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Thread: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

  1. #101
    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Quote Originally Posted by catmandu2 View Post
    I use it (trem) often on hammered dulcimer - consequently the instrument is quite effective for airs (and in fact was much earlier going to elucidate some of its similarities/differences with mandolin).
    Interesting. I did do a quick search through some YouTube clips to get a feel for what common practice might be on hammered dulcimer, specifically for Irish trad slower tunes and airs. Didn't find any with tremolo. All the ones I found were using single notes, along with partial or full chords at intervals. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

    I do know what I'd be thinking of a hammered dulcimer player who sat behind me in a pub session, and hammer-tremolo'd their way through a slow tune though. I think I'd be heading to the bar for a refill. Personal taste, again...

  2. #102

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post

    I do know what I'd be thinking of a hammered dulcimer player who sat behind me in a pub session, and hammer-tremolo'd their way through a slow tune though. I think I'd be heading to the bar for a refill. Personal taste, again...
    I knew I should have been more explicit! - should have edited ..

    Quote Originally Posted by catmandu2 View Post
    I use it (trem) often on hammered dulcimer - consequently the instrument is quite effective for (SOLO) airs ..
    Better?

    Same with harp - the overtones on these instruments are immense - going back now to several pages ago when Beanzy brought up - space and not playing .. the wire harp for example rings and sustains powerfully once a note is activated - it sometimes reminds me of an organ (which in turn reminds me of a pedal steel) - so stopping a string is just as subtle or distinct as activating a string - this can be exploited to rhythmic effect, and was thinking of this in relation to 'how to play the mandolin in 'airs".. etc. Of course this is true of all instruments to their degree - some instruments with powerful sustain are just more pronounced in these aspects and lending to these subtleties (and why one doesn't play airs at sessions).

    Incidentally, The Asian long zithers don't have these problems, for example - they're pentatonic (there are alterations, for the record) so players can whack *(or whip like mules) their instruments and stay consonant *which by the way is increasingly more common technique in modern zheng reperoitre, etc, as with guitars, etc .. a large resonant box is a mountainous resource to be exploited..)
    Last edited by catmandu2; Jan-20-2016 at 3:22pm. Reason: *

  3. #103

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post
    Interesting. I did do a quick search through some YouTube clips to get a feel for what common practice might be on hammered dulcimer, specifically for Irish trad slower tunes and airs. Didn't find any with tremolo. All the ones I found were using single notes, along with partial or full chords at intervals. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.
    And btw, I don't know of any HD I like on the web except Rakes of Kildare on that little Oakwood .. I play O'carolan, jigs, reels, a hornpipe or two, but mostly harp pieces. I got into HD for its harp-likeness - They were my surrogate for harp for decades until I finally started harping proper - mine are the large and resonant floating top variety (not the fixed tops - I can't stand the vast majority of everything on the net. I abhor 80% of the HD I hear and can't abide 98% of it. I've always abhorred HD in ensemble. The thing was made to make people dance - it's a piano without a damper -

  4. #104

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    F-path, on my photo album page is a pic with my large Dorogi HD - it's built like a cimbalom - weighs about 30 pounds I guess, 4-strings per treble course (strung with 2-per in that pic)...sustains forever with its resonance. I can flam, rub, roll and whatever I want with those sticks. I have leather, felt, whatever on some of my sticks - I can begin or end a tremolo almost inaudibly. Fast ornaments come naturally and easily on HD (like a flute) - you have to limit the travel of your stick (drop a drum stick loosely to the snare head - see how it bounces?), and tremolo as long and effortlessly as one does a roll on a snare. It's a very expressive instrument. Solo. From pipe tunes to polkas ..

  5. #105

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Here's an example of tremolo on HD (skip to 1.03:35") - not ITM of course, but an example of common tremolo technique (that I commonly use for airs, etc).











    Don't mean to be rude to go on here like this, but these show a variety of relevant things..instrument to 'exotic' role there at the bottom; dynamic range of an instrument in the vid above that; etc. To do on mandolin, one would have to be very quick to exploit the mandolin's particularly evocative capabilities ..
    Last edited by catmandu2; Jan-20-2016 at 11:13pm.

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  7. #106

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Here's a quite slow version of March of the King of Laois - enabling this player to use tremolo. I play this at the tempo from the Chieftains recording I lifted it from, so I don't trem this one...but maybe I will now -





    So while there doesn't seem to be a lot of this approach in the 'celtic' stuff on the net, it's something that I do - and expect we'll see more of. Albeit, I don't play a lot of airs on HD - polkas, pipe tunes, jigs and reels. But I do use tremolo quite a bit when improvising..

  8. #107

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    And there was I thinking the OP was talking about mandolin tremolo...

  9. #108

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Here's tremolo on a Mandola (after the single note run-through) with "dragging" double-stops:


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  11. #109

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    and on a mandolin...:


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  13. #110

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eddie Sheehy View Post
    And there was I thinking the OP was talking about mandolin tremolo...
    In fact, all this is instructive and relevant to mandolin (at least it is for me). Mileage varies..

    Adaptation and applied techniques, aesthetics, refinement, derivations and progressions, cultural mobility...

    The art of tremolo.

  14. #111
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Nicely done Eddie, mandola sounded good both times through.

    What's make is the mondola? Google didn't come up with anything.

  15. #112

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    That's my Dave Griffin Baritone Mandola - DDAAEEBB -18" scale. Dave built it from a design by Ron Oates. Dave also builds "regular" mandolins.

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  17. #113

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Yes and thank you for posting. It gives us a chance to hear how approaches differ instrument to instrument, styles of expression, etc. The mandolin is a tricky little thing to wrought emotion from - especially through the 'air.'

