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Notes from the Field

Some thoughts on great tunes

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I am presently addicted to old timey music. I still have my love for Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton traditional music, and French Canadian fiddle tunes, and I still love the New England old time tradition, as well as Klezmer and Eastern European music, and Western Swing, Tango, and... and...

But right now I am addicted to the music of Appalachia. And in particular, Southern Appalachia.

What I like best about old timey music is its worship of the tune. This is not unique to old timey of course, but it is particularly evident. In old timey music, the tune is king, which is why we play each one 368716837436874 times before moving to the next one. This also explains why old time doesn’t go in for improvisation all that much. Its fine to decorate and accentuate the tune in various ways, but by and large we don’t do the spontaneous real time composition of the bluegrass break or jazz solo. The tune is fine as it is, it doesn’t need fixing.

The A part of the tune makes us yearn for the B part, the way Oreo cookies make us want milk. And the B part of a good tune makes us want to get back on at the beginning and do it all again. There are many tunes where there is some question as to which is the A part and which the B, both parts call for each other like puppies and little children. Over and over and over, like chant, till we are mesmerized, walking around on a sonic landscape unaware of the world. Its almost like the tune never ends. After a while it just stops.

A tune tells us a story. The better the story and the better its telling, the better the tune. Great tunes tell unforgettable, timeless stories, that delight us anew with each hearing.

I am not talking about the feelings and experiences of our lives evoked by the tune. I don’t mean the way someone can sing my life, or how a tune might conjure up the adventure of a new love, or the loss of an old one.

I am referring to something deeper - the way the tune is about itself. A great tune takes us on a unique little acoustic journey - a travel story told in the language of melody and rhythm - without necessary reference to anything outside of itself. And the more fun the journey, the better the tune.

The journey of a tune should of course surprise and delight, by providing interesting and unforeseen elements. But in order to surprise us the tune needs to establish expectations - which are then in some way pierced. It is a very precarious balance, between the familiar and comfortable and the fresh and exciting. Avoiding cliche on the one hand, and heading off alienating novelty on the other. Finding this enchanting balance - that is what separates a great tune from a merely good tune.

In a great tune, we respond upon first hearing as if we have always known it. You don’t have to “break in” a great tune. It is like a brand new “old friend”, talking to us about new and exciting things, but talking familiarly, confidently, in a language we understand, have always understood. Somehow it is new and simultaneously very old - fresh and even strange perhaps, while being intimate and conversant with our personal universe of musical experiences.

I know I have been playing well when someone compliments the tune I am playing - as opposed to my playing of it. “What a lovely tune” means more to me than “good job, great playing on that”. The hand of the craftsperson is invisible. Which is the better compliment to the carver of duck decoys - that people like his work or that ducks come close to snuggle.

I like it best when I, like the craftsperson, have become invisible, the music I am playing has transcended my playing of it, and become of interest and delightful on its own. I mentally step back a bit and see the tune as the others sees it, and marvel as my hands and fingers and pick find themselves in service of the music itself, compelled along not by my will, but by the narrative logic of the tune.

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Comments

  1. rekx's Avatar
    Nice post - I wonder what would be a good example of a Southern Appalachian tune you are thinking of?
  2. JeffD's Avatar
    Theres a lot of them.

    I don't know where the tune comes from, but Wild Rose of the Mountain comes to mind as a very good example. There is not one note of that tune whose alteration would improve the tune. It aught to be a Class D Felony to play that tune fast.

    Seneca Square Dance is an example of a very simple straight ahead tune whose A part yearns for its B part.

    Hunting the Buffalo is another.

    I am trying to think of tunes that most folks would be familiar with.

    Here is another. Over the Waterfall. It starts out kind of like nothingburger tune, till you get that suprise C chord in the last phrase of the A part. Because of that the B part makes so much sense you want to go back and see what just happened.
  3. Jim Nollman's Avatar
    I tend to love those tunes the best, that won't allow for alternative notes, because they just intrude on perfection.

    In our band we have a running argument about speed. Some tunes I just can't stand playing fast because the melodies can't breath corectly. La Bastringue comes to mind. Or the very sophisticated Swinging on a Gate. Other tunes want to be pushed until they explode into another dimension. Pays de' Haut is a good example.

    Everyone disagrees of course, which keeps us all on our toes.
  4. M.Marmot's Avatar
    Reading through your blog i was reminded of an interview with the English folk guitarist, Martin Carthy.

    The gist of the thing is that he was asked what he thought of his development as a musician, in reply he said that as he has grown older he has learned to have more respect for the essential beauty of the traditional tunes and melodies he plays.

    He pointed to his early recordings, and shaking his head, lamented the profusion of ornamentation to which he treated each tune,and said that it was this was a young man's mistake to place technique/virtuosity above the tune its self.

    Now days he said that he much is much humbler with respect for the tunes saying that he now realises the power and beauty such music must have to endure as long as it has and that now his approach is to strip back the superfluous in an effort to allow the tunes essential beauty to emerge.
    Updated Jun-01-2010 at 6:33am by M.Marmot (wording)
  5. Susanne's Avatar
    I like how you say that ot tunes yearn for a B part - so true!
  6. Werner Jaekel's Avatar
    http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/en...on-great-tunes

    Simply a wonderful piece of thought and writing. So true. Sometimes I get so lost in a tone I forget to play.....drifting off

    Genre does not matter. One finds them in all traditions and cultures worldwide in all ages. Sometimes how a piece of music moves us from cultures so different from ours. I travel alot.

    I also Like melodies from the 20ties, or 39ties, got some fakebooks. I also find them in bluegrass, celtic, swing, classical....

    "A tune tells us a story. The better the story and the better its telling, the better the tune. Great tunes tell unforgettable, timeless stories, that delight us anew with each hearing."

    "In a great tune, we respond upon first hearing as if we have always known it."


    M.Marmot -
    Now days he said that he much is much humbler with respect for the tunes saying that he now realises the power and beauty such music must have to endure as long as it has and that now his approach is to strip back the superfluous in an effort to allow the tunes essential beauty to emerge.

    Jim Nollman -
    In our band we have a running argument about speed. Some tunes I just can't stand playing fast because the melodies can't breath corectly.