Dawes' Taylor Goldsmith on The Grateful Dead

Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes (photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The online-only Glide Magazine has posted an interview with Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes as part of its Easy Answers series.  Each installment of Easy Answers asks a (sometimes unexpected) musician to describe the importance of Grateful Dead music in his or her life.

It's no surprise to me that the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia have had a significant impact on Taylor Goldsmith - not just in his guitar playing which has elements of Garcia's touch, but also in his delivery of the rock ballad.  Nobody did that better than Jerry, but Dawes comes pretty close.  Here are some highlights from the interview.

What is your personal favorite Grateful Dead song and why?
(Goldsmith) This changes all the time. At different times it’s been “Unbroken Chain”, “Box Of Rain”, “Ship Of Fools”, “Stella Blue”, “Looks Like Rain”, “Shakedown Street”, among others…but if I were to play a first time listener one song by the Grateful Dead that best represented the best of their songwriting, the guitar playing, the harmonies and the singular way they play off of each other, in my opinion, I’d put on “Jack Straw”. So I guess that says a lot.

What is your favorite era of the Grateful Dead and why?
(Goldsmith) I really love Reckoning. With that record it felt like I fell in love with them all over again. They were playing in such a new and interesting way and between that funny sound of Jerry’s direct input acoustic, Brent’s playing at the time, and listening to them hold back and play so much quieter than I had ever heard. I also loved knowing they released another equally incredible live electric record with Dead Set in that same year. It’s hard to say it’s my “favorite”, but it has definitely left its stamp with me that might not be as easily distinguishable as other era’s.

What do you feel is the greatest misconception a lot of people outside the Dead’s circle have of the band?
(Goldsmith) Two things: that it was ever about anything other than the music for those guys and that the culture that surrounded them was a product of the band. All of the extraneous elements of their public conception were just a product of their deeply devoted fans. I think those aspects have been a blessing and a curse. A lot of people misjudge the band before ever hearing the music, but at the same time, they have arguably the most committed and unique fans a band could ever ask for.


Read the full interview here:  http://www.glidemagazine.com/135463/easy-answers-taylor-goldsmith-dawes-talks-grateful-dead-interview/

Q and A with Dr Daithí Kearney - Sliabh Luachra, Irish Banjo, Cork Trad and more

Ethnomusicologist, performer and banjo player Dr Daithí Kearney was kind enough to answer some questions pertaining to Irish traditional music. Read on for the Q and A.

Your Midleton Rare CD with John Cronin has been described as a celebration of the Sliabh Luachra sound. How is the music of Sliabh Luachra different than the music of other regions of Ireland?
I believe that the difference lies primarily in the rhythm. It is not just that polkas and slides play a more prominent role here than in other parts of Ireland as, even in the jigs and reels, there is a slightly different emphasis. There is a particular repertoire that can sometimes be described as 'deceptively simple' that has great life when played in the style.

How does the banjo fit into this style?
I think that it adds a great punch. Because rhythm is so important, the banjo can latch onto that rhythm and while it might not achieve all of the subtleties of what was primarily a fiddle tradition, it can listen to the dancers' feet and enhance the rhythmical feel of the music.

The area around Cork City/East Cork doesn’t seem to be recognized for Irish traditional music as much as, say, County Clare, for example. Is this a fair assessment? What is the status of Irish traditional music in Cork these days?

It is fair to say that East Cork is not as recognised for music as Clare or some other western counties but this hides the wonderful activities going on there. There are a number of great session pubs in East Cork and West Waterford and branches of Comhaltas, as well as some other teachers, are doing great work to promote Irish traditional music in the region. I myself studied music at UCC and spent a number of wonderful years in Cork City where I had a choice of sessions each night, not to mention regular gigs by great artists. Cork City is, in my opinion, exceptional for music and there are great musicians who play regularly.

For an adult improver, do you think there’s a “right way” (as opposed to a “wrong way”) to go about learning Irish traditional music?

Firstly, listening is key. Books are a wonderful resource and there are helpful online resources now also but, where possible, the best way to learn is to play with experienced musicians and learn from them. Summer schools are attended by a lot of adult improvers and there are more and more workshops offered, not just in Ireland. Sometimes it only takes a little bit of constructive criticism from an experienced teacher to overcome challenges.

Is the playing of Irish music really as simple as knowing how the tune is supposed to sound and then finding those notes on your instrument?

No, I don't think so. Despite some commentary that might suggest otherwise, there is still great diversity in the approaches to performing Irish traditional music and I would value a personal style of a musician who has taken the time to explore the potential of their instrument. I also believe that the stories of the music are an integral part of the tradition and knowing why a particular tune holds special meaning for people can add to the significance of the tune. Tunes hold memories and while one may perform the notes very well, placing these notes in the context of performances by musicians in the past is at the core of the meaning of 'tradition'.

For the visiting American musician who has an interest in taking part in sessions in Ireland, what are some things to be mindful of?

Try and get a sense of the session before joining in. It is too simple to provide one definition of a session. Some are essentially gigs and some involve people who will be more receptive to people joining in than others, regardless of who they are or where they come from. Taking the time to chat to the musicians or listen a little before joining in could make the experience more enjoyable for all involved.

Any plans for a follow up to the Midleton Rare album?

Midleton Rare was a wonderful experience that came about from playing regularly with John in Midleton, Co. Cork. Unfortunately, in this context, shortly after recording the album I moved to Co. Louth to take up a position at Dundalk Institute of Technology. I am delighted to say that I have settled into my employment here but this means that another album with John is increasingly unlikely. However, I continue to perform and have a number of projects lined up. I am currently working on an album inspired by the musical traditions of Co. Louth with Piano Accordionist Adèle Commins and also hope to record with the DkIT Ceol Oirghialla Traditional Music Ensemble (of which I am currently director) in the near future.

