My name is David Lunney, I'm an fine art student and tenor banjo player, approaching my final year of study. As part of my coursework this year I'm supposed to research and write a thesis, the subject and scope of the thesis are completely left to my discretion (perhaps one of the benefits of going to an art school!).
I have decided to write my thesis on the effects that the internet has on culture and tradition with specific reference to Irish Traditional Music. thesession.org strikes me as perhaps the best place to start my search information and opinions regarding the internets effects on ITM .Since I started playing ITM about a year and a half ago this website has been an invaluable source for me (ABCs, discussions of technique, suggested sets etc.) though I rarely take part in the discussions.
It has struck me that as a Dubliner I could have learned the music easily enough through sources other than the internet, should it not have existed. The same however couldn't be said for someone who lives very far away from Ireland (Australia, China etc), clearly this worldwide promotion of Irish Music is a great thing, however, could it be said that this promotion has come at a price?
Is there a standardization of tunes, techniques and styles? Is there a dilution of tradition? The internet boasts opportunities for cultural growth but also for cultural mediation. Do you think that the internet could be compared in ways to the wide circulation of printed sheet music that became prevalent around the turn of the century (O'Neill's Tunebooks etc) as they set some standards for how the music should be played? Are such standards necessary or are they harmful?
I would be very appreciative if you give me any and all opinions on the matter as I'm looking to discuss the issue from all angles, from reading discussions here regularly I can only imagine that there is a great variety of opinion! Also, if any of you could point me in the direction of books, essays or websites which I can reference in a academic way I would be very grateful,
The aural tradition tends to be lost if it is not present.
I can type the word listen but then I have to explain. Not always with music, but with words & symbols.
There is audio on some websites*, though the internet is primarily visual.
*Musical Instrument Digital Interface on thesession.org
I don't think that the MIDIs count as a really aural contribution, because they are mechanically derived from the ABC; it's like an audio interface to the ABC. If I want to hear how a tune should sound, I would hope to find a recording or video of a respected performer (leaving aside now the question of how to recognize those); but this too is facilitated by the internet.
The sites that my friends and myself use most often for this purpose are the CCE site and youtube.
I think that these are two sites that can't be ignored in a thesis like that.
Your question gets discussed on this board regularly, and folks complain about the internet's (and sheet music's) bad effect on ITM ad nauseam (though they keep reading and posting here...). Nevertheless, seems like a good topic for serious inquiry. One recent publication that comes to mind that did briefly address the internet's role in ITM is The Making of Irish Traditional Music by Helen O'Shea, Cork University Press, 2008. Of equal interest are two critical reviews of this book that appeared in The Journal of Music in Ireland. This journal lists recent publications placed in the Irish Traditional Music Archive, in your city. I imagine their library (or data base) would be a good resource. I do think a comparison of the effect of print (or perceived effect) and the internet would be interesting. In the end, as folks say above, it is an aural tradition which print, the web, and even sound recording, can't sustain. And for that reason, ITM seems naturally resistant to the destruction of local culture, though it certainly happens differently than it used to. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and can't even travel as far as Santa Barbara of Seattle without encountering very different tune sets, or versions of tunes.
Some random thoughts: The internet aids in the spread of The Music to all corners of the earth. Communities of location and ethnic heritage, where The Music florished in earlier times, are being supplemented by communities of shared interest, knit by the internet. It may be that the internet can keep the dirversity of the tradition alive, however, by making that diversity available to more ears, than previously available channels of recorded music. But in the end, humans sitting knee to knee and sharing tunes, are where The Music will always live.
It's even more localized than what Keith said. In a place like Glasgow you can go to a different pubs in the same city and hear completely different tune sets. I think the net makes the music more accessible, makes it easier to find and communicate with the trad music community, and obviously facilitates passing tunes around via youtube or this website or whatever. But in my experience the music is still local. Each session has its own character and repertoire. It's also bigger than that. Each city or county has its own character and repertoire. I know of some "Edinburgh tunes" and "Glasgow tunes" which are played pretty much in the Central Belt of Scotland and maybe made it to the Highlands, but not much further than that. When I lived in Boulder, CO, there were some "Boulder tunes" which were a part of that session's repertoire but I have never ever found anyone outside of Boulder who knows them. You can probably find most of these tunes on thesession.org database but so what? In a way, the internet is irrelevant. There's this massive huge database with zillions of tunes but the tendency to have a repertoire for your session or your area remains strong as ever.
If you travel around a bit you'll see that. The locality of this music has proven extremely robust, in spite of modern communication technology.
