No such thing as a B-sharp

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,chinacat
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 05:07 PM

OK take it easy, this is my first MudCat post:

I'd just like to say, as the B# issue has been done to death, that I have been playing stringed instruments (guitar, banjo, mandolin, mountain zither) constantly since age 8 and am now 21. I took 2 or 3 years of lessons once a week and learned to interpret written music at a basic level. Although I know it would be much much much easier to learn Bach's lute pieces (my favorite) by sheet music, I end up listening to them if I want to learn. By the same token, I don't speak Old French but after listening to Les Menestriers for an hour I can sing "La Rond du Jaloux" and in a couple hours of listening I can sing Congolese folk songs with moderate fidelity (time makes it better)- and by the way, Congolese traditional songs are incredibly tough to learn I'll wager for a westerner even with professional training. I don't know what differentiates a Gsus from a Gsus9 and I don't know the difference between the absolute minor and the relative minor. Over the years I have heard lots of folks pull out a lot of terms I don't know. If I hum an A and the song makes harmony with it, then as far as I'm concerned the song is in the key of A. I use relative tuning. I have been known to sing harmonies using, occasionally, what I understand to be called "microtonals". The funniest thing to me is that I will hear a song, play it a hundred times the way I remember it, and then when I hear it again it sounds foreign to me; as though I had earlier listened to a completely different song. I am not against theory-in a way I envy those who master it (like Bach), but for all the faults of human memory and perception their error allows for advancement and evolution the same way that an error in DNA duplication has certainly lead to incredible advantages for the human race. If we had the Modern Language Association (MLA) in Jesus' time, well we would still be speaking Latin wouldn't we? With art as with humanity - if we(it) stop(s) evolving, we(it) die(s).

Just my opinion, I am by no means a music scholar. I am an education major though, and for the folks talking about learning to play the instrument before reading music, we call it "sound before symbol" and it is universally accepted among educators   :)

ANYHOO I guess my point is that I just take umbridge with the bashing of non-sight-readers

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 05:26 PM

Very nice, especially for a "first Mudcat post." Couldn't have said it any better myself ~ and I've tried!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 05:33 PM

Just a comment to Josepp about the learning of the Lead Belly song:

Too bad, josepp, that you are tethered to the sheet music. That must severely limit the songs you can learn to what you can find in books and sheet music. I feel fortunate that not only can I read music quite adeptly, but I seem to have a pretty good, retentive ear as well. A couple of times through and I usually have the tune in my head. Very handy!

In addition to the song and ballad collections on my bookshelves accumulated over the years, from which I have learned many songs, I have a very large library of records, tapes, and CDs from which I have also learned many songs—by ear. And I generally take my own approach to a song and I work out my own arrangements, but if there is something unique and appropriate to a particular song, I will often adopt it.

For example, I learned that particular Lead Belly song ("Where Did You Sleep Last Night"—originally known, before people became all nervous about political correctness, as "Black Girl") in the mid-1950s, from one of his Folkways Records. I've never seen sheet music for the song, nor have I run across it in a song book.

Were you aware that Lead Belly's starting and ending chord on that song is an A7 chord? Most unusual! I picked that up by ear from the record. And in a conversation with a singer-guitarist friend of mine who had heard, and seen, Lead Belly at one of the Swarthmore folk festivals in the late 1940s, he verified it.

What does your vast store of knowledge about notation and music theory tell you about that?

Onward.

My particular complaint with Josepp's initial rant is not about the factual nature of B# and C being enharmonic notes (on a fixed-pitch instrument such as a piano or guitar, the same pitch written two different ways in order to preserve the consistency of the way in which the scale is written, a matter more of "musical grammar" than of actual tones), my quibble is with his draconian reaction to the teacher's making a minuscule error in explaining scale structure to his pupil (if, indeed, that is what the teacher said).

I have known many teachers who are excellent at imparting technique, and more importantly, teaching musicianship in general and a general love of music, whose knowledge of some of the more obscure minutiae of music theory is, perhaps, a bit shaky. But oftentimes the specific subject never even comes up.

In addition to this, most at least semi-serious music students take from more than one teacher. I have had lessons from two folk guitarists, one who didn't even read music, three classical guitarists, both of which could, and one genuine flamenco guitarist, who not only could not read music, he couldn't speak English (and I don't speak Spanish; we sat face to face with our guitars and he would demonstrate slowly, then I would try to do what he did. We'd repeat the ritual until I got it, and it worked) ; and three different voice teachers, each of whom covered much of the same ground, but each had a somewhat different emphasis, all of which proved valuable to me.

A serious student seeking a career in music may attend one or more music schools or conservatories, where they will encounter dozens of teachers in various specialties. One of the teachers I had at Cornish was a fine pianist, but she mainly taught sight-singing and ear-training, including the finer points of music notation. The matter was also covered in a music calligraphy (writing and transcribing music manuscripts) class that I also took at Cornish. If one teacher misses something, one of the others will probably pick it up.