You can read more about music at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) and the traditional ensemble there at: https://www.dkit.ie/music/performing-groups-ensembles/ceol-oirghialla-traditional-music-ensemble.

Dr Daithí Kearney is a lecturer in Music at Dundalk Institute of Technology, Section of Music and Centre for Research in Music. His research is primarily focused on Irish traditional music but extends to include performance studies, community music, music education and the connection between music and place. His PhD concentrates on the construction of geographies and regional identities in Irish traditional music and his research interests include the negotiation, mediation and construction of identities through music and the relationship between music and place. In 2012 Daithí released an album with Cork accordion player John Cronin entitled "Midleton Rare", which is related to a wider research project on the music and musicians of the Sliabh Luachra region. In 2013 he performed with Southbound at the National Folk Festival of Australia. Daithí recently completed a term as chair of ICTM Ireland and is currently a committee member of the Society for Music Education in Ireland.

Liz Carroll STRINGS Interview Transcript

I’ve linked to this Liz Carroll article before but I thought I’d post a full transcript of it below.  The interviewer is a classical music oriented publication and these appear to be stock questions, but a lot can be learned from Liz’s thoughtful responses from the perspective of an Irish traditional fiddler.

Liz Carroll (Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune)

Ask Chicago-based fiddler Liz Carroll to describe what she does and she replies: “I play Irish music, a music made up of mostly short pieces such as jigs, reels, and hornpipes. The first and second parts of tunes are made up of eight measures. Every once in a while you have a three, four, or even five-part tune. It’s simple, lovely music! It’s also a very social music—fiddles, accordions, flutes, pipes, whistles, and an array of backing instruments partake.” You can hear for yourself on the new solo album On the Offbeat. Strings asked Carroll to describe her daily practice regimen.

What do you feel you need to do on a daily basis to maintain your skill level?

I do love to play, so it’s pretty easy to take the fiddle out of the case and have it handy throughout the day in case a thought occurs to me. It’s true that the fingers can get rusty, but it doesn’t take much time to get facility back. Tunes are in the first position, so the tunes themselves are the practice.

Do you have your own daily routine of scales or technical exercises?

No, I have no particular routine as such.

Why not?

I try to feel the music my own way when I play, but then I try to explore what other people (fiddlers) and other instrument players are doing. I feel that anything I choose to work on helps the whole. So, I can take a tune from a recording and sit down to play along with it and learn it by ear. This is an enjoyable exercise—playing along, stopping to check out what the player did, and then turning off the recording to see if I have it. Whatever journey the tune takes you on—you’re playing, you’re listening, you’re adding a new tune to your repertoire, and so you’re improving as a player.

Do you still use études or study guides?

I don’t have any exercise books, but there are some out there for Irish fiddle. I do work out kinks or difficulties within tunes, but it is a self-driven type of exercise.

Do you practice scales and arpeggios?
There are lots of nice runs within tunes, so I feel I get to practice arpeggios there. Irish music employs a lot of keys and a lot of modal scales. There are tons of tunes within keys like A, D, and G.

Any tune one learns can be played in a number of places on the fiddle. Some players don’t worry about shifting tunes to other keys (and you don’t have to have that skill), but I feel that I’m a better player if I can go there.

Was there a particular teacher who was instrumental in developing your practice regimen?

I took classical lessons at school when I was a little girl. I had a wonderful teacher, Sr. Francine, who did two things: She very much encouraged a good bow hand, and she noticed when I did or didn’t practice. I still work at my bowing, although I do love the left hand, too. When I play in front of an audience, there’s no question that the work put into a tune or an ornament within a tune gets noticed. You can get a certain amount of reaction from energetic playing. But you can’t beat that reaction from the audience, and the satisfaction from nailing a note or a variation within a tune, that comes from evident work.

How has your daily practice regimen changed as you’ve advanced as a player?

I’m the very same now, I’d say. I still love to compose tunes, still like to learn a new tune. I’m lucky to live in Chicago where there are lots of Irish sessions, gatherings of musicians playing tunes. When I’m not touring, I like to get to a session. And when I’m on tour I like to have a session with the local musicians, too. You can’t beat sitting down with your cup of tea—or whatever!—at a nice establishment and playing tunes with other musicians for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. You work on your chops (bowing, fingering, variations) at a session—you work to make your music flow.

How do you know when you need to brush up on fundamentals?

You do need to play a lot in order to have a good brain-to-bow/brain-to-fingers connection. You just know when you need to play, I think.

Is there a particular technique that has given you trouble?

Style and the pursuit of a style loom large in Irish fiddling. Again, it’s simple music for the most part. When you see it written, it might not occur to you that there is a challenge there. But there is! There are regional styles in Ireland—Galway style, Kerry style, Donegal style, Sligo style, to name a few. Within those styles, there are excellent players past and present. When you learn a simple jig, from that point there are a myriad of versions from different players that you can and should attempt (long bows/tight, short bows; very ornamented fingering (rolls, cuts)/no ornaments; crans taken from pipers, breaths taken from flute players, unusual note choices from accordions. Then there are various stresses and pushes one can employ to the rhythm. All of these can give you trouble!

What advice can you offer about developing a daily practice regimen?

