There's so much chit-chat on this yellow board about dance tunes, it leads me to wonder do many of you actually like and play slow airs? How many airs do you know?
To me Slow Airs airs are the most haunting and expressive side of Irish music yet you rarely hear them in sessions (they don't really fit in I suppose).
So has session culture taken over so much that it is detrimental to the dissemination and performance of slow airs?
I don't think sessions are detrimental to slow air playing, they don't fit in with it, that's for sure, but sessions are by no means the be all and end all of the music. I rarely get the fiddle out in the house these days, but when I do, probably 90% of my playing would be slow airs.
(and a thing we like occasionally is a slow air or two in the bogs after the session has finished)
I've only heard a few slow airs at our session, but would love to hear more. I play mandolin, so that's not likely to work for me. The musician I've heard play them plays flute and concertina, which is lovely. I'd like to hear some on fiddle sometime too.
One problem, as you say, is the session culture; everyone is anxious to cram in as many dance tunes as possible. Part of that is also that airs are solo, so it's like stopping the session for a song, which happens a few times an evening anyway, so why not for some airs. But somehow, it's easier to get the punters quiet for a song than it is for an air. And I've noticed that when an air is played, session musicians wonder away for a break, rather than listen the same as they do for a song.
I think it would be great to start having airs as a more regular part of sessions, and to get a chance to hear, and learn some.
I don't think it's to do with being anxious to cram in as many dance tunes as possible, at least not where I play, we are not like that. We don't like songs though, we wander away rather than listen to them. Where I play it's about being inclusive. Our session is for us to play together. Sure, once in a while someone will play a tune that is unfamiliar to the rest, but only with the hope that it would catch on. Airs are different, they are solo pieces, and we don't really have the egos for that. (in the bogs after is different, where you might play one just for a couple of mates.)
I love slow airs. I bought a mandolin years ago having heard Barney McKenna and John Sheehan playing "Roisin Dubh" on two mandolins on a Dubliners EP, just to show how many years ago.
I know loads of slow airs (all learnt by ear) and I think the mandolin is for slow airs, and not much cop for jigs and reels.
At our session we would always make time for airs.
Dear Pneumo, etc. (wouldn't Black Lung have been more practical?):
Airs are frequently played with considerable individual expression through tempo, ornamentation, anything a musician cares to use to play in an evocative manner. A group playing in unison in this manner seems to me well-nigh impossible at any spontaneous gathering.
Not many session I have attended were playing a lot of airs. It did not seem to be what we were there for. Not right or wrong, it was just that way.
I definitely like playing them - they suit the whistle and also the D/G melodeon, which (not necessarily in my hands) can use all its resources there to best effect. But they're not easy to introduce in a session if one retains at least a modicum of bashfulness. You can start cranking away at one while everyone else's talking and drinking, and by the time you're finishing you will have embarrassed someone into tentatively joining in, and have to go through it all again...
I play The Lark In The Clear Air, The Pretty Girl Milking The Cow and The Dear Irish Boy among Irish airs, but am more likely to play tunes that, however slow, have a definite rhythm, and hail mostly from Scotland or Northumberland.
I love slow airs too, but I agree with Rook--sessions, where the idea is to play music together, aren't the best place to haul them out. I'll occasionally play an air at the end of the evening, if the mood strikes me.
I love playing slow airs.
Dance tunes? What are they?
They're only dance tunes if there's someone dancing to them...otherwise they're solely for the entertainment of the people playing them.
They can bring a session to screeching halt. A good time
to play one is while people are out for a smoke or toilet break.
I love playing them but I'd never do it at a session.
I think I'll change my handle to supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
I love slow airs, especially when played on flute or pipes (though I hate them played on accordion, PA, or concertina). I agree with all the previous posts, sessions aren't the best place to play them.
At a recent session that does the "circle of death" approach, where everybody gets a chance to lead or request a tune, a very good fiddler (decades of serious playing) played a slow air for his turn. It was wonderful, a nice break from sets of fast reels, and educational too.
I think that one nicely done air, or slow song, per hour of sessioning is just about right. But that's just me.
My question about slow airs was not whether they should be played in sessions. It is whether the fact that they aren't played in sessions has meant they aren't widely taken up by people and thus aren't played very often even in performance situations.
I agree that slow airs generally don't work in sessions (I even say so in my first post), they're really for solo musicians, but what's wrong with the odd solo air in a session? Do the people in your sessions insist on playing along to everything?
Where I mainly go to sessions we often have solo spots and sometimes people just play a reel or two on their own, other times we get a slow air. It breaks things up nicely not having everyone bashing away all the time.
