Irish Blarney

Just finished my first practice today…yeah I know,” first?,” you ask. Brenda is out of town again so that means I can usually fit 4-5 sessions into a day. I know what some of you are thinking…”man, you could learn a lot of tunes with that kind of time?“ I suppose I could but I usually spend the bulk of it working on tunes I already know…the twiddly bits, the transitions, stronger beginnings and better endings…the details…and I might play an A part for 30 minutes. How long do I really spend on a particular bit of a tune?…well until the can of Diet Coke calls to me…so it could be 5, 10 or 30 minutes (never much longer between swigs…now you know why I don’t drink fermented material ).

Although I’ve had two old time box dudes tell me that the old timers (it’s all relative) only knew…like really knew…50-60 tunes. I made a deal with myself from the beginning to know about 100…that was before I met the two old time box dudes. So I’ve really never thought about learning 100s and 100s of tunes. I don’t want to become the guy in the corner of the room fiddling around trying to figure out how a tune starts or even how it goes…just too many tunes in the head and none of them played with any love or soul. So going over and over a favorite tune or a favorite set is not a problem for me…rather learn them from the inside and not be that guy in the corner playing clueless music. Sometimes less can be more.

But getting to that goal of 100 tunes or so means that I will probably go through 4-500 to find the ones that lay out well on the box…tell me something as I’m playing…somehow fit into my head…and then those 4-500 that I start with would be from hundreds more that I’ve heard but just don’t do anything for me…it happens. We don’t all have to like every tune we hear…right?

Soon we head off to Montana for a month or so. It’s a great time each summer and the last few have been filled with playing music sitting by the lake…tough life…I know. These next few weeks I will be putting together the list of tunes to go through…tunes I want to put together and really learn. Of course I put all the recordings of the tunes into my phone so that I can hear what I’m working towards. Sometimes the preparation and anticipation that is almost as much fun and the time at the cabin (not quite)…but I can guarantee you that the prep is better than the drive across “The Silver State” of Nevada…oh joy…good tune listening time for sure.

Last week was not a good week for working on tunes…nothing and I mean absolutely nothing seemed to want to come together. Tune after tune was just comin’ off the finger like crud. It was like walking through the streets of a big city with stuff sticking to the bottom of the shoes and it wasn’t good stuff at all. Oh well.

Made up for it the past couple of days.

Funny how that works. None of the tunes that started to make sense are the tunes that stuck to the bottom fo the shoes last week…but as I think about it, the work that the fingers went through to learn various runs and combinations seemed to be paying off with the last few tunes. I think that this week I’ll be able to put three additional tunes into the win column and that’s always a good thing.

I’m always quite amazed when tunes come together “easily” and sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s the hours of crap practice that lays the foundation for the good times. It’s sort of like building a building and starting with the corner stone and along the way after hours and hours of laying bricks and stones you come to the keystone of an arch and the arch is beautiful…lots of work lifting and buttering the brick and then out pops the finished arch.

This week I did something a bit unusual for one of the tunes. I started the practice bit by playing an appropriate scale…E Major…not a common scale for the tunes I play. By putting in just those few minutes picking through and then running up and down the buttons with that scale I saved myself probably days of picking through the tune…what a concept right?

That pesky G sharp is not on the board where you might think it is…it’s packed in with an F sharp on one end and next to the F sharp on the other end…oh well…but taking the time to learn that scale helped me save a lot of time with fingering choices along with the pitch location.

The temptation to disconnect the notes when going quickly through a tune is a strong one, but the tune in E that I’m working with is a waltz…no opportunities to disconnect the notes or the tune loses a ton of it’s charm…so those scales and fingering choices are critical to this particular piece…and usually to other tunes also…even with the tunes are play quickly the notes should be connected musically.

Of course I would be listening to tunes as I write my dialogs this morning…and of course also…I’m listening to the tune in question. It’s a lovely tune. Perhaps I’ll play it for you when I come back from Montana this year.

A quick tip for quick practices…don’t put the instrument back in it’s case. That little motion of taking it out of and putting it into takes time. I prefer to reach over, pick it up and try the diddy I’m thinking about. You can get a lot done in just 15 minutes but it that time it taken up by taking the instrument out of the case, getting the music stand set up putting out the music (was it this one…no that one…no this one here) and then reversing the process of disassembling “the show”…chances are you won’t have 15 minutes to practice OR the thought of doing all that will dissuade you from same. I’m coming up on 14 months of box playing and I’m a bit tiered of banging around on some tunes. I was glad to hear Andrew MacNamara tell me that he doesn’t choose to play some tunes either because they don’t interest him or their just too difficult to be fun for him. THANK YOU!

