I need to choose classes for a ‘celtic college’ programmme this summer. There are both beginner and intermediate classes. I don;t want to end up over my head in intermediate or in something too easy in beginner, so I need to sort of find out where I stand. I am not a rank beginner, but I wonder if I would still be considered a beginner in the larger picture.
I have been playing and taking lessons since last September. Some tunes I am playing right now include: Kesh Jig, Maggie in the Wood, Sally Gardens, The Wind That Shakes the Barley and a number of slow airs. I can play these fluently but not with great speed. I can learn a tune by ear fairly easily if I know it to begin with, but I cannot yet play a new tune by ear just from listening to it a couple of times. I can read music.
Also, if anyone knows of these instructors that would help too: Troy Bannon, Joe Grady, Janice Crew.
My guess would be you are intermediate. I would imagine the beginner classes are geared to people who have never touched the whistle and have no idea what the fingerings are, or about the second octave etc.
How do you know the classes? I looked for a current web page for the College yesterday but only found one for 2001. I signed up for a newsletter, online presumably, but didn’t get anything yet. If you know of a current web page would you send it to me? skendal@rogers.com
I think I’d go for intermediate if I were you but you can talk to people at the orientation meeting and change your mind and go to beginner. It’s not like it’s written in stone if you indicate intermediate to begin with. You’ll find it’s pretty informal. I know Janice somewhat-not really well. I don’t know what her approach to teaching is. She’s probably doing beginner. I don’t know the others you mentioned.
Steve
Never mind. I checked again just now and found the new web page. Either I missed it yesterday or they just put it up.
[ This Message was edited by: SteveK on 2002-04-23 12:24 ]
Lizzie, you might want to check out this old thread, which has a couple of diligently researched skill grading rubrics by Lee and myself. This might help you decide which class you should take. Hope this helps.
For those of you who didn’t get to the 4th page of the topic WyomingBadger made reference to, I’ve copied my post here:
On 2001-08-28 16:51, LeeMarsh wrote:
The Official Lee Marsh “How Good Are You?” Rating System,
For me playing whistle, or any other instrument, is about enjoying the music, so I here is a scale based on that as the primary criteria.
Hearing impaired friend gets a kick out of your playing. He signs that the facial expressions of the audience has advance anatomical research by expanding the known limits of facial muscle constrictions.
The same hearing impaired friend no longer enjoys your playing. He’s tired of ducking the projectiles being launched at you and can’t find a place thats out of the line of fire. If it seems that level 2 sounds worse than level 1, your right, like a lot of things in life, sometimes things need to get worse before they can get better.
You enjoy Joannie Madden and the dream that some day, with enough practice, you may sound like her. You’re encouraged that you can now play an A like she does, not an A whistle, just the single note A on your D whistle. You also enjoy having the house to yourself after your practice sessions. Your spouse has taken the kids to therapy, something about homicide prevention or establishing an insanity plea.
Your teenager interupts your practice with “That’s sounding a lot better”. This statement is always followed by a request that will cost you large sums of money or ulsers, usually both.
Your teenager says “That sounded cool” at the end of a tune and doesn’t ask for money. After recovering from the shock, you give her money anyway. You forget that this is the teen that’s lost 45 percent of her hearing listening to her favorite punk band. You can enjoy your own music for a half-hour or so befor you have to go back to books or CD’ to try to pick up new tunes.
You have a tune that folks keep requesting. It’s a slow air that you can actually play instead of butchering beyond recognition. You can play 4 notes just like Joannie Madden, just not in a row. Your spouse agrees that the weekly therapy sessions for herself and the kids are no longer necessary. She then agrees to split the money saved. Of course you get the usual split percentage and your happy with your 10 percent. She gets the rest; but, she also paid for your kevlar vest, which is why the therapy is no longer necessary.
At this level you think your list of tunes is sizable 40 to 50; so you go to your first session, where they play for 6 hours straight. They do play 3 of your tunes, but play them in the Key of A while you learned them in the key of G. You play any way and the bodhran player thanks you, he thinks it great to no longer be the bottom of the pecking order. Afterwards you go home and learn 20 of the tunes that were played at the session. The next week, you return and find out that they plan to cover those tunes again when they come up in the rotation. Rotation? Yep, this session rotates through their list of standard tunes, there’s only about 1400 of them so they should cover the set’s you learned in June or July of 2004. Well at least you can play a couple of hours for your own enjoyment at home.
After learning 400 or so ‘standard tunes’ for sessions, you give up on learning the “tune set”. You spend several months, years, or decades you learn to play tunes by ear after hearing them through only once. You can now join in on the second time through on most tunes. After mastering this technique, you findly get the nod from the lead fiddler at the session.
The lead fiddler at the session fails to show up one day, he’s got a paying gig, so you get to lead the session. Your trot out some of your 400 ‘standard tunes’. The rest of the musicians decide it might be cool to play some of their favorite tunes more often. You become the new ‘Lead’ at the sessions. You master the most important lead skill - The Nod. You have a grand retirement, get free Guiness, and die of Scerosis of the Liver at the age of 94.
There are those the believe this level is no longer attainable. This is because, At this level your illegal in the U.S. because human cloning, even of Joannie Madden has been outlawed.
Of course I slanted these levels so I can be middle of the road, a 4, 5 or 6, depending on the number if Irish coffees consumed. But I still think that whats most important is not performance but rather how you …
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Enjoy Your Music,
Lee Marsh
[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-04-23 16:16 ]
