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20 Apr 21 - 12:52 PM (#4102813) Subject: What entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome Chatting to someone the other day I mentioned that the fact that music is to entertain people is sometimes forgotten. No names as that would be unfair but there are some acts who can turn the dullest of songs into a joy to listen to and some that can take the most entertaining piece of music and make it grate on my ears. For me I can only describe it as a certain 'spark' that breathes life into the music. I must admit that I find the poetry of songs difficult to get in to if I am just reading the words. For me the songs have to be performed in a manner that induces me to listen. The description of the history or provenance of a song may be interesting but no amount of that will bring it to life for me although I am sure to some that is just as important. Maybe I am lazy but I expect to be entertained, not to have to work out what the singer or musician is trying to do. I am no great performer myself but I do try to keep any public performance I make entertaining without resorting to long winded explanations of what the song is about or why anyone else should listen. Luckily I find that the vast majority of performers do entertain me, even if I sometimes don't appreciate their material. Some may say I am too easily pleased but even if I am there are some acts that do nothing for me at all. I know some of it is different tastes but, for me at least, there is something else as well. I just can't put my finger on it! |
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20 Apr 21 - 05:12 PM (#4102837) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,jim bainbridge Dave, I am in total sympathy with you- there is such riches in music of all kinds but it needs that spark to bring it to life. Entertaining doesn't have to be defined as fun, although it often helps- too many people take their music so seriously- OK for academics maybe, but a doubtful approach in a live situation. the kind of longwinded introduction you mention is generally from people who relish talking down to people and pointless anyway. I was playing my version of St Patrick's Day in Casey's Cabin pub in Baltimore when a respected uilleann piper came up & said I had played it wrongly. I pointed out that it was not the usual version, but I'd got it from a recording of Leo Rowsome. He didn't accept this and walked away, muttering 'ah but you're an entertainer, not a traditional musician' I took it as a compliment on balance, but isn't it possible to be both? |
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20 Apr 21 - 06:02 PM (#4102843) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman Jim that piper is a bollocks who has no regulators on his pipes , so he is only playing the chanter, a total wazack that does not believe people should use harmony on irish tunes. my experience is that medicore musicians are always the most defensive. anf that guy is a case in point, i know the bollocks well, he earns his living as a book maker, he is niether a good trad musician or an entertainer of course tradtional music can be entertaining, examples abound seamuns ennis miko rusell packie byrne all entertainers but also decent trad musicians. as a matter of interest, i remember doing a folk club in bicester many years ago most of my material was trad, but i was also entertaining, and trying to present the material in an interesting way anyway the organiser interupted me to say, stop telling jokes we have come to hear you Sing.... well mayhem broke loose which was entertaining in itself . the organisers name was chas cordingley. Tradtional musicians and entertainers are in my experience often one and the same thing. Jim you are both. . |
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20 Apr 21 - 06:13 PM (#4102846) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: ripov go to the top of the village-there is a crowd of mothers with young children being entertained by the music of hammer on anvil, played by the blacksmith,or maybe thescraping 'twang'of a trowel where a brickie is pointing a wall- are not smithing, and bricklaying and even digging holes-performing arts-entertainment maybe not musical, but music to the soul when they are done well? |
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20 Apr 21 - 06:23 PM (#4102849) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: keberoxu This thread makes me sigh with relief. My childhood was spent in a household that did not have music-making, it had music-listening mostly, although one elder took pleasure in playing the piano when no one else was around to criticize. The piano being there, troublemaker that I was born to be, I started playing the darned thing by ear and scared the heck out of my parents. Grew up listening to recordings of traditional music and recordings of classical music. My temperament, and the teacher my family kindly located for me, turned me to the classical repertoire of 18th-, 19th-, and some 20th-century Europe with a little North America thrown in. So that is the music I make. Never stopped listening to trad music, I just never went out and tried making it myself. Classical music CAN be entertaining, and it can be so without "trying", in my experience. It's just that mostly the training, and the patronage in these United States by private wealth and stuff I don't understand that music has nothing to do with, result in a lot of students/pros who perform classical music in such a way that it puts you in a numb sleepwalking kind of trance. When a performer takes the stage of a concert hall, the performer who actually has that 'spark' and who brings music -- yes, even 'classical' music -- to life, without any foolishness or fuss, people sit up and listen. And even if the audience is mostly Anglo-American-phone (is there a better word for it?), the performer with the right stuff and a certain authenticity can get across to that audience, regardless of whether it is a French 'melodie' specialist, a German 'lieder' singer, or a Russian like the late Galina Vishnevskaya, she who was married to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. I heard her singing little Tchaikovsky salon-art songs, and she did it with such intensity, directness, and yes beauty, that the Boston/Symphony Hall audience HELD THEIR BREATH the better to hear her -- nobody dozed off to sleep. Sorry, I do get carried away by my feelings about this. But if you find this spark missing in trad music, you can just about imagine what a breath of fresh air it is when a 'classical' concert has something alive in it. Thanks. |