Even if ALL of the teachers miss the same tiny bit of esoterica, the student may >u>still enjoy a marvelously successful career in music without ever encountering a situation in which the missing knowledge of this tiny detail will ever raise its head. I sincerely feel that a teacher's failure to impart this small detail—that on a fixed pitch instrument, a B# and a C are the same tone, although written differently to maintain the consistency of the scale structure—is hardly just grounds for calling the community together, dragging the teacher out onto the stage of a large music hall or arena before a vast audience, and subject him or her to being drawn and quartered before the multitudes as an example to all other music teachers.

A bit . . . excessive, perhaps. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 06:28 PM

////Josepp, every time you start a thread you sound as though you're spoiling for a fight. According to you, things aren't regulated enough.../////

I don't think my opening statement sounded anything like I was picking a fight. But it doesn't matter. It generates a more animated discussion than the usual tripe here.

///YouTube commenting behaviour is disgusting and should be thoroughly policed, goddammit!////

Hey, I agree!

////People who pick up a musical instrument should read music, goddammit!///

And I agree with that too!

////(Poor old Django - couldn't read a sodding note - and him with just a thumb and two useful fingers as well - goddammit!)///

But he wasn't teaching music theory to people, either, was he?

////Why not try opening up a topic with something positive - nay, even benign - for a change? Relax - chill - have a good time - make music.////

I do it they way I want to do it. I don't care who gets pissed off.

///Too bad, josepp, that you are tethered to the sheet music.////

Oh, yes, so sad--boo hoo.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 06:35 PM

And for those who don't llike my threads--leave and go argue about the merits of Obama's campaign in Libya. Or whine about the all the radiation in Japan that you can't do a thing about. Or stay here and get your 2 cents in about the ups and downs of music theory--at least somebody gave you that option.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: John P
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 07:10 PM

Can anyone tell me how an Irish reel would be notated? Or a Boda polska from Sweden?

The reason I ask is that many folk tunes need the "feel" of the rhythm. Even if you could notate it accurately, which I doubt, the best music reader in the world wouldn't be able to make it sound right without first knowing the playing style.

All the notation I've ever seen for a reel involves straight eighth and sixteenth notes. Boda polskas are usually written with quarter note triplets over the first two beats of the measure. Playing them the way they are written would be the exact reason so many trad players don't really like classical violinists who learn the tunes from the notes. There's nothing wrong with playing a tune that way, of course, unless you think you're making them sound like Irish or Swedish tunes.

This is not to say that reading isn't important. It is. But there are many things in music that don't show up in the notation. I've always thought the notation for traditional music is like a road map. It is very useful for learning the route, but when you are actually driving you should have your eyes on the road.

This isn't just true of traditional music. I'm deeply familiar with Led Zeppelin's music and I've seen a lot of their songs written out. The notation doesn't even come close to capturing the feel of the music. It doesn't even get the rhythmic nuances.

Music scholarship is great, but it's only tangential to the main event.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 07:22 PM

It would depend who's doing it. I once had a Beatles songbook where it looked like a piano player notated it because the chords were bizarre. Nothing like a guitarist would do. I was looking at songs I can play in my sleep and laughing at how the guy botched it up. They were written for guitar but they weren't guitar chords!

As for rhythms, you're going to lose that. But so what? Make your own. Look at all the blues songs that have the same lyrics in them. Same with sailor chanteys. Just make your own. Take what's there and make it yours. Who wants to be a carbon copy?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Lox
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 08:08 PM

"////(Poor old Django - couldn't read a sodding note - and him with just a thumb and two useful fingers as well - goddammit!)///

But he wasn't teaching music theory to people, either, was he?"


Ooof!!!!!


I think - even more than performing whilst disabled - Djangos biggest achievement is that despite his young death he is still teaching aspiring virtuosos to this day.


Having said that, I am curious and very skeptical about the idea that he "couldn't" read music.

He played with Louis Armstrong, with Coleman Hawkins, with Dizzy Gillespie ... to name just three out of a list of great musical innovators.

The stuff they were doing requires a solid grounding in basic chord theory.

So even if its true that he didn't read, his knowledge of theory was comprehensive. Every time he picked up a guitar, he would describe, in his solos, every element of Jazz theory as it stood at that time - solos as harmonically explicit as his do not happen by accident. He was aware of new key centres and he was able to anticipate their arrival in the true tradition of jazz improvisation.

You can hear in his playing that He fully understood II-V-I cadences, and that he understood the notion of superimposing alterations on the V, whether by using the harmonic minor or the diminished scale.

He may not have used these terms, but he was 100% clear in his mind about how the concepts worked.

Any idea that he just played magic notes that came to him from the universe is one that discredits him, just as it discredits geniuses like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Of course his ear was great - in fact it was awesome - but there is no jazz without some kind of theoretical understanding, whether learned as an apprentice or as a student.