Since I play primarily by myself in a 12/x 14 foot room, I can choose to play just about anything I want too. If I’m happy to play half a dozen tunes at a session then I think I can do that about ½ the time now…so as I pick up some additional common (or at least frequently played in this area of the world) tunes, I will satisfied with session play more and more.

The reason I bring this up is because lately I’ve been attracted to tunes which are not frequently played in the area. Of course if I ask one of the local know-it-alls-but-can’t-play-a-lick folks I might hear that the tunes in question are common in sessions…haven’t heard them in the last two years, but she’ll say they’re common I’m sure of it…geeeze….back on point…so I’ve got a couple of tunes I’m working with that will probably forever be in my back pocket to play at home.

But really…how many E Major tunes do we ever play? FOUR sharps…really…are you kidding me? If the tune wasn’t so ubber cool I’d pass on the g#…but I can’t. The tune is that cool. I told Brenda last night as I had her listen to it, to get used to the idea that she’ll be hearing it a lot in the next couple of months…she’s on board..

Of course I don’t know about Montana the dog…she sings more loudly and gets into the scene more quickly if she is familiar with a tune…help me on Kesh Jig…I wish I had her memory. I mean I can forget how to play a tune well, but she knows her part and jumps right in, which doesn’t help me BTW…but give the dog a couple months listening to these new tunes and she’ll be howling away for sure.

Yesterday has come and gone…THANK YOU! It was a long long day. Up at 6…back home at 1:30…out the door to a party at 3…one hour drive…over at 8…one hour drive…home at 9…Odin not wanting to go to sleep…oh jeeze…but when he did he slept until 8 in the morning…it’s a new day and starting well.

A couple days ago I spent 2 hours with a 14 year old…haven’t done that in a while…pancakes took the first hour…button box playing the next. Fun (and interesting) to watch someone who has never played the box before yet is very musical…I think over the next couple decades I’ll have a lot of experiences where I can observe how folks approach a new instrument. Really makes the brain stretch to find how to communicate in a way that the other person can understand. At the same time it helps oneself reevaluate various little subtleties and techniques which helps to understand one’s own playing.

The last few days haven’t allowed for all that much practice time. Time has appeared in sort of bits and pieces thrown in around all the other events and responsibilities. So all the practice that I could squeeze in (that’s a box player pun)…only allowed for fine tuning of sections. When I find myself in this sort of situation I normally will work on the first few notes of a beginning…the ending notes, the transitions between parts or the change between tunes…so all the practice time is what I call “high quality”…understanding that any good practice time is high quality…but when I can only break down a few measures it’s usually about a draw or push subtlety…a finger shift…or a new ornament…or those dreaded rolls…getting those evenly and sweetly laid into a phrase.

I’m looking at the next few days and I’ll probably not be able to find a whole lot of time to break down a new tune…but I will be able to find a few minutes here and there to do some “high quality” button time.

Not long ago I was reading suggestions from a fairly well know Irish musician regarding the addition of ornaments…like where the heck do you put them. Lot of folks have lots of ideas but basically this person’s approach is put them where you like.

Interesting idea right? The person went on to explain that it either works or it doesn’t and your ear should be able to tell you right from wrong and you can adjust you playing.

I suppose it’s sort of one of the things that more-or-less take care of themselves…if the ornament doesn’t really work you probably won’t play it…if you play it and folks hate it, chances are you’ll hear about it and make adjustments. So in a weird sort of way the notion of putting ornaments where you like could work.

One concrete suggest is to look for places in reels where a quarter note follows an eight note…do something with that quarter note…anything. Now that’s my kind of suggestion…tell me where to place the ornament. I don’t want to think about it…I just want to do it.

I’ve always been the kind of person where if you ask me to dig a hole I’m going you to be specific…how wide, how long, how deep and do you want the sides angled or straight up and down…that sort of thing. My piano teachers always fine tuned my sometimes-not-so-artistic decisions and made some sense out of the inconsistent play…now in Irish I’m called upon to figure things out and play the tune like I want to hear it.

So I guess I’m on my own…until someone tells me it sucks.

I hope you like hot weather…cause if you live in the SF Bay Area you got your wish this week. I sort of like it warm…but not hot and now I have a new reason to not enjoy the hot weather…sweaty forearms and fingers make practicing the box just a bitch…sorry for the visual…but it’s not good and I really REALLY don’t like it.

I’m not happy with my practice time these last few days. Of course this is partly because Brenda was in Georgia for part of the week so I was looking forward to practicing some extra without bothering her…didn’t get to do too much extra practice at all…bummed. She’s on her way home as I type so I’m going to do this in several stages…now taking a break to practice that last little bit

Back to typing…Oh crud…I forgot that Grandson Odin was coming back in the car from the airport run to get Brenda. Love the child but he sleeps a lot and when he sleeps I don’t do too much practice. Apparently sleep is good for babies (he’s not four months yet) and accordions can make too much noise and can wake them…go figure. He does like me to play tunes for him…let’s be honest he’d like English Country music if I could/would play those tunes for him…I’m sure when he gets older he’ll love Irish music. Let me dream would ya?!

