Explorer - Posted - 01/29/2015:  21:23:18

I personally know less than a handful of people who can lay claim to a banjo tradtion in their families dating back to when banjo made the jump across the color line.

None of those people argue about how others are doing it wrong.

It's all extracultural revivalists arguing about what should really be allowed, and even they often have fancy tuning machines instead of friction pegs, and frets on their banjos.

My gut reaction? If the person is white, their tradition is from johnny-come-lately folk and carpetbaggers, and they're just trying to close the door on any changes from after they themselves came in.

Just my two cents.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 01/29/2015:  22:30:16

Even after reading the whole thread, the original question does not make any sense to me. Most people don't seem to be talking about that original question anyway - but maybe they are, since I haven't the slightest idea what it actually means.

stanleytone - Posted - 01/30/2015:  01:45:27

these long threads do have a tendency to go on different tangents.i guess you can look at "improving" in two ways.........improving within the confines of tradition,, or improving to the point where you start bringing in influences from outside the traditional sphere of the genre into your playing, and in so doing, are you no longer playing traditional. Funny how "improve" and "improvise" are so intertwined.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marc Nerenberg

Even after reading the whole thread, the original question does not make any sense to me. Most people don't seem to be talking about that original question anyway - but maybe they are, since I haven't the slightest idea what it actually means.

 

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Edited by - stanleytone on 01/30/2015 01:48:07

oldwoodchuckb - Posted - 01/30/2015:  03:11:34

I agree. The original question did Not make any sense. But the answers mostly do.

The original post used the term "improvement" as if the way I choose to play a Fred Cockerham tune is better than Fred's recording. Viewing our changes as being "better" than the original however, is not what the OP meant - IMHO!

I believe what he was talking about was making an older recording or arrangement fit your own style and abilities while retaining some semblance of the source. This is what most of us do at all times anyway. Listen to local rock bands - particularly the cover bands who, in reproducing recent pop records play a mixture of styles that were not necessarily concurrent and were pretty much diametrically opposite to each other when they were new.

Music always goes through stylistic phases. Last years pop songs mostly begin to sound "dated" because there are almost immediately associated with the effect they had when they first hit the radio. Whole rhythmic structures come and go as dances wax and wane. I can remember when Chalypso became very popular in the late 50s or early 60s. It was a vaguely "Islands-ish" sound over a beat that was one part Cha Cha and one part Calypso. For the younger crowd the 89s group Blondie did a chalypso revival song titled "The Time Is Nigh (or High). Absolutely perfect chalypso recorded about 25 years after the craze went stale.

It also showed the weakness of the genre and why it went away so fast. Chalypso ended up being a rather rigid set of unofficial but nonetheless absolute "rules". Too many of the themes used in the music felt as if they were set in stone. The creativity came of inventing the form in the first place. The first spate of imitations were greeted with applause and probably sold well if they were well done. But as audiences began to realize the music wasn't going anywhere, that every chalypso song really was more about following rules than creative playing and the music quickly faded out of the American scene. Other pop genres were looser in essential structure and lasted longer. You could do more with them and express yourself better without breaking the boundaries of the form.

This is also why there are regular "revivals" of older forms of music. Blondie was able to get a big hit out of a Chalypso tribute piece because Chalypso was a corpse. Had it been a still popular rhythm, The Time Is High probably would have only been a moderate hit among many - an opinion based on how good the recording was. Musically (and vocally) Blondie was a very polished professional bunch and Debbie Harry had a beautiful contralto voice. Coming out after a 25 year chalypso vacuum it was a huge success. Blondie very wisely chose to avoid another Chalypso for a sequel. They knew enough to avoid getting overly catagorized in the pop music game.

Mark Ralston - Posted - 01/30/2015:  06:14:19

The original post asked if "improving" included "losing more and more carefulness".  Within bounds, I agree with this statement.  You start learning by getting the mechanics of hand motions, notes, tunes, etc.  You improve by becoming familiar enough with your instrument to be comfortable relaxing and playing with feeling.  This is especially true with singing while playing.  We're all acquainted with people who have learned from a tab book and who question the notes that you play for a tune based upon the literal notes that they learned from a book.  

Dwight Diller had some interesting comments on playing notes versus playing music at 47:42 in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFMfjPH7IRs.

However, there were some "old-timers" (insert your definition here and hereafter) who believed that, if you wanted to learn a tune, you had to learn every note.  I've heard that Henry Reed was very particular about his notes.

An article in the Old Time Herald (I think it was from Ray Alden's series of articles) talked about George Gibson's take on how some people learn music today versus how the "old-timers"  learned music.  He opined that "old-timers" tended to learn the music by emulation, i.e., listening and trying to mimic what you heard, as contrasted with learning from books.  I think there's value in the emulation school.  On the infrequent occasions when someone asks me for banjo lessons, I start by recommending that the person immerse themselves in music so that they have a good understanding of the sounds that they like and what they would like to sound like.  

The "Old Timey Police" actually do serve a function by seeking to keep the music close to the tradition.  In my opinion, it's close enough if an "old-timer" would likely recognize and appreciate the music, regardless of the literal notes being played.  However, I'm not willing to take any one person's opinion of what's right or wrong (faithful versus unfaithful to tradition) .... I think the appropriate approach should be as the Quakers address issues...... they seek the "sense of the Meeting".

stanleytone - Posted - 01/30/2015:  06:16:45

Notice how many players will play the first break of a tune pretty close , if not right on, to a standard version, then their next break will be their take on the song.I would have to say that's the best approach.......establish the fact that you can stick within the accepted bounds of tradition when it's called for, but also let it be known that you can deviate from it when you want to.you get the best of both worlds.if I am playing for a bunch of cloggers, my breaks will stick very close to tradition, because I'm there for the dancers,and they don't need a bunch of jazzy licks to get in the way.

