Thanks Paul,
This is a fine example of what I call 'the pure drop'. No impurities made of odd notes, chords, or rhythmic blunders.
Thanks Paul,
This is a fine example of what I call 'the pure drop'. No impurities made of odd notes, chords, or rhythmic blunders.
Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile
Doug C said above:
'Dots on paper, including books, do not give you the immediate and complex information that you get 'by ear'.'
That's true - BUT: if you're looking at an instructor book which has dots and links to recordings of all the tunes they reference as well, I'd maintain that being able to read the tune fluently from the dots will enable most to see what's going on with chords and harmonies far more quickly than trying to pick all that out solely by ear. Reading is just another tool, but sometimes it's really useful to have that info - same with selecting tunes that fit together from the dots.
Hi Paul
Nice that you remember my teaching from all those years ago.
When I teach, I like to point out that very often you are playing part of a chord anyway, so it's not really adding a chord as such - it's more making use of the chord (or at least maybe two notes of a chord) which you might be already fingering as part of playing the tune.
There are literally hundreds of examples of this. In the context of Irish tunes, the first two notes of Cooley's Reel are E on the third string followed by B on the second.
Those are two out of three of the notes which make up the chord of E minor (E, B and G). So if you play the tune by fingering the two strings at once, which I find easier anyway rather than one at a time, then you can maybe get more flow in your melody playing with the added bonus of a partial E minor chord.
Irish and Scottish tunes are full of this kind of thing, especially if you add open strings.
As Paul says, it does play to the mandolin's strengths. Don't forget that the mandolin is like a guitar in many ways and chording is obviously something we can do in a way which is much harder on fiddle, for example.
Also, I just don't buy the suggestion that chordal effects detract from the music being 'the pure drop'. What do you think the regulators on the Uillean pipes are doing? And as for the accordion, there's a whole left hand full of chords.
Last edited by Dagger Gordon; Mar-28-2022 at 5:47am.
David A. Gordon
The legendary Leo Rowsome on pipes. Extraordinary use of the regulators.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=E9...MVME9pxjV_N6F0
David A. Gordon
Dagger I lost sleep last night knowing that someone would 'catch this' misstatement. Ha, ha.
"Also, I just don't buy the suggestion that chordal effects detract from the music being 'the pure drop'."
By pure, in the context of that video meant that they were playing in unison and it did not need anything else. (They did however do some clever runs and 'licks' in unison that were not very Irish. IMHO)
As for chordal effects. I approve totally. However one must know something about chords in order to get the right notes - the ones that sound good.
Accordions sometimes do have some 'wrong notes' in the chord buttons because they often include thirds which are 'bad notes' in modal music.
Leo Rowsome is awesome because he uses the root chord in the drones. 'Wrong notes'; notes that clash with the melody of the tune, he uses the regulators for rhythmic accompaniment. Brilliant!
Last edited by DougC; Mar-28-2022 at 10:10am.
Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile
Not to side track, just to clarify, one can learn a tune from the dots. But it takes a lot of listening and playing experience to do it. For example, I may find some beautiful tune in a tune book, and sure I can learn it, but the more experience I have actually playing the genre the better it will sound. Learning that fifth hornpipe or third strathspey from the dots can be done, but not the first hornpipe or first strathspey.
Yes of course you can learn to cook from a recipe, and learn to drive from a book, but the actual watching and doing of it is important when you don't have the experience and familiarity to draw on.
Back to our regularly scheduled program.
This is not a side issue at all. It depends on your background. People who can read very well have an advantage in picking up a tune from notes. They may need some experience in making it sound Irish by 'developing their ear' but they have an advantage with the dots. Moreover they might also have been taught a bit about how music is constructed especially chord notes. So 'score 2' for the sight readers.
The 'learning by ear' folks have an advantage of knowing the subtle sounds that are not on the page. And they probably know how to make the sounds with their instruments. Further they probably memorize tunes easily, but I know that note readers memorize tunes as well. 'Learning by ear' players may know what a double stop sounds like but they may know nothing about why is sounds cool.
It looks like a tie game to me. But I just remembered another aspect and that is the ethnic or cultural aspect. Unless it is written somewhere, readers are at a disadvantage in knowing that tunes often are played with with variations not necessarily written out. And they are played in common keys or modes so people can play together in sessiuns. Also that tunes are played with other tunes of the same type for dancing etc.
So there is is; the 'Learn by ear' team has it.
Or maybe not. This thread is about Chords and Double Stops. Does it matter if you don't know why it sounds cool but you can play them?
Last edited by DougC; Mar-28-2022 at 9:35pm.
Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile
I think it is not an either or, but that the perfect "Complete Musician" does both. The reader who can't learn by ear is disadvantaged by not knowing how to get the local color and flavor into their playing without it being written out for them. The ear learner who can't read, as in the case of a close friend of mine, may feel pressure to play every tune he knows on a regular basis because the only reference is in his head or a recording or someone else knows it. And, of course, cannot learn a new tune unless someone else has recorded it or brings it up in a session.
Being an orthodox contrarian myself, I bristle at the idea that the consensus of the local musical community and what CDs come out from the big name artists, the arbitrary and capricious decisions of others are going to decide for me what tunes I know and play and enjoy. I like nothing better than pawing through old tune books (of which I have a metric tonne) and pulling out all kinds beauties and re-introducing them to our local musical community.
No, I believe that everything one is not good at bites one in the tail piece, and is not compensated for by the things one happens to be good at.
Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile
On a pedantic level, the term "pure drop" means a truly traditional form in ITM parlance, which means only melody instruments since accompaniment by chording instruments is a later 20th century introduction for recording and concert performance. So the statement is technically correct to be fair. Regulator playing (especially in the Rowesome fashion) was a later introduction too for the pipes, and not always viewed with a positive eye by players at the time, same for accordions. Back in the auld days, pipers would usually save heavy regulator playing for airs or set pieces, and the full 3 regulators were a later development in piping. Most tasteful pipers eschew the Rowesome approach when using the regs for dance tunes in favor of a more subtle and harmonic effect. That said traditions do evolve, and good accompaniment CAN add something in the right settings, but chording is essentially anethema to the pure drop. Melody instruments would bring in the rhythmic emphasis in the original form. I hope that doesn't come across as dismissive.
I enjoyed the supergroups, but I haven't listened in the last 15 years since taking up clarsach. I play mostly in the old, solo style for my trad. I'm compelled by the 'purest' drop there is/was - although it's having to be reconstructed since the break several hundred years ago. If I hadn't come to the clarsach first, I would've been a piper.
I agree that full 3-note chording is anathema to what's usually referred to as the Pure Drop, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the use of dyads/double-stops, which seems to go back quite a ways, and not just Uilleann pipes and accordion but fiddle as well.
The recordings of Michael Coleman from the 1920's and 30's are full of double stops on the dance tunes. It's performance, yes, but Coleman is usually considered a typical Sligo style fiddler. I imagine he played that way for dancers as well.
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