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21 Apr 21 - 01:48 AM (#4102884) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome I fully agree that it is any kind of music, not just traditional folk.I Thanks, Jim. Glad it's not just me. And seeing that you have posted, Dick, I am happy to confirm that it was my PM conversation with you that set me off on this path :-) |
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21 Apr 21 - 06:06 AM (#4102893) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Steve Shaw "...a total wazack that does not believe people should use harmony on irish tunes." I went to a session at Hughes' pub in Dublin a few years ago. It was around eight or nine older boys playing in unison without harmony. Fiddles, whistles, flutes and a piper. It was amazingly good. The piper was Gabriel McKeon, just his chanter. Not a bad piper, is he, Dick...Whilst there are no rules, it's worth remembering that Irish music arose from a tradition which had little or no harmony, just single-note instruments such as flutes, whistles and (more or less) fiddles, sean-nós singing... it's all about wot you wanna play and wot you wanna listen to in m'humble... I think the word "entertained" apropos of music has a slight air of sit-back passivity about it. I like to think that, if I find myself enjoying something I'm listening to, I'm engaging with it in a mentally-active way. I'm mostly a Radio 3 man in my listening, and a lot of what's on there requires a bit of engagement rather than consignment to "background listening." On the other hand, I can whack on some Pogues, Joni, Christy, Carole King, Carly, Queen or Beatles in the car, invariably blasting out the words if I'm on my own, switching octaves as necessary and harmonising extremely badly. I suppose that's a mixture of engagement and entertainment... |
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21 Apr 21 - 07:36 AM (#4102905) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome I don't mind a bit of engagement. It's when it becomes hard work I give up. I've put in enough work. Time for a bit of sit-back passivity :-) |
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21 Apr 21 - 07:40 AM (#4102909) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Steve Shaw Listening and pum-pumming along while you're peeling the spuds still counts as engagement! |
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21 Apr 21 - 07:41 AM (#4102910) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,Derrick I agree with Jim and others, musicians and singers need more than technique to engage with listeners. I have seen players and singers who have given a technically flawless performances and at the finish left me cold. Why? they have no rapport or personal engagement with me they are little more than a robot. To enjoy music I need the player or singer to be a warm and interesting person, to tell me why he likes a tune or some little story about it, not a lecture. The purely academic approach to folk music or any other sort of music has no appeal to me and I do not need to be told how I should enjoy my music. |
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21 Apr 21 - 08:15 AM (#4102915) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,Roger Well you've sung all the words and played all the notes But you never quite learn the songs you sing. |
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21 Apr 21 - 09:44 AM (#4102938) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Jack Campin For anyone who's spent any time in academia, the way "academic" is used pejoratively in this thread is daft. An academic lecture is a performance, and can be as gripping as any musical one. Richard Feynman was famous for his showmanship (and in physics that goes back to Michael Faraday). Probably the most spectacular I've heard in person was Paul Feyerabend - he may well be on video. And I doubt anyone who heard Jean-Yves Girard talking about his work in logic will ever have forgotten it, however little they knew about the background. I doubt if any college accountancy lecture has ever sunk to the level of numbing dullness Tony McManus and Martin Simpson can achieve with the guitar. Please find some other term of abuse. |
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21 Apr 21 - 10:56 AM (#4102957) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Steve Shaw You haven't heard Return To Kintail, then, Jack... |
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21 Apr 21 - 11:17 AM (#4102960) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman entertainment is to some extent in the eye of the beholder, to some extent how a performer is perceived can be down to the mood of the person who is part of the audience. both jim and i know this particular player, steve shaw you do not, he is not in my opinion entertaining and is imo a mediocre musician.in my opinion playing the regulators is an important part of the sound of the uilleean pipes, but even if he was able to play them his music does not entertain me, neither does his bigoted attitude to the use of harmony. i know all about the history and lack of harmony in irish music in the past , but music has to progress, if it does not it becomes a museum piece, these stupid little rules are the same nonsense that holds back CCE. |