Edited by - stanleytone on 01/30/2015 06:23:29

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 01/30/2015:  06:38:47

quote:

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Originally posted by stanleytone

Notice how many players will play the first break of a tune pretty close , if not right on, to a standard version, then their next break will be their take on the song.I would have to say that's the best approach.......establish the fact that you can stick within the accepted bounds of tradition when it's called for, but also let it be known that you can deviate from it when you want to.you get the best of both worlds.if I am playing for a bunch of cloggers, my breaks will stick very close to tradition, because I'm there for the dancers,and they don't need a bunch of jazzy licks to get in the way.

 

 

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This is the Old Time Police speaking: Old time music doesn't have breaks.

Edited by - Marc Nerenberg on 01/30/2015 06:39:14

Andyincov - Posted - 01/30/2015:  06:50:22

quote:

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Originally posted by JoePasko

Funny story.   Late night festival jam session a few years ago.   Liquor, weed, some very talented pickers.  No genres unconsidered, we were jamming on Zappa, Zeppelin, Thelonious Monk..whatever was tossed out onto the dirt for our bluegrass savagery. One guy with a guitar was not appreciating this. He was noticeably perturbed, muttering under his breath that we should be playing 'traditional' bluegrass songs.   He finally gets his chance and leads in rendition of Fox On The Run.   And he's all placated and s***.   You get the irony of that, right ? 

---

Hahaha - it's a song by the swinging London sixties pop band, Manfred Man.

here's something to really twist the old melon.  I play in a bluegrass band in the uk where bluegrass is not  universally understood/listened to.  When we play in pubs, we throw in a song the audience will definitely know at a ratio of about 1:3 (known to unknown).  Fox on the run is one of our crowd pleasers as is a 'traditional' pop song in England!

stanleytone - Posted - 01/30/2015:  08:13:16

i forgot.It's one looooooooooooooong contiuous break!

quote:

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Originally posted by Marc Nerenberg

quote:

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Originally posted by stanleytone

Notice how many players will play the first break of a tune pretty close , if not right on, to a standard version, then their next break will be their take on the song.I would have to say that's the best approach.......establish the fact that you can stick within the accepted bounds of tradition when it's called for, but also let it be known that you can deviate from it when you want to.you get the best of both worlds.if I am playing for a bunch of cloggers, my breaks will stick very close to tradition, because I'm there for the dancers,and they don't need a bunch of jazzy licks to get in the way.

 

 

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This is the Old Time Police speaking: Old time music doesn't have breaks.

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Zischkale - Posted - 01/30/2015:  09:56:02

quote:

---

Originally posted by Andyincov

quote:

---

Originally posted by JoePasko

Funny story.   Late night festival jam session a few years ago.   Liquor, weed, some very talented pickers.  No genres unconsidered, we were jamming on Zappa, Zeppelin, Thelonious Monk..whatever was tossed out onto the dirt for our bluegrass savagery. One guy with a guitar was not appreciating this. He was noticeably perturbed, muttering under his breath that we should be playing 'traditional' bluegrass songs.   He finally gets his chance and leads in rendition of Fox On The Run.   And he's all placated and s***.   You get the irony of that, right ? 

---

Hahaha - it's a song by the swinging London sixties pop band, Manfred Man.

here's something to really twist the old melon.  I play in a bluegrass band in the uk where bluegrass is not  universally understood/listened to.  When we play in pubs, we throw in a song the audience will definitely know at a ratio of about 1:3 (known to unknown).  Fox on the run is one of our crowd pleasers as is a 'traditional' pop song in England!

---

And here I thought y'all were doing glam rock from The Sweet...

Lew H - Posted - 01/30/2015:  10:49:09

Lew's opening query about some picker's remark on "losing...carefulness" was opaque to me too, so I haven't commented until now.  Since Marc asked what-the-heck it meant anyway, I'll concur with him.  My main guess as to what the remark meant was similar to "ragged but right" -- maybe not copied perfectly, but sounds good, fits in with what others are playing, etc.  But now that I mention it,  I don't really know what "ragged but right" means either.   Maybe the guy was just talking out of his asp.

mbuk06 - Posted - 01/31/2015:  02:04:30

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brooklynbanjoboy

I get the sense that musically “carefulness” is a reference to coloring within the lines, trying to stay close to a traditional piece as played by a specific musician.  I think in some ways it has to do with revivalism versus whatever is the opposite of revivalism, but it is also more than that.  It is ever present in the context of musical challenges such as simply learning a tune.  Do I very carefully reproduce what a musician shows me or do I bounce where I feel I should, slur where I think it needs it, etc. 

 

Now, those are questions I might ask myself, but I'm not a musician.  I’m just a guy with a banjo.  OK, a guy with four banjos. 

 

However, I'm trying to figure out what real musicians ask themselves when they are in this context, how they grow or develop, how they work with the trajectory of a tune and either take it in their own direction or keep it true to its original form. 

 

I suppose I have been looking at traditional music as a body of work that remains unchanged.  People who play traditional music might trifle with it, get inventive and strike on more stirring ways of playing the tunes, but then they’ve taken tradition and modified it. 

