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Illiterate Concertina Player


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Having a bit of time on my hands, I did a google on "world famous" and "concertina player", and came up with this interesting article.

 

http://www.ksanti.net/free-reed/essays/psostory.html

 

The concertina connection was the paragraph "The illiterate self-taught village concertina player can provide just as much joy to his audience at village weddings and dances as can the world-renowned virtuoso at prestigious symphony concerts".

 

Hmmm - from an accordianist!!

 

(only posted in the spirit of "stirring the possum") ;) .

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Oi, I red wat u sed, and I want u to no mi parints wuz marrid!

 

Actually, Henry Doktorski is a good chap, who we met a couple of times on our trips to the States. He took us on a long walk in woods once that I still remember for seeing beavers in the wild. He also wrote some very nice things about our CD and a house concert we did that he came to. So, if he has the impression that concertina players are illiterate - it's probably our fault.

 

Chris

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Oi, I red wat u sed, and I want u to no mi parints wuz marrid!

 

...Henry Doktorski is a good chap, who we met a couple of times on our trips to the States. He took us on a long walk in woods once that I still remember for seeing beavers in the wild. He also wrote some very nice things about our CD and a house concert we did that he came to.

Chris

 

 

It was a very nice review indeed Chris.

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I used to have the attitude that "readers" were somehow "better" than non-readers. As time passed, I now realise that many of the best musicians (Irish, anyway) don't read. Often, those who rely solely on reading play trad music in a sort of stilted fashion. Suzuki said that music is a language, and like all languages, we learn to speak it before we can read it. Therefore, his method was to have students learn by ear for, I think, the first three books, which were on tape.

 

As the story goes: When the Fiddler was asked whether he read music, his response was: "Not so much as to spoil the tune."

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There's a quote on the back cover of Pete Seeger's "How to PLay the 5-String Banjo" from an old-time player who was asked if he could read music. From memory (although I suspect this is very close to exact):

 

"Can I read notes? Hell, there ain't no notes to a banjo. You just play it!"

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Imagine how advanced the world would be if literacy were as shunned in other areas as it is in folk music. The reason the early musicians couldn't read notes wasn't because they studied it and analyzed it, and decided that an aural approach was more advantageous. They couldn't read notes because they were uneducated peasants. We adhere to their "rules" thinking it's divine wisdom, when it's really just the only way they knew how to do it. We get things backward, and think that their inability to read is what made them good. But the truth is that being good lets them get away with being unable to read.

 

We make fun of "backwater hicks" who can't read the simplest sentence, and yet we admire and imitate musicians who can't read the simplest note. Very strange.

 

Yes, I realize I'm spitting on a sacred cow. Fire away.

 

Edit: I don't mean to imply that folk musicians are stupid and uneducated, just that people way back when were uneducated and ignorant of anything BUT playing by ear.

Edited by Jeff Stallard
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Suzuki said that music is a language, and like all languages, we learn to speak it before we can read it. Therefore, his method was to have students learn by ear for, I think, the first three books, which were on tape.

 

The benefits of ear training are vast and deep, of course. However, to continue Suzuki's analogy, reading is the ultimate goal. The fact that we should speak it first only means that the foundation of the building is ear training. The building itself is made up of reading. Thus, ear training is only a tool that serves to strengthen reading.

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"The illiterate self-taught village concertina player can provide just as much joy to his audience at village weddings and dances as can the world-renowned virtuoso at prestigious symphony concerts".

 

We may be misinterpreting his statement. Notice how he doesn't name a second instrument when he refers to the symphony at the end. The suggests to me that he wasn't comparing two instruments, but rather two ways of playing, and the concertina just happened to be the example he picked. I think what he meant was that a concertinist, whether an illiterate folk player or a symphony virtuoso, can provide equal joy to their audience. When you consider the history of the concertina, it certainly does stand out as an instrument that can span the musical spectrum, and so it makes sense to use it as the example.

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Imagine how advanced the world would be if literacy were as shunned in other areas as it is in folk music... [etc.]

Speaking for myself, it's not the ability to read musical notation I decry, but the inability to ignore it when appropriate. Too many people use notation as a crutch, thinking that to play what is on the page is to play a complete performance. In folk music, I find that people who can't get their noses out of the music are frustratingly uninteresting to listen to.

 

I would point out that I was trained as a classical cellist long before I started playing folk music. I know the value of being able to read music. But I also know the value of not having to.

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Well said David and to the point.

 

At present I am involved in a recording project with Leo LeBlanc, a 79 year old fiddler who made his living as a school custodian by day and played contra dances by night for some 50 years (he also plays a mean guitar).