Well, one is to follow your nose—there’s nothing wrong with learning this music your own way. People are nice (especially fiddlers—ha!) and they’ll play a tune slowly for you on your recording device for you to learn. They’ll also show you a roll or other ornamentation they’re using if you ask them. You can take lessons; you don’t need to take lessons. Sessions are free, and you can do what I did when I was young—go to the session, sit in the back, and try. Try to pick up the tunes and try to pick up the bowing and the ornaments. There are apps now where you can record a few notes of a melody, find out the name of the tune, and then find the tune in a book or online.

And of course there are recordings of new and old masters—with a good ear and patience, the melodies are there for the taking. I always think it’s a good idea to keep your fiddle out of your case, where it’s visible and beckoning.

Finally, don’t be too hard on yourself. Learn the tunes you like first, and then go from there.

Q&A with Nick DiSebastian, Music Transcriber

Last year I worked with professional music transcriber Nick DiSebastian to have him notate all 18 tracks on The Etcetera String Band's out of print Bonne Humeur album of early Caribbean dance music. Nick is a Berklee College of Music grad and is currently on tour as the bassist for the band Town Mountain.  I have also taken a couple Skype lessons from him and one impromptu in-person lesson when his band came into town.  I thought it might be fun to do a QandA with Nick on the topic of transcribing music.   

Describe your musical background and any current music projects.

I started playing the guitar when I was 10. I loved to play rock and soon got into jazz. In high school I played guitar in the jazz band, started playing the bass in the orchestra and sang in the choir. I also played in a jam band. I went to college for Music Education. While in my late teens I attended a bluegrass festival and fell in love with the sound and culture. I soon picked up the mandolin and started playing guitar in a local band. Seeing young people playing on stage at festivals made me decide to transfer to studying performance as opposed to education. I began studying at Berklee College of Music where I learned much more about theory and ear training and was surrounded by inspiration. After graduating I continued to work as a guitarist accompanying vocal classes at Berklee and gigging around Boston. From Boston I moved to Nashville where I began playing with various local and touring bands. In 2013 I started my transcription business. I currently tour full time with the band Town Mountain as the bassist along with teaching private lessons and staying very active with transcribing. Guitar is still my main instrument and the quest of learning will never end. When I have time off from touring and transcribing I like to play bluegrass and jazz on the guitar.

How did you get started transcribing? What skills do you possess that make you especially suited to this task?

I always had a knack for hearing and figuring out music. In college I realized the value of notating music. I also learned more in depth ear training skills and how to use notation software. My mentor named John McGann had a transcription business very similar to mine. I admired what he had created with his business. When John passed away I decided to start my business. Since transcribing professionally my ability to hear and quickly analyze music along with my notation software chops have gone through the roof.

Why would someone want to have music transcribed? Isn’t there value, in the long run, to trying to work it out on your own?

Along with learning to play the notes and use the techniques of your heroes there is a world of music theory knowledge within transcriptions. The key to gaining this deep knowledge of theory is by knowing how to analyze music and notation. Learning directly from the masters aids everyone’s musicianship. As a transcriber I’m functioning as a time saver (by keeping you playing rather than deciphering) as well as an educator.

There is a lot of value in figuring out music for yourself but many musicians don’t yet possess the skills to hear and understand music theory enough to figure out what is going on in a recording. Along with transcriptions I offer lessons on analyzing music as a means to get the most out of learning to play a piece of music.

What are the most common types of transcription requests you get? Is there a style or type of music that you wish you received more requests for?

The most common music that I receive to be transcribed is bluegrass and fiddle tunes for the guitar and mandolin. I am on a big Gypsy jazz kick these days. I would love to get more work transcribing that style for guitar. The challenge with transcribing professionally is creating business. There are always more outlets for advertising. Touring full time restricts the amount of time I can spend transcribing but I would like to take my business to a Gypsy jazz advertising outlet within the next few months.

What is the strangest piece of music you’ve ever transcribed?

A fella named Lanny Fields had a big collection of music by the Etcetera String Band transcribed ;-). That was a bit out of the norm but I’m rarely surprised. I often receive messages via my website by first time customers for all different styles. Just this past month I transcribed Bryan Sutton, Jimmy Page, Dan Fogelberg, Sandy Denny and Django Reinhardt. I love the diversity. It keeps me on my toes and is constantly exposing my ears to new music.

Has transcribing other people’s songs or solos helped you with your own compositions and improvisation, and understanding of how music works?

Transcribing has helped my musicianship in many ways. The most obvious is that it has made my ability to hear and analyze music much stronger. It has also opened my eyes to compositional and improvisational techniques. There is a bit of neutralizing that happens when turning all different types of music into spots of ink on paper. The subtle differences in feel and embellishments from piece to piece interest me. For example transcribing the same tune by two different players (ex. David Grier vs Norman Blake) exposes me to different approaches to tone and interpretation. I like that!

You also give lessons via Skype. What is your approach to teaching using this medium?

Teaching on Skype has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are being able to teach from anywhere, any time WIFI is available, and staying connected with transcription customers, just to list a few. The disadvantages are not being able to play at the same time with a student and possible bad internet connection.

Each student is unique. I’ll always ask a new student what they are interested in learning and then move on to accessing their knowledge of music and ability on their instrument. Building a strong foundation in technique is the first skill I like to focus on. From there I like to work on a bit of theory. Once the more technical (sometimes “dry”) topics are covered I will get into a piece of music with the student. Analyzing what is going on in the music, how to play it and the emotions it conveys are what I really like to teach. That’s what learning and making music is all about: playing, feeling and expressing. Throughout all of the topics that are covered in a lesson I reiterate practice techniques to ensure that the student will be working on their material in the most efficient, effective and enjoyable way.

If you could only teach one thing to all students, what would that be?

If there was one thing I could teach students it would be for them have a strong sense of what they like and why they like it. Once the intention is set the path becomes clear.