Oh well. I can use the quiet time around the house to listen to tunes through the earbuds…there is nearly always a way to get tunes in. Maybe I don’t get to use the fingers on the buttons but I’ll get some tune time in. Of course with the shade structure construction yesterday my hands are hurtin’ anyway…seems that cutting one inch conduit with a hacksaw creates blisters…who knew.

What a crazy Saturday…with the enhanced excitement of sitting Grandson Odin (3 months old) for a couple of days…we took him back to San Rafael and his  Mama and Papa…on the way to our destination of a concert in Santa Rosa…Liz Carroll and Cormac McCarthy on piano. We got home about 12:30…so up at 5:15 in the morning with Odin and in bed at 1:00 the next morning.

The concert was way beyond my expectations…to tell the truth, and I shared this with Mr. McCarthy…I didn’t know that I would really enjoy the combination of piano and fiddle for an entire concert…was I wrong…first they did mix is up a bit…second the combination is great, both from a aural perspective and an artistic one. Cormac really held his own with Liz Carroll…they play some classic but primarily new music by each of them…Cormac’s arrangement of Planxty Irwin…using a barrage of jazz chords…very cool. He took a tune that frankly I’m over…not when he plays it…all in now.

Liz of course was fantastic. She has stories about the tunes and the people, places and notions she writes them about or are inspired by. And flat out…just a lovely person. She stayed afterwards and signed CDs and books…talked with fans. She is very approachable and I’m quite sure that is why her music is what it is. When a microphone fell off of the stand and nearly in her lap…she stopped…put it back in the holder…looked into Cormac’s eyes and then just continues on…Cormac was spot on with the mishap and continued while watching for Liz to look back…just a wonderful example of two people great at what they do and doing it well together.

Would I put in another 20 hour day, nine of it traveling to/from and sitting in the concert to hear these two…absolutely. Brenda, my non-Irish-music-playing wife, would do the same…definitely worth the time, money and extremely sore hind end.

What did surprise me a bit was the very small number of Irish music players…I didn’t recognize anyone…she asked and only a very few hands went up…yikes. To miss this pretty rare opportunity to hear Liz Carroll in our own backyard? Heck of a big opportunity to squander.

…oh yeah and the venue was the Glaser Center…great acoustics…modest capacity and only 1/3 full…perhaps 200 folks…great for me. When she asked the audience if anyone wanted to join her I knew a few folks that could have been there…and of course there were no players to session with afterwards…yikes.

Brenda was discussing how she loved the way Liz played each note as if it were important…shading each just so…all the dynamics were precise and how much she thought that Liz was having a relaxed and enjoyable time playing…these are all things everyone can take from a concert regardless of the instrument one struggles with at home…I as a box player wannabe learned a great deal from listening to and watching Liz and Cormac…everyone could have.

Sometimes when I’m sitting in a session a tune is played and I know it…sometimes I can pick up the box and join in…sometimes I just know its name…other times…while it sounds familiar I don’t realize that I know it on the box until the tune is over…sometimes well into the following tune.

So do I really “know” the tune it I can’t hear it well enough to know I know it?

I think this is related to some advice I receive a while back about practicing the first notes of a tune and too know those notes so well that I can sit down think a bit about the tempo and start the tune flawlessly…every time.

Pretty sure that the notion of knowing a tune is akin to getting the mechanics of the box and the tune out of the way so that the brain can work on the tune. I find it difficult to work on the musicality of a tune when I’m worried about where the finger will go next. Once the fingers go where they are suppose too all the time and the mind can let up on that…the mind can be freed up to be creative.

I have been known to play handbells as a solo instrument…yikes…bodhran, box and handbells. It could be worse…I could take up banjo. But back to the handbells…it’s a lot of muscle memory and mental memory…but one thing I’ve learned is that each note is important and to give each note it’s full measure of time means that the hand has to move between the notes quickly…but not to kill the first note too soon or the music becomes very choppy. So one can not take the hand off the first note too soon. Same thing can happen on the box…well sort of…but it’s more like taking a finger off a button too soon. This issue of full value is tremendously more critical on those instruments with not sustain in the notes…like the button box…let us on the button and the sound stops…stop blowing and the whistling ends…so keeping the notes connected together and giving each not it full due becomes important.

It’s important to keep a note playing as long as it should…but this generally only comes with some degree of confidence (through practice)…and once I really know the tune the confidence gets high enough that the notes begin to get their full value and the piece becomes less chopped up with that hippity-hoppity sounding thing that smacks of being in a rush. Funny though…that rushing feeling can happen in a piece played slowly also.