 

That is, there are several possibilities. 

 

If we regard Tommy Jarrell as a traditional musician, we can enjoy their music by listening to it on recordings (if we’re lucky). 

 

For others, where these live field recordings do not exist, we depend on musical scores or the memory of people who heard the original played by the original – and any attempt to replicate that music modifies it, or at least cannot be said with certainty to represent what the traditional player (Chopin, for example) intended when they played the tune.  Just like any attempt to measure a chunk of wood modifies that piece of carpentry grade lumber. 

 

If we try to learn the traditional tune from any of these sources of the tradition, the very act of attempting to replicate it represents a change exerted on the traditional piece – whether its louder, or longer, or more intricate, or exactly like it was intended by played on a kazoo instead of a fiddle. 

 

Now, I’m prepared to acknowledge that I may have started with a very static view of traditional music.  However, a more flexible view that regards a tradition as a living thing and thus something that is subject to modification, alternation, explication, amplification, whateverification – well, that might mean we’re no longer talking about tradition.  Instead, we’re talking about post-traditional efforts to understand tradition, and every act aimed at understanding modifies just as surely as every carpenter measuring a piece of wood ultimately modifies that wood. 

 

Measuring something modifies it.  I generally use wood as the example.  No ruler can exactly capture the dimensions.  The human eye and hand coordination, the thickness of the lead pencil marking the cutting line, the wear and tear on the ruler (or more often than not the flawed standards of exactitude common in the Chinese factories that produce our carpentry rulers – go with Japanese stuff…), and the nature of the kerf of the saw laid against the cutting line, all these things to me suggest that measuring modifies the measured.

 

Studying something modifies it, too. 

 

I’m also prepared to accept the argument that I’ve thought too much about it and need to move on . . .

 

Thanks for all your telling, articulate, and thoughtful views.  I appreciate the help in trying to work through this stuff. 

 

V/R,

 

Lew

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The one thing that puzzles me about your term 'carefulness' is that it seems entirely dependent on context. Are you referring to playing a specific version of a tune in isolation or playing in a session? I can't see how an idea of 'closeness' or not in relation to one specific version of a tune applies in sessions? When playing with others any idea we may have of a tune has an elasticity and flex toward what the fiddler plays. That's a sympathetic adaption that takes place in almost every session. And the more I think about it, the more this adaption can be seen to include both a 'carefulness' and a 'loss of carefulness'. Carefulness in regard to attention to the fiddle player's rhythm and phrasing; and loss of carefulness in regard to one's own default way of playing that tune.

Not much help, eh? 

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 01/31/2015:  07:32:57

quote:

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Originally posted by Brooklynbanjoboy

 ...

I suppose I have been looking at traditional music as a body of work that remains unchanged.  People who play traditional music might trifle with it, get inventive and strike on more stirring ways of playing the tunes, but then they’ve taken tradition and modified it. 

... 

Now, I’m prepared to acknowledge that I may have started with a very static view of traditional music.  However, a more flexible view that regards a tradition as a living thing and thus something that is subject to modification, alternation, explication, amplification, whateverification – well, that might mean we’re no longer talking about tradition.  Instead, we’re talking about post-traditional efforts to understand tradition, and every act aimed at understanding modifies [it].

...

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I think you've missed the point that tradition is always a living thing. What you speak of as 'modifying' tradition is really just being part of tradition.

Brooklynbanjoboy - Posted - 01/31/2015:  07:45:07

I concede the point: I have tended to look at tradition more statically, but that's not an entirely unreasonable position if one looks at a music, picks a practitioner, and focuses on that body of work in a microscopic manner during a particular time frame.  Still, I understand that even in this context there is much more fluidity in the practice of a tradition, especially a musical tradition. 

On my desk now, as my penance for staking out this position in the original post, are three books:

Richard Dorson, AMERICAN FOLKLORE,

Burt Feintuch, THE CONSERVATION OF CULTURE: FOLKLORISTS AN D THE PUBLIC SECTOR, and

Barre Toelken, THE DYNAMICS OF FOLKLORE. 

Plus, I've just ordered about 100 bucks worth of similar stuff from AMAZON, suggesting I recognize my need for "re-education."

Thanks for your contribution to this thread.

V/R,

Lew

minstrelmike - Posted - 01/31/2015:  08:27:46

Bill Monroe's "bluegrass music" was brand-spanking new in 1949, just like Elvis in 1955 or The Beatles in 1964. There is a genre called classic rap now.

Trying to be the next big thing has _always_ been the musician's tradition. Shubert and Shuman for example from the early 1800s. When the Lomax bros went down south with their tape recorder, they were hoping to get "pure" music before the folks were exposed to radios. Check out the complete history of minstrel music and John Phillips Sousa before you fall for the assumption those countrified folks weren't doing "professional" music already.

Another tradition, this one from the audience's point of view, is they want to preserve the music that enlightened their childhood. There are thousands of Elvis impersonators, thousands of tribute bands, and hundreds of Earl impersonators.

It's two different traditions at least. Innovators versus impersonators. The Lomax bros and most of those folklorists and preservationists are fans, so they view music differently. Even if they play an instrument, they do it from a fan perspective, not an innovator's one.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 02/01/2015:  07:43:03

On the questions of stability and change in tradition, in 1814, the Brothers Grimm, in the preface to volume II of the first edition of their massive collection of German folk tales, mentioned one source, a peasant woman who never changes a thing in the stories: "She never changes anything when she retells a story and corrects mistakes as soon as she notices them even right in the middle of the telling. The attachment to tradition is much stronger among people who resolutely follow the same way of life than we who have a fondness for change can understand."