More information about Nick DiSebastian's music transcription services can be found at  http://www.nickdisebastian.com/transcriptions.  Nick's debut CD is called Window View; avalable here:  http://www.nickdisebastian.com/window-view-cd

Roots Music Composition - Canadian Fiddler Gordon Stobbe and Mandolinist Matt Flinner on Writing A Tune A Day

I've always had to have a creative outlet.  Most of the time this pursuit has been in the form of writing.  I suppose this blog is one of them.  But, over the last few years my "artistic" focus has transitioned more into the learning of music.  Up until now, music playing has consisted of fairly rote tunebook versions of fiddle tunes, like the kind found in the Portland Collection books; sticking to the notes as someone else predetermined they should be...not really playing by ear, from the heart or improvising.

Simultaneous to the memorization of tunes I've also been cultivating a study of music theory.  Actually, way more music theory than most players of Irish and Appalachian tunes ever delve into.  I just find it interesting.  Sprinkle in a little bit of ear training and the lightbulb moments associated with learning how to learn, and voilà I'm ready to take the next step toward "writing" music.

Well, not really writing in the most original sense; I plan to start by attempting to transcribe snippets of melody from the bands that had a big impact on my life before I ever picked up an instrument, and/or bands that I want to be inspired by now.  Bands like Phish, Dr. Dog, STS9, Medeski Martin and Wood, Amiina, Bill Frisell, Tortoise, Tom Waits, Ween, Uakti, Laika and the Cosmonauts, and Cowboy Junkies to name a few.  Plus styles and rhythms like the music of South America, Latin America, France, the Caribbean, Africa, as well as more urban beats.

In addition, I want to formalize this process by setting a goal of "writing" at least one new piece of music every week for a year.  Perhaps a melody inspired by Dr. Dog, mixed with a lick from an STS9 song, then tweaked by being played over a Biguine rhythm from Martinique.  The painter Chuck Close said, "Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work."

So, to get to the point of this post, I've found some information on a couple unrelated musicians who have experience with writing a tune per day - Canadian Fiddler Gordon Stobbe and Mandolinist Matt Flinner.

In the current (Fall 2014) issue of Fiddler Magazine, Editor & Publisher Mary Larsen has an interview Gordon Stobbe where he mentions this:

Gordon Stobbe

"Maybe six years ago, I set myself a task of writing a tune a day.  From January 1 to the end of April I was able to stick to that.  There were about a hundred tunes that came out of that.  Out of those tunes, there were probably fifty good ideas; there were probably thirty well-developed and fulfilled ideas; and there are probably twelve or fifteen really good tunes.  I don't think it's really the right thing to sit around and wait for inspiration to strike.  I think there's a lot more perspiration involved in this than inspiration. There are a lot of ways to get into that.  Sometimes a rhythmic groove will really inspire - whether that comes from a drum patch on Garage Band that kind of kicks you into some start, or you hear some kind of a rhythmic groove somewhere, that's a good way to start.  And once in a while little scraps of melody will pop into your head." (Gordon Stobbe, fiddler)

Matt Flinner

Matt Flinner does it a little bit differently.  Since 2006 the Matt Flinner Trio (Matt Flinner, mandolin; Ross Martin, guitar and Eric Thorin, bass) has been performing "Music du Jour" shows, where each member of the trio writes a new tune the day of the show, and all three new tunes are debuted as part of that night's concert.  They are writing these tunes on the road, often while driving between gigs, fine-tuning them right up until it is time to debut them on stage.

Imposing such a quick turnaround time definitely changes the way the tunes turn out, adding pressure that wouldn't otherwise be there.  In an interview Flinner mentions that the landscape can also have an effect.  For example, he said the wide open spaces of the West give songs written while on tour out there "an expansive, spacious" feel.

Flinner also said, "I've noticed that the overall style does seem to evolve over the course of the week.  All three of us seem to be writing partly in response to the previous night's show - or the last few nights'.  So we try not to get ourselves stuck in any stylistic rut, and we try to keep the variety flowing. Sometimes two of us will have tunes that are somewhat similar in character. We just separate those in the set list."

After reading about Flinner and Stobbe, I can only imagine how fun it must be to attempt to write a new tune per day (or week) on a self-imposed deadline.  Flinner even teaches workshops on Roots Music Composition.  That would be fun to attend, because even though I'm looking outside of roots music for inspiration, I still anticipate these tunes being roots-music oriented in structure, such as AA/BB melodies.

John Medeski's Advice for Young Musicians

In a 2011 interview with JAZZed, pianist John Medeski of the trio Medeski, Martin and Wood had this advice for young musicians:

JM: Slow down the process in terms of your study. We’re constantly on random play and things are changing all the time, but I think it’s really important to stop and slow down. Set aside time to really dive into things and absorb them. Work on slowing down and really hearing from deep inside. Take time to dive into one artist for a month or two at a time. Pick somebody you really love and just dive into their music. Find pieces that will give you the quintessential sort of essence of their sound and study it, learn it, absorb it. Take time to listen to it until you can hear it, sing it and feel it inside you – until you don’t need to listen to it or read it to sit down and play it.

I also recommend playing free as part of your practice. First do your technique warm-up and then sit down and play free. You can sit down and play a sunset, you can play an emotion, you can play a scenario – it can be programmatic, it can be romantic, it can be whatever but do it every day as part of your practice. Then you can go work on learning tunes, writing, studying harmony, lines, approach tones – all that other stuff that you need to learn – but first get yourself in a warmed up state and connected to your instrument and then play free. That’s how you find your voice and stay connected to it. That way you know what all these sounds mean to you. You can’t be taking your cues from everybody else – we need to know what every chord and every note means to us and what every combination of those notes means to us. Then when we play them it is coming from us.