There isn't much info on Django education and I doubt he got his Theoretical knowledge from his early romani mentors - it would have come from the musicians he admired and loved in America.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 09:26 PM

"As for rhythms, you're going to lose that. But so what? Make your own."쳌

No go with that one, Josepp! Rhythm is the underlying superstructure of a piece of music, especially of the kind of music(s) that John is speaking of. A polka without the correct rhythm wouldn't be a polka. Nor would a waltz. Or a minuet. Or a schottische. Or the second act of Swan Lake. How about a halyard chantey or a track-lining song, where the whole purpose is to keep people in rhythm? The fact that you include sea chanteys in your litany of songs that can do without rhythm or can be done in any old rhythm whatsoever" seems to demonstrate a certain level of cluelessness. Somehow singing "The Wreck of the Old 97"쳌 in the same relatively free rhythm as "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" strikes me as, well, kinda weird. Old 97 would have run out of steam before it even got out of the station. Whereas, doing a driving rhythm with "Black is the Color" I'm not quite sure how to go about that. Nor would I want to.

There is a difference between doing something new and creative and just being bloody inept!

Before I met Antonio Zori, one of the flamenco guitarists who was accompanying that dancers at the Spanish Village at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, I had acquired a simple beginners’ book for flamenco guitar by a fellow named Jack Buckingham. And later, a more comprehensive one by Ivor Morantz. Plus a series of articles in "The Guitar Review," a magazine put out by the Classic Guitar Society of New York on various aspects of flamenco and how to play it, along with a lot of written music. And a folio by guitarist Vincente Gomez. I got all the notes right, and I got what I thought was the rhythm, at least according to the notation. But I couldn't make the Alegrias or Soleares or Farruca sound like the ones I heard on the recordings of Mario Escudero or Carlos Montoya or Sabicas.

Antonio started me on an Alegrias which he said (in Spanish and managed, conveyed to me by another fellow who was taking the lesson with me and could manage a bit of high-school Spanish) as a basic rhythm for several of the (now get this!) dance forms.

You see, although flamenco guitar became popular in concerts several decades back, it was used prior to that primarily for dance accompaniment. laying down usually fairly complex but set rhythm, with the "falsettas" or flashy scale runs and such giving the guitarist a chance to show off a bit while the dancers were catching their breath or a quick beer.

In the sheet music, the basic rhythmic unit of the Alegrias appeared four measures of 3/4. But it didn’t sound like it at all. I turns out, as Antonio explained it and demonstrated it, twelve beats with specific beats emphasized. Not

1 - 2 - 3, 1 - 2 - 3, 1 - 2 - 3, 1 - 2 - 3. No.

The beat for the Alegrias is as follows:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12

The last two beats are sort if "throw away"쳌before the next phrase. The "faslettas" or "fancy stuff"쳌follows the same rhythm.

Once I heard Antonio's actually fairly simple explanation, the whole tangled knot came unraveled. It was like the sun coming up!

Is rhythm important? Damn straight it's important!

If I had not looked at the attempts to notate flamenco rhythms, I might very well have been able to pick them up just by listening instead of getting myself all confused by trying to jam in into conventional expectations.

I have since seen a far better attempt at using standard notation for the correct rhythms for the various flamenco forms than had first been presented to me, but it requires a couple of introductory paragraphs to explain which notes to stress and how essential they are. Just presenting the notes, even with the stress marks, usually won't adequately convey how important they are.

About a year later, I had a chance to be at a party after a concert in Seattle by the "Ballet Basque de Biarritz."쳌 The dancers were listening to a little American folk music from a couple of us, when I started fiddling a bit with a Farruca. One of the girls in the troupe was adept at flamenco and she jumped up and started in. She and I had one helluva good time as I played the guitar and she stomped the crap out of the floor!!

Man, what a snort!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Noreen
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 09:30 PM

Tootler- :)

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 09:57 PM

"Just my opinion, I am by no means a music scholar. I am an education major though, and for the folks talking about learning to play the instrument before reading music, we call it "sound before symbol" and it is universally accepted among educators   :)"

I was an educator--well, that's what my degree says. I wish you success with your calling. It's important work, and you should be very proud of yourself--but let other people tell you that. Good to meet you.

Bruce

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 10:04 PM

///Having said that, I am curious and very skeptical about the idea that he "couldn't" read music.

He played with Louis Armstrong, with Coleman Hawkins, with Dizzy Gillespie ... to name just three out of a list of great musical innovators.////


And Sir Duke--Django played with him. Something tells me Duke might have known a thing or two about reading music. And Louis was one of the best sight-readers in jazz--possibly that ever lived. He was always good but Lil Hardin really got him going because she was highly trained. Lil played with a lot of jazz musicians who could not read but some of these guys did eventually learn to read because it was a necessity if they wanted to lead a band. Kid Ory, for example, learned to read music by studying the sax, which he was rather adept on. In fact, he wrote "Savoy Blues" with a sax. The only bandleader I know of that didn't read or even play was Kay Kyser. He got the gig because it was college corn band that needed a leader so he took them on.