I think it's pretty clear that the people who consider sites like this as important resources are, at best, merely sniffing the periphery of the tradition.
The best parts of any tradition, or musical genre, tend to get buried as either becomes widely popularized. Not always, but often enough. At it's core Irish tradition music is humble.
Mention was made above of MIDI as "audio", and to sources like the CCE site and Youtube.
It strikes me that the Internet already has some history, as does ITM's presence; in the "early" days ABC was one of the few ways the structure of tunes could easily and efficiently be communicated over text channels that, by today's standards, worked at a snail's pace. It was hugely valuable, and my guess is that something like it will remain valuable for a long time as a way of jotting down mnemonics for tunes - on the proverbial back of a beer mat. (Hopefully nobody still has cigarette packets.... )
Anyway, things are changing in terms of available data storage and speed, so that mp3 files and the like are small and quickly transferred. They can be made by almost anyone, attached to e-mails, posted on websites and so on. There are large and growing collections of tunes recorded by players well-versed in the tradition, freely available, in one case I know with slow versions to help the learner and faster versions to truly represent the tune. There is also free, easy-to-use software to handle those audio files - they can be slowed down or speeded up with no pitch change, the pitch can be changed to a different key or to tweak the tuning. You have a recording of a tune played on a fife in F? Drop it three steps. But it was a bit of a flat F? Raise it 12 cents. It's still too fast? Slow it up 15%. OK, it won't sound as good as with the original settings, but the point is that using our computers to transfer, tweak and learn from recorded audio is now almost trivial, both in terms of required skill and in terms of necessary equipment.
But this has only relatively recently become true, and our internet culture is still, I think, catching up with itself here. I think this will be the way in future though. In real life, we sit round a table and say "Oh, how does that tune you played yesterday go, Brenda - The Mouse at the Keyboard?". Brenda won't reach for a pencil and paper, a book of printed tunes or a MIDI synthesizer, she'll start to just play. We can do that now in cyberspace - just click "record", play a bit, send the file. At some stage I think collections of recorded audio will largely take the place of collections of ABCs or dots.
One of the hurdles will be searching without taking the route through notation. When I can play a snatch into the mic here, and the search engine can within moments report that there are similar snatches in specific tunes that it knows, then we'll really be flying!
at it’s core, irish traditional music is untouchable on many plains _ nice observations by llig and Random
and AllBrown and The Silver Spear are at odds but both right, the former by realising the internets power in ''keeping the diversity of the tradition alive'' and . . . Spear's more grounded people/place tradition with a ''so what?'' to the nets ''zillions of tunes''
in a short essay (based on a series of tv programmes), David Hammond on 'the popular tradition in ireland today', writing 30 years ago, said ''there are healthy signs'' and '' . . . a recognition of the music as a relevant art form, open to a wide range of critical sensibilities, providing opportunities for challenges and the sharing of new techniques.''
one would presume this new internet malarkey comes under that ''sharing'' bit, but what will come of all this by mid-century?
if you can, draw up a 'questionnaire' dlunney, to crystalise specifics, and don't be afraid to ask the deeper questions, best of luck with the whole project as it's one i see that needs addressing
Hammond ends with it's release '' . . . into the wide world to take it's chance with other music.’’
The problem I have with the internet being used to mediate is that while there is lots of good advice, anyone can post and defend their viewpoint no matter how skewed they may be. So if you have got a fair clue and can dismiss nonsense then it is a decent resource.
An interesting turn of phrse. But if it's true that the internet is of more importance to the periphery than the core, is there still a problem. Could the ubiquity of the internet end up causing the periphery to eventually swamp the core? I dunno
as i said, the core can't be touched as it's way beyond the clinical coillection of nonsense here that is the 'periphery' and, with respect, a tangable starting point for outsiders to work their way in
what about that for a load of nonsense, or am i for real?
... as I well know llig ... being beyond the periphery in Central Australia and therefore totally irrelevant to be dissed on at every single opportunity ... sigh! Been there done that.
What goes on on thesession.org has huge implications to me personally (which is why I remain a highly regular lurker). There are other far less self opinionated sites than this one, thank goodness. What is harmless blather to some here, is quite harmful to others IMHE.
I am very interested in your study David ... but I'm not about to put up publicly (a performance!!! for unwelcome criticism) on thesession. I'll email my humble peripheral opinions to you personally, if that's alright with you. Good luck with the study. The results should make for very interesting reading. Cheers
Lunny - I like what Rm. Ilig says above, about the periphery overwhelming the core. O'Shea touches on the effect of that dynamic in her book, but not specifically about the web. Might be an interesting thing to look at.