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21 Apr 21 - 11:32 AM (#4102965) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Brian Peters 'Entertainment' comes in many forms, and I used to rather resent it when asked by folk club organisers who I'd cold-called what my 'patter' was like, as if folk music needed comic monologues to be rendered interesting. Frankie Armstrong tearing the house down with 'Tam Lin' is pretty damned entertaining in my book, if entertainment is allowed to include sitting open-mouthed with your hair standing on end. That said, I don't generally enjoy serious or po-faced performers unless they're very, very talented (and not always then). A light and informative introduction, though, can definitely count as part of the entertainment in my book. |
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21 Apr 21 - 11:46 AM (#4102969) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,Derrick Jack I take your point about academics some can be just as entertaining as any good musician or other performer.The people I had in mind take the music so seriously and with such emphasis on how they think it should be played that they lose any sense of humour and lose the joy of it.Perhaps I've met too many of the wrong sort. The best musicians are those who play with their heart. |
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21 Apr 21 - 12:31 PM (#4102977) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Steve Shaw Many a piper in a session wouldn't dream of using the regs. I did say there were no rules, Dick. However, the heart and soul in Irish instrumental music is the tune. I'm sure you play lovely harmonies on your concertina, and I love lovely harmonies, and I have many CDs by Irish bands. I even made one meself. But I also love unadorned tune-playing on single-note instruments. No rules, no either-or. Whatever girds yer loins. |
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21 Apr 21 - 01:00 PM (#4102982) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,jim banbridge I think it was me who introduced the word 'academic' here. It certainly was not meant pejoratively- I'd EXPECT academics to take their work seriously, and we shoould all be grateful for the academic work of collectors, with all their faults. I think we have the same piper in mind, Dick, from Skibbereen? - he's obviously not respected by you anyway, and although I've never heard him play, my point stands. One prominent musician and collector, speaking of another technically proficient player who spent a lot of time with the wonderful Scan Tester, said this to me years ago ... 'yes, he learned all the tunes, but nothing else'...... |
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21 Apr 21 - 01:14 PM (#4102987) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman Steve the remark about harmony was not aimed at me, but at a fiddle player who had a pretty good understanding of trad music. the fact of the mtter is that Jim is in my opinion is a more intersting player of trad tunes than this half piper, another local piper nicknamed the chanter man cum piper who adressed Jim as huge quim. music has to be experimented with to go forward, it might not always work, but it is better to try, than to regard the music as to be played in a sterile safe unadventurous museum peice. i do not play lovely harmonies, or harmonies on tunes , but if someone is and its working , i am not hidebound about it, furthermore its bad manners to say to the musicians to stop playing feckin harmonies. I found that in most pub sessions in county cork over 30 years that the pub audiences preferred a mix of songs and a mix of tempo of tunes than endless reels even in a pub you have entered in to a contract to keep the customers in the pub, that means entertainment, contrast, variety. Jim Bainbridge was very good at it both entertaining and playing trad . this particular guy is a self important hidebound opinionated backward looking player reminscent of some of the worst CCE members who has yet to grasp that music can be entertaining who plays a practice set and is not in the same class as paddy keenan or liam o flynn |
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21 Apr 21 - 01:16 PM (#4102988) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman yes that is him from Skibbereen, AND THATS ANOTHER REASON I LEFT OLD SKIBBEREEN |
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21 Apr 21 - 03:34 PM (#4103014) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Steve Shaw I played in pub sessions every week for over twenty years until my hearing let me down seven years ago. Not once did I ever think I was doing it to entertain/perform. The lads and I were doing it for ourselves, bar the odd raucous Whiskey In The Jar, etc. The landlord thought we were more than OK and we were provided with no pay but endless beer. Apparently, we filled the pub on a Friday night. But we were doing it for ourselves. If anyone felt entertained apart from us, it was a bonus. Anyways, as for what entertains/engages me, I'll be having me midweek bottle of Malbec this evening with me Somerset Brie and Wookey Hole cheddar, Mrs Steve will go to bed early and I'll put on a late Beethoven quartet played by the Smetana Quartet from the 1960s. It's wot started me on classical fifty years ago... |