Bassist Chris Wood and drummer Billy Martin also offered these comments in the same interview:

CW: Just persist. If you really want to do it and you love it – if you love music you just have to keep playing and playing and playing until you really are doing what you believe in.

BM: Think about developing your language. Think about your instrument as a means to express yourself with the language and the vocabulary that you have. Work on being in the moment of soloing and improvising and composing on the spot. Even if it’s just a one minute solo, work on developing a piece of music on your instrument right there on the spot and your vocabulary will grow very quickly.

Guitar Legend Bill Frisell will be at the Richmond Jazz Festival on Sunday August 10, 2014!

Bill Frisell

I'm getting psyched about seeing one of my all-time favorite musicians, Bill Frisell, at the Richmond Jazz Festival at Maymont this weekend!  Bill will be performing with his Beautiful Dreamers trio (Eyvind Kang - viola and Rudy Royston - drums) on the MWV stage at 4:30pm on Sunday 8/10.  Click here for the full Jazz Festival lineup and set times.

Guitarist Bill Frisell's sound has been described by Jazz Times as "instantly identifiable".  Jazz Times goes on to say that his "tone is overwhelmed with reverb and delay, and he's developed the tic of bending the neck after striking a note or chord, in an effort to move those pitches into an unattainable perfect tuning.  Complementing those serene, liquid tone colors is his physical attack, wherein economy is paramount and looping devices are constantly tweaked for purposes of orchestration and atmosphere rather than theatrics."

This one-off performance in Richmond precedes a 5-day stint next week at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in Kilkenny Ireland, where it looks like Bill will sit-in with a wide variety of artists and projects, including a performance of Terry Riley's In C and a set with Irish traditional musicians Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill!  I would love to hear both of those.

Beautiful Dreamers trio

I've only seen Bill once before back in 2008 during his Disfarmer tour, so needless to say I've been geeking out in anticipation by reading interviews and watching videos.  Speaking of interviews, here's a really good interview with Bill Frisell done by his friend, banjoist Danny Barnes, and here's one where Bill interviews one of his own guitar heroes, Jim Hall.

Frisell seems to thrive in unusual, improvisational settings with all sorts of different musicians.  I'm particularly fond of the music made during this February 29th, 2004 performance at the Barbican Theater in London, where he played with Malian musician Djelimady Tounkara.  Here are some videos from that concert:

Bill Frisell seems to be a little outside the smooth jazz and funk that the Richmond Jazz Festival normally features, but then again Bill's going to be a little "outside" of any lineup he is part of.  Perhaps his presence will bring some increased awareness to an already successful and vibrant jazz festival.

My Interview with Marla Fibish: The Pulse, The Flow, The Sound of Irish Music on Mandolin

Marla Fibish has been part of the San Francisco Irish Music scene for three decades now.  Over that time, she has become one of the most prominent players of Irish mandolin, contributing to the instrument’s growing acceptance within the trad community.  Marla teaches privately and at music camps such as Lark Camp, Swannanoa, and Portal Irish Music Week. 

So far, I’ve taken three Irish mandolin lessons from Marla Fibish on Skype.  After the last lesson I had the opportunity to do an interview/conversation, which allowed me to pick Marla's brain on some Irish mandolin related topics.  It was very enlightening.  A transcription of Marla’s comments is below.

Marla Fibish

Most common thing Irish mandolin students are in need of learning:

(MF) It's almost always the right hand (picking hand).  It has to do with a focus on picking out a melody and thinking that the right hand is only used as a mechanism to execute those melody notes.  Whereas, I take a very different approach.  What I want the right hand to be doing is creating a bed of rhythm and to be steady in that rhythm, and then the left hand can overlay the tune on top of that bed of rhythm.  

The mandolin is a picked fiddle, in a way, so our role in Irish music is to play the melody but we have to do it in a rhythmic way.  We have to focus on the right hand so that we can get those notes to come out in the pulse of Irish music.  It's that hand that creates the pulse, just like a fiddler who will say it's 90 percent in the bow.  For us it's the same way, but most newer players are not focused there.  They're focused on the left hand.

Scales and theory analysis vs. just playing the tunes:  

(MF) I used to believe that the tunes will teach you everything, and I still believe that for the most part.  But, over the thirty-something years I've been playing this music the tunes have shown me this structure that's lying beneath them.  Once that gets revealed, it's a valuable part of what you're learning.  

The more tunes you know, the deeper your understanding of the underlying structure of both the music and the instrument.  You can super-impose that knowledge or you can get it from the tunes themselves, or both.  People learn in different ways. I learned it from the tunes, but I've learned to recognize things that can maybe help others learn it a little faster by giving some surrounding information. 

The mandolin's strengths and limitations:

(MF) You can play to your instrument's strengths and you can turn your instrument's limitations into stylistic strengths.  Limitations of the mandolin include attack and decay.  We can't produce a single, sustained tone that doesn't decay over time.  So, we turn that into stylistic punchiness.  At the same time we want to minimize that limitation as much as possible.  I'm always harping on getting that sustained legato tone as your default.  To the degree that you can get that, the limitation disappears.

Playing Irish music on the mandolin:

(MF) With the mandolin we want to sound like we're a part of what this music is supposed to sound like.  We don't want to sound different.  We are playing Irish music on this thing that people haven't been playing Irish music on for very long and that the music wasn't built around, and there isn't this whole tradition of technique that goes with how to play the tunes on this instrument.  

