when I have a problem learning a tune on the whistle or flute, I turn to the bodhran and play along with the tune until my arms are going to drop or until I hear the foundation of the tune

Irish music also strikes a great balance in me Brad, from airs to the reels and everything in between, I find more than enough to express myself within that range to want to live several lives.

MarkB

26

Hi Mark,

I like all these analogies between music and other art forms. Early on in this thread, herbivore12 used a science analogy as well, so I’ll offer another here.

In the case of the snippet that I quoted above from your post, the continuum you’re talking about implies a sort of evolution – that Irish music has evolved “from its beginnings in the fog of history” to what we hear today from Martin Hayes or Paddy Moloney. Yes, there’s been evolution in Irish music, but it hasn’t been linear. Many people misinterpret the evolution of species to be something that began with protozoa and culminated in humans – the so-called “Great Chain of Being” model. But biologists have shown that evolution follows a branching, diverging route, more like offshoots on a tree (the “Tree of Life” model). Humans are no more “evolved” than amoebas – they’re just on separate branches of the same tree.

It’s the same with Irish music. There are recent offshoots that produced groups like Planxty, the Bothy Band, and Lunasa, other offshoots that produced The Chieftains, and others that have produced purely commercial “Celtic” music. But there are other branches, strong and sturdy, that go way back. You can still hear plenty of musicians today playing Irish traditional music the way it was played before Planxty. I have musician friends in America, Canada, and Ireland who are blissfully unaware of the music of Lunasa, Solas, Dervish, or any of the other “supergroups” that are so popular today.

As an aside, I think that a lot of the people who claim that “the tradition in jeopardy” have a more linear view of evolution; they see Irish music as something that started simply and from the earth but now has evolved to a stage production with synthesizers and digeridoos. But it really isn’t that way.

27

Hi Brad

I like your thoughts, and I guess that my example isn’t necessarilly what I ment myself, about evolution and what is traditional. Dah!

If I look to the field that I know better than music which is the visual arts and I know its history then your thoughts whole true for it also. Oil pigments were revolutionary, the use of canvas was revolutionary, the use of a camera to record images to use later in the studio was revolutionary.

Your analogy about evolution branching out more like a tree than a dead reckoning linear path is more to the point and more correct. I’m not a “pure drop,” traditionalist. Just look at the instrument that I like to play the most — the bodhran! It didn’t start coming into regular play in ITM until the 1950’s. The bango, bouzouki, mandolin, guitar, the piano, and the guitar (electric and accoustic) are all instruments introduced to “the music,” over the years. Which gives a whole new meaning or interpretation to the music and with that, different sensibilities and influences come with it.

To get back to my last thought and why I return to the bodhran when I am having trouble learning a tune, well it came to me in the quiet of this morning and why I return to bodhran. In medieval egg tempera painting, glazing was the techique used. The underpainting of all your dark shadows and your light or white areas had to be laid out first before any colour could be added. Then each layer of colour was applied over top of the underpainting in thin layers, until the desire idea was reached.

So that gets me back to Carol’s first question on what to listen for. I listen first to the underlying structure – the bones of the tune and with each listening build the layers that I think I hear, with the ornamention being the final layer of gold gilding on the image.

MarkB

28

The following story isn’t going to enhance anybody’s understanding of or research into ITM, but I fell a sudden need to tell it:

I played low brass instruments in several Southern California orchestras when I was in college, and for a couple years thereafter. One night, I was with one of them, rehearsing a piece – I forget which – that featured several hemiolas. The conductor, in apparent ecstasy as he lead us through the piece, suddenly exclaimed, “Feeeeeel the hemiola!”, very loudly, in the middle of the piece. That exclamation caused me to laugh uncontrollably, resulting in a weird burst of noise from my tuba, totally destroying the feel of the hemiola. Thank goodness it was rehearsal, and not at a concert.

It just sounded so. . .anatomical, maybe?

Anyway, much as I love analysis, here’s what the poet Billy Collins has to say about over-analysis of art:

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Best,

Aaron

29

LOL, Aaron! I always have to think twice before saying that word–not that I say it all that often–to be sure I don’t say hematoma.

Lovely poem. Unfortunately too often kids learn that hose treatment in school, because, for goodness sake, you can assess that with multiple choice.

Brad: What a useful way to think about the developments in ITM. Thanks for that.

And Mark: Thanks for another vivid metaphor from the visual arts! Interesting to me that although you can think of those various elements as layers, they end up being tightly interwoven, it seems to me.

Carol

30

I think Billy Collins sat in during some of my college English classes. Nice poem, Carol.

Jef

31

Thanks to Aaron for posting that poem.

C

32

Aw, it’s okay if people mistake me for you on the board. I doubt it’d happen in real life, since I’m a big tall guy with a (neatly trimmed) beard. . .

