roisin whyte

I took up the fiddle in my mid twenties. I am in my mid forties now. One might think I’d be great at it.

I am not great at it. However, I sometimes do make a very lovely sound. I am not great because I am not consistent. Great fiddlers can play solidly and well, even on an off day.

I can’t rely on my fiddle playing. I’ve never gotten full control over it, though my determination to continue to suffer with it means that I’m gaining more and better control. I am moving towards consistent.

With the exception of about 18 months of on and off tuition, I am self – taught on the fiddle. Those 18 months were formative though. I was living in London and took lessons with Gundula Gruen. Although classically trained, her big passion was for Eastern European folk music. She only taught because it financed her solo trips to remote villages in Eastern Europe, where she wrote down local folk tunes lest that music be lost forever.

I turned up early for a lesson once. Summertime in West London, a hot one. The windows of her attic apartment were all open. I sat on the wall outside her house listening to her practice. She was playing some folk tune at a speed I didn’t think humanly possible. She later told me that the old guy she learned it from played it “quite a bit faster”.

That was a long time ago. It’s come to mind recently as I have been thinking about my music learning experiences which have been long and varied. And what’s got me thinking about that, is the now annual, glorious celebration that is Belfast TradFest. (weblink below).

Belfast TradFest is an extraordinary celebration of the very best in traditional music. The link below illustrates it better than I can, save to say it comprises performances, masterclasses, cellis, workshops, trad-session trails right across the city. The best players in the world come to town to perform, teach and celebrate the extraordinary appeal of Irish traditional music. If there is another style of music whereby strangers can meet in a bar, anywhere from Stradbally to Shanghai and connect with each other through playing a repertoire of tunes, I am unaware of it. It is an incredible, joyful unifying thing.

But as a musician, it’s not for me. Whilst I recognise the many brilliant elements that comprise the session, there are some elements that I don’t enjoy, and a few reasons why I have never played in one.

To be clear, the primary reason that I don’t attend and participate in sessions, is that I am not able to. And what I am not able to do specifically, is play at speed. End of story, in a way – I don’t play in sessions because I’m not able to play fast enough. I haven’t developed the dexterity and bow control required to play top speed tunes. But there are other things that I can do, and do well. These things are largely overlooked on the session/traditional music circuit, where the focus seems to be primarily about how many tunes you know and how fast you can play them (I am generalising, obviously).

The session is built on formulae – which major/minor jigs/reels fit well together. Play the A part then the B part, probably back to A and onto the next tune etc. This gives structure to the play and it is the incredible device through which people who’ve never met before, can come together and make a great sound. It is a solid foundation that allows musicians to settle in together. It is also the reason that sessions can seem indulgent, dull and for a listener, it can be like one long tune that only changes from major to minor or vice versa.

The obsession with speed. I have watched with envy as fiddle players play tunes top speed. It is extraordinary when it is done well, when there has been nuance, and expression and I can hear the character of the musician, as well as the music, come through. But I have watched incredibly skilled musicians play and felt no connection to them or the tunes. Beautiful melodies, opportunities to change up the rhythm/ornamentation get lost in ever speedier delivery.

I know this was the original dance music. I understand that musicians were primarily there to play at dances where the Irish population were allowed some limited form of physical contact/expression through dance, albeit under the watchful gaze of some parish priest. I am aware that the musicians job in that moment was “4 to the floor, don’t deviate, keep them dancin”.

But DeV’s been dead for a while. There are other ways.

I mentioned my some-time-teacher Gundula Gruen above, and I alluded to some things I feel like I can do well (at least do well some of the time – because, consistency etc.) If you’ve ever read a blog of mine you’ll also know I love a list. So in no particular order, below is my fiddle playing/trad music thought list…

• In praise of slowing down. Reels; (typically the fastest tunes), contain some of our most beautiful melodies, but they are often lost in the pressure to keep up.
• Varying speeds also sound great. Knowing that a musician is making choices. Choices that seek to connect, inspire and/or surprise – that makes the music more engaging and intriguing.
• Varying techniques. I told Gundula that I didn’t want to study for exams, but I wanted to pay clean and with a good tone, I wanted to have good bowing technique and control, I wanted to learn vibrato. I wanted a number of techniques in my playing repertoire.
• Listen and learn. Because I don’t tend to play with other fiddle players I learn tunes alone. I usually find the sheet music to get the basic geography of the tune, but I throw that away as soon as possible in favour of watching and listening to good players play the tune. I understand this is an aural tradition, but reading music has given me access to many tunes I wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Some of the above opinions will be unpopular. I’m likely to be a trad musicians worst nightmare, with my “varying speeds” and VIBRATO. I’ve rarely shared these thoughts as I’ve suspected that many musicians far better than I would be quick to dismiss me as one without the playing experience to know what she’s talking about.

And then I realised, that’s fine. No-one has the definitive word on any of this.

I’ve been a musician in some shape or form for over 25 years. I have been a music educator for 15 and I have consumed it; (as it has consumed me), for all of my lifetime. My observations on music are mine own and true to my experience. Anyone as doesn’t want to take them, can leave them.

Or indeed, leave me a comment if anything resonated or otherwise.

https://www.belfasttraditionalmusic.com/