Later on in the same preface they discuss how stories are nevertheless slowly changed over time, and they argue that such changes are a natural part of the process. This is to counter the position taken by some who would point to novelty in the stories "to prove that the tales stem from recent literature in which soldiers, apprentices, cannons, tobacco pipes, and other new things appear. But these things, just like the words of our contemporary language, are exactly the things that were reshaped by the lips of the storytellers, and one can certainly rely on the fact that the  storytellers in the sixteenth century used country troopers and shotguns instead of soldiers and cannons in their tales just as the magic helmet was used in the age of chivalry and knights, not the hat that makes people invisible."

So this question about change vs stability in tradition goes back a long way - it was being discussed 200 years ago, and probably further back still.

Edited by - Marc Nerenberg on 02/01/2015 07:45:04

minstrelmike - Posted - 02/01/2015:  09:23:29

I read where the idea of writing stuff to rhyme was to help preserve stories. The Odyssey and The Bible both rhymed in their original languages. And the reason the ancients went with rhyming is _because_ of the Telephone Game where messages change from person to person. And note that rhyming doesn't prevent that over the course of time--see the history of the words to any song or poem. But rhyming does minimize it. (I can usually remember words to a song I forgot on stage by reconstructing around the rhyming scheme).

And oftentimes it is hard to recognize change for the better. Aristotle complained about the younguns reading instead of memorizing the odes and he expected that would spell the end of civilization. We've been changing our traditions AND complaining about it for millennia.

banjopogo - Posted - 02/01/2015:  13:13:07

quote:

---

Originally posted by minstrelmike

Bill Monroe's "bluegrass music" was brand-spanking new in 1949, just like Elvis in 1955 or The Beatles in 1964. There is a genre called classic rap now.

Trying to be the next big thing has _always_ been the musician's tradition. Shubert and Shuman for example from the early 1800s. When the Lomax bros went down south with their tape recorder, they were hoping to get "pure" music before the folks were exposed to radios. Check out the complete history of minstrel music and John Phillips Sousa before you fall for the assumption those countrified folks weren't doing "professional" music already.

Another tradition, this one from the audience's point of view, is they want to preserve the music that enlightened their childhood. There are thousands of Elvis impersonators, thousands of tribute bands, and hundreds of Earl impersonators.

It's two different traditions at least. Innovators versus impersonators. The Lomax bros and most of those folklorists and preservationists are fans, so they view music differently. Even if they play an instrument, they do it from a fan perspective, not an innovator's one.

---

Except they weren't "brand spanking new".    There was a sub-tradition in Old Time Music of family music groups, often brothers doing gospel tunes on guitar and mandolin, or guitar and autoharp.  Bill Monroe was part of that tradition.  He also had in his mind his Uncle Pen's fiddling, and I'm convinced he'd noticed Arthur Smith's hot fiddling and Wade Mainer's Mountaineers and their instrumentation.

Elvis drew on church music, and various kinds of African-American music.... he could also croon almost as well as Bing Crosby.  What was new was what was combined in a single package.   The Beatles likewise owed whole bunches to rhythm and blues and to Elvis.

In all three cases, they took things farther than they had been taken before.... so it seems new, but it mostly wasn't.

Good point about innovators and imitators.   But I've run across "oldtimers" (traditional musicians) who were more one or the other.

Earl Collins, from the interview film done by Bess Lomax Hawes, had a single-minded ambition to play fiddle like his daddy did.

Tommy Jarrell learned tunes from his father, but he also visited other good older fiddlers and was looking to learn things from them.   He also played a lot with contemporaries.  Listening to a lot of field recordings, the bowing is often very predictable..... either a lot of sawstroke and a little Nashville (bump-ditty rhythm) Shuffle, or a lot of Nashville and a little sawstroke, or somewhere in the middle.  Tommy was unusual in the variety of his bowing tricks.  Fiddlers that were attracted to Tommy Jarrell's fiddling tend to likewise use a lot more different bowing tricks than the average fiddler on field recordings.  Is that trespassing against tradition?  It might be right on the border of it.

I think the folklorists WERE mostly successful in finding some very archaic music that had not changed much since the Civil War.    And you can pick out tell tale signs like: cross tuning, lack of Ragtimey phrases or chord changes in the tunes, kind of a fife and drum band style phrasing.

It's pretty obvious when you look at folk music in the US, and really at almost any country, that geography isolates some people more than others, especially mountain people and island people.  If you go to those places, you have a much greater chance of finding more archaic stuff.   Any place that has crossroads is going to be getting new influences in four directions, but mountain roads dead-end at some point.    People at those dead ends get new influences from just one direction, and not many people are headed that way.

I read an article in a small mountain newspaper from the mountains.... east of SAN DIEGO!

It talked about the benefits of having what the writer called "a good bad road"... a road bad enough that it keeps people who don't belong there out!   That's true of mountains EVERYWHERE.   And mountain music all over the world shows the effects of that isolation.  Scottish Highlanders, Swiss and Austrine Alpiners, Swedes from Dalarna, Indians in the Andes, and the Ozarks and the Appalachians.

minstrelmike - Posted - 02/01/2015:  13:31:28

There was something new and different about Bill Monroe's music, otherwise it would not have been considered new and different by the audience. That's not mere semantics. That's the definition of entertainment.