Here’s another Collins poem on the interpretation of art (poetry, again, but perhaps apropos of the ongoing discussions in this and other threads in this forum). I like the way Colins makes his points with such humor, and the Moebius-strip quality of this self-referential poem:

Workshop

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title.
It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now
so immediately the poem has my attention,
like the ancient mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

And I like the first couple of stanzas,
the way they establish this mode of self-pointing
that runs through the whole poem
and tells us that words are food thrown down
on the ground for other words to eat.
I can almost taste the tail of the snake
in its own mouth,
if you know what I mean.

But what I’m not sure about is the voice
which sounds in places very casual, very blue jeans,
but other times seems standoffish,
professorial in the worst sense of the word
like the poem is blowing pipe smoke in my face.
But maybe that’s just what it wants to do.

What I did find engaging were the middle stanzas,
especially the fourth one.
I like the image of clouds flying like lozenges
which gives me a very clear picture.
And I really like how this drawbridge operator
just appears out of the blue
with his feet up on the iron railing
and his fishing pole jigging – I like jigging –
a hook in the slow industrial canal below.
I love slow industrial canal below. All those l’s.

Maybe it’s just me,
but the next stanza is where I start to have a problem.
I mean how can the evening bump into the stars?
And what’s an obbligato of snow?
Also, I roam the decaffeinated streets.
At that point I’m lost. I need help.

The other thing that throws me off,
and maybe this is just me,
is the way the scene keeps shifting around.
First, we’re in this big aerodrome
and the speaker is inspecting this row of dirigibles,
which makes me think this could be a dream.
Then he takes us into his garden,
the part with the dahlias and the coiling hose –
though that’s nice, the coiling hose –
but then I am not sure where we’re supposed to be.
The rain and the mint green light,
that makes it feel outdoors, but what about this wallpaper?
Or is it a kind of indoor cemetery?
There’s something about death going on here.

In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here
is really two poems, or three, or four,
or possibly none.

But then there’s that last stanza, my favorite.
This is where the poem wins me back,
especially the lines spoken in the voice of the mouse.
I mean we’ve all seen these images in cartoons before,
but I still love the details he uses
when he describes where he lives.
The perfect little arch of an entrance in the baseboard,
the bed made out of a curled-back can,
the spool of thread for a table.
I start thinking about how hard the mouse had to work
night after night collecting all these things
while the people in the house were fast asleep,
and that gives me a very strong feeling,
a very powerful sense of something.
But I don’t know if anyone else was feeling that.
Maybe that was just me.
Maybe that’s just the way I read it.

33

Right. My beard’s kinda messy.

I liked “Workshop”. What fun!

Carol

34

So that was you at the sideshow!

My whole life is sort of a circus. . .

35

A interesting topic, and lots of good insites.

Has anyone mentioned how enjoyable and overwhelming listening can be? It reminds me of moments at art school, with its classical training, when a teacher would have us look at an object or model and then draw from memory. I would bore visual holes into my subject with intense staring, but still found it had to recall what I saw. Sight isn’t really seeing, hearing really isn’t listening.
I meditate from time to time(when my job isn’t driving me into fits of outrage) :tantrum: and I really enjoy it. It’s absolutly wonderful to turn the mind from thinking(beta) to sensing(alpha), and with that transition come clear visual and aural sight.
I’ve been wanting to sit down and meditate to Irish Trad . . . formal sitting, so I could report any observations on the board. I’ll put myself to the test to see if I can pull more details out of what I’m hearing.

36

Umm . . . I fell asleep.

Sorry.

On the other hand, it was pretty cool . . . listening to Natalie Macmaster, and visualizing her playing as one long ribbon that changed from red to blue and flowed and dove and danced. In fact, I found I enjoyed the first four songs more than I ever have. But it was far more hypnotic than I thought it would be and before I knew it, I was slumping over.
I think this could be more useful if done in the morning or midday, as evening meditations usually prepare me for sleep.

37

You know MKash, there’s an Irish saying about the three marks of a good harper (and, I imagine, other musicians too, by extension): a tune to make you laugh, a tune to make you cry, and a tune to make you sleep.

38

Well, in an effort to add a more practical element to this thread…I think what Carol was asking was not necesarrily what to listen for, but what goes into the playing of a tune; obviously, without knowing this, it’s impossible to achieve andy level of excellency.

Before I launch into my discourse, let me say that everything I’m about to say is pretty much based on my own observations. I could easily be wrong in my conclusions, and I hope that those with enough experience to know will tell me so, so that others will not be mislead and for my own benefeit.

Also, I expect that much of this is old hat, pretty basic stuff for most of you. However, I’m going to say it anyway in the hope that I might help someone in their quest to play better music.

Okay; as I see it, there are two basic elements to Irish music, both contained within the melody. They are rhythm and interpretation.

Rhythm is the element, obviously, which makes Irish foot tapping music. To my ears, there are three elements to it.

  1. Pulse. Emphasis of notes using dynamics, i.e., playing a note louder using different methods depending on the instrument. On whistle and flute, this can be done with tonguing, glottals, or just a very straightforward “push” of air. On fiddle, I think that change of bow direction can be used to create pulse; bow pressure can also be used to accomplish pulse. Pulse can be as exaggerated or as subtle as the player wants it; for an example in the realm of flute players, Harry Bradley is about the ultimate in brash pulsiness; on the other end of the scale, you could look at the Eamonn Cotter cut on the WFO CD(not his solo album), or Micho Russell, or June Ni Chormaic. Obviously there is a huge range of variation between the extremes, and there are players who seemingly don’t even use pulse.