I'd much rather hear a slow air in a session than a song, unless the singer is particularly good. Songs are far more common in sessions than slow airs, so next time you're in a session maybe try seeing if your fellow muso's will shut up for a few minutes while you try out an air, or if you aren't a strong enough player to do so why not ask one of the better players in the session to play one?
Sessions aren't the best place to play them only because people don't allow their sessions to accommodate them.
One or two slow airs per session, it's not too much to ask is it?
It's nice when someone asks another player for an air, solo. That way, it doesn't come across as selfish when one player "monopolizes" the time--they're doing it to fulfill a request. That's also a gentle way to ask the other players to sit it out, so the solo player has free room to roll with the air.
We have airs at almost every session; it's not uncommon, later in the night, for two or three back-to-back. Maybe we've just got a good session crowd, audience and performer??
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconiosis is a lung condition caused by continuous inhalation of a fine silicate dust usually occuring in mine workers. I suppose the air in those underground chambers is pretty slow moving.
I'm curious too, about this playing in the 'bogs', Michael. Do you have a few tunes in the jacks like, the wee boy's room, the p*ssoir? Or do you stop on the way home to foot a bit of turf?
A nice euphemism which I heard an old lady refer to on radio recently - when she described her visit to the ladies room as ... 'going to shed a tear for Parnell' !
I don´t care about slow airs so much because most musicians - probably including myself - tend to draw them out too long. They are often more fun for the musicians who play them than for the audience. What I DO care about, though, is playing waltzes, which I think are a nice alternative to slow airs. They give relief from the reels and jigs, the audience can lean back for a while, and, if they so wish, even dance a bit (I´ve practically always had one or two couples dancing spontaneously whenever I began a waltz - on the English concertina, by the way). Nice ones are, among many others, the Lighthouse Keeper´s Waltz, Sour Grass and granite, Across the Divide. My own personal all-time favorite is Midnight On the Water, a Texas tune, so I was told, which I heard in a club in West Florida, and which I´ve been playing ever since.
I love slow airs, and play a number of them, I do think it's nice to have the occasional one in a session, but obviously not too many as they are definitely a solo thing. Also as Keith has already said, it seems more difficult to get punters to be quiet for an air than a song, and you do need quiet, so it has to be at the right moment.Sometimes there's a natural lull in a session, when it seems the right moment to play an air without feeling that you are stopping the flow of everyone playing together.
I love them, we play them at our sessions, we have a few everyone seems to know and they're broken out from time to time. They are like a song, they interrupt the flow, but in a nice way, I feel. Most of us have played together for so long that we all blend quite nicely on the ones we all know, however usually with airs people all play them a little differently, so it's best to let a solo player have at it, like a good song.
We like Inisheer, Eamon an Chnoic, and For Ireland I'll Not Tell Her Name, they seem to be the ones that get dragged out. For solos I've been playing A Pretty Maid Milking Her Cow (An Cailín Deas Crúite Na MBó) quite a bit.
Some of the bands that make up our session groups have put airs together with hornpipes or other up-tempo tunes for performances, and these have bled over to our sessions, like Eamon an Chnoic with The Rights of Man.
A few slow airs always get played at our Monday session. An Roisin Dubh is a favourite of one of the older punters who'se always in so it always gets played for him. Bruach na Carraige Baine, Na Connerys, Caoineadh na d'Tri Mhuire (more of a slow waltz than an air really but a gorgeous tune nonetheless) and An Paistin Fionn get played regularly. I've heard Sliabh Geal gCua na Feile and An Cailín Deas Cruite na mBo get played so I guess it's safe to say that airs are always played and sometimes a few a night although generally toward the back end of the evening. Everyone enjoys them especially the punters and the publican. No problem whatsoever.
Do you care about slow airs?
Do you care about slow airs?
There's so much chit-chat on this yellow board about dance tunes, it leads me to wonder do many of you actually like and play slow airs? How many airs do you know?
To me Slow Airs airs are the most haunting and expressive side of Irish music yet you rarely hear them in sessions (they don't really fit in I suppose).
So has session culture taken over so much that it is detrimental to the dissemination and performance of slow airs?
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by The Tune Composer
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I don't think sessions are detrimental to slow air playing, they don't fit in with it, that's for sure, but sessions are by no means the be all and end all of the music. I rarely get the fiddle out in the house these days, but when I do, probably 90% of my playing would be slow airs.
(and a thing we like occasionally is a slow air or two in the bogs after the session has finished)
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by ...
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
Pneumo (good thing you're not Welsh...),
I've only heard a few slow airs at our session, but would love to hear more. I play mandolin, so that's not likely to work for me. The musician I've heard play them plays flute and concertina, which is lovely. I'd like to hear some on fiddle sometime too.