Yeah, I guess it's a difference of perspective depending on whether you are the "periphery" or the "core." For me, this website is a bit of craic. Sometimes has gems of information but as Micheal said, you have to already have a bit of a clue to shift the gems from the sh*te. But I hang out mostly for the craic and to be fair, I actually know a few regular posters in real life so I enjoy the banter a bit more than I would on a site where everyone is just a screen name.
That all said, when I learn a new tune I usually look for it in the database, not to get the dots (shock horror) but to see what people say about it in the comments. Sometimes you get the composer or a nice wee story about the tune. That sort of thing would be a lot harder to come by without the net or this website.
I echo what Clear Drops said. Without the internet and an MP3 player/recorder
I probably would have put this music into the 'too hard' basket. One advantage
I have is a good weekly fast session and some strong players in this
town - a lot considering its size.
When I visited Pittsburgh (USA) earlier this year there was nothing happening
in a much bigger metro area.
... or a good strong hard core within the periphery?
... or a periphery of the core?
Whatever way it is perceived, and there could be an infinite number of different perceptions ... your sess, Hup, could never be perceived as any kind of threat to the core, sheeze. In fact it probably does a lot to keep Trad alive and well a long way from the core. My humble opinion.
"I think it's pretty clear that the people who consider sites like this as important resources are, at best, merely sniffing the periphery of the tradition.
It's really just a place for a bit of a natter."
llig leahcim
Absolutely! This site - and the net in general - seems to be for people who are removed from the center of the tradition. While I do use the net, its importance can't compare to sessions and live contact with other musicians. Some people might find the net invaluable. Those same people tend to over-rate the importance of the net in ITM. The tradition would survive just fine if the net crashed.
Internet is a very good resource, and getting better, for those who have an aptitude for studying and learning, when you do not belong to the lucky few who are ethnically proper to play this music in a proper ambience, as Michael was kind to remark. Of course, it doesn't hinder the myths and idiotisms to be spread around, but for the few who have the perseverance, it is an incredible thing.
Just the fact that you can learn from a very good musician online or via a communicator, or watch players on Youtube, read, listen, etc. is invaluable for those who were not lucky enough to be born in the right place and of a proper pedigree.
The above is of course a point of view from someone removed from the core of tradition, and having full understanding that it is NOT a tradition to me. But I would be interested in the views of Irish-American or Irish-Australian players.
For us on the periphery I wonder if the influence of the internet is more like the start of commercial recording rather than of printed music for the tunes. But we don't just get a few recordings of each tune as in the early years of recording. We get access to a whole range of them, including an increasing number of those early recordings. And for the commercial recordings the tunes and recordings databases here are a good way of getting to know about then, often with a bit of discussion and recommendations from people who have expressed there views about the music.
I guess those nearer the core can do those things by talking to their mates.
Wow, I've woken up this morning to lots of replies, I'll have them read soon, a quick skim over them shows me theirs lots of differing opinions, which is great, thanks
sorry to anyone i may of offended on here with my rantings
i love words, play with them, twist them around, can't always express myself properly with them, and i am not out to demonise anyone or the things discussed on here, we are one big family and, in the main, we look after one another with thoughtful advice and friendly banter
dlunney's taking on a challenging project there, for which the 'periphory / core' issue is one worth exploring
Lunney, an interesting thing for you to do might be to incorporate a more rigorous research method into your study. Instead of only relying on responses on a discussion board, take some of the responses here and formulate them into questions you can ask people in one-and-one interviews. Then try to put out the call for interview participants, via Skype or some such thing ideally, and do a qualitative analysis of the interview data. You might attempt to get a selection of participants from "periphery" and "core" areas and have an inquiry into how they experience the internet and if those experiences actually differ depending on where participants live. I don't know if they teach qualitative methods on your course but a good place to start is Edmund Husserl's work on phenomenology, or for some really heavy reading, Heidegger. They should have that in your library.
Interesting to hear the comments of the others in application to their circumstances.
I have to admit that my laptop is an important part of my learning tunes, I regularly use thesession and Michael Clarkson's site as two points of reference for tunes.
If I was laptopless/webless, I would continue to learn tunes from sessions or lessons but probably slower and less of a repetoire.
Also when initially getting into the music, t'was my first reference and irrespective of rights or wrongs of it I'd say that the future generations it will also be their first referrence, isn't the web the first reference to our kids for everything.
I would suggest that the internet while not 'important' in the sustaining of the music will act as a source and a growth accelerator.
