The Feel of a Tune
This article first appeared in FiddleOn magazine in 2001
as 'Cooper's Fiddle Corner - 6' You can subscribe to that excellent publication on line at www.fiddleon.co.uk

Out On The Ocean is a popular Irish jig which I've always played in the key of G. It starts on the open D-string and jumps a sixth to a B on the A-string. Like many a similar tune, it's easy enough to play once you've learned the fingering and bowing - how the tune 'goes.' But what happens if you transpose it to a different key? In a recent London session an Irish fiddle player for whom I have the greatest respect played the tune in A and although I soon found the notes and joined in - technically, it's no harder - it felt so unfamiliar that I was mentally scratching my head, wondering, 'What tune is this?' (Her answer, when I inquired at the end, was accompanied by a look of slight disbelief, as though thinking, 'This man teaches Irish fiddle. How can he not know Out On The Ocean?'). The rhythm and melody were of course identical but, starting now on E instead of D and jumping not to B but to C-sharp, all the fingering, some of the string crossing and certainly the overall 'feel' had changed considerably.

This led me to think, what exactly is a tune? At its simplest it's just a melody, a fixed sequence of notes, each of a particular duration - a longer note here, a shorter one there - and pitched at certain intervals in relation to one another. But while one may think of it analytically (or not) in the process of learning it, in practice most traditional 'ear'-players perform their tunes, once learned, from what may be termed physical memory. Once you've started playing the tune there's simply no time to be wondering how the next phrase goes, let alone what the next note is. Like a singer's song or an actor's lines, you just have to trust that the tune will, as it were, play itself, your fingers and hands guided by a secure internal model of the tune. It is this physical aspect of playing by heart that a simple change of key is sufficient to disrupt.

Transposing a tune you know well can be a valuable exercise. Try it. Even if you don't think in terms of key, just start the tune on a different note and let it unfold. This can certainly help you develop more fluency on your instrument. And if you are interested in playing back-up, or harmony (what Northumbrian players call 'seconds'), it may also make you more consciously aware of the tune's hidden shape, its underlying harmonic structure. Do bear in mind however that most tunes are played in particular keys as a matter of convention. Dashing through Soldier's Joy in Eb at your local session will probably win you few friends - there is a time and a place for such experiments!

The same tune, of course, will sound different on different instruments, not just because a flute doesn't sound like a melodeon but because any traditional player will use the style of phrasing and ornamentation that falls naturally within the instrument's technical compass. A fiddler learning an Old Time tune from a 5-string banjo player, or a Highland march from a bagpiper, will to some extent be 'making it up,' discovering what feels idiomatic on the fiddle. So is he or she actually playing the 'same' tune? Details will change. This effect, amplified many times over as an old tune migrates from player to player, means that what started life as a single melody may emerge in several distinct versions that bear little more than a family resemblance. The very pitch of the notes and of the intervals between them - as in the case of archaic fiddle or bagpipe modes inaccessible to nineteenth-century instruments like the melodeon or concertina - may alter.

Written music is a great stabilising factor in this sea of change. The version printed in a book - or, more popularly among some younger fiddlers, encoded in ABC format and sent by e-mail - both is, and is not 'the tune.' It may assume a sort of authority simply by being fixed. We know however that in the real world the written version is only an outline, the 'skeleton,' as James Scott Skinner described it. It takes no account of the creative input of the individual player, the moment of spontaneity. It's like a film still, rather than the movie itself. In a wider perspective, a musicologist studying a traditional culture's overall tune repertoire will see ocean currents of sudden or gradual modification, a weird diversity of forms in various stages of evolution. For instance, when the polka became a popular dance in the mid-nineteenth century a local village fiddler, not really knowing any, might well be obliged to improvise one, which is no doubt why Niel Gow's stately and heartfelt Lament for Whisky, composed after the prohibition of whisky-making in Scotland in 1799, is now played as a cheerful polka in the south-west of Ireland. (Are these the same tune?) As an exercise, try playing Out On The Ocean, or a similar jig, in the rhythm of a march.

There is always that elusive quality in a tune. Even when you know it so well that it's becoming stale, hearing somebody else play it with just a slight difference - what Tommy Potts called 'the hidden note' - can transform it for you. So a tune may approximate to the fixed version of a printed text (the film-still, the snapshot) but, interpreted according to the style, taste and technical skill of the player and the needs of his audience, it also cruises semi-independently around the melodic and rhythmic contour of that particular sequence of notes. Perhaps at times, guided by the unseen force of a changed harmonic framework (as when you trace a Playford tune through his various editions) it may shed its sharps or flats, while remaining uncannily specific in its rhythm and phrasing. Or it may fly off at a tangent and become something else.

However, continuity of performance also limits these changes.

While a tune can appear, under the scrutiny of musicological research, as little more than a site of change, what is also truly remarkable is the improbable persistence of memory. For people living in exile from a lost homeland, for example, the old tunes may be the very embodiment of their sense of separation. Even where geographical uprooting doesn't come into it, one's jaw drops at the continuity of, say, Hungarian fiddle music in Ceaucescu's Transylvania, or the note-for-note, bow-stroke for bow-stroke continuity of Norwegian hardingfele traditions.