Something I’m playing with is taking notes out of a tune…either just not playing a particular note or playing the first note in a duplet for a longer value…but by taking strategic notes out when I’m learning a piece I can play a bit more smoothly…and as the confidence builds in the piece put notes back in as I can.

I had heard a while back that some folks learn ornaments as part of the tune from the very first. I can’t seem to do that. But as I put a piece together and get it to be smooth the ornaments become easier to place…I think it’s related to the confidence thing-a-ma-bob…nothing worse than ornamentation thrown into a piece played with a lack of confidence anyway…right?!

Of course one could make the argument that ornamentation “thrown” into any tune for any reason is rather bogus…I’m thinking that ornaments should be thought through a bit…more placed than thrown. Although I have to admit that a lot time they just seem to happen…so maybe they jump in and aren’t placed or thrown…maybe ornaments are musical fairies and we have no control over them.

So now that I want to plant my garden…the weather is telling me it wants to rain. Good grief. Luckily the growing season is so long here that I know I’ll have plenty of time to get everything in the ground and harvested and probably plant a second crop of some. But still it’s hard to be patient sometimes.

Patience is what my family displays when I’m trying to finish a tune…yesterday I think I ran through one tune 40-50 times…but in small segments first…then in longer phrases and then in the A part…repeating the procedure for the B part and then putting it all together…then just running through it over and over. The real test comes today when I go back to the tune and see it the brain really took everything in…which it rarely does…and then we go back and do all the stuff again…and again and again.

I always expect to go out into the living room and find my wife sitting in the chair…knitting away…with a pillow over each ear and duct tape wrapped around her head to keep the pillows in place. She is so kind when she tells me “it’s sounding like its coming along.” It’s a euphemism for…”please, learn it and move on.”

The dog was lying outside the office door singing harmony for a while…she wandered off to protect us from cats…I think she finally gave up on the tune. Of course, now that she’s familiar with it she will sing with much more gusto than with tunes she is not so comfortable with.

Seems I take after the dog…if I know the tune more well than not, I play it with a bit more “pop” than if I’m more afraid of making mistakes…even speed and fluidity comes with the familiarity of the tune…so play it again Sam and don’t be shy…over and over again and again…until even the dog walks away.

One of the hardest things I deal with is to stay focused. I mean I really do like an awful lots of types of music and if I didn’t stay “on point” with more traditional Irish music I would be a genre-tic nightmare in no time at all…Scottish, English, French…throw in a tad of Cajun with a bit of Pittsburg and you come away with a mess of stuff. Too many tunes and not even close to enough time.

I think that staying focused is perhaps the hardest thing for me to do right now. I think it’s more difficult than going back and working out some of the fundamentals that I should have taken care of last year…like in scales. But focus is important.

I really don’t appreciate going to a group and having a ton of other types of music played…especially when the music is read from dots…what’s with that. Not only aren’t the tunes Irish in a purported Irish music event…but the music is read (and in some cases sight read)…so listening is farcical. I mean really…listening to somebody sightread is checking your speedometer after the cop turns on the flashing lights…rather pointless. If I wanted to listen to sight reading…I could more easily pick the dots up and do the playing myself.

Had a conversation with a friend a while back about not needing to learn a particular tune…he didn’t like it. I didn’t either so it wasn’t going to slide into a sales pitch as to why he needed to learn the tune…but we agreed that there are so many tunes…so much material…one really doesn’t need to know it all. Even sifting through 100 tunes (a very small percentage of Irish tunes) one would probably find enough material to learn for a decade of serious work…that 100 tunes might only yield 20-25 that one would consider cool…and 20-25 tunes…IF one wanted to really learn them well could take a long long time.

Staying focused is a bit easier for me when I only work on a limited number of tunes at a time. I’ve been told that focusing on one tunes and perfecting it before moving on was the superior approach but my personality doesn’t allow me to do that sort of thing. I need to work on several. When I set my timer for a practice session I usually watch that I put in enough time but leave blocks of about 15 minutes for each tune…sometimes I go way over and don’t have time for all the tunes I want to work on…but that’s okay because I know I’m working on the same tunes during the next practice.

What’s that?…yes I repeat the tunes over and over and over again…repetition is an excellent way to keep the tune in the head.

I participate in one learning group where the tune may be repeated 15 times before we stop and tweak it…and even then we may only work on the A part…moving onto the B when we feel good and ready. Repetition works very well…another group I participate in runs through a tune three times and moves on…of course this second group is playing the same tunes in the small private setting still…some of the tunes for six years. A big difference in the two groups is the repetition…of course the first group doesn’t use music…the second is reading from dots for every tune…still.

So I don’t need to learn them all…I try stay on point with Trad Irish…and repeat the tunes for ever and ever…Amen.