  2. Swing. A sort of syncopation; I’ve heard this described as heavy-light pairs in the case of reels; it refers to holding the first of every two notes a little longer than the second. In jigs it would mean holding the first note of every triplet a little longer than the rest. Note that swing, like pulse, can be as subtle or exaggerated as wanted(no matter the rhythm type), so there are a tons of different sorts of “swings”.

  3. Here’s an element which I’m far less sure about; it consists of cutting the tune into usually symmetrical blocks via the use of small, even microscopic spaces. To my untrained ears, it sounds like these little blocks are often used to lay down a syncopated rhythm on top of the rhythm created via pulse, thus creating a more complex, bouncy rhythm. I think the New York box player James Keane uses this technique a lot. However, I could be completely off on this. Really, it’s a realm I don’t understand well. Also, I think these little blocks can be used with the beat, to create a very soft pulse on the downbeat; I believe that they use this in Galway playing. Really, though, I’m not sure.

Rhythm is quite fascinating to study, and in my opinion, is the hardest part of traditional music to get very good at. With those three different elements, the number of rhythms that can be created are seemingly infinite. Also, note that good musicians will constantly be varying their rhythm, keeping things interesting.

Enough about rhythm. On to melodic interpretation.

Melodic interpretation seems to have several different elements; first there’s basic interpretation of the melody.

What are the “interesting” parts of the tune, where should the energy go? Which are the notes that really hurt, you know, those ones that really sing? The ones that resolve it all, and bring the tune together…knowing this is necesarry for playing basic melody; I’m not knowledgable enough to explain why, I’m afraid; I can hear why in my head, but to put it in words is so hard…maybe otherwise the tunes sound dead? I dunno.

Next, what are the overall, big phrases? These big phrases decide how one part of a tune changes into another. I like to listen to Kevin Crawford for this; not sure why. He sweeps up the top of a phrase beautifully, and creates this feel of hills and valleys that I find quite appealing.

Rhythm is interesting in that the listener doesn’t need to be familiar with the genre to appreciate it. That’s not the case for melodic variations. The listener has to be previously familiar with a melody for melodic variations to have any meaning.

Variations can be either extremely subtle or ridiculously obvious. Good players will variate the melody every time, some more than others. I really can’t expand on this further without doing a transcription or something. Variations aren’t really very hard to hear when you’re listening for them; when listening to a performance of a tune, listen carefully the first time through, and then each following time through, try to hear what is done differently. The insights gained from this can be quite revealing. There are different types of variations, I suppose, some involve actually playing notes, others involve articulating the same notes differently…woah, I’m getting off on a tangent from which I may never be able to return without scrapping everything I’ve written so far, so I’m stopping that thought right there.

Since Irish music is melody driven, the line between rhythm and melody is fuzzy, and the two overlap frequently; for instance, if I were to play a roll on the first G of The Banshee, and then the second time through play a quarter note G seperated from an eighth note G by a cut, that would be a rhythmic variation; however, it also adds a subtle difference to how the melody sounds. So, you see, the rhythm is driven by the melody. Because of this, the two overlap constantly.

The problem with most whistle tutor books these days is that they teach you ornamentation(which is really just one method of articluation) without teaching you any of the elements I mention above, thus leaving you with no idea how to use the techniques. All articulation is meant to be used to create swing, or pulse, or mark a phrase, or accent an interesting note, or vary rhythm, etc; without a basis in that, the articulation is there for it’s own sake, and will fight the melody, creating an undesirable, unmusical effect.

Even as I wrote this, I started to see more things I could say, and details which I really ought to flesh out and talk about. But, if I do that, I’ll think of something else, which will make me think of something else which I really ought to say, and so on, and I could be here typing all night…

Well, I hope I’ve helped someone by posting this. Please be aware that I’m not trying to be exhaustive, that’s downright impossible when it comes to this music…once again, this is pretty much the product of my own observations and late nights on chat talking with Eldarion…if someone disagrees with something I say, please, go ahead, I’m not very attached to my theories. At least, not most of them. :wink:

39

What you write makes a lot of sense, Nate. I’m not sure if I’ve quite understood your point 3, but it sounds like the phrasing issue which is probably the thing that causes most of the traditionalist reaction against supporters of the black dots. I would find it much easier to convince classically-trained glued-to-the-page non-Irish learners about the phrasing of Irish tunes if the notes were beamed together in a way which gave some signals about the phrasing.

40

Well, but you would rule out all the other (non-written) ways to phrase the tune then. And, really, classically trained musicians should be very familar with the idea of variable phrasing not obvious from notation.

Nate, thanks for your observations! I’d call 3. “micro-phrasing” as opposed to the larger phrases you describe further down. I’m not sure it can be described in words, or completely analyzed, it’s where musical / stylistic / ITM instinct rules.

Sonja