Do you love traditional music and wonder if there is anything more you could be doing? We asked our FaceBook friends to come up with suggestions for young people starting out in traditional music. We had lots of responses and below is a sample. Any questions please get in touch with us info@handsupfortrad.scot.<\/p>\n
Make time to connect with \/ learn from people outwith your immediate peer group<\/p>\n
Play music for fun! Have tunes with your pals, go to gigs with your pals, etc.<\/i><\/p>\n
Learn about the tradition. Learn a *trad* tune or song a week as well as learning contemporary pieces. Learn about the place you\u2019re from \/ live in \u2013 there will be a wealth of material \/ people \/ tunes \/ stories to explore\u2026<\/p>\n
Playing lots of sessions and trying new tunes all the time. Learning to use your ears as a means of learning new tunes not just music!<\/i><\/p>\n
Make things happen! Start a session, gig night, etc where you live. If you don\u2019t do it, who are you expecting to do it?<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get stuck in genres, when I started playing I was fairly isolated so I played along with records including, the Indian jazz band Shakti (sp??), pipe band records and the Blue oyster cult\u2026. I got involved with the local folk club, the fiddle and accordion club and played double bass in the local free jazz band\u2026 I loved it all and eventually settled with playing diddly tunes on the cittern and playing bodhran\u2026 I\u2019m still involved in lots of genres ( on the edge of most) but keep coming back to folk music which has always been the \u2018broad church\u2019.<\/i><\/p>\n
Little and often is the key. Much better to practice 10 mins a day than a longer stint once a week<\/p>\n
Spend lots of time listening to loads of live and recorded music.<\/i><\/p>\n
Develop your own style and copying others is a good way in \u2013 which is the nature of the tradition anyway\u2026. don\u2019t assume that older musicians are just old fogies they will have lots to pass on. much the early advice I got from local players has stuck with me, don\u2019t try to reinvent the wheel \u2013 invent a new mode of transport all together!<\/p>\n
Make stuff up, don\u2019t just play other peoples tunes. There is a lot we can contribute as composers and anybody can make up a wee tune \u2013 go for it! I used to write tunes that stretched my abilities as a musician and made me work harder. Many of those tunes such have entered the tradition now. There is nothing quite like walking down princess street and hearing poeple youve never met busking, playing your tunes! (Jim Sutherland, author of Easy Club Reel and mucn more)<\/i><\/p>\n
Always keep your mind, and ears, open<\/p>\n
Get hands on an old collection and learn a tune a day, even if you forget many of them, you\u2019re still developing the skill of retention. Put emotion into every note!<\/i><\/p>\n
Start with the tradition. You can write your own tunes later.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t play anything that doesn\u2019t feel right, musically, in your gut. Learn from your elders, youngers, share with everybody and above all LISTEN to as much as you can of everything. Sessions are great for learning, songs tunes and harmonies . Using recordings as source material is fantastic. Controversially, maybe \u2013 Learn to read music, as it\u2019s just a tool , and opens up reams of tunes and songs which may have been lost over the years, and with which you can then do what you will\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n
Some young traditional players we meet are like some young classical players in that they have become so accustomed to sounding \u2018beautiful\u2019 and \u2018correct\u2019 by a certain set of rules that when you try to get them to improvise they can\u2019t easily emotionally handle sounding \u2018wrong\u2019 and the weird and unpredictable sounds that come out of experimentation and freedom . So I would recommend to young players to enjoy sounding beautiful and mastering the rules and also enjoy exploring weird and strange sounds and making up your own rules and exploring space and energy texture tone and silence.<\/p>\n
All of the above \u2013 and don\u2019t forget the 2\/4 marches!<\/i><\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be scared to make mistakes. It doesn\u2019t always have to be perfect.<\/p>\n
As one such \u2018young musician\u2019 not in a position to be giving advice to others, rather taking it instead, I don\u2019t feel qualified for this thread, but I\u2019d say to treat it as an art, or at least know that it CAN be an art rather than just a person playing tunes (which is obviously in itself art but i think we forget that there can be more). Watch performances you wouldn\u2019t necessarily see yourself being a part of- dance, art, collaborations. Feel like a potential part of a wider artistic community and respect what you do, as feeling apologetic or like \u2018folk musician\u2019 is an unworthy or unnecessary role to \u2018play\u2019 is a) plain daft, there\u2019s plenty to offer to greater causes and b) it\u2019s nice to feel like part of something bigger.<\/i><\/p>\n
Stay aff the bevvy (given our sad history of casualties) should perhaps be near the top of this list\u2026<\/p>\n
I always liked this as my overall teaching advice template from the (recently deceased) legend trumpeter & beautiful educator Clark Terry.
\nIf you only just do the first two that\u2019s also fine. \u201cImitate-Assimilate-Innovate\u201d
\nIt\u2019s not linear, it\u2019s more of a triangle that you can move back\/forth around<\/i><\/p>\n
Find someone much older with years of experience and absorb everything you can from them while they\u2019re still around. There is so much to learn from someone who has lived a lifetime of music. When I was a kid I did this with Buddy MacMaster and Alasdair Fraser. When you are ready, there is no better teacher than life on the road with a band. Just make sure to remember why you fell in love with the music in the beginning.<\/p>\n
Listen, emulate, enjoy.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you love traditional music and wonder if there is anything more you could be doing? We asked our FaceBook friends to come up with suggestions for young people starting out in traditional music. We had lots of responses and below is a sample. Any questions please get in touch with us info@handsupfortrad.scot. Make time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,37],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"category-newsletter","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"simon","author_link":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/author\/simon\/"},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcv15g-1Sw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9343,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7224\/revisions\/9343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.handsupfortrad.scot\/handsupfortrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}