    It's instructive to me. But I also gain perspective from considering the 'problem' from multiple points. I'm interested in how pipers phrase and create dynamics, and resultant expressions from instruments derived rather directly from the 'source' (ergo my harp and HD flight). There's much subtlety and emotion that can be expressed - much contained in the playing of an air with the contrapuntalism of the olde instruments.. when i play these on HD, fiddle, free reeds, it's the pipes i'm emulating. The distinctions made previously by f-path - are salient I think.

  18. #114

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Well salt is bad for my blood pressure so I'll pass on f-path's comments.

  19. #115
    Registered User Mike Anderson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Quote Originally Posted by catmandu2 View Post
    A big issue, obviously. I tend to hear and relate to pathos in the music, while others may find this [aspect] maudlin or sentimental. But I'm like Archie Shepp, who said [paraphr], 'I'm worse than a romantic - I'm a sentimentalist ..'

    Van may not have been talking of 'airs,' exactly, in this context (speaking here of his writing process), but I find it relevant in this discussion. Albeit the Wolfetones may not have been going for 'suffering'..
    Thank you foldedpath for reminding me of the Van/Chieftains album, which I don't own any more but LOVED back in the day.

    As for the notion of anyone finding the pathos in airs (or any music) maudlin or sentimental, there's an easy solution: it's called the bum's rush. IMO anyone who doesn't relate to the emotion in music has no call to play it; you're just indulging in an exercise in wankery, showing off your chops, or "hey check me out - I'm cool because I play." Honestly, how can anyone not see these as shallow reasons to get involved in music?

    Feel it in your heart and guts or it or leave it alone. Join a garage band if you want to impress the neighbourhood chicks.
    "But wasn't it all stupid nonsense, rot, gibberish, and criminally fraudulent nincompoopery?"
    - Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

  20. #116

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Anyway, I'm discovering more about my playing all the time - and threads like this are often inspiring - thanks to all for indulging. I took a whole other aspect to playing March/King of Laois after listening to that beautiful slow march - I love how the Scottish drums are orchestrated into it - the varieties and textures we can draw from tremolo are a delight.

    Cheers!

  21. #117

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Here's a tremolo with double stops on a Slow Air - My Singing Bird...


  22. #118
    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Eddie, I know we don't agree on this and that's fine. Just a difference of opinion. Since you posted that clip, here's my opinion. I'm not hearing a strong statement of the melody underneath that barrage of tremolo. There is a melody underneath all that picking somewhere, fighting to get out.

    I continue to think (and it's just my own opinion!) that tremolo is not the way to handle this material on mandolin. Some tunes are just better left to other sustaining instruments, the human voice, or a slower and more considered single-note approach on mandolin, milking whatever sustain you can manage with chord embellishment.

    Here's what the melody sounds like when sung, for reference:




    There is a Clancy Brothers version on YouTube as well, but that's kinda painful to listen to, after this one.

  23. #119

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    You look really young in that video...

  24. #120
    Mandolin Botherer Shelagh Moore's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    I continue to think (and it's just my own opinion!) that tremolo is not the way to handle this material on mandolin.
    Well that is your opinion as you say. My and some others' opinions happen to be different. Let us therefore celebrate the possibility to approach things in different ways and not be ruled by "convention"!

  25. #121
    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    I'm glad to see it's being tried. I think it will only fit once it has been tried enough to develop a vernacular that suits the form.
    If you listen to the use of vocal tremolo & vibrato in Irish music it gives a good lead as to how & where it could work well.
    There are so many ways to use tremolo, in terms of where, how and when to swell and fade the effect, when & how much of a note to leave just ring or gap at the end etc. and it takes a lot of time to get the feel, even in singing. You'll often hear people taking issue with singers who use too much in any genre, but I always remember as a youngster hearing people take issue with particular singers and their choices or overuse of 'warbling' as it was often referred to, but those same people switched on straight away and were keenly appreciative of those singers who 'got it' and made it work.


    It's a subtle game and will need time to develop.

    It'll be people like Eddie who continue to explore who will find how it will work best. Thanks Eddie.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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  27. #122
    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Moore View Post
    Well that is your opinion as you say. My and some others' opinions happen to be different. Let us therefore celebrate the possibility to approach things in different ways and not be ruled by "convention"!
    Well, if we're playing something called "traditional Irish music," then it's kinda hard to get away from being ruled by convention, isn't it?


    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Eddie Sheehy View Post
    You look really young in that video...
    What is that supposed to mean?

  28. #123

    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    You are a member of what I refer to as ITM Nazis. Non-existent in Ireland but overly-prevalent in the US. Since you continue to be critical yet hide behind a pseudonym you are now on IGNORE.

  29. #124
    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    Eddie, I've bent over backwards to say that this is just my opinion. I'm sorry you feel that way.

    As for anonymity, it's not that hard to figure out who I am. I've posted a link to my duo before where it's explicit. Here it is again, in case anyone wants to hear some tune samples (old ones, from four or five years ago, egad!). The applet might take a while to load the tunes:

    http://www.ptjams.com/string14/

  30. #125
    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Tremolo for Irish Trad?

    It's interesting to use someone like Sinéad O'Connor as an example of how artists, who are not from the Irish traditional music stable, can take their techniques and blend them with folk songs like this to make a complementary approach to the traditional one.
    She works from the basis of her training in Bel Canto and applies it to the work she produces.
    But because she is thoughtful and insightful about how she does it, reading the affect to be drawn from the listener she tempers the her technique to suit the folk genre.
    She still does not approach her work as a traditional Irish performer would, but her influence on the Irish folk scene is almost as strong as her influence in popular music in Ireland.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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