One problem, as you say, is the session culture; everyone is anxious to cram in as many dance tunes as possible. Part of that is also that airs are solo, so it's like stopping the session for a song, which happens a few times an evening anyway, so why not for some airs. But somehow, it's easier to get the punters quiet for a song than it is for an air. And I've noticed that when an air is played, session musicians wonder away for a break, rather than listen the same as they do for a song.
I think it would be great to start having airs as a more regular part of sessions, and to get a chance to hear, and learn some.
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I don't think it's to do with being anxious to cram in as many dance tunes as possible, at least not where I play, we are not like that. We don't like songs though, we wander away rather than listen to them. Where I play it's about being inclusive. Our session is for us to play together. Sure, once in a while someone will play a tune that is unfamiliar to the rest, but only with the hope that it would catch on. Airs are different, they are solo pieces, and we don't really have the egos for that. (in the bogs after is different, where you might play one just for a couple of mates.)
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by ...
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love slow airs. I bought a mandolin years ago having heard Barney McKenna and John Sheehan playing "Roisin Dubh" on two mandolins on a Dubliners EP, just to show how many years ago.
I know loads of slow airs (all learnt by ear) and I think the mandolin is for slow airs, and not much cop for jigs and reels.
At our session we would always make time for airs.
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
Dear Pneumo, etc. (wouldn't Black Lung have been more practical?):
Airs are frequently played with considerable individual expression through tempo, ornamentation, anything a musician cares to use to play in an evocative manner. A group playing in unison in this manner seems to me well-nigh impossible at any spontaneous gathering.
Not many session I have attended were playing a lot of airs. It did not seem to be what we were there for. Not right or wrong, it was just that way.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Piece
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I definitely like playing them - they suit the whistle and also the D/G melodeon, which (not necessarily in my hands) can use all its resources there to best effect. But they're not easy to introduce in a session if one retains at least a modicum of bashfulness. You can start cranking away at one while everyone else's talking and drinking, and by the time you're finishing you will have embarrassed someone into tentatively joining in, and have to go through it all again...
I play The Lark In The Clear Air, The Pretty Girl Milking The Cow and The Dear Irish Boy among Irish airs, but am more likely to play tunes that, however slow, have a definite rhythm, and hail mostly from Scotland or Northumberland.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
The Quiet Lands Of Erin
For Ireland I'll Not Tell Her Name
Gentle Maiden
Boolavogue
- Four more marvellous Irish airs / slow tunes.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love slow airs too, but I agree with Rook--sessions, where the idea is to play music together, aren't the best place to haul them out. I'll occasionally play an air at the end of the evening, if the mood strikes me.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love to play slow airs on my keyless flute as well as my GHB.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love playing slow airs.
Dance tunes? What are they?
They're only dance tunes if there's someone dancing to them...otherwise they're solely for the entertainment of the people playing them.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Wurzel
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
They can bring a session to screeching halt. A good time
to play one is while people are out for a smoke or toilet break.
I love playing them but I'd never do it at a session.
I think I'll change my handle to supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Hup
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love slow airs, especially when played on flute or pipes (though I hate them played on accordion, PA, or concertina). I agree with all the previous posts, sessions aren't the best place to play them.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by JosephC
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
At a recent session that does the "circle of death" approach, where everybody gets a chance to lead or request a tune, a very good fiddler (decades of serious playing) played a slow air for his turn. It was wonderful, a nice break from sets of fast reels, and educational too.
I think that one nicely done air, or slow song, per hour of sessioning is just about right. But that's just me.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by John Galt
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
My question about slow airs was not whether they should be played in sessions. It is whether the fact that they aren't played in sessions has meant they aren't widely taken up by people and thus aren't played very often even in performance situations.
I agree that slow airs generally don't work in sessions (I even say so in my first post), they're really for solo musicians, but what's wrong with the odd solo air in a session? Do the people in your sessions insist on playing along to everything?
Where I mainly go to sessions we often have solo spots and sometimes people just play a reel or two on their own, other times we get a slow air. It breaks things up nicely not having everyone bashing away all the time.
I'd much rather hear a slow air in a session than a song, unless the singer is particularly good. Songs are far more common in sessions than slow airs, so next time you're in a session maybe try seeing if your fellow muso's will shut up for a few minutes while you try out an air, or if you aren't a strong enough player to do so why not ask one of the better players in the session to play one?
Sessions aren't the best place to play them only because people don't allow their sessions to accommodate them.
One or two slow airs per session, it's not too much to ask is it?
