Shall we resume saying how long we've been playing?

[Darren]

This reminds me very much of 2 people I know that play trumpet in our church. Both are very good but they have different ideas on what to play.

One (we will call him "Steve"...cause that's his name) likes to play the first verse straight, then add runs into following verses and kind of builds it up as he goes. The second ("Paul"...not his real name...jk) will play a piece with very few additional embellishments. He does add some but they are minimal and "fit" the song.

In listening to them I find I prefer Paul's playing far more. Steve seems to be trying to wow with his capabilities but there is so much going on that there are bound to be mistakes. Paul's playing is just beautiful, he works on tone and flawless playing.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to always hear songs done the same way, I love variety! But I don't want the performance to get in the way of enjoying a great song. The player and instrument should simply be the conduit for the song, not the focal point. That still leaves room for embellishment and interpretation but not at the cost of being a distraction.

[peeplj]

Cathy, Rob, and Gordon: wonderful posts!

I don't really feel like there's much I can add here that's not already been said better, but since one of my posts was what triggered this discussion, I thought I should clarify a point:

I wasn't referring in my post to how much or how little variation or ornamentation a player uses.

It's a matter of the intent of the player, and it's something I've seen change in myself over the last years.

When I play a tune, my intent, my goal is to try to play the tune in such a way that the tune shines, as much as I can make it shine anyway. The intent is not that I should shine--in fact, if you're paying attention to me and my playing, then I'm doing my job wrong because your attention should be on the tune, not on me.

It goes hand in hand with the desire that I've developed to try to play the tunes as authentically as I can--I know it's a lost cause, but all I can do is try my best--and to try to grow into a solid and steady session player, which is a work in progress.

I think we're all on the same page, here--I just wanted to clarify what I had meant.

--James

[jim stone]

It goes hand in hand with the desire that I've developed to try to play the tunes as authentically as I can

Will you please say something more about what 'authenticity' involves?

[peeplj]

I'll try, Jim, but that's a deep subject for my shallow mind.

I can't (and don't want to) speak for anyone else, so bear in mind this answer is mine, personal to me, and not meant to be any kind of guideline for anyone else to follow.

I live in Arkansas, and have all of my life. I've never even been outside the United States, and have only traveled to a handful of states within them--I am not widely traveled.

In these Irish dance tunes, when played well, there is a lovely lift and lilt and flow, just as the speech of the Irish has a lilt and a music in it to my ears...and I think that's not a coincidence, the accent in the speech and the accent in the tunes are learned in the same way by those within the culture, who learn them when they are very young, and I think they are in fact the same thing, expressed differently, on the one hand through the spoken word, and on the other through the played tune.

We have our own accent on both speech and music here in Arkansas. Our speech is slower, our consonants less crisp, our words perhaps less distinctly enunciated. We have our own forms of traditional music, blues and jazz and bluegrass--and bluegrass itself the descendant of Irish traditional dance tunes--and the style, the accent of the tunes is different and heavier.

When I first started playing and listening to Irish dance music, I tried to imitate the way the good players sounded...with about as much success as I would have trying to imitate an Irish accent. (None at all, that is.)

So now years later I understand I can't "get" the lilt and flow the same way the Irish do...it will never be an ingrained part of me. So I listen carefully, and I try to take the advice of better players, and I listen to the the mechanics of that lilt and lift...the rhythms, the way the beat falls, the way the tunes are phrased, the whole line of the tune and how it fits together...and I try to get all of these things as right as I can get them when I play the tunes.

When it works, some semblance of the lilt and lift are there. Not as good, not as real, perhaps, as someone raised in the culture who really belongs to that lift and lilt, but still far better than just trying to "imitate the accent."

So this doesn't really have much to do with playing like ___________ (insert name of favorite / famous Irish flutist here), but rather with the feel and style of the tunes.

It has a lot to do with approaching a Tradition from an outside perspective and trying to learn from it and hopefully become a part of it, without lessening it or changing its essence.

I hope this answers the question...it's the best answer I know how to give. I didn't come to these thoughts all at once, it's been a process and it still is, and I can only give you the perspective that I have right now, knowing that my thoughts on these subjects used to be quite different, and will likely be different to some degree yet again as I try to learn to do right by this music.