////The stuff they were doing requires a solid grounding in basic chord theory.////

I don't think you could get a job with King Oliver or Jelly Roll Morton if you couldn't read. Especially Jelly Roll because it would have irked him something fierce to know you couldn't comprehend his beautiful notes of genius gracing the page.

////There isn't much info on Django education and I doubt he got his Theoretical knowledge from his early romani mentors - it would have come from the musicians he admired and loved in America.////

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the other Roma in his life. Roma were to Europe what blacks were to America in terms of musical contributions. Hard to say. He was such an unusual cat. Once he missed a show because he wouldn't get out of bed. He missed another show once when he decided to go for a walk and smell the flowers. He was impoverished his entire life. The suits you see him in were borrowed. He died with no money--which was also how he lived. Les Paul bought him a gravestone because he was very close to Django and both of them loved Eddie Lang (whose real name I believe was Salvatore Massaro).

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 10:33 PM

A teacher who truly understands the significance of and difference between B# and C is not necessarily a better teacher than any other given teacher. There are obviously many factors. However, in my opinion, the same teacher with the knowledge is better than the version of him/herself without the knowledge. For Josepp, not knowing it is a deal-breaker. For many here, given the specific instrument, genre, and goals, it is not.

In Western music, the B#/C distinction is not trivial or esoteric. It may not be necessary knowledge for many or most performers in a particular genre, but that does not take away from its importance. It's significance goes beyond writing/reading or labeling. It relates to a feature of many types of Western music (and beyond) that plays a role even if the performers are not consciously aware of it. They do not have to be consciously aware of it to perform. Most intuit it and learn through enculturation.

"Folk" musicians and people who don't read music notation have as much music "theory" as anyone else. It's ingenuous to pretend one is being more natural or practical because they aren't well versed in common practice Western music theory. Music is not just sound. It is sound organized by humans, and that organization occurs, to one degree or another, according to certain "rules." Performers in a given musical system subscribe to those rules. Theory describes or, in some cases, prescribes those rules. The B#/C distinction is one result of an attempt to describe the rules.

Josepp may come off as abrasive and rigid in his opinions, but to argue back by discounting the significance of the B#/C distinction is, in my opinion, misguided. Musical truth and understanding shouldn't suffer because one doesn't agree with Josepp's assessment of this one particular situation.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 10:34 PM

"And for those who don't llike my threads"

josepp, I think your threads are wonderful. Truly. You are an amazingly smart man. But you insult people just because you can. I'm from a different part of town, and where I'm from that kind of insulting is a quick trip to where no one really wants to go. Before you tell me you don't care, allow me to tell you that that don't matter. What matters is the things you say and the things you do. So far ya ain't said nothin' that recognizes the intelligence of the people with whom you speak.

This being a forum for opinion, you have a right to think of the threads you start as being yours. But it's kinda like having to take a piss. Yes you have the right, but there are times and places. In the local department store is not the place, and until after closing it ain't the time. Might scare the horses.

The reality you may or may never come to see: One of the people you have dissed is a revered musician and writer, Don Firth. Another is an excellent composer, Smokey. Another is Will Fly: Talk about a sense of humour. And Tom Bliss was and is a man whose departure from making music in the real public forum made me cry. I will never tell anyone who you are, but I'll know. And you'd best know also that it sometimes takes more than being cute to impress people. Manners always are better. Please develop some. I won't insult your beard or ragtime singing and playing; you please do not insult my friends.

Bruce Murdoch

PS When you look me up, that scar on my face was the result of a really stupid decision on my part. I have no idea what the scar on your heart is from. If you ever feel you want to speak about it, message me. I'm easy enough to find.

I am sorry to the many people on this thread I haven't named. Please write it off to old age and a failing mammary. (I see tits in the distance and I miss the Rocky Mountains.)

B

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 12:02 AM

"But there are many things in music that don't show up in the notation. I've always thought the notation for traditional music is like a road map. It is very useful for learning the route, but when you are actually driving you should have your eyes on the road."

Rules are for guidance of the wise and blind obedience by fools.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Smokey.
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 12:57 AM

Thanks, Bruce, that means a lot to me.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 02:17 AM

Smokey, it's really simple: you are a musical giant, imo, and this world is lucky to have you. Truly. Your feel for music brings me to tears, and someday, I'll be able to tell you that in person.

BM

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 04:19 AM

Bruce - my feel for my own music often brings me to tears - the wrong sort... :-)

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 04:23 AM

Oh, bro, do I know about that. Had my own dog yelping at one point. Man's best friend my ass!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Lox
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 04:32 AM

To confirm my earlier post,

After a quick spot of reading, it appears that Django actually learned Jazz with Coleman Hawkins as an accompanist.

