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Thread: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

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    Default Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Okay, that might sound silly but here's why I ask. My daughter started taking mandolin lessons last week. She's 8 and not the biggest self-starter but she truly is wanting to learn. So, I sold one of my guitars to buy another mandolin so I could do her exercises with her until she gets the basics down.

    Well, naturally, if I have a new instrument I'm going to play it. I'm finding it very easy to adapt from guitar to mandolin. More so than I expected in 6 days anyway. So what have I been doing? I've been going through the myriad of jigs in the tablature section on here.

    After learning 7 or 8 of them by heart and picking around on a dozen or so others, I've come to find that it's extremely easy to improvise a very nice sounding jig over just about any chord progression, which leads me to the title of this post. It seems to me that some of the jigs I've been improvising would do well to be written down and given a deserving title, at least if my adult ADD would allow it. Is that where the majority of jigs come from or are most written to a score from the beginning?

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Well, a heck of a lot of jigs and tunes in general were first passed on by ear before they were finally collected and recorded.
    We would not have any evidence if they were first written down or just played out but i'd figure the latter.

    These days, as there is more access to recording equipment and as more people know how to write in notation, i imagine that there would be a mix of spontaneous composition and written composition.

    As for writing your own ditties down, why not? At the very least its good exercise... and who knows those tunes might just slip away just as easily as they first came so you might as well catch them for posterity

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    poor excuse for anything Charlieshafer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    I'm of the mind that in the beginning, there was only one Irish tune, and all others evolved from that as they were passed around from player to player, generation to generation. The trick is to find out which was the first. OK, so maybe I'm not being completely serious, but many did simply evolve and are reasonably close to so many others it's hard to tell which from what.

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    I'm of the mind that in the beginning, there was only one Irish tune, and all others evolved from that as they were passed around from player to player, generation to generation. The trick is to find out which was the first. OK, so maybe I'm not being completely serious, but many did simply evolve and are reasonably close to so many others it's hard to tell which from what.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Go for it.

    There are batches of tunes that sound traditional and are considered part of the traditional repertoire but were in fact made up not long ago, and there are new jigs ("Irish" and otherwise) being composed on a daily basis.

    The chore of documenting all of the tunes is perpetual. Aloys Fleischman spent decades tracking tunes from 1600 to 1855 and came up with 7,000 tunes. You can bet there have been many thousands more made up, played, passed around, since them. Some are still favorites, probably many more are forgotten.

    While I'd agree that it's relatively easy to improvise a reasonable ditty over a set of chord changes, crafting a timeless dance tune is unlikely to come without some real woodshedding with the canonical repertoire.

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Composing tunes is fun. But if you want to play with others, which is the whole point in Irish traditional sessions, your efforts are better spent in learning what everyone else plays.

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by DougC View Post
    Composing tunes is fun. But if you want to play with others, which is the whole point in Irish traditional sessions, your efforts are better spent in learning what everyone else plays.
    'Tis the difference between a composer and a performer.

  9. #8

    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    When I was sixteen or so, I had just gotten my first mandolin and was playing around, trying to compose something.
    I came up with something I thought was pretty stinking cool, so I showed it to my teacher and asked him what he thought I should call it. He gave me a funny look and said, "Um.... I think you should call it Soldier's Joy."

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    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by bossfrog View Post
    I've been going through the myriad of jigs in the tablature section on here.

    After learning 7 or 8 of them by heart and picking around on a dozen or so others, I've come to find that it's extremely easy to improvise a very nice sounding jig over just about any chord progression, which leads me to the title of this post. It seems to me that some of the jigs I've been improvising would do well to be written down and given a deserving title, at least if my adult ADD would allow it. Is that where the majority of jigs come from or are most written to a score from the beginning?
    Creating new music is fun, so if you're having fun then go for it!

    That said, I would advise caution about adopting an "Americana" style of tune composing, often done by players of fretted instruments (guitars, mainly), where you start with a fixed chord progression and improvise a melody line over the chords. I think it's fair to say that almost all the traditional repertoire (and many of the newer compositions) were composed on single-note melody instruments like pipes, whistles, flutes, and fiddles. Historically speaking, chordal accompaniment came much later.

    Without chord backup as a foundation, the early tune composers on these instruments were free to write all kinds of weird and wonderful melody lines. They don't always fit comfortably over the standard chord sequences used in Americana music like Folk, Blues, or Bluegrass. Some tunes casually shift between a major and minor feel within the same tune, or they play games with shifting between a C natural and C#. Or even something in-between... the "Piper's C" or "C Supernatural."

    It's why many guitar players use DADGAD or Drop-D tuning when backing jigs and reels; partly for the drone strings, but also to help avoid playing too many 3rds that shift the music strongly in a major or minor direction, when the tune is "trying" to be more ambiguous. If you're not hip to the way these chord sequences work, then the improvised tunes you write may not sound "authentic" (if you care about that) when you write tunes over chord changes you're more familiar with.