I am no longer trying to make the music mine; I am trying rather to belong to the music.


--James

[talasiga]

......
I am no longer trying to make the music mine; I am trying rather to belong to the music.

Music will not truly possess a musician unless the musician meets the music in the very depths of hisorher own particular being. Only in such deep liminable places do universals and individuals cohabit.

[pancelticpiper]

I'm dying to hear some of the people who make frequent postings.

Well I don't know how to post clips, but somebody just told me that there's a video of me playing on YouTube.

Just search Richard Cook Pipes of Spring.

(Not to be confused with the organist Richard Cook who has lots of YouTube videos.)

[Rob Sharer]

In these Irish dance tunes, when played well, there is a lovely lift and lilt and flow, just as the speech of the Irish has a lilt and a music in it to my ears...and I think that's not a coincidence, the accent in the speech and the accent in the tunes are learned in the same way by those within the culture, who learn them when they are very young, and I think they are in fact the same thing, expressed differently, on the one hand through the spoken word, and on the other through the played tune.

James, let me not exaggerate, but you have absolutely nailed a critical concept here. Many folks don't realize the effect that language has on the brain. More than just a collection of words and rules, language forms a mental map; how you speak indicates what your brain is like, but perhaps less obviously, speech changes the way you think, affects the very organization of the mind.

One of the best ways to see this is to learn another language, which simultaneously provides a second example while allowing for a new perspective on your native tongue. If there is such a thing as cultural thinking, and I think there is, the organization of a language should provide clues to how things are perceived in a strange place, or, assuming the perspective has been gained, in our own place. What may be less apparent is how your own thought processes will be changed by using another language. I'm no scientist, but I believe the case could be made that, to take an example close to home, if you really learn to speak German, to actually think in German and generate language like a native, which is to say originating in German rather than being rapidly transliterated from your own native speech, you will have made irrevocable changes to the way you think in the process. Learning that goes that deep can't help but change who we are.

Moving on to music, your observation about accent and inflection in music is also bang-on. Holding the notes aside, you really can hear where someone is coming from through the accent they play with. Accents can of course be imitated, a la Don Rickles, but to the canny listener it won't ring true forever. On a very fundamental level, the inescapable fact is that you play like who you are; the saving grace is that we can, with the right kind and amount of effort, change who we are, in the very sincere way of actually living and experiencing something new in a deep and abiding way. Unfortunately, most folks aren't willing or patient enough to do the intense work that this requires. We should, however, all try to be aware of just what a serious game we are playing. If you manage to really "get" this music, you will never be the same again! Cheers,

Rob

[cocusflute]

I read as much of this as I could. There are some pretty good players who haven't a word of Irish. Rob is one of them. John Williams, Catherine McEvoy, Jerry O'Sullivan. I'm not sure about Kevin Crawford or Mike McGoldrick. Billy McComisky sounds as much like an Irish speaker as Jürgen Suttner.

Or did I miss something?

[Ronbo]

In these Irish dance tunes, when played well, there is a lovely lift and lilt and flow, just as the speech of the Irish has a lilt and a music in it to my ears...and I think that's not a coincidence, the accent in the speech and the accent in the tunes are learned in the same way by those within the culture, who learn them when they are very young, and I think they are in fact the same thing, expressed differently, on the one hand through the spoken word, and on the other through the played tune.

James, let me not exaggerate, but you have absolutely nailed a critical concept here. Many folks don't realize the effect that language has on the brain. More than just a collection of words and rules, language forms a mental map; how you speak indicates what your brain is like, but perhaps less obviously, speech changes the way you think, affects the very organization of the mind.

One of the best ways to see this is to learn another language, which simultaneously provides a second example while allowing for a new perspective on your native tongue. If there is such a thing as cultural thinking, and I think there is, the organization of a language should provide clues to how things are perceived in a strange place, or, assuming the perspective has been gained, in our own place. What may be less apparent is how your own thought processes will be changed by using another language. I'm no scientist, but I believe the case could be made that, to take an example close to home, if you really learn to speak German, to actually think in German and generate language like a native, which is to say originating in German rather than being rapidly transliterated from your own native speech, you will have made irrevocable changes to the way you think in the process. Learning that goes that deep can't help but change who we are.