_Everything_ comes out of a tradition, but so what? The new stuff is what creates the new genre. Bach and Beethoven came out of traditions too but still created something new, UNLIKE the thousands of composers who came out of those same traditions and did not create anything new that was henceforth copied by others.

OldPappy - Posted - 02/02/2015:  06:26:39

Lew,

“losing more and more carefulness."

I think "carefulness" is a limitation because it demands the attention of the mind.

The mind is pretty good at remembering things, and if one is careful to do so, they can get every note of a tune dead on accurate, exactly like they played it a thousand times before.

If that is a person's goal, then they will be "careful", which often requires paying more attention to what they are "doing", rather than just "being" in the music.

Many people say music is a "spiritual thing", but I often wonder just how many believe it.

It is a liberating thing, to quit being so "careful", to get out of your head, stop thinking about the notes, and just let the music carry you along with it.

R Buck - Posted - 03/02/2015:  07:07:35

The tradition is a dynamic.  If it remained totally static it would fall away.  It reflects the people who live within it.  The only constant is change. 

Lew H - Posted - 03/02/2015:  09:37:50

Boy!  I'd hoped this thread had faded away, died a natural death, or something. Now I'm sucked back into it.  Here was the original question:

"does improvement (musically) end up trespassing against traditional music?"

Then there was that inscrutable phrase "losing carefulness." 

Maybe this is a discussion about a sort of  inkblot test--one where the key terms sounded interesting but were undefined, leaving everyone to their own devices and interpretations. Some worthwhile discussion of the the meaning of "traditional" has occurred, but the more we talk, the more questions I have about the original question and how it is framed.

What sort of improvement are we talking about?  --improvement in one's own playing?  Improvement of a tune? Is one person's improvement another person's?

Trespass?  Trespass is a property violation; it implies ownership by someone else.  Who owns traditional music?  Few, if any, of us grew up in a community where tunes were passed face-to-face among kin and neighbors down the generations (the sense in which folklorists mis-speak of "oral tradition" when it come to picking an instrument).  Are we all outsiders trespassing on a tradition?  Maybe we are only tourists admiring the scenery of "tradition" and trying our best to copy, emulate, or enhance it with our own versions (as landscape painters might do).

Traditional? What are the boundaries of the term?  Are we really referring to banjo tunes in the folklore sense?  Is each tune a node in a network of face-to-face transmission? This implies a "living" tradition that changes and adapts to the interests, talents and knowledge of its carriers. Can such a network also include transmission other than face-to-face, as on BHO?  Are we an integral part of a continuing tradition, or merely its curators who view it from the outside?   Do we owe gratitude to anyone in particular for the "traditional" tunes we curate (that is, play and pass on), 

At the other extreme from the "living tradition" view, "traditional" might mean the tune that someone learned from some old Appalachian guy, say, Tommy Jarrell one afternoon in the middle of the previous century.  If that is our meaning of tradition, we are mere trespassers, tourists, or curators, or all of these.  In that sense  we perhaps are just stealing interesting relics and curios, perhaps desecrating gravesites procured out of a culture different from our own.  

For me than, there are just too many undefined or ill-defined terms here.  There has developed some agreement that tradition changes, but questions were raised about the place of bluegrass (and even rock) in "tradition."  So we have a ways to go, but maybe there isn't really a destination on this trip: it's just a joy ride.

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 03/02/2015:  11:18:30

The key is to stay within the parameters of tradition (which is constantly defined and redefined by the consensus).

There is plenty of room within the tradition for individuality, but certain boundaries that cannot be crossed if one is to remain

in the "traditional" camp.

I think maybe what was meant by "losing more and more carefulness" is losing the preoccupation with playing a tune "right".  Once a player

has immersed himself in the way the music is supposed to sound, it becomes part of his being and whatever he intuitively does with the music

remains within the boundaries of the tradition. At this point his playing will automatically be traditional.

mwc9725e - Posted - 03/04/2015:  12:44:27

quote:

---

Originally posted by R.D. Lunceford

The key is to stay within the parameters of tradition (which is constantly defined and redefined by the consensus).

There is plenty of room within the tradition for individuality, but certain boundaries that cannot be crossed if one is to remain

in the "traditional" camp.

I think maybe what was meant by "losing more and more carefulness" is losing the preoccupation with playing a tune "right".  Once a player

has immersed himself in the way the music is supposed to sound, it becomes part of his being and whatever he intuitively does with the music

remains within the boundaries of the tradition. At this point his playing will automatically be traditional.

---

I think that's an excellent summarization. Whatever you do, however you do it, you should strive to preserve the spirit of the music. The details of your presentation will take care of themselves, according to your own personal tastes.

A good example of what "preserving the music's spirit" means is tempo. That's a very important consideration, because some think a banjo should be played fast. After all, it's a banjo, and banjos are meant to be played fast, right? There are times for that, but playing "Omie Wise" at "Earl's breakdown" speed in no way preserves poor Omie's spirit.

When I was a very little boy on the farm in Texas, traditional music was about the only thing I heard -- we didn't have a radio. All the neighbors would get together at someone's house, and eat and chat, and play music. That's one way we kept up with what was happening in the community. The playing "styles" were all personalized, but the spirit of the music remained obvious. Jimmy Rogers' music, which was popular, always sounded like Jimmy Rogers' music, you didn't need a professional musician to explain what its meaning was.

I've encountered a few people who nitpick a player's music to death, style's not traditional, etc. Stay away from those guys or, as Peter Stampfel so delicately put it, "Don't play with a**holes". There are too many good musicians who are also good people to subject yourself to that kind of nitpicking.

