How many tunes does an Old Time musician
have memorized? Some of us were
discussing this after the Wednesday Night Morgantown Brew Pub jam, and some of
the people who are relatively knew to Old Time assumed that it must be some
huge number of songs. Hence they were
surprised that some of the veterans figured it was not that many, maybe a
hundred or so, and that those were usually an accident.
In classical
music, everyone is obliged to play exactly the same way, note to note, and for
that reason, the music must be written down.
But in Old Time,
someone (usually the lead fiddler) has to know the basic melody, and the rest
is made up on the fly. There are
literally an infinite number of variations possible, based on what the other
musicians are doing and the musical sensibilities of each musician. Different musicians have different ways of
approaching music. Some no doubt just
intuitively know what notes sound good together, whereas other musicians have a
more technical approach. But very little
of Old Time is transferred via note for note transcription and memorization. Somehow, Old Time musicians, especially
fiddlers, have ESP and can know in advance when the chord is going to change
and where the song is going.
Here is a case in
point, a fantastic jam with Andy Falco (guitar), Cody Kilby (guitar), Britanny
Haas (fiddle), and Jeremy Garrett (fiddle). I don’t know any of them personally, but my
guess is that that the guys have played together before, and have invited the
babe to jam with them. Naturally, they
picked a song that they can absolutely destroy, but Britanny is doing this song
with them probably for the first time. From
Britanny’s facial expressions, you can tell that she is figuring out how to
play the tune the first time through. Then
by her second or third time through, she is dishing it out with the boys, adding
complex variations to the basic tune. Basically
the four musicians are each having fun with the tune, adding different sounds
and textures each time through. By the
end of the video, smoke is curling from the instruments, the sky is darkening
and the camera is shaking as the earth trembles. Well, okay, maybe it’s not that dramatic, but
you get the idea. All four musicians are playing together but at
the same time challenging each other with different sounds and variations on
the basic tune. And no, they would not be able to write down note for note what they played. Without recording equipment each version would be impossible to recapture.
One of the main reasons that classical musicians need to read is that individual performers play different parts with sometimes complex chord changes or total polyphony. This simply cannot be worked out on the fly in a reasonable amount of time by people working independently. A composer writes the parts so that they will work together. Soloists often have wide latitude in interpretation, even improvising cadenzas. But the whole ensemble cannot do this without resulting in chaos.
ReplyDeleteOld time music is played in a small number of keys with a limited palette of chord progressions. Each tune is typically characterized by a few melodic licks. Anything consistent with the chord progression that will connect the characteristic licks is acceptable and appreciated.
Although popular music has a similar structure (though more complex chord progressions are used) the standard in that genre is to sound like the recording, not to create something new.