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by The Tune Composer
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
Ha, funny cross-post their mickray, you echoed my sentiments exactly.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by The Tune Composer
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
Great minds, Pneumo.. whatever. ;>}
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by John Galt
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
It's nice when someone asks another player for an air, solo. That way, it doesn't come across as selfish when one player "monopolizes" the time--they're doing it to fulfill a request. That's also a gentle way to ask the other players to sit it out, so the solo player has free room to roll with the air.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
We have airs at almost every session; it's not uncommon, later in the night, for two or three back-to-back. Maybe we've just got a good session crowd, audience and performer??
--DtM
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Dan the Man
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
(and a thing we like occasionally is a slow air or two in the bogs after the session has finished)
Are you playing a wind instrument?
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Finbar Saunders2
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconiosis is a lung condition caused by continuous inhalation of a fine silicate dust usually occuring in mine workers. I suppose the air in those underground chambers is pretty slow moving.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I'm curious too, about this playing in the 'bogs', Michael. Do you have a few tunes in the jacks like, the wee boy's room, the p*ssoir? Or do you stop on the way home to foot a bit of turf?
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by the wounded hussar
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
A nice euphemism which I heard an old lady refer to on radio recently - when she described her visit to the ladies room as ... 'going to shed a tear for Parnell' !
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by the wounded hussar
Do you care about slow airs ?
I don´t care about slow airs so much because most musicians - probably including myself - tend to draw them out too long. They are often more fun for the musicians who play them than for the audience. What I DO care about, though, is playing waltzes, which I think are a nice alternative to slow airs. They give relief from the reels and jigs, the audience can lean back for a while, and, if they so wish, even dance a bit (I´ve practically always had one or two couples dancing spontaneously whenever I began a waltz - on the English concertina, by the way). Nice ones are, among many others, the Lighthouse Keeper´s Waltz, Sour Grass and granite, Across the Divide. My own personal all-time favorite is Midnight On the Water, a Texas tune, so I was told, which I heard in a club in West Florida, and which I´ve been playing ever since.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by alexweger
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love slow airs, and play a number of them, I do think it's nice to have the occasional one in a session, but obviously not too many as they are definitely a solo thing. Also as Keith has already said, it seems more difficult to get punters to be quiet for an air than a song, and you do need quiet, so it has to be at the right moment.Sometimes there's a natural lull in a session, when it seems the right moment to play an air without feeling that you are stopping the flow of everyone playing together.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by cathycook
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I'm a big fan of the slow Air. Now, I'm not saying they are a fit for a session, but then again, I don't really play sessions.
They work great on the Whistle, Flute and Harmonica, so I'm happy with them. Then again, I'm a fiend for a good Polka (another session killer).
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Ashkettle
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I love them, we play them at our sessions, we have a few everyone seems to know and they're broken out from time to time. They are like a song, they interrupt the flow, but in a nice way, I feel. Most of us have played together for so long that we all blend quite nicely on the ones we all know, however usually with airs people all play them a little differently, so it's best to let a solo player have at it, like a good song.
We like Inisheer, Eamon an Chnoic, and For Ireland I'll Not Tell Her Name, they seem to be the ones that get dragged out. For solos I've been playing A Pretty Maid Milking Her Cow (An Cailín Deas Crúite Na MBó) quite a bit.
Some of the bands that make up our session groups have put airs together with hornpipes or other up-tempo tunes for performances, and these have bled over to our sessions, like Eamon an Chnoic with The Rights of Man.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
Polkas don't kill our sessions Ashkettle, we torment Polka-haters at ours. Slides too. Sliabh Grapefruit.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I can play a slow air faster than the guy who started this thread can write his name!!!
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
I've just tried playing The Geese in the Bog in the bog, and I must say there was a fine resonance.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Finbar Saunders2
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
A few slow airs always get played at our Monday session. An Roisin Dubh is a favourite of one of the older punters who'se always in so it always gets played for him. Bruach na Carraige Baine, Na Connerys, Caoineadh na d'Tri Mhuire (more of a slow waltz than an air really but a gorgeous tune nonetheless) and An Paistin Fionn get played regularly. I've heard Sliabh Geal gCua na Feile and An Cailín Deas Cruite na mBo get played so I guess it's safe to say that airs are always played and sometimes a few a night although generally toward the back end of the evening. Everyone enjoys them especially the punters and the publican. No problem whatsoever.
# Posted on June 17th 2008 by Patkiwi
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
We generally play waltzes as a change of pace at sessions around here. Everyone can join in on a waltz, while a slow air is more of a solo outing.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Do you care about slow airs?
yes ,they are my favourites.
# Posted on June 18th 2008 by Dick Miles
Recordings of the Air, "Killarney"
Hello out there!
Can anyone recommend a recording of the air called "Killarney"? I can't seem to find it. It's in O'Neill's and I love it.
Slainte,
Kathy
# Posted on September 24th 2008 by buyseps