Edited by - mwc9725e on 03/04/2015 12:59:45

Eugene_K - Posted - 03/05/2015:  09:51:30

Our relationship with tradition has changed some in that today we have instant access to just about everything on the computer screen. It's a world museum at our fingertips. In other times someone interested in learning old time music might have had access to a few records or some local players who perhaps were happy to say, do it this way, not that way. When I started playing clawhammer a couple years ago I listened to loads and loads of old time on YouTube, stylistically all over the place. I realize I would never be a very good revivalist. I respect people who are interested in playing within really strict stylistic boundaries but I have no ties to a particular regional tradition and in the end I suppose I'll play the music I want to hear. 

JeroenJ - Posted - 03/05/2015:  11:12:14

There's the pitfall of purifying something that was never pure in the first place. All our "traditional" heroes were and are creative and expressive musicians pushing the borders of what they are preserving. When critics, contest juries, musicologists or old men behind computer keyboards start suggesting how musicians should and should not play to be in or out of some subjective box, I'm off.

Tatersoup - Posted - 03/06/2015:  01:54:14

"My question is about how a traditional musician -- a musician playing traditional music -- gets better at the craft, improves."

...in this player's view, is “losing more and more carefulness." This doesn't make sense. What I believe he might be trying to say is that as one gains skill, one becomes more relaxed with the instrument and can accomplish more nuance and tonal variety.

"Does this mean that improvement is departing from precision?" No.

"Does that mean altering or departing from prescribed technique?" No. To the best of my knowledge, there are no prescribed techniques. (I recall hearing some blues played by a black female artist who taught herself guitar by ear. She held the guitar backwards and upside down yet was one of the great early blues artists.)

"Does that take one further and further from the "traditional" element of old time banjoing?" No.

"Does it mean taking traditional tunes and pushing them into spaces they have never occupied?" Perhaps. But when you look at your original premise, the answer is no.

"And does that mean departing from the traditional "text," thus altering tradition and not just technique?" No.

Imagine six of your favorite traditional music banjo players, and have them all play the same song, say "Cluck Old Hen". Do they all sound like the song? Probably. Do they all sound the same? Not a chance. It's not because they have departed from the traditional song, it's because of the different approaches and nuances of their craft.

Edited by - Tatersoup on 03/06/2015 01:55:15

Scott Barnbilly56 - Posted - 03/06/2015:  05:36:53

I usually get around playing at festivals by just playing how I like to play it because I have these made into business cards size to pass out to fellow banjo players . I also have a big size one posted at my campsite . Now this say's the "Banjo Police" is authorizing me the right to play banjo and also with other banjo players .
This is a great networking tool also . I give total strangers who have banjo's a little speech about . In a world of rules & regulations you may need this to be legal .I then hand them a permit card . I have so far met hundreds of fellow banjo players this way . So right way or wrong way of playing were legal to play anyways . Will try to attach permit .

banjo permit

bryanshepard - Posted - 03/06/2015:  07:34:45

I love it, Scott!

celtic trad - Posted - 03/06/2015:  09:33:15

great little thread...   I'd contend that trad is the improvement that  trespasses against the banjo...  what your calling old time isn't.

The Trad/Celtic genre is huge...  and even though OT/Clawhammer is finding its way to larger acceptance and is finding roles in popular genre...

The five string banjo is not a widely used instrument on the trad circuit...  and those players have to be incredibly proficient to perform on any instrument 

the 5 string banjo is too new, and really has no tradition behind it, despite popular belief,  its a pop fad instrument.

Another argument to fan the flames

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 03/06/2015:  10:51:43

quote:

---

Originally posted by celtic trad

great little thread...   I'd contend that trad is the improvement that  trespasses against the banjo...  what your calling old time isn't.

The Trad/Celtic genre is huge...  and even though OT/Clawhammer is finding its way to larger acceptance and is finding roles in popular genre...

The five string banjo is not a widely used instrument on the trad circuit...  and those players have to be incredibly proficient to perform on any instrument 

the 5 string banjo is too new, and really has no tradition behind it, despite popular belief,  its a pop fad instrument.

 

Another argument to fan the flames

---

This is such offensive condesending crap.

Edited by - Marc Nerenberg on 03/06/2015 10:54:07

bryanshepard - Posted - 03/06/2015:  11:14:19

I'm interested in hearing Celtic Trad flesh out that position. If they aren't simply trolling, such a statement could generate an interesting conversation.

Please explain?

UncleClawhammer - Posted - 03/06/2015:  11:36:06

I suspect it is, in fact, a troll post. It's nonsense, whatever it is.

celtic trad - Posted - 03/06/2015:  11:38:35

I didn't intend to be offensive, or condescending,.... but it its not crap... tenor banjo has found acceptance in Irish circles and fiddle based tradition, but not claw/OT/ 5 st....

And you do have to ask why?.... trad is a repertoire based genre, style is regional, after you learn your instruments rudiments every one plays the same music.

OT is a style... clawhammer is a style, banjo is the POPULAR American invention... from day one its popularity has pushed the style of playing the rig before the traditional regional repertoire.