It was in this capacity and from this foundation that he learned the harmonic movement stuff that allowed him to develop as a jazz soloist.

This confirms my earlier comments.

Roma have a wonderful, rich and highly developed musical culture. Their music does not move between key centres in the way that Jazz does though, and Django would have found the sounds associated with that both elusive and fascinating.

As an accompanist in a Jazz band he would most certainly have had to play from a chart, as a jazz guitarosts bread and butter has been, from the very beginning, to chop out the chords at short notice.

Even if he didn't sight read, his knowledge of voice leading, an absolute must for the jazz accompanist, shows that he had a clear understanding of written music.

hose bands did not sit around like we might and play each other songs a hundred times till they had all learned it, they just got up and played.

To do this, you need to have twpo things - a great ear and a great understanding of Jazz theory.

Thats why Jazz is hard.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 04:38 AM

Pentatonic scales, Lox. Not really necessary to read, just know, I think.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Will Fly
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 04:42 AM

Lox (and others) - you're absolutely right about Django and music, of course. I was just using a little irony in my post to Josepp, but there's water, and then there the backs of ducks.

Having played jazz for some years (I even played a bit last night), I can honestly say that there's no end to the twists and turns in a musical path. But, to get down that path, you have to imbibe - either through the ears or through the eyes or both - knowledge of harmonic progressions and the possibilities within them, and have some idea of the directions you're taking when you go through those progressions. Every note is a decision.

To me, the crucial bit is being able to translate what you hear in your head directly on to the instrument - 40 years later I'm still working on it!

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 06:02 AM

"I don't think you could get a job with King Oliver or Jelly Roll Morton if you couldn't read"
more ignorance about king oliver from josepp.
Oliver, Joe 'King'

"Cornetist Joe Oliver blew the blues through brass, and helped bring bottom-up swing to New Orleans at the turn of the century. He played a key part in turning that city's band music into what we now call jazz.

Like many early Louisiana musicians who came off the plantation, which Oliver almost certainly did, he had little formal musical education, nor did he show great musical promise in his youth."
while Oliver later learned to read music, his approach was one that copied Buddy Bolden.
"Oliver soon began to play weekends at the Eagle Saloon on Rampart Street with one of New Orleans' preeminent bands, the Eagle Band. Again he had a rough start; at first, the band sent him home because "he played so loud and so bad."

There was a reason: the Eagle Band musicians had played with the legendary cornetist Buddy Bolden before his mental breakdown. They continued Bolden's unleashed, bottom-up musical approach which depended not on reading or formalities, but on guts."

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 06:04 AM

Josepp: "But he wasn't teaching music theory to people, either, was he?"

I've said it above, and I'll say it again: You've actually MORPHED your argument. You're now saying that sight-reading ability is only *critical* in the case of people who are going to teach music. However, your initial point above was:

Josepp: When I watch musicians that I respect play, they can all play straight off sheet music. That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture.

Following which you stated that one of the best guitarists you'd ever played with couldn't read a note. So presumably, although he was one of the best guitarists you've ever played with, you were unable to respect him and felt that his mere exitence was damaging our culture?

Sorry to keep harping on at this, but it seems that you changed your tune significantly on this part-way through the thread, and I think you should clarify whether the above statement applies (as it seemed to originally) to *all* musicians or just to those who terach others?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: John P
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 10:48 AM

Josepp: When I watch musicians that I respect play, they can all play straight off sheet music. That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture.

And then, when I asked about the accuracy of the notation for some traditional folk dance styles:

As for rhythms, you're going to lose that. But so what? Make your own.

Josepp, you're making this up as you go along. How do you get from "That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture" to "you're going to lose that. But so what?"

Either music reading is the only way to go, or it is simply not possible in some circumstances. Which is it? You can't have it both ways. "Make your own" rhythms don't work for dancers or for musicians who actually want to play in a particular style.

Lox, I'm also interested in your comment:
If you can hear it, you can write it down ...

I ask again, how do you notate an Irish reel or a Swedish Boda polska so that someone who's never heard one will be able to play it?

Please believe that I'm not against reading music. I read music all the time. It's a very important skill. But it is clear to me that our notational system has a lot of holes in it when it comes to accuracy.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 12:26 PM

////"Just my opinion, I am by no means a music scholar. I am an education major though, and for the folks talking about learning to play the instrument before reading music, we call it "sound before symbol" and it is universally accepted among educators   :)"////

Overall, I'm going to have to disagree with this. It would depend on the instrument. Guitar I'm completely self-taught. Never took a lesson. Taught myself to read the music.

Drums I took lessons and am much better for it than I would have been without it. But I could have learned drums ok.