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21 Apr 21 - 04:02 PM (#4103017) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman but you are not ,you are only doing it for yourselves when you are playing at home with no audience,or with invited friends the publican only wants you there to sell his beer, if his customers had not liked what you were doing, he would have told you to go, those people were coming to the pub because you were entertaining them, those people would not have come to the pub otherwise or stayed so l0ng without the entertainment. free beer is a form of payment , if you were going down like a lead balloon ,you would be out.. on your way home |
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21 Apr 21 - 04:10 PM (#4103018) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman THE PLAYING OF MUSIC IN IRISH PUBS IN IRELAND, in exchange for payment or free beer is as i understand it relatively new phenemenon, the object of the exercise from the landlords point of view is to provide entertainment to sell more alcohol, I do not claim to be an expert, but i understand that prior to this the music was played in rambling houses where the entertainment was not part of as contract with a landlord to imcrease his alcohol sales |
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22 Apr 21 - 01:59 AM (#4103075) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome I did says no names as it would be unfair and mentioning a person by description is just as bad. I can't say who posts what on here but I can ask people to pack it in. Please do so. Steve, the thread is 'what music entertains us?' Playing with a crowd of like minded individuals is very entertaining for the players and often for those just listening. I play accordion just for my own entertainment. Mind you, you know what they call people who just give themselves pleasure... :-D |
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22 Apr 21 - 04:33 AM (#4103084) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,matt milton What music entertains us? Well for me, it's generally ancient ballads with at least 20 verses that are full of tragedy death and woe, sung unaccompanied and rather deadpan, with the minimum of performative drama. |
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22 Apr 21 - 05:26 AM (#4103087) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Steve Shaw I suppose that a lot of the people who packed the pub on our Friday nights just enjoyed the "ambience" without specifically focusing on whatever music we were playing. Dick, I didn't say that we WEREN'T entertaining people, or had set out not to entertain, but that our primary focus was on ourselves, and that it was a bonus if the regulars enjoyed what we were doing. |
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22 Apr 21 - 06:35 AM (#4103093) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman but it does not alter the feact that if the publican did not think you were drawing people in or kepping people there he would have stopped the session from his point of view he provided free beer aslong as you were popular , therefore you were providing some form of entertainment[ its not relevant whether it was intentional on your part.so you were there as long as people in his pub found you entertaining. my experience based on 30 years that in the area ofCork that i live in , i am more likely to keep people entertained if i provide a mix of songs and tuness. i think jim will back me up on that. i also believe that varying the tempo of tunes, is important part of the entertainment, on occasions i have heard outsiders remark that they think diidley music all sounds the same, they have possibly heard wall to wall reels played for hours on end . well to get away from that if changes of tempo and changes of key and the occasiobal song provides musical contrast and helps to keep the pub full and theaudience entertained and the landlords till happy. it may be different in cornwall or clare but that is my experience of pub music entertainment in County Cork |
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22 Apr 21 - 10:29 AM (#4103109) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman as i said earlier ,it is in the eye of the beholder, what might be entertaining to a person one night might not be the next night dependent on the their mood, the room can have an effect too-, which reminds me of the elbow room in kirkcaldy. i remember doing a gig there and the vibe i was getting was "we are not going to laugh at your stories you bloody southern englishman, we are from the kingdom of fife", then i made some throwaway remark , darkhumour about death, and the whole place erupted with laughter, at what i thought was only mildly amusing, it was as if they had been bottling it up and finally they went off in a fizzbang thats fifers for you , a remarkable breed of scots |
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22 Apr 21 - 08:09 PM (#4103168) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Jack Campin Has the pandemic affected what you look for in music? Gripping live performances triggering collective ecstasies aren't happening. And you don't teally want to consume music all day long. What I've found myself doing is listening to things that echo in my mind for a long time afterwards. |
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23 Apr 21 - 07:26 AM (#4103209) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman no, it has not, as regards singing i want clear diction, interpretation of a story tuneful voice,emotion expression. as regards playing emotion danceabilty, lilt and players that sound like they are enjoying themselves |