Play just like your burnt cork heros, play like scruggs... play like wade ward .... the style of playing the thing IS the thing...
its a fundamental incompatibility... it sharply separates genre... it is what it is, and it doesn't have to be a completely negative distinction either. The 5st banjo tend to define its own genre to the exclusion of other forms

Lew H - Posted - 03/06/2015:  12:08:39

I'm less and less able to make much sense of what people say here.  I thought I said we could have little sensible discussion unless we defined our basic terms. Maybe there original inscrutable post was a troll.  But now Celtic trad has two posts I can't make sense of.  CT seems to be saying that OT banjo is a genre. It is a list of tunes, a cannon, or a style of playing in terms of rhythms, common chord patterns or modes, etc.  To me that would mean that there may not be anything traditional about it. Wade Ward could have played "Five foot two," and it would be by definition "traditional" and "oldtime."  That is close to the sense in which I suggested that since few of us have grown up in personal contact with and lerning from "oldtime traditional" pickers, we are at best tourists or at worst trespassers into someone else's musical territory.  I don't know why I help keep this discussion going, except that it bugs me that there's so much BS in it, 

Chadbanjo - Posted - 03/06/2015:  12:20:20

Hobart Smith played electric guitar and maybe on the traditional circuit because "the 5 string banjo is too new, and really has no tradition behind it, despite popular belief,  its a pop fad instrument"

Edited by - Chadbanjo on 03/06/2015 12:21:44

Lew H - Posted - 03/06/2015:  12:28:11

Chad, Are you saying that Smith was correct about the banjo being a fad, or that he was full of stuffing?  The 5-string is many decades older than the electric guitar. after all. His statement is wrong on the face of it. 

Chadbanjo - Posted - 03/06/2015:  12:40:38

Lew, i was adding to the lunacy of this statement "the 5 string banjo is too new, and really has no tradition behind it, despite popular belief,  its a pop fad instrument"

Don't read into what I posted, that quote should be nominated for the worst/dumbest of the year, he must trying to get us rowled up like bees.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lew H

Chad, Are you saying that Smith was correct about the banjo being a fad, or that he was full of stuffing?  The 5-string is many decades older than the electric guitar. after all. His statement is wrong on the face of it. 

---

Lew H - Posted - 03/06/2015:  13:16:16

Chad,  I guess I've just misplaced my sense of humor today. Missed my nap.   My apologies!

OldPappy - Posted - 03/06/2015:  14:26:25

I agree there is a lot of BS in this thread, so here is my load of manure.

In my opinion, the banjo, in various forms, goes back a few too many years to be considered and American invention in the first place, and to say there is no "tradition" for this music is just an ignorant jibe not worth getting riled up about.

What I think this is about.

If one takes too narrow a view on "Tradition" it can be a limiting factor. When someone is resistant to new ways of doing something, because if differs from what they consider "traditional", their view limits new contributions.

In my view of "tradition", the music is like a living thing, and the different contributions made by any who touch it, are what the "tradition" really is.

If we all tried to play just like Wade Ward, or anyone else, the result would be a dead thing, null, and void of any kind of spirit.

As far as "being less careful" goes, I already responded to that, and to me it makes perfect sense.

minstrelmike - Posted - 03/06/2015:  15:22:36

Let's get some actual info about 5-string vs Tenor banjo.

5-string banjo invented in 1843. Used to play minstrel music with fiddle, tambourine and bones. The 5-string was hugely popular and spread to Great Britain and it maintained popularity until the upright piano came along in the late 1880s..

4-string tenor banjo invented in 1911 or 1917 for tango dancing :4-string tenor banjo moves into  'traditional Celtic' music sometime later, not earlier. imo, Tenor Banjo is a devolved banjo, certainly not traditional.

bryanshepard - Posted - 03/06/2015:  19:15:51

I'm thinking maybe Celtic Trad's primary language isn't English? I really can't follow what he's trying to say.

Regardless there are some interesting thoughts on what "traditional" means, with respect to a musical genre. On the face of the issue I'm inclined to keep things simple: there is a canon associated with the 5 string banjo and if I'm interested in keeping with "tradition" I'll explore that canon.

Bottom line is it's up to me.

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 03/06/2015:  19:35:47

quote:

---

Originally posted by celtic trad

I didn't intend to be offensive, or condescending,.... but it its not crap... tenor banjo has found acceptance in Irish circles and fiddle based tradition, but not claw/OT/ 5 st....



And you do have to ask why?....

---

Well, count me among those that are not quite understanding celtic trad's posts (especially #1).

I will isolate one part of it and respond though, and likely take an unpopular position per the majority of BHO citizens...

Keep in mind that I am speaking of the jig and reel genre rather than the Irish folk-ballads (especially the "pub songs" a la Wolftones, Dubliners, Makem & Clancys, etc.).

Yes, the tenor has found acceptance where as the 5-string has not.  This is born out by the fact that no Irish Trad band that makes a career of jig & reel playing employs a 5-string as a lead-line melody instrument, or, really even a backing instrument in their line-up.  This is because the traditional technique (clawhammer) is not all that adept at handling the linear melody lines in the manner desired by traditional Irish musicians.  In addition to not being able to execute the system of ornamentation that is a hallmark of that music, the right hand patterns in CH are suited to 2/4 and 4/4 time signatures, but not very well to triple metre such as 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8, as jigs, slip jigs, and slides are played in.

What one must realize is that the tenor banjo, both in tuning and playing technique has much in common with the mandolin, and to a lesser degree, the fiddle.  As per its playing technique, the 5-string is far different, and with the exception of its appearance, really has nothing in common with the tenor banjo. So, comparing the 5-string to the tenor is really a pointless... apples to oranges as the cliche goes. What we are really talking about is not the instrument as much as the playing technique.  Comparatively recently, the 5-string was in fact used by Irish trad musicians, but they tended to use what amounted to a flat-picking technique that ignored the 5th string. Some famous piping families played this way with a thimble and the gCGBD tuning.  This was 50+ years ago (comparatively recently in traditional music terms), but I don't know if the practice survived.  If so, nothing is mentioned about it anymore.