We want to get the pulse, the flow and the sound of the music.  It's never going to be exactly with the same bits and pieces and ornaments and turns that a piper could play, or a fiddler could play, or somebody on one of the core instruments, if you will.  So we're doing a little bit of interpreting as we go to get the feel of the music.  That's our first job and then we can start to bring new things in.  

Bruce Victor and Marla Fibish

Playing in first position:

(MF) Staying focused around the offerings and the harmonic possibilities of what the first position gives you stays truer to the feel of the music as played on instruments that it's been played on for much longer.  You pick up cues from hearing the open strings on a fiddle.  Those are landmarks.  They are important inflections.   They are part of the style.  

The goal is not to be able to play that tune anywhere on the instrument and strip it of those cues to its fundamentalness.  It's not about just stringing those notes together anywhere one can. When you take a tune and you play it in a closed position somewhere else on the neck you're taking away those resonances that are rooting the tune in a certain harmonic structure of a key. 

I am all for moving tunes into keys that bring out something wonderful in the tune on the instrument on which it is being played.  But part of the beauty of a tune in a particular key comes from how its melody is organized relative to the 4 open notes of the instrument - how ringing open strings create drone notes - where string crossings fall in a melody, creating fluid lines against resonating notes.  The goal, then, for me, is not to be able to execute technically perfect uniformity across keys, but rather to embrace the differences that arise from a change in key -- the relationships between the open strings, the notes of the tune, and the resonances and overtones of the instrument that unfold when that tune is played in that key. 

First tunes learned:

(MF) I remember learning Tripping Up the Stairs before I even knew it was a jig.  I didn't know what a jig was but I remember playing it and thinking it was the prettiest thing I had ever heard.  I probably learned a lot of the same first tunes that people learn now, like The Blarney Pilgrim.  

I learned Loftus Jones very early on.  That's an O'Carolan tune that I learned off a Mick Moloney recording.  He was playing it on the mandolin so his interpretation of it made it very accessible to a new player.  I still play it.  I still love that tune.

Playing in a certain style:

(MF) Typically styles have been considered to be regionally based.  I had a conversation with Martin Hayes once where he was saying that regional styles came out of personal styles.  There would be an iconic player and people would start to gravitate toward that person's style and imitate it and play like him or her.  And of course those people that played like him lived near him, so over time you have a regional style.  

Those things happen not only within regions of Ireland but also within regions of America, where players who play in a certain style have come to this country and a generation or two goes by and you have a Chicago style or a New York style or a Boston style or a San Francisco style, based on the players that settled in those areas.

San Francisco, where I learned to play, was influenced by players who came from the west coast of Ireland, Clare and Galway, so we have a west coast style here on the west coast, which is rather poetic I think.  I've been told that I play in somewhat of a Clare style.  It wasn't intentional on my part.  I'm playing music with the flow from the session community that I learned to play in.  

Joe Cooley and Kevin Keegan were the figures that sort of started the revival of Irish music in the San Francisco area.  I kind of learned from the people that had learned from Kevin Keegan and Joe Cooley.  Not a particular person, but from the sound of the session at the time.   

On "hacking around" at accordion:

(MF) I've never spent the time or attention that I would need to ever get good at accordion.  It's a whole different ballgame than the mandolin.  It's physically fun to play.  To have sustain.  To be able to make a note and have it get louder over time.  It's like wow, I never had that!  But I have not spent the disciplined time with the instrument that I would need to really call myself a box player.  I hack around at it and it's fun.

About Noctambule (NAHK-tam-byool) - the duo Marla has with her husband Bruce Victor:

(MF) Bruce is a guitar player.  He plays in open, tunings, different tunings, and likes to swap strings around to get nice, lovely textures on the instrument.  The thing that we love to do is set poetry to music.  It's something that I've done intermittently for 25 years or more and now we're writing together and having a blast at it.  

Travel in the Shadows is a theme album.  We noticed that we had a whole cluster of songs that were based on poems that were about the night, so it's built around that theme. We perform together as a duo and that's my primary thing other than playing and teaching mandolin. 

Any Tune's A Good Tune: My Interview With Old Time Mandolin Player Curtis Buckhannon

In the ongoing search for albums that capture that old time mandolin sound, I came across the Buckhannon Brothers' 1993 CD Little River Stomp.  On that collection of old time mandolin instrumentals, mandolinist Curtis Buckhannon, with his brother Dennis on guitar, run through 25 tunes ranging from rags and Celtic, to Scandinavian and Southwestern, and of course a healthy sampling of tunes from their home state of Missouri.

Rather than sounding like crossover music or a jumping across styles, there's a consistency to the album as Curtis and Dennis impart the modest qualities of the old time folk musician regardless of a tune's origin.  Upon hearing this broad, well chosen selection of melodies I just had to find out more about mandolin player Curtis Buckhannon and learn how and why he draws from these far reaching sources.  So I interviewed him!  Below is a transcript in Curtis' words.  I hope you enjoy reading.

L to R: Curtis Buckhannon, Vince Corkery and Dennis Buckhannon

Definition of Old Time

(CB) The type of tunes I play are all pretty much fiddle-based tunes either from different cultures or American based tunes.  Pretty much everything I do has been played on the fiddle.  I like to interpret it on the mandolin.  

Any tune's a good tune.  I even do some Tex-Mex things.  There's some neat stuff going on in the Southwest with the tunes.  Cleoffes Ortiz knew so many unusual tunes - stuff I had never heard before.

I've always had a wide taste in music.  All my life I've listened to classical, to jazz, to blues.  More or less (my repertoire) might just be an expression of my likes in music, rather than standard old time music.  It all seems to fit on the mandolin. Then I get my brother playing on it and it's like wow this is fun!