By the way, be careful of how you define the terms "core" and "periphery." Sure, Ireland is the core, but what about Scotland, England, and Wales? I'd say they are part of the core but if I was writing a paper on it I'd have to argue why (don't ever think it's obvious. I gave a paper once on something -- unrelated to music -- to do with both Scotland and Ireland and got raked over the coals for talking about two "seemingly" random countries, or at least not justifying why I used those two countries. I thought the connections between them were self-evident. Clearly not). Is the United States part of the core or periphery? I don't know if I would write the whole country off as the periphery since the big cities, Boston, New York, and Chicago, have been hotbeds of Irish trad music since the 19th century. A lot of the great players of the 20th century were based there, i.e. Michael Coleman. So yeah, have to be careful but so long as you justify your distinctions, I think they are legitimate distinctions.
One aspect of the internet that I find valuable is that you can find versions of tunes other than those of the music industry, i.e. the recording studios, which have done more to weaken the traditional base than anything else. The internet for the global villager now works much as fairs once did for the local villager: you get to hear other people's music the way they play it, not the way the recording studios want it to sound. Good luck with your thesis.
But recordings in trad are almost always how the artist wants to play the tune. The recording studio never has anything to do with it. The engineer will do the job he's asked to and the producer, who has a lot to do with the sound is usually chosen by the artist. Sometimes they may be chosen by the record company but that's not the norm with trad. The actual tunes will have been played the way the artist learned or arranged them.
my 13-year old daughter will ask me and mum in the first instance about whatever shes researching for school, but without delay will have 'googled' for herself what she's chasing, using the 'britannica' set (not one foot from the keyboard) as back-up
I agree. To refer to the music "industry" with regards to diddley music is daft. It's not an industry. It's not like pop music where the content is specifically designed to be one amorphous blob. The recording made and sold out of the backs of suitcases are controlled by the people who made them.
And with the references to "core" and "periphery", it's important to note that while certain extreme cases can be geographically biased, the majority of either have nothing to do with geography.
It's quite possible, for a number of reasons, to live at the heart of an area that many would describe as the heart of the music and yet still be very firmly on the periphery. I can think of a number of cases.
And conversley, if anyone has the core of the music within them, That core will travel with them.
I agree with you, Michael, (says the outsider who has moved to a place considered a core of the music), but that's more of a function of the social life of musicians and other variables. But I don't think geography is irrelevant, either. Quite the opposite. The way people access the music, the type of people who are playing the music, the way the music is taught, has a lot to do with geography. Here for instance you have kids growing up in CCE, learning to play from a young age; you have people studying music at RSAMD (controversial as that might be, its presence is noticeable on the Glasgow scene), you have families with a long history of playing the music You also have some individuals who come into it as adults, and incomers who move in with their own musical baggage. But they, in some capacity or other, do get plugged into the core scene and have some kind of access to it. You get completely different kinds of musical and social interactions here than you do in a place where Irish music is imported, where a lot of the players, the majority of them, have learned as adults and often have to learn and play in isolation.
In other words, people's experience of the music is very much tied to geography.
If I may offer my American but very respectful perspective, the Irish, for centuries, have consistently been among the most widely migrated of all people, due to many different reasons and circumstances. And so the music has travelled as well. It's influence can certainly be seen in the folk music of North America, the strains of which can be heard particularly in the Appalachian Mountains. What a glorious thing.
The success of the Internet in further spreading the music of Ireland is to some degree an extension of that, for the migration was already taking place. I, for one, am grateful for sites such as this. When I first started playing a bit of the music in the early to mid 90's, before the prevalence of the Internet as a networking resource, finding a session in Los Angeles would likely have been impossible. Now, I can find sessions in Arizona, for f***'s sake. Granted, the caricatures that Amercans would call Irish pubs are certainly silly and homogenized compared to places like Kelly's in Belfast or House of MacDonnell in Ballycastle. The sessions may suffer from a bit of homogeny as well, but for the most part are very respectful of ITM and do try to hold the core of the tradition as a compass.
Can you have a community without geography? As soon as you talk about regional styles, or about the Dublin or Glasgow or New York scene, you are talking about geography. Physical proximity, or the lack thereof, or how people move from one place to another and the reasons therein is all part of what they are calling human geography since it is inextricably tied to place. The fact there *is* a community in Glasgow or Chicago or wherever is based on the fact that certain types of people emigrated to those areas for reasons you can quite easily relate to geography.
No, you're not talking about places. You are talking about people. If all the people who play the music in Chicago suddenly moved to the moon, The music would not be any different. And then if anyone hoping to learn the music then moved to Chicago, they'd be buggered.