If one goes way back into the mid-1800's Irish community in New York, Irish tunes were being played on the 5-string using a technique that really amounted to melodic CH, so there was a now defunct "tradition" of sorts.  Take a look in some of the old tutors... Rice, for example, and you will find some of this material.  Now many folks these days will tell you that *any* music can be played using CH, that it is the limitation of the individual musician not the style that is the problem.  Of course there are musicians that do play Irish tunes on CH banjo, and do a pretty good job, but take a listen to an competent Irish tenor banjoist and you will see why it is the banjo of choice. Or...as above, it is not really a choice between one banjo and the other.

Can 5-string be used successfully in the jig & reel tradition?  To a degree, but the "sound" that the CH banjo gives is not what the Irish are looking for.  The Irish instrumental tradition is defined by the solo musician, and virtuosity is defined by variation, and the application of ornamentation.  Ensemble playing was never traditionally widespread (until the last 50 years...the Bothy Band, De Danann, The Chieftains, etc.) but even to this day, it is the solo musician who maintains the music in its pure form.  When ensemble playing occurs, the lead instruments typically play together, and in unison.  Beginning in the '60's, harmonic accompaniment employing the guitar, bouzouki,  etc. began to be heard, but in order to be accepted, the accompaniment needed to enhance and not ruin any of the nuances found in the solo playing (as far back as the 1920's, "piano drivers" were known for marring the recordings of celebrated fiddlers like Michael Coleman).  The Irish are pretty open-minded as long as the instrument in question can execute the tunes in the established style...hence the acceptance of accordions, concertinas, mandolins, tenor banjos, etc. in addiiton to the traditional fiddle, Uilleann Pipes, Flute, and Whistle.  The accordion, mandolin, etc., handle linear melodies and have ornamentation systems that approximate the earlier traditional instruments.

So in the end, by consensus, the 5-string has not been accepted by Irish players because as typically played it lacks the ability to execute tunes in the traditional style..

**************************

Now in America, it is very obvious that the 5-string has been accepted, and in fact has had a role in defining traditional Appalachian music.  To argue otherwise is to be uninformed.  celtic trad says that "after you learn your instrument's rudiments, everyone plays the same music".  Not true.  The difference between Appalachian and Irish for example is more than stylistic.  Much of the music is actually structured differently, and the instruments and styles found in each respective tradition have at once influenced those differences and evolved to effectively handle a pre-existing repertoire.  One of the factors that makes OT different from British Isles music is the African influence. and as we know both the banjo and the CH technique are of African origin.  For whatever reasons, we get used to hearing our music a certain way. Can a Traditional CH player render an Irish reel? Yes.  Can an Uilleann Piper play an Appalachian breakdown? Sure.  But in both cases, the performances will not have the "traditional" sound, and are not generally accepted by the tradtionalist from either group.

 

bryanshepard - Posted - 03/06/2015:  19:44:01

Lunceford, pretty much puts that topic to bed for me: well done!

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 03/06/2015:  19:54:31

Note the set of 3 tunes (typical) with key changes for each tune, and the way the tenor banjo (with flat pick and resonator)cuts through, in part also owing to its playing technique.

CH with its tendency to tune the banjo to the key in question is at a disadvantage in this sort of situation as succeeding tunes may require different tunings to be played most effectively.

youtube.com/watch?v=dy8RZf_kFGY

The music starts at  0:55.

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 03/06/2015:  20:17:19

youtube.com/watch?v=_uiInAcPij4

Bonus Track!!!

Sorry folks...enough from RD.

RG - Posted - 03/06/2015:  23:31:33

R.D., you nailed it Devil Dog..not much else to add...one of the best posts I've read on this site...that post should be made into a permanent post on this forum topic...

banjopogo - Posted - 03/07/2015:  08:51:04

quote:

---

Originally posted by R Buck

The tradition is a dynamic.  If it remained totally static it would fall away.  It reflects the people who live within it.  The only constant is change. 

---

That's kind of a strange way of defining tradition.  I always thought that it implied continuity.  Obviously, over time, there is some change, but often the change is unintentional- the people are actually trying very hard to hold on to the past.

When people are actually TRYING to change things, change can happen much more quickly.  The sense of continuity is lost, and pretty soon you have a new genre.

There is a style of contest in the western US called "contest fiddling".  They would like your definition.  They sometimes call themselves Old Time fiddlers, but there are so many modern touches that it sounds ANYTHING but old-fashioned to me, and so calling it Old Time seems to be a misnomer.

The process of imitating whoever won at the Weiser contest last year tends to put more of a premium on change than continuity.

It's good music, though- it's just not very "Old Time".

banjopogo - Posted - 03/07/2015:  09:07:14

A good post RD, but I wouldn't say that the Irish tradition places a greater emphasis on solo playing.

Rather, it places close to equal balance on solo and ensemble playing.

The nature of Irish ornamentation is that when done properly, the instrument can stand by itself well in a solo context, but the ornaments are subtle enough, that they blend together well in unison playing.

An example:

youtube.com/watch?v=X2NGlBPFPTg

See how they bounce back and forth between the solo and unison playing.... they seem to be having just as much fun, either way... and they are all top fiddlers!