Musical Influences

(CB) My earliest influence is Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band.  I fell in love with the way he played.  He didn't just play old time music. He did a variety of things.  

I've always loved ragtime from the get go.  It's fun to play rags on the mandolin.  The Etcetera Stringband were so scholarly about the music - so knowledgeable about it.  That very first Etcetera Stringand record was one of my best finds ever.  It was a running joke between me and a friend that we have to learn all those tunes on that record and I think we came pretty close to learning all of them.  

Blues - I've always liked Martin, Bogan and Armstrong (Carl Martin, Ted Bogan, Howard Armstrong), the black stringband from Tennessee.  Those guys came to St. Louis one time and I was just blown away by them.  They were amazing.

Fiddlers Chirps Smith (Volo Bogtrotters), Gary Harrison (Indian Creek Delta Boys) and Geoff Seitz (Ill-Mo Boys) are the source for a lot of my tunes.  And Marc Rennard.

Playing Style and Technique

(CB) I play without a lot of flashiness and just let the instrument try to shine through standard old styles of playing.  The style that I play falls into the category of old time mandolin - I don't know what else you could call it.

Kenny Hall played a lot of open chords and I tend to do that sometimes, but I'll also go up the neck and maybe do some crosspicking things to back up a tune or song.  You've got the option of tremolo.  I do a lot of double stops.  I try to be as creative with it as I can.  I try not to play the same tune the same way every time.

It's not that I'm doing it just to stretch me.  I just do it to keep my interest in the tune and to make it fresh every time.  I might embellish something more one time than I did the last time I played it.  I'm constantly finding things out about music each time I play it. There's always so much to learn.  I like to do a lot of the fun things with the rhythms - getting the syncopation, playing on the off beat.

I don't use my pinky that often - I mostly play with three fingers.  I do use the pinky once in a while, but it's not employed as much as most people use it.  I'm thinking about cutting it off - I don't really need it!

Process of Learning A Tune

(CB) I feel like if a tune strikes me as memorable then it has some quality of staying power, if not at least with me then maybe others.  So, when I hear a tune I become fond of I'll stew it over in my mind a few days or weeks and then try to figure it out.  And lo and behold it seems that the groundwork done in my head is sufficient for me to work it out.  I'll get on the mandolin and 9 times out of 10 the fingering just comes right to mind.  That's how I learn tunes usually. 

If a tune really sticks with me it'll be going around in my head and I'll be whistling it to myself.  I have a friend who plays fife and drum music.  His mother plays fiddle and he plays fife. They have a tune Hell on the Wabash.  It's like a march.  A hypnotic modal tune. I just had to work it out.  It fell right into place and has become one of my favorites here lately.

If you've been playing long enough it'll come to you easier.  The more you play the more similarities there are in a lot of tunes....in the positions and nuances.

Playing with his Brother, guitarist Dennis Buckhannon

(CB) When Dennis and I are working on tunes I'll come to him with a tune I've learned and he'll figure out the chords from me just playing it.  He ends up coming up with some brilliant stuff and 6 out of 10 times he hasn't heard the recording or who I learned it from and he'll just get right onto it.

Dennis accents me.  Without him I wouldn't be half as good as some people like to say.  I can play somewhere without him and it doesn't sound near as good.  He knows where to put everything - note wise, chord wise and rhythm.

He's a year older.  Growing up we played together all the time, and then we just discovered old time thanks to County records.  They were putting out a lot of good stuff.  My dad had a collection of old bluegrass records.  We've always had some rural roots in our family and it just felt like the kind of music we should be playing anyway.  It just seemed natural.  It seemed to fit.  

Playing with a Fiddler

(CB) A lot of times I just do what the fiddle is doing.  Sometimes I accent what the fiddle is doing, maybe do a harmony or just back off and play some chords.  In some ways playing with a fiddler gives you more freedom because you're not the lead instrument - you can do little things here or there and the fiddle is still carrying the melody.  But for the most part I just play the melody.

Playing By Ear

(CB) There's something to be said about playing by ear.  There's also something to be said about those that can read music - their repertoire is bigger.  I've always played by ear so I am limited to what I can learn when others that can read are not.  

When I first met the Etcetera Stringband they were playing downtown at the old Lafayette Park Bandstand where Sousa played one time.   I played some of their tunes for them.  They read music and were mystified by how we did it by ear.  It's just how we did it.  We didn't have a choice!

Being Self Taught

(CB) I'm self taught.  My brother started playing guitar when he was younger than I and then I started playing guitar.  In the early 70's during summer vacation from high school me and my brother and a friend went on a trip to the Smoky Mountains.  We went to this little amphitheater concert and there was a guy there playing mandolin - doing fiddle tunes on it and it just enthralled me.  I asked for a mandolin for my birthday that fall and ended up getting one.  Been playing it ever since.  That would have been 1973.

I still like to play guitar. I like the old finger picking stuff - just noodling around on it. I listen to more guitar music than mandolin music.  I stumbled upon Mike Dowling - he plays Delta style guitar and has a record called Bottomlands. I could listen to that 24 hours a day.  I never get tired of listening to it.  I love the old blues players like Lightning Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell.  I love classical guitar, Django Reinhardt.  I could listen to him forever too.

It seems like I'm always finding out something different about music every time I sit down to play.  With that in mind it could be encouraging or discouraging.  I'll never know everything I want to know about music, but I like to think that it's encouraging.

Curtis Buckhannon is available for lessons to those in the St. Louis area. To learn more about the Buckhannon Brothers, visit thebuckhannonbrothers.com or write to P.O. Box 6165, St. Charles, MO  63302-6165.  Their CDs are also available from County Sales.  