Bass guitar, same as guitar, but having seen what my instructor can do with a bass guitar, I have to rethink my position that I play well for being self-taught. He makes a bass do things I never heard anyone do. He makes beautiful full chords--really pretty sounding. So I may take lessons from him for that but GOD all these years of bad technique I'll have to undo.

That brings me to my point: to play an instrument without knowing what you're doing can be damaging because you incorporate bad techniques that become so ingrained that it becomes a huge struggle trying to get rid of them to play properly.

I was teaching myself the double bass for a while and I was getting to be fairly proficient but I started taking lessons and thank god I did before I went too much longer. My techniques were SO bad that I never could have progressed much farther than I already had. And I had no idea how to use the bow at all. This instrument is so full of secrets that you're not going to learn them all if you aren't properly initiated and even then...Few people could figure it out without help.

The other thing is that I want to learn these techniques because they are handed down from Europe from over a century ago from Franz Simandl--the foremost bass pedagogue. I want to carry on his tradition. I'm not interested in blazing my own path because it would have been a dreadfully short one. I'll walk Simandl's path because it will take me far then maybe I can think about blazing my own path. But for now, I want to do it his way. He knews what he's talking about, I don't. I was groping and sinking. But at least I knew it.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 12:31 PM

///Like many early Louisiana musicians who came off the plantation, which Oliver almost certainly did, he had little formal musical education, nor did he show great musical promise in his youth."
while Oliver later learned to read music, his approach was one that copied Buddy Bolden.///

The part you quote to disprove me just disproved you.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 12:39 PM

josepp, stop talking bollox, he was rejected by boldens band until he could learn to play with guts, boldens band were not interested in musically literate automatons they wanted people who played with guts, SOUL and feeling

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: John P
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 01:31 PM

That brings me to my point: to play an instrument without knowing what you're doing can be damaging because you incorporate bad techniques that become so ingrained that it becomes a huge struggle trying to get rid of them to play properly.

Uh . . . what's the point again? Do you really think anyone disagrees with you about this? What's this have to do with whether or not a teacher is a fraud or whether musicians that can't read music fluidly are damaging our culture?

I'm still curious about how you explain the seemingly contradictory statements you've made in this discussion.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 01:55 PM

Just to start a little further discussion: As an old folk musician, I once purchased a button accordion which apparently came from Germany and which I though was in F Major. After inspecting it some time after I had it, I discovered the Key was stamped on the bottom end as E#. Accompiment seemed to be fine using F Major on other instruments. Any thoughts?

More likely what was stamped there was "Es", the usual German way of writing E flat. An E flat button accordion would sorta work for accompanying tunes in F, up to a point.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 02:56 PM

Bruce, thank you for the kind words.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 03:20 PM

Every time I've checked the forum over the past couple of days, I've been kinda dismayed to see this thread back up near the top. I've been finding it hard to believe that people continue to beat this dead horse! Sort of a "guilty pleasure," I suppose ~ and I'm as guilty as anyone.

I'm less angry about this topic than I was when I first encountered it, but still can't seem to resist wallowing in it.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 04:22 PM

Just telling the truth, Don. But, you are more than welcome.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 05:07 PM

////josepp, stop talking bollox, he was rejected by boldens band until he could learn to play with guts, boldens band were not interested in musically literate automatons they wanted people who played with guts, SOUL and feeling////

Buddy Bolden NEVER played with another cornetist--not ever. Bunk Johnson claimed he played in that band but it was disproven because everybody who saw Bolden's band all stated he NEVER played with another cornetist. So your story, as usual, is bullshit. King Oliver was the teacher of Louis Armstrong and Louis was one of the best sight-readers ever. A lot of that was due to Lil Hardin but Louis was already reading by the time he met her. King Oliver had Joplin's sheet music bound together into a volume at a time when Joplin was nearly forgotten because Oliver loved playing Joplin's rags. I know a lot about early jass. And I know King Bolden never played with another cornetist.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Lox
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 05:11 PM

"I ask again, how do you notate an Irish reel or a Swedish Boda polska so that someone who's never heard one will be able to play it?"

With care and attention to detail.

If you go and watch a poetry reading by Benjamin Zephaniah, you can write down the words.

If you write it down in dictionary perfect English, you will have the poem right, but you will lose some of the character.

It is possible to write with a bit more phonetic sensitivity and get close to the original.

When you read it out, it probably won't sound like Benjamin Zephaniah regardless of how well his nuances are captured on the page.

But if you listen and try to copy, it is still unlikely that you will get it perfect as you are a different person.

If someone who had never heard BZ speak were to read a well transcribed poem of his, they would probably get a good sense of its lilt.

Music historians are able to get an idea of the lilt of Medieval speech and music without having heard it.

In light of all the above statements, it can bew said that the written form of passing music on has its shortcomings, but so does the aural form.

Each musician has their own character.

At least with the written form there is less chance of generational chinese whispers diluting the music and a better chance of preserving older forms.