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29 Apr 21 - 02:43 AM (#4103931) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome Just looking back through the thread i was reminded of someone telling me that harmonies should not be used in shanties as they were work songs. I thought about that and came to the conclusion that harmonies are as natural as anything else and, even if they don't realise it, some folk will automatically put harmonies in. There are work songs of all types and that work, whether it be hauling sail or picking cotton, was very hard. Those songs help the tasks flow and provided a lift. The singers may not be trained in harmonics but they were people and people do harmonise when they sing. Other people just want to show off their knowledge. Or lack of it:-) |
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29 Apr 21 - 04:45 AM (#4103936) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman As i nderstand it the argument was that most people using shanties as work songs did it in unison although some of the crews that were black americans did sing in harmony. imo everyone must do what they want, after all shanties are no longer being used for work, personally i prefer them if they are sung with rythym, but music evolves people will always do what they want with music and so surely there is room for people who want to harmonise and those who want to do it in unison.a bit like sex really some like the missionary position others like it up em etc music is like sex, it is there for enjoyment. The Catholic church used to try and tell us that sex was just for procreation. music is for procreation but also for enjoyment |
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29 Apr 21 - 06:16 AM (#4103941) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,jim bainbridge Am reminded of the Wee Free Church's ban on sex while standing up ( a knee- trembler as it was (is?) known)). Why- it could lead to dancing..... |
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29 Apr 21 - 07:29 AM (#4103946) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome I'm pretty sure that some people sing harmony whether they want to or not! Harmonious sex is a different bucket of whelks :-) |
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29 Apr 21 - 08:24 AM (#4103948) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Nick Dave... I knew the first time I met you that there was a bloke called Pete Ryder came into the singaround in Swinton (?) and yes that entertained me and still does. Dick Miles is a very good player and entertainer. But I'll probably never see him live. And I probably would divorce his tendency to argue and be right from his music. Perhaps you (Dave) and (Steve) who I have met and (anyone else) who wants could give me an objective view of whether our music is entertaining? The piper in this thread is rubbish I think we all know that because it has been said |
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29 Apr 21 - 12:07 PM (#4103973) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Dave the Gnome As I said, Nick, I find most music entertaining whether I am listening, watching or joining in so I may not be the most objective critic. Pete is definitely entertaining. Have you seen or heard him do "Sit down song and dance man"? Dick is indeed very entertaining. More so performing than arguing as you quite rightly say :-) I do not find lectures on what folk (or any!) music should be about as, primarily, it should be about enjoying yourself. |
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30 Apr 21 - 05:13 AM (#4104038) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: GUEST,jim bainbridge What's entertaining is a personal view and a private session in a house or similar is one thing. Playing music purely for your own entertainment in a public space like a public bar, whether invited or not, without considering the 'regulars' negates the whole point of the music of the people. It does happen and it shouldn't- we're not missionaries. DTG i think we mostly agree, but I never said that piper was rubbish'. Dick did, but I have never heard him and as per your original post, neither of us has given his name. Personally, I can get too much of music, and long spells of inactivity bring me back with a fresh burst of enthusiasm. This is a longer spell than I've ever had & expect the same will happen when/if things ever return to normal |
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30 Apr 21 - 05:41 AM (#4104040) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: Nick Jim We used to go up to Isle of Arran (still do) and there was a lot of music going on which we really enjoyed. It's nice to go into a session where there are more clarsachs, fiddles and pipes than guitars. Then one year we went up and there was NO music. We did get together with some people but we asked what had happened. And they said that they had just run out of steam playing week in week out with the same people... Last time we were there (two years ago) it was more back to what it was and there were things going on (with a lot of the same people) but the brief break had been good I think. Going up next month probably but it won't all be open when we go so it'll be a bit barren apart from meeting people on an ad hoc basis outside. |
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30 Apr 21 - 06:09 PM (#4104120) Subject: RE: What music entertains us? From: The Sandman actualy i did not say the piper was rubbish "he is not in my opinion entertaining and is imo a mediocre musician.in my opinion playing the regulators is an important part of the sound of the uilleean pipes, but even if he was able to play them his music does not entertain me, neither does his bigoted attitude to the use of harmony. i know all about the history and lack of harmony in irish music in the past , but music has to progress, if it does not it becomes a museum piece, these stupid little rules are the same nonsense that holds back CCE". the guy actually plays all the right notes in the right order and has a degree of competence, but has no flair and is as dull as ditchwater, he is not rubbish but mediocre |