To understand this I think we have to return to the 'feel' of the tune, which is where we started. The Spanish verb for 'to play' - as in playing the fiddle - is tocar. In the loving tongue musicians are said to 'touch' their instruments. And music is always for the player a tactile experience. This intimacy of contact, as universal yet individually unique as a fingerprint, can evoke a strong emotional response in the listener. Music touches something inside us. The physical sensation of playing it gives expression to that elusive quality of the tune that even the most detailed and scholarly notation fails to pin down: its emotional resonance, its musical meaning.

Pete Cooper © 2001

Playing in Sessions

This aricle first appeared in FiddleOn magazine in 2003
as ‘Cooper’s Fiddle Corner - 10’

Playing in a pub session with other musicians can seem a very distant goal to the beginning fiddler, learning the basics in relative isolation. I've also met highly trained violinists who are attracted to the idea of a session, but feel equally daunted. If, however, you can play, say, forty tunes or so by heart, with reasonable accuracy, speed and confidence, you could probably make a start and try a session out. So what are sessions all about? What is the etiquette that governs joining in? How do they work?

What may not be apparent when you see a dozen assorted musicians playing around a pub table on a Saturday night, is that most sessions are to some extent hosted and led by an individual, or by a small core of regulars. They meet by arrangement with the landlord, perhaps playing for free drinks or, more rarely, cash, as well as for the crack. These host players determine the character of the session, whether, for example, it's Irish, or English, or some mixture of styles, that's played. This is worth finding out. While it is conceivable that a crowd of Scottish musicians, immersed in a great flow of strathspeys and reels, may be delighted by a newcomer's refreshing selection of Morris tunes played on the recorder, I wouldn't count on it. The aim is usually to play together, exploring common repertoire. So pick a session that's broadly in line with the kind of music you're into.

Session etiquette generally resembles the rules of conversation.
Someone who hogs the lead all the time, showing off flashy tunes that nobody else knows, can be annoying. Proving your musical superiority is really not the point. But equally, if you're a half-decent player, don't be bashful. Feel free to take the initiative once in a while. A session, like a good chat, is a friendly exchange and people will be curious to know what you have to contribute. Depending on the relative volume of your fiddle and the other instruments involved, it may be wise to join in only on tunes you actually know, or are pretty close to knowing. Busking along on the chords, however artistically, is not usually a good idea in a traditional session, especially if there's already a guitarist. (Even in Swedish music, where an improvised fiddle harmony can be part of the style, the basic rule is to learn to play the tune itself first.) Beyond ordinary courtesy and respect, the conventions of a session depend on the particular genre and idiom of the music.

In a typical Irish session, for example, each tune is played three times - in some sessions, only twice - through. One person, maybe at the invitation of the host musician, will start a set of reels, say, or jigs, or polkas. The two or three tunes that comprise the medley are usually in different keys, but don't mix up different tune-types, such as a reel and a jig, in one set. (In a Cape Breton session, by way of contrast, you could play an air, march, strathspey and reel, but all must be in the same key). As the end of the third time through approaches, the group's attention turns to whoever started the tune: what's coming next? Listeners at the bar may notice a momentary lull in the music, a brief pause until, having recognised the new tune, the players all join in again. If you're the person leading the set, you need to be very sure of the change. It's almost impossible to think of how one tune goes while you're playing another and most of us need to practice the connections as much as the tunes themselves. In playing tunes, as in plumbing, the straight bits are easy, it's the joins that require special skill.

If you haven't played all that long, sitting out tune after tune may start to feel a bit embarrassing, but listening is good, too, especially in the company of decent musicians. You can make a mental or written note of tunes you like, to track down and learn later, especially if they're evidently well known. Also, if nobody minds, you can record the session to play back at home, to help you get familiar with the session repertoire. Or are you really just out of your depth? Certainly in London there's a bit of a hierarchy among Irish sessions. While the meeting of highly experienced players with relative beginners is great in principle, it can feel uncomfortable in practice. You need to find a session at your own level of skill, so that you can succeed in a safe environment. Frankly, there's nothing worse than playing in a session where you ARE the weakest link. You'll play better - and learn more - among people with whom you can make mistakes without fear.

In American Old Time music, unlike the three-times-through-and-change of an Irish session, the same tune may be repeated as many as a dozen times, so that, provided you're discreet and play quietly, you can often learn the tune on the job. In the instrumental hierarchy the fiddle leads, the banjo gives melodic support, the guitar provides chords, the bass a rhythmic root. In top-notch sessions in America a second fiddler joining an existing four-piece band may be invited to 'C'mon in,' but you should check if it's OK with the banjo-player, since you'll be relegating them to a more basic rhythm job. In Old Time sessions everybody plays the tune all the time, while Bluegrass conventions are different again. Here the players will take turns to solo, the others easing off to provide back-up. In Bluegrass sessions in Yorkshire, I'm told, the solo lead passes round the circle in fairly strict rotation ('Northern Rules') and the musicians similarly take turns to select the next tune or song and lead it off.

When all is said and done, every session's unique - and that is the beauty of it. Regular players come and go. Surprise visitors may drop in. The music is never quite the same from week to week, even when the same musicians turn up and, for many, the session represents the essence of traditional music-making. No disrespect to the performers we love and admire, but folk music is not only, and perhaps not even primarily, a spectator sport, though session players are, as it happens, often the most appreciative, as well as discerning, members of a gig audience. Many a professional music partnership, too, has started in a chance encounter at a session. It's a fluid, changeable, transitional space, where anything can happen. The loss of the opportunity to take part in sessions through ill-conceived legislation would be tragic.

Pete Cooper © 2003