To say tat the Aural way is better, or the written way is better is a petty facile argument.

But what I said, that if you can hear it you can write it down, is 100% correct.

There are ways.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: josepp
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 05:36 PM

///Who cares? Most folkies play and sing out of tune anyway!! ////

Haha! You're right

///I'm less angry about this topic than I was when I first encountered it, but still can't seem to resist wallowing in it. ///

Thanks for admitting it. Although I get a kick from the ones who act condescending and make asses of themselves: "Oh, I'm too good and aloof to hang around on this stupid thread--give me a break" and yet there they are posting every two or three days. They can't resist and they can't admit it either. It's a fun thread, just admit it.

///Uh . . . what's the point again? Do you really think anyone disagrees with you about this?////

Yes.

///What's this have to do with whether or not a teacher is a fraud///

Because someone who claimed to ba an "educator" said that hands-on before study was a better way to go and that this was apparently unanimously championed by "educators." I doubt this is a good way with certain instruments. Let's face it--guitar isn't that hard. If the slugs in this forum can play one, how hard can it be? But almost none play double bass because it is definitely a lot harder and I really wouldn't recommend too much hands-on because the proper techniques are counter-intuitive--or sure seem that way to me. I doubt most people would figure them out without a qualified instructor. I wouldn't have, at any rate.

///or whether musicians that can't read music fluidly are damaging our culture?///

Sorry but it's true. What if nobody could play music off the sheet? It would not be a good situation. Other countries have amazing music programs for kids. As with everything else, we're getting left behind. I want to strangle the next kid who tries to justify not learning to read music by saying, "Well, John Lennon couldn't read music and it didn't hurt him."

Sorry to say this (and I like the Beatles as much as anyone) but Lennon did a disservice by not learning to read music. He gave birth to generations of lazy kids who think all they have to do is play and everything will come to them. When it doesn't, they abandon it. They put no real investment into their music. Well, if you put nothing in, what do you expect to come out? John Lennon was John Lennon and there will never be another. Times have changed far too much for that to ever happen again. Lennon has hurt culture as much as he helped it. Sorry to say it but...

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 05:51 PM

"Sorry to say this (and I like the Beatles as much as anyone) but Lennon did a disservice by not learning to read music. He gave birth to generations of lazy kids who think all they have to do is play and everything will come to them. When it doesn't, they abandon it."

Sorry ~ isn't our main focus hereabouts supposedly FOLK music? While folk music in our post-modern/post-recording-technology age is certainly played (replicated, actually) by many varieties of musicians, including the classically-trained and the ultra-literate, the "source musicians" we're ostensibly emulating were much more likely to be utterly unfamiliar with standard notation.

Sure, the best players among them had a thorough (but often more intuitive than didactic) understanding of harmonic theory. But I'd wager that very few could sight-read from "dots," and fewer still (by far!) knew, or could possibly care, about the existence of B-sharp.

Not just John Lennon ~ hundreds, even thousands, of the anonymous players and singers who have left us centuries worth of folk tradition have had little or no facility with written musical notation. So what?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Lox
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 06:03 PM

The notion of the Raw uneducated Jazz player is a myth that needs to be dispelled.

The early Jazz musicians learned european Harmony in Brass bands and Jazz happened when they took that knowledge home and mixed it with the blues and the african rhythms that they were already singing and playing at home.

Buddy Bolden was an exception - not because he didn't have a musical education - but because he emerged from the string bands who played for private dances and parties in new orleans.

These bands were generally made up of "creoles of colour" (to use the terminology of the day), and could play anything from arias from french operas to the latest ragtime tunes.

They were musically literate, that being a matter of great cultural pride and importance to them.

Before segregation happened in 1894, black creoles had enjoyed many of the same privileges as white creoles, and that included a solid grounding in western music theory and literacy.

Boldens style of play was distinctive in that he would paraphrase, embellish and decorate melodies. He wasn't quite an improvisor, but his creativity and bluesiness opened the door for people like Armstrong and Bechet to walk through.


King Oliver, according to New Grove, began to "study music as a trombonist" and from about the age of 22 was playing in brass bands, dance bands and in various small groups in new orleans bars and cabarets.


It needs to be clarified that all these bands, and the musicians in them, knew and understood counterpoint and played it well. That kind of knowledge is learned from a mentor either as an apprentice or as a student.

Either way, to survive in a band like that you needed knowledge of harmonic movement, chords, voice leading, guide tones etc and that type of harmonic understanding comes from knowledge of the european classical tradition which is not learned by osmosis, but needs to be taught one way or another.

When Jazz finally took off as an art form, the whole band would improvise - not just the soloist - and Jazz is the same today - you take a minimum of information and you flesh it out together. Its intelligent teamwork and that was how they did it, with discipline and knowledge.