Moving on to music, your observation about accent and inflection in music is also bang-on. Holding the notes aside, you really can hear where someone is coming from through the accent they play with. Accents can of course be imitated, a la Don Rickles, but to the canny listener it won't ring true forever. On a very fundamental level, the inescapable fact is that you play like who you are; the saving grace is that we can, with the right kind and amount of effort, change who we are, in the very sincere way of actually living and experiencing something new in a deep and abiding way. Unfortunately, most folks aren't willing or patient enough to do the intense work that this requires. We should, however, all try to be aware of just what a serious game we are playing. If you manage to really "get" this music, you will never be the same again! Cheers,

Rob

Now that is profound. I have listened to Irish speakers play Irish music, and even to my poorly trained ears, what you say is apparent. They do play with a different accent than American born players, often significantly so, some more than others. I hope that it does not mean that it will be all but impossible to capture the spirit and lift of the music for non-speakers, because as you say, we all give our own personal accent to the music as we play it. And as we play it ourselves, we will change it. No matter how hard we work to copy the original characteristics, it will change. Such are people. But I hope that over time it does not lose the things that make it special to us all.

[Rob Sharer]

I read as much of this as I could. There are some pretty good players who haven't a word of Irish. Rob is one of them. John Williams, Catherine McEvoy, Jerry O'Sullivan. I'm not sure about Kevin Crawford or Mike McGoldrick. Billy McComisky sounds as much like an Irish speaker as Jürgen Suttner.

Or did I miss something?

Well, I was speaing more generally about how language informs our indentities, music being just another language. You'd never catch me making the case that you can't play trad unless you speak Irish. Cheers,

Rob

[jemtheflute]

I don't think the original mention of accent in comparison to musical nuance said or implied Irish Gaelic language, or have I missed something? To be sure, Gaelic influenced the accents and syntax and dialect usages of Irish English, and maybe the areas of Ireland where Gaelic is still quite strong have different accents in English because of it, though of course the Irish language itself presumably still has and certainly historically would have had accents and dialects like any language. Interpretation of music certainly follows similar trends to accent - transfer and perpetuation within geographic limitations and social networks etc. with identifiably distinctive voices. Whether such musical "accents" reflect the spoken language accent of their milieu because of mental patterns defined by language could be rather difficult to define, especially if subjective value judgements about say "soft" or "harsh" sounds are excluded. I'm sure one could find a mellifluous player from "harsh" Belfast and a chunky, brassy player from smooth drawling Clare, or whatever.......

[Rob Sharer]

Let's not lose ourselves in waffle. To that end, the simplest statement of my point is this:

You play like who you are.

Cheers,

Rob

[cocusflute]

I have listened to Irish speakers play Irish music, and even to my poorly trained ears, what you say is apparent. They do play with a different accent than American born players,

Seamus Tansey has also said something like this. So you're in good company even if you're both wrong.
Americans play differently not because of the language issue but because they often lack the depth of exposure to the music that Irish players have experienced.

[jemtheflute]

I'm with Cocus here. It is the degree of exposure to and immersion in the local culture that instills the local "accent" in any aspect of that culture - speech, music, manners and mores, craft practices etc. There may be parallels of "style" in different aspects of a particular local culture to an observer, but that is because they are part of a whole, not because one aspect defines or predisposes another.

[Ronbo]

I have listened to Irish speakers play Irish music, and even to my poorly trained ears, what you say is apparent. They do play with a different accent than American born players,

Seamus Tansey has also said something like this. So you're in good company even if you're both wrong.
Americans play differently not because of the language issue but because they often lack the depth of exposure to the music that Irish players have experienced.

I can only say that when I have had the chance to listen closely to Irish born players, I can hear a distinct difference. It could be because the only Irish born players I have listened to for a long time at one sitting were excellent players. Many of the better American players I have listened to have spent considerable time on the emerald Isle, so I guess they were able to improve their exposure to the music that way. I try to imitate as best I can, but it is only poor imitation.