    Anyway, don't let that stop you from composing and recording new tunes! My S.O. attended a fiddle workshop a couple of years ago with Liz Carroll (a prolific composer of new jigs and reels). She said everyone should write new tunes, even if it's just an exercise in your practice schedule. It helps get your head into the music.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Marty Jacobson View Post
    When I was sixteen or so, I had just gotten my first mandolin and was playing around, trying to compose something.
    I came up with something I thought was pretty stinking cool, so I showed it to my teacher and asked him what he thought I should call it. He gave me a funny look and said, "Um.... I think you should call it Soldier's Joy."
    Sure, and I get what you're saying. Often the tune you think you're making up in your head is something you've heard in some form or another and perhaps expressing only slightly differently. When I took Music Comp in high school, our teacher said, "It's my belief that there are few, if any melodies left to be conceived. But that's okay because very few of them have ever been recorded or put to paper."

    That's actually a variation of a quote by Johann Pachelbel to a group of his students that dates all the way back 1680s. As we all know, a few songs have been written since then

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    IMHO all these tunes were composed by someone. We just do not know who the composers were. They didn't just materialize out of thin air.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    IMHO all these tunes were composed by someone. We just do not know who the composers were. They didn't just materialize out of thin air.
    Of course, but are most composed on the spot and then put to paper or would most be composed note by note in a composer's studio? I'm guessing more were probably composed very spontaneously.

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Not sure how many jigs are in O'Neils, let's just say an awful lot of them, if you listen to different ethnic musics you find reoccurring fragments, this is especially true in Irish and other Celtic fiddle, flute, whistle, harp and pipe music. You can find similar repeated fragments in music from many regions. the Spanish/Incan music from South America, Eastern European folk music. Even in modern American Blues Rock, you find common chord progressions and repeated and shared riffs and licks. Music like language is fragmentary, made up of the same group of elements, just rearranged and juxtaposed for different expressions.

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by bossfrog View Post
    Of course, but are most composed on the spot and then put to paper or would most be composed note by note in a composer's studio? I'm guessing more were probably composed very spontaneously.
    I have never been able to compose a memorable tune by sitting down and "thinking" about it. Usually I'll have feeling for a few days like I just need to keep playing my instrument. Then one Saturday morning, I'll start playing and the first four measures come out and I think, wow, that's great. Then I keep playing it over and over until the rest of it comes out.

    What I consider a memorable tune is one, that I remember a few weeks later, and when I play it for others, there ears perk up and say, "what's that?" I've never heard that before! Then I make up a name, and don't act like I wrote it and we add it to repertoire. Now that's fun.

    Anytime I've tried to MAKE a tune happen, it ended up sounding like total crap or like it was meant to be the background music for a mr. clean commercial.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    IMHO all these tunes were composed by someone. We just do not know who the composers were. They didn't just materialize out of thin air.
    I'm not so sure of this; I was under the impression some of the older tunes have evolved quite a bit over time, so that although there may have been someone who came up with the "original" many years ago, the tune played nowadays will have changed bit by bit till it was beyond recognition, so the tune we know now was composed by no one (or if you prefer, by thousands of people).

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by bossfrog View Post
    Of course, but are most composed on the spot and then put to paper or would most be composed note by note in a composer's studio? I'm guessing more were probably composed very spontaneously.
    I would say some might me composed on the spot but from what I know of today's musicians -- and I would think the same held true even centuries ago -- most tunes were prob made up in private, fine-tuned and them brought to a gathering where others would learn them and spread them around. Same as today. Why would it be any different?
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by neil argonaut View Post
    I'm not so sure of this; I was under the impression some of the older tunes have evolved quite a bit over time, so that although there may have been someone who came up with the "original" many years ago, the tune played nowadays will have changed bit by bit till it was beyond recognition, so the tune we know now was composed by no one (or if you prefer, by thousands of people).
    I am sure there is some folk process involved over time, influenced by multiple players and spread to multiple cultures. However, we are talking about fiddle tunes. The basic skeletal version of an old tune like, for instance, Soldier's Joy, has remained tho there are some serious variations on that skeletal version by various musicians in various genres.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by bossfrog View Post
    Of course, but are most composed on the spot and then put to paper or would most be composed note by note in a composer's studio? I'm guessing more were probably composed very spontaneously.
    If we're talking about trad tunes vs. modern compositions then there certainly wouldn't have been any "composer's studios" involved! Many tunes would've been handed down aurally from player to player as many of the folks writing them didn't know standard notation - even here in the 21st century my tenor banjo teacher's mode of choice for teaching a new tune was teaching it to me piece by piece a few notes at a time vs. giving me sheet music for it (the same goes for my mandolin teacher as well!). Like any writing process I'm sure some tunes came to the player all in one go, and others may have been worked on a wee bit at a time til they were happy enough with it to play it for folks.