These guys were clever and knew what they were doing, and propagating and reinforcing myths about how they just blew the fecking trumpet from the heart like noble savages does them a great disservice.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 07:46 PM

"Let's face it--guitar isn't that hard. If the slugs in this forum can play one, how hard can it be?"쳌

Well, Josepp, maybe THIS hard. Or THIS. Or perhaps THIS? Let's see you do something like THIS on your double bass!

When someone with a chip on his shoulder comes on this forum, claims to be an expert in absolutely everything, makes ridiculous, extreme statements, and treats everyone with contempt, it makes me wonder if--

Well, let me put it this way:

Can you actually pick anything other than your nose?

Don Firth

P. S.   At first you were kind of amusing, but now, Josepp, you're starting to become boring.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Smokey.
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 09:43 PM

Josepp, feel free to write me off as a 'slug' by all means, that doesn't bother me since you know nothing about me, but bear in mind some of the other people you are insulting here have been there, done it, got the teashirt, and have more musicality in one wet fart than you could produce in a lifetime with your heartless approach and frankly obnoxious attitude. If you know so much and you're so damn good, prove it. Meanwhile, stop insulting your betters and try to learn something about humility.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: johncharles
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 08:24 AM

Calm down folks. As far as I can see Josepp has tried drums, guitar, bass guitar and double bass; some self taught some with a teacher. His ability to explain the B sharp does not seem to have produced a musical prodigy.
knowing the theory doesn't in my experience provide a whole lot of help when you step in front of an audience and play.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 08:31 AM

Why hold back, Smokey? Say what you really mean . . .

I ditto your post.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: John P
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 10:06 AM

Ah, josepp, I see that you are one of the Mudcat debaters who makes contentious comments and then refuses to answer the rebuttals. This makes you a complete waste of time as a debating partner. Just in case, I'll try for the third time:

How do you get from "That is how it should be. Anything less damages our culture" to "you're going to lose that. But so what?"

Either music reading is the only way to go, or it is simply not possible in some circumstances. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Mr Happy
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 10:21 AM

What's these hard & fast rules for culture?

Who invented them, how are they qualified?

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: GUEST,999
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 10:28 AM

I would love to be able to sight-read music notation. I can't. Canadian culture has not fallen apart because of that. Is being able to read a good thing? DOH, yes! Absolutely necessary? No.

The purpose of notation is to preserve the music or allow people who share no language in common to play together. But the oral tradition has done that quite well. It would have been better, imo, had many societies that had or have no written tradition actually had one. Here I'm thinking of the Cree or Inuit, and what's left of the old days has been passed on orally. Most of our way-back ancestors didn't know how to either read or write. We have lost so much. Then people went out with their tape recorders--not just their memories--and indeed did some permanent preservations. That's a good thing, imo.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Smokey.
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 12:49 PM

There are some things that are impossible to write down, regardless of Josepp's somewhat odd claim to the contrary. I don't think he understands or recognises those aspects of music, and that comes out as a lack of respect, as he puts it.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Richard from Liverpool
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 01:02 PM

What I don't understand is how someone who holds non-written methods of transmission in such contempt can wind up on a folk music forum.

I learned the lullabys I sing to my kid from my mother, father, and uncle, they didn't write them out on manuscript paper or make me learn the key signature. They just sang them to me. If you're going to say that's not real music, or not real culture, then you're just making an idiot of yourself.

I look through the list of songs I sing (I almost always sing unaccompanied) and the majority of them are songs that I've learned from hearing them.

And before anybody takes this as a sign of musical illiteracy, I've studied piano for many years, I am very glad I can read the notes Byrd or Beethoven or Bartok put on the page, and was educated as a Cathedral chorister, learning to read both gregorian chant and modern notation, singing mass and three evensongs a week for 3 years. So I understand written transmisison perfectly well.

It's just respect and understand non-written transmission. And I know that there are aspects of music that you'll never get just by looking at blobs on a page. The aspects that I learned hearing songs sung to me by my parents, or, for that matter, by singers in a pub.

If you think that's somehow damaging culture because nobody bothered to look down to check what was on the page, then I feel very sorry for you.

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 01:13 PM

"If you're going to say that's not real music, or not real culture, then you're just making an idiot of yourself."
I agree

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 01:22 PM

Bix Beiderbecke, some information
The group was hired for a gig in December 1920, but a complaint was lodged with the American Federation of Musicians, Local 67, that the boys did not have union cards. In an audition before a union executive, Beiderbecke was forced to sight read and failed. He did not earn his card.
Bix, a native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering that some critics have connected to his original sound.
Of course if we were to listen to idiots like josepp and lox, we would dismiss bix beiderbecke because his music reading was poor

Subject: RE: No such thing as a B-sharp
From: Will Fly
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 01:42 PM

Indeed, Dick - Beiderbecke was a true genius. A most wonderful and inventive cornet player, and an interesting composer for the piano ("In A Mist", etc.). Could hardly read a note.