Chicago (and anywhere else that has a strong, core Irish music scene) ended up as a good place for the music because the right people moved there. The place itself is irrelevant
I don't think people, much less this network of people we are calling a community, can be beamed from one place to another and remain exactly the same. But that's kind of a silly hypothetical since migration doesn't happen that way (except on Star Trek).
Think about the reasons why big trad music communities developed in some places and not others.
The right people moved there precisely because the place *isn't* irrelevant.
A lot of these places, Glasgow, Chicago, New York, etc. were (and in most cases still are) big ports with a lot of industry which created a lot of jobs and hence a lot of immigration, especially from small rural places. A city like New York doesn't get as big or develop the economy it does without being in a convenient location to do so. The areas with a strong core Irish music scene are ones which took a lot of Irish immigrants and a strong Irish community developed there as a result.
Yes, the people, firmly seconded. Case in point, Florida. Where do old Irish Americans go with their instruments when they retire from the freezing wastes of Boston, New York or Chicago?
You got it. Orangeville. Beach town. "God's waiting room" as the joke goes.
At yesterday's weekly we had NYC, Dorchester MA, New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio and Clare represented, for example. We all live here now, or some of them most of the year, 'snowbirds' as they're called, so here we are.
Also, after all, isn't this the crux of what we're talking about?
The Irish went everywhere and brought the music with them. The people did it themselves. May they always.
I never said the place didn't matter or that the reasons for moving there didn't matter. I said they were irrelevant.
As SWFL so succinctly points out, people move to Florida for the weather. And the music comes with them. The sunshine in Florida is as irrelevant to the music as the wind is in Chicago.
I think we're talking about a "community of interest" rather than a community of place.
Which is precisely why terms like core and periphery apply so well. For some of us, this musical tradition is a core interest--we eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff day in and day out our whole lives. For others, it's peripheral, an on-again, off-again past time.
Nope, not irrelevant at all. Place is very relevant to who learns tunes, how they learn tunes, how tunes travel and get passed on, the sorts of sessions you might find, etc. etc.
I suspect we might operating from different premises here. I am arguing that geography affects behaviour, that if you look beyond the superficial and dig deep, you can find all sorts of ways in which people's behaviour responds and adapts to their geographical circumstances. You guys seem to be saying that geography doesn't matter, people behave in the exact same way regardless of where they are. I don't think they do.
'I don't know what relationship you have with your kids, but my kids' first reference is me and their mother'....Very good I wasn't talking about the meaning of life.
I meant that if they want to check out a cinema or lessons or sale of an instrument etc etc they use the net.
They do frequently use the net to check out latest music and youtube is a frequent hit..
We are not talking about the general behaviour of people. We are talking about the very specific behaviour of learning and passing on tradition Irish diddley music.
When the musicians from windy, chilly, industrial Chicago move to calm and sunny Florida, they continue to play the music. The local geography may well be relevant to many many things they want out of life. It may well effect their behaviour in many ways. It may well have been the deciding factor in them moving in the first place. But it doesn't effect their wish to play tradition Irish diddley music.
People are the only relevance to who learns tunes, how they learn tunes, how tunes travel and get passed on, the sorts of sessions you might find, etc. etc. Not places.
Why is Cape Breton music more like Scottish music than Irish music? Would Cape Breton music sound more like Irish music if it were the Irish who were the main immigrants? The place is not relevant.
People don't live in a vacuum. Why did more Scots than Irish immigrate to Cape Breton? For that matter, the substantial distance between Cape Breton and Scotland is probably key to why Cape Breton music does not sound exactly like Scottish music.
Why do regional styles develop in the first place? While in part it's because certain players were in certain areas, do you think that the place has nothing whatsoever to do with it? Could Clare style or Donegal style music have developed in places that were not Clare or Donegal and subject to their particular historical and geographical circumstances?
When the first Scots moved to Cape Breton, Cape Breton music sounded exactly like Scottish music. The distance was irrelevant. The key to why Cape Breton music does not sound exactly like Scottish music is the time in isolation, not the distance.
And the reason more Scott's and not the Irish then went to Cape Breton was because their mates were there. Not because of where it was, but because who was there.
Yes, regional styles develop because strong individual players get isolated. Where they are isolated is irrelevant.
Yes, the big difference now of course is media. In Scotland 20 years ago Scottish trad went through a bad spell just as the Bothys etc were making Irish music exiting. A big Irish repertoire was built up even here in Skye with no Irish players, though with the resurgence of Scottish trad it's back to mainly Scottish/Gaelic music. Most well versed payers here would still also have 100's of irish tunes so it's almost like bilingual music making.