 

Leo is an exceptional artist and has no idea about written notation. It would be a great mistake to assume that not being able to read notation had somehow limited his experience. On the contrary, I am the one running to keep up. His improvisational skills as counterpoint to my assignment holding the melody is subtle and multi-colored. I wish I could get advanced degree credit for working with him. ;)

Edited by Mark Evans
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DAVID: "Speaking for myself, it's not the ability to read musical notation I decry, but the inability to ignore it when appropriate. Too many people use notation as a crutch, thinking that to play what is on the page is to play a complete performance. In folk music, I find that people who can't get their noses out of the music are frustratingly uninteresting to listen to.

 

I would point out that I was trained as a classical cellist long before I started playing folk music. I know the value of being able to read music. But I also know the value of not having to. "

 

MY comments: Well said, David! "Reading" is NOT the ultimate goal. Playing music is. Of course great performances can come from people who have learned he tune from printed music, but not by people who do not feel or understand the music. Playing "from the dots" can sometimes be compared to "not seeing the forest for the trees," or someone who can read the words on a page but sound uninspired. Loretto Reid (originally from Sligo and now living in Toronto) cannot read a note of music, but has arranged many CDs from trad to rock music. She was nominated for her second Juno award, this year, for the best Canadian CD for traditional music. Last year it was for the best children's music CD. All her CDs are highly arranged and sometimes use symphony-type arrangements. She can hear "in her head" what she wants the various musical parts to be and using a midi keyboard puts them down. Then she gives her arrangements to the various studio musicians, in staff notation, printed up by the computer. She is always the lead musician on her CDs.

Personally, I learned music from reading the notes. I am desperately trying to get away from having to, and am beginning to have some success. However, my playing will never have the spontaneity that others have. None of the many traditional musicians are "backward hicks" or "uneducated and ignorant." They don't read because they don't need to. They have learned and memorised thousands of tunes, and can improvise on them.

I taught school for over 30 years. One year I had the assignment of putting on the Remembrance Day assembly. The music teacher volunteered to run over the songs & hymns of my choice with the students. I did the rest. On the day of the assembly the assigned student began the assembly with, "All stand for O Canada." The music teacher, who had played this every morning over the P.A. for about five years said, in a panic,"You didn't tell me we were going to do O Canada. I left it in the classroom." He stumbled on, making a great botch of it. It turns out that he never played without the music, and couldn't really do it. "Reading is the ultimate goal?" Not really. ;)

Edited by Frank Edgley
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Of course great performances can come from people who have learned he tune from printed music, but not by people who do not feel or understand the music.

 

Yes. It has nothing to do with how you learn the music, only with how well you understand it, and I believe that classical musicians have as much ability to understand music as folk musicians. As evidence, I offer this quote from the posted article:

 

"the left hand leaps sometimes completely miss their mark and hit totally wrong keys! But I hardly noticed the mistakes; the piece was so dynamic, so intense, so full of life!"

 

Wow, sounds like folk music, doesn't it? Furthermore, I offer a little bit of personal experience. Twice, I've had the displeasure of hearing exclusively ear-playing folk (Irish in fact) musicians who not only couldn't play the right notes or keep a steady tempo, but they were so horrible that I couldn't pick out ANY tempo. So yes, there are examples of ear players who don't get it. Your point is very important though, and can't be stressed enough. You have to UNDERSTAND the music. Who cares how you got there, as long as you understand it?

 

Speaking as someone who claims not to read music, it always seems to me that "the dots" don't tell you enough anyway.

 

Well you're probably used to folk-style sheet music, which is like a Dick and Jane book. In real sheet music, the dots tell you MUCH more than just what note, when, and how long.

 

  The giveaway is that if they did, any group of sufficiently competent musicians could perform without a rehearsal!

 

That's like saying that, if a group of actors can't perform a scene from a play without a rehearsal, there's something wrong with the script. Oh, and yes, there are tons of musicians who can play a piece well the first time through.

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Robin, it is a good point you make. Regardless of genre, there are particular ground rules and stylistic points to be agreed upon.

 

Perhaps I have less standing here because my "dot reading" and performing was primarily in "classical music" where the singer is expected to memorize for performance anyway.

 

I giggled over Frank's story about "O Canada". This year I had a similar experience at our New Student Convocation. When we arrived at the hall and got a look at the program I saw listed "America The Beautiful". The accompanist who must have played the derned thing a thousand times got all whacky on me. "I didn't bring the music! What are we going to do?" Fake it darlin'. We rehearsed and she did fine. At the appointed time however she got flustered and played the verse in the agreed key and modulated to a key for the chorus that almost cost me manhood. :blink:

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