Music Interviews: John McGann, Trey Anastasio, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Bill Frisell, Gillian Welch

It's funny but you can learn a lot simply by reading the right interview with a musician.  For example, earlier today I found an interview with John McGann on Mandolin Cafe.  In the interview John mentions a quote by John LaPorta: "You should hear what music looks like, and see what music sounds like."  Meaning there is importance in both being able to read standard notation and play by ear.  This really stuck with me and brought to mind the fact that I need to work on both of these aspects, but really focus on developing my ear.  John also talks about the chord/melody relationship, saying "...knowing what notes are in a chord is a first step. Knowing where the notes are on your instrument, knowing what they look like on paper, knowing the different positions where those notes occur...Hearing the relationships is the crucial component. A true improviser (as opposed to a lick-reciter) really needs this kind of information".  I also found his list of common weaknesses and problems interesting, including "Time. Almost no one has as strong a sense of rhythm and time as they think they do. Work with a metronome is great here, as is playing along with recordings."  And also "A bunch of scales and arpeggios and licks does not create a player, but someone who can play (memorized!) 100 tunes (chords and melodies) well is automatically playing scale and arpeggio material in a musical fashion."  I also want to point out this quote by McGann (on using an Octave Mandolin in jazz):  "I don't think of jazz as being instrument-specific, and try to play the attitude as much as the jazz vocabulary when I am playing in that style."  This is particularly useful to me, as I play an unusual instrument - tenor banjo - but I don't like being mired in the styles or genres typically associated with that instrument.  I see it more as my instrument of choice for playing the folk tunes I enjoy playing.  I don't think of any  music or genre as being instrument specific.  I suggest reading the full interview with John McGann.


Another example of something you can learn from an interview/article is in this recent interview with Trey Anastasio of Phish in The Believer.  Referring to the New York Philharmonic, Trey says "And when the music started playing, I had this idea that the music was coming through this little channel—for lack of a better word—for years and years. Musicians come and go and they’re stewards of the music for a brief period of time. But once the music plays—it’s really between Beethoven and the listener at that point. The musicians are there to get their goddamn hands off of it. All that training! Thousands of hours! Sight-reading every day! All so they can get the hell out of the way because nobody gives a crap about them at all. The less you notice them, the better it sounds. I mean, it was the highest level of art in music that I’d ever seen, and it was performed by people who had spent countless hours of work just to be invisible."  I've read quotes like this before by Trey.  I also recently found an decade old interview with Trey from Guitar Player, where he discusses improvisation.  One notable quote from that interview is "In Phish, we’ve dropped the concept of musical style and accepted all music as a global mass of sound. We operate from two opposing philosophies: one is that you should lock yourself in a room from birth, and write music with zero influence from the outside world; the other is that you should listen to everything, to the point of being able to faithfully recreate the Beatles’ White Album, as we did before a show a while back. As odd as it sounds, we try to draw from both philosophies simultaneously."


Jimmie Dale Gilmore was recently interviewed on Fresh Air about his brilliant new album with The Wronglers called Heirloom Music.  There's a good chance that this album will end up on my best of the year list.  I love the folksy, everyman takes on stringband and bluegrass songs on the recording.  In the Fresh Air interview Jimmie Dale quotes Ezra Pound, saying "The poem fails when it strays too far from the song, and the song fails when it strays too far from the dance."  I had never heard this quote before and found it very meaningful.  A transcription of the interview as well as the audio can be found here. 


Just the other day I read an archived No Depression interview with Bill Frisell where he stresses the importance of being open minded when it comes to playing music.  The quote that stands out is where guitar player Frisell says "...as soon as I started to get more into jazz, the people that really influenced me the most were saxophone players and piano players, and later on, maybe orchestral music. It never was really guitar. I just happened to play the guitar, but then I’d listen to a string quartet or something, and I’d be hearing that sound in my head and trying to get it out on guitar somehow."  Frisell also remarks: "...the music that’s really real is something that’s been completely internalized. When you play, it’s not an intellectual thing that happens; it just sort of comes out. And it takes a long time for the stuff to sink down there. "


Finally, I also recently discovered an old Acoustic Guitar profile on Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.  In that article David Rawlings had some interesting things to say, such as "I can’t really play straight flat-picking. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I drone a lot, I keep stuff ringing a lot, but that’s mostly because there’s just two of us. I sort of cross-pick, and that developed because it seemed to line up with the strum that Gill does. It should sound like one calliope sort of thing."  And also by Dave, "I like to play something inside the key at the same time I play something outside, so it stays grounded. I try to play guitar like Bob Dylan plays harmonica. He picks up the wrong harp and it’s beautiful, because he’s got about three notes in there that are in the key and about five that aren’t. It’s like a big rubber band stretching."  In that same article Gillian said this about the banjo "The banjo songs tend to be more repetitive, because the rhythm is so incessant and also because I’m not really worrying about chord changes as much. It’s more modal, and I use the drone string a lot. I just play the melody and that’s it. It’s a little bit hypnotic."


In each of these interviews there are things to learn, and there are many, many more interviews that I could reference here.  But these are just examples of the ones I've noticed in the last week or so that made an impact. I try to make a mental note of anything like this, and even if it doesn't make a direct impact at least it maybe sticks with me subliminally or subtly.

Interview with the Hot Seats

The Hot Seats will be performing Thursday, April 28 at Ashland Coffee and Tea. 8pm. I recently corresponded with band members Josh Bearman and Graham DeZarn and got to ask these brilliant lads all kinds of deep questions. That interview can be found here: http://ideastations.org/articles/hot-seats-to-record-act-performance-2011-04-25