Isolation IS a geographical issue (and will be a whole bloody chapter in my thesis). As is the point that people ended up settling in Cape Breton in the first place, rather than say, Denver, Colorado. You say what matters is who was there, which I agree with, but I am not happy just leaving it at that. Why do certain types of people -- and consequently certain musical traditions - end up in particular places?
Do you think the Donegal tradition and especially West Coast Scottish traditions would have so much in common if geography didn't matter. It matters, in this instance, because of the proximity between Donegal and Scotland and the diffusion of people back and forth.
Obviously I am not arguing that geography is the ONLY thing or even the MAIN thing which defines the music; I'm just saying that it is relevant. When you're talking about things like proximity, isolation, community, these are geographical questions, as they are dealing with place and space.
Geography has a broader meaning than just physical geography.
Proximity, isolation, and community are human conditions we are defining in terms of geography -- in terms of space in relation to other spaces. It's problematized in our modern world by technology like the mobile phone and internet, but still, when people use those words, it is usually in a kind of geographical context.
Those brilliant players in Japan are going to have learned differently and have a different experience of the music than sh*te players in Clare, or even brilliant players in Clare.
Irish music is a moveable feast in exactly the way Hemingway meant it. I'd say the internet has little bearing on it one way or another, either negative or positive.
Nor has place got much to do with it either. It's self contained and ready to be accessed, unpacked, anywhere, anytime with close frends or total strangers. Which is genius of it surely.
Aye, but we all talk about how where we live affects how we play the music, in terms of how easy or how hard it is to find good sessions, how far we have to travel to get to them, the kind of access we have to teachers, etc. etc. Sure, it can be unpacked anywhere and that is the beauty of it, but your experience of it will depend on where you are.
"It has struck me that as a Dubliner I could have learned the music easily enough through sources other than the internet, should it not have existed. The same however couldn't be said for someone who lives very far away from Ireland (Australia"
Yeah, because no Irish musicians ever emigrated to Australia ....
Yep, exactly Bren. As if! ... or do they leave "the core" and become periphal the second they leave Ireland? Some Irish ancestry is common amongst people who consider themselves Australian (me included). Loath as I am to agree with some people here, tee hee, I have to agree that its the people who spread Traditional music, and its the geography which determines where and when they end up (or even if they stay at home). Crikey! ... and if you perceive Ireland per se as "the core", I know quite a number of Irish immigrants to the centre of Oz and not one of them plays Trad. Don't think I'm not in there asking at the first opportunity ... sigh! It is clear that even in Ireland not everyone is "core", in fact the core might well be a small minority even in the home of Trad. The peripherals, (one might say like me), who come into the music from somewhere beyond the core (or is it where the core has migrated to somewhere other than Ireland?) are often drawn to connect with the core. The internet is just a means for allowing better communications between, within, amongst the core and the periphery (or the core in Ireland and the core in the physical periphery) wherever they may be geographically. As for the internet being a mediator, in some ways it is and it is great for connecting people in a peaceful and meaningful way, but in other ways it is also misused, perhaps unfortunately, for some people to play games and to indelibly distance peripherals from the core. The funny thing about bullies is that when caught out bullying, they invariably say they were just having a bit of fun ... they don't actually realise at the time the consequences to others of their fun. So while mediation between the core and the periphery has been improved by the internet, so the opportunity for isolating through cyber bullying is also increased. This is my most humble opinion (from beyond the other side of the periphery? ... or the outter edge of the periphery? ... or whatever?).
"when caught out bullying, they invariably say they were just having a bit of fun"
and they probably are
thing to remember is that consensus on a web forum doesn't necessarily equal consensus in real life
it's a small self-selecting sample to start with, and like-minded souls tend to congregate and reinforce each other, so giving a false impression.
Nothing sinister about it - it's human nature and we all do it
but seriously though, the thrust of what's being touched on above is a form of 'regionalism' within this musical genre
to which i would direct you to a couple of short (but brilliantly thought provoking) papers published 12 years ago by Limerick University after some conference, namley :
(1) my mate Niall Keegan's 'The Verbal Context of Regional Style in Tradional Irish Music', who proposed and explains the following five groups of conceptual categories :
a) irish music trad 'style'
b) particular 'instrument' style
c) musical 'dialect' style
d) individual 'musician' style
e) individual 'performance' style
(2) Sean Corcoran's 'Concepts of Regionalism in Irish Traditional Music', who touches on the same Donegal example as The Silver Spear where 'islands of musical tradition' are kept going 'by a few isolated, ageing men' battling hopelessly against the 'inevitable historical occurence' of modernisation.