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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    I often play mandolin with 3 other musicians, all of whom always follow notes as written down in one of 4 books of fiddle tunes. I always learn the same tune by ear, usually by downloading some version off of itunes.

    What i play and what the other 3 play, is never the same. In a way, the others are indulgent with my different version. They let me keep playing my version because they honor ear-learning as somehow, more "traditional" than what they do. When my ear-learned version differs a lot from a book version, they usually accept it, with some kind words about the "workable harmony" I have added to spruce up the tune during performance.

    Someone here mentions Soldier's Joy. That's a tune that you almost never hear played the same way twice. Most of us will know it when we hear it. But not always.

    I think lots of these tunes are continually evolving. It's not unlike a story whispered around a circle by 20 people, with the last version sounding very different than the first version.

    Our band plays about 20 jigs. I find it interesting that I am more prone to hear similarities via my ear-learned sensibilities than my compadres hear with their note-following sensibilities. Two tunes that come to mind are the A parts of Smash the Windows and Larry O'Gaff. We perform the two back-to-back as a jig set, where they sound like variations on one theme. I don't hear much difference between the A part of Swallowtail, and the B part of Tripping Up the Stairs.

    Then again, I know very little about the story behind these tunes.
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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Jim Nollman brings up some interesting points regarding the variations that tunes go thru. I lead a regular monthly old time jam here and most of the attendees have been playing together for years. The last session there were four of us fiddlers bowing away and yet none of us were playing any of the tunes exactly the same way. I do listen to what the other players, esp the fiddlers are playing and try to mesh in some way but that does not always mean that each of us need to play in unison or even with the same bowing or rhythmic accents. In fact, I will guess that the music sounds richer for that. I wonder what it would sound like if we each learned exactly the same notes.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    Jim Nollman brings up some interesting points regarding the variations that tunes go thru. I lead a regular monthly old time jam here and most of the attendees have been playing together for years. The last session there were four of us fiddlers bowing away and yet none of us were playing any of the tunes exactly the same way. I do listen to what the other players, esp the fiddlers are playing and try to mesh in some way but that does not always mean that each of us need to play in unison or even with the same bowing or rhythmic accents. In fact, I will guess that the music sounds richer for that. I wonder what it would sound like if we each learned exactly the same notes.
    The sound that comes out when people are playing a little different version and I'd add different technique, is polyphonic. It is notes working as much against another as with another...When everyone does the same bowing on the same notes the rhythm and acoustic aspects of the instruments kind of amplify each other, you get a clearer and more pronounced sound.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by bossfrog View Post
    Of course, but are most composed on the spot and then put to paper or would most be composed note by note in a composer's studio? I'm guessing more were probably composed very spontaneously.
    I would modify this. I am sure many of the tunes were worked out and noodled by whistlers, pipers, and such and then played and modified with others until the tune was pleasing enough or caught others' imatination. I don't know that there is a clear demarcation point at which the tune is officially composed.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by Jill McAuley View Post
    Like any writing process I'm sure some tunes came to the player all in one go, and others may have been worked on a wee bit at a time til they were happy enough with it to play it for folks.
    You said it better than I did.
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post
    That said, I would advise caution about adopting a style of tune composing, ...where you start with a fixed chord progression and improvise a melody line over the chords. I think it's fair to say that almost all the traditional repertoire (and many of the newer compositions) were composed on single-note melody instruments like pipes, whistles, flutes, and fiddles. Historically speaking, chordal accompaniment came much later.

    Without chord backup as a foundation, the early tune composers on these instruments were free to write all kinds of weird and wonderful melody lines. They don't always fit comfortably over the standard chord sequences ...
    I think this is a real important point. And its that surprise factor, that not fitting, or going where you are not expecting, that makes many tunes delightful.

    My experience in trying to come up with my own tunes has taught me how hard it is, and made me appreciate how the slow but sturdy hand of eons of tradition has really crafted some gems.

    I do think anyone who has the knack to compose should do it. The true proof of a good tune is how many people want to play it, so yea by all means toss them out into the field, and lets see what gets harvested.
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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Are Irish Jigs More Written or "Discovered?"

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post
    I would advise caution about adopting an "Americana" style of tune composing, often done by players of fretted instruments (guitars, mainly), where you start with a fixed chord progression and improvise a melody line over the chords. I think it's fair to say that almost all the traditional repertoire (and many of the newer compositions) were composed on single-note melody instruments like pipes, whistles, flutes, and fiddles. Historically speaking, chordal accompaniment came much later.
    This. I think most Irish tunes have crystallized out of noodling, but it was noodling with melody snippets of other tunes, not improvisation over chords.
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