Ref: Smith, T. & O'Suilleabhain, M. (Ed's) (1997) 'BLAS _ The Local Accent Conference' Univeristy of Limerick (The Irish World Music Centre) & Folk Music Society Of Ireland, Dublin
note: the Donegal example cited from :
Feldman, A. & O'Doherty, E. (1979) 'The Northern Fiddler.' Belfast: Blackstaff Press
Seems you got a lot of respnse here - after all these replies, I doubt if any one but you will read this, but here's my observation - hope it helps:
During the 70's and 80's I had a strong interest in traditional Celtic music. There were a few great bands pushing the barrow and releasing records on Topic, Green Linnet etc. Some of these recordings reached me via friends - all of whom were either hopeless hippies or deep-nerd-historians. While there was the odd spark of mainstream interest, it never truly reached the psyche of most. One thing though - I could buy a pennywhistle in any music store. The trad records, however, were largely consigned to a very few specialist shop-fronts in large cities. In my locale, the main flage-bearers were th "Bush Bands" who were pedalling a roiughly 50/50 mix of Trad Ausie tunes and Irish stuff - mostly pinched from records.
Later in life, in the early 200's I decided to get a pennywhistle and get back into the old music I loved. To my surprise, there were no penywhistles to be had in the major city where I lived. It was like the old "folk" music had utterly dissapeared from the planet. The old specialist shopfront was gone. So I decided to import some whistles and try to get them promoted - fill the gap so to speak.
In the process of doing that, I came to realize that the "folk" music thing had not dissapeared at all - there were a lot of festivals dedicated to it and sessions were going on in most towns. There were, in fact, already one or 2 specialist businesses in the country - accessable mostly via the internet.
The internet became, for me, the only entrance from the mainstream back into the modern "folk" scene.
I still import whistles - even make one or 2 myself and cart them around to festivals.
But it is clear to me, that my original desire to promote folk musci back into the mainstream has failed. On both the internet and at folk festivals it's all "preaching to the converted". We remian like an ultra-secret and exclusive society. Without the old media, we have become even more obscure to anyone outside the circle.
The few time I attempted to take my theme into mainstream festivals, it failed for lack of interest - abd those concerns charge the exhibitor fees comensurate with the normal rapacious commercialism the "public" has come to expect. Certainly not viable for a whistle-seller.
Certainly, the COre (and periphery) of traditional celtic music is strong and better networked than ever befor, but for "cultural enrichment" to the wider world, the internet will not be enough whilever it is based on the instant gratification of a google search.
In Ireland, there seems to be better awareness. Seems logical, but the schools there support it and provide more incentive for someone to search youtube for a tune.
There DOES seem to be hope for expanding trad. The internet has done one very important thing - it has destroyed the record companies and made a joke of "intellectual property". The upshot of that is that our cuiltural tastes are no longer dictated by a fake "industry" - the gate-keepers have been struck-down and we can pass without having our pockets emptied. Many will find their way home. We can help by seeding the corporate media and schools with hints and guidelines to make entry more possible. After all - this is the cultural heritage of the mass. TIme will tell.
The internet has *given* us freeware & is willing to *share* certain applications, at a nominal fee. Perhaps we now are the gate keepers, don't know. There is a price though ~ we keep the lights on longer, so the gadgets can do their thing.
Good to know there is still time for the tradition of playing tunes with our mates. Ironically, the only reason I began using email was because I was playing in a session. Now, most of my mates are barely able to read through all their mail.
Mozie, you spent a hundred odd words there describing nothing more than an obscure. How then did you come to the conclusion that it is actually "the cultural heritage of the mass"?
The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Hello,
My name is David Lunney, I'm an fine art student and tenor banjo player, approaching my final year of study. As part of my coursework this year I'm supposed to research and write a thesis, the subject and scope of the thesis are completely left to my discretion (perhaps one of the benefits of going to an art school!).
I have decided to write my thesis on the effects that the internet has on culture and tradition with specific reference to Irish Traditional Music. thesession.org strikes me as perhaps the best place to start my search information and opinions regarding the internets effects on ITM .Since I started playing ITM about a year and a half ago this website has been an invaluable source for me (ABCs, discussions of technique, suggested sets etc.) though I rarely take part in the discussions.
It has struck me that as a Dubliner I could have learned the music easily enough through sources other than the internet, should it not have existed. The same however couldn't be said for someone who lives very far away from Ireland (Australia, China etc), clearly this worldwide promotion of Irish Music is a great thing, however, could it be said that this promotion has come at a price?
Is there a standardization of tunes, techniques and styles? Is there a dilution of tradition? The internet boasts opportunities for cultural growth but also for cultural mediation. Do you think that the internet could be compared in ways to the wide circulation of printed sheet music that became prevalent around the turn of the century (O'Neill's Tunebooks etc) as they set some standards for how the music should be played? Are such standards necessary or are they harmful?
I would be very appreciative if you give me any and all opinions on the matter as I'm looking to discuss the issue from all angles, from reading discussions here regularly I can only imagine that there is a great variety of opinion! Also, if any of you could point me in the direction of books, essays or websites which I can reference in a academic way I would be very grateful,
Thanks in advance,
Lunney
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by dlunney
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
The aural tradition tends to be lost if it is not present.
I can type the word listen but then I have to explain. Not always with music, but with words & symbols.
There is audio on some websites*, though the internet is primarily visual.
*Musical Instrument Digital Interface on thesession.org
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by Ben Steen
I don't think that the MIDIs count as a really aural contribution, because they are mechanically derived from the ABC; it's like an audio interface to the ABC. If I want to hear how a tune should sound, I would hope to find a recording or video of a respected performer (leaving aside now the question of how to recognize those); but this too is facilitated by the internet.
The sites that my friends and myself use most often for this purpose are the CCE site and youtube.
I think that these are two sites that can't be ignored in a thesis like that.
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by sixholes
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Lunney,
Your question gets discussed on this board regularly, and folks complain about the internet's (and sheet music's) bad effect on ITM ad nauseam (though they keep reading and posting here...). Nevertheless, seems like a good topic for serious inquiry. One recent publication that comes to mind that did briefly address the internet's role in ITM is The Making of Irish Traditional Music by Helen O'Shea, Cork University Press, 2008. Of equal interest are two critical reviews of this book that appeared in The Journal of Music in Ireland. This journal lists recent publications placed in the Irish Traditional Music Archive, in your city. I imagine their library (or data base) would be a good resource. I do think a comparison of the effect of print (or perceived effect) and the internet would be interesting. In the end, as folks say above, it is an aural tradition which print, the web, and even sound recording, can't sustain. And for that reason, ITM seems naturally resistant to the destruction of local culture, though it certainly happens differently than it used to. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and can't even travel as far as Santa Barbara of Seattle without encountering very different tune sets, or versions of tunes.
Best of luck with your project!
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Some random thoughts: The internet aids in the spread of The Music to all corners of the earth. Communities of location and ethnic heritage, where The Music florished in earlier times, are being supplemented by communities of shared interest, knit by the internet. It may be that the internet can keep the dirversity of the tradition alive, however, by making that diversity available to more ears, than previously available channels of recorded music. But in the end, humans sitting knee to knee and sharing tunes, are where The Music will always live.
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by AlBrown
http://www.brendantaaffe.com/caoimhin_oraghallaigh.html
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
It's even more localized than what Keith said. In a place like Glasgow you can go to a different pubs in the same city and hear completely different tune sets. I think the net makes the music more accessible, makes it easier to find and communicate with the trad music community, and obviously facilitates passing tunes around via youtube or this website or whatever. But in my experience the music is still local. Each session has its own character and repertoire. It's also bigger than that. Each city or county has its own character and repertoire. I know of some "Edinburgh tunes" and "Glasgow tunes" which are played pretty much in the Central Belt of Scotland and maybe made it to the Highlands, but not much further than that. When I lived in Boulder, CO, there were some "Boulder tunes" which were a part of that session's repertoire but I have never ever found anyone outside of Boulder who knows them. You can probably find most of these tunes on thesession.org database but so what? In a way, the internet is irrelevant. There's this massive huge database with zillions of tunes but the tendency to have a repertoire for your session or your area remains strong as ever.
If you travel around a bit you'll see that. The locality of this music has proven extremely robust, in spite of modern communication technology.
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I think it's pretty clear that the people who consider sites like this as important resources are, at best, merely sniffing the periphery of the tradition.
It's really just a place for a bit of a natter.
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by ...
Imho
The best parts of any tradition, or musical genre, tend to get buried as either becomes widely popularized. Not always, but often enough. At it's core Irish tradition music is humble.
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Mention was made above of MIDI as "audio", and to sources like the CCE site and Youtube.
)
It strikes me that the Internet already has some history, as does ITM's presence; in the "early" days ABC was one of the few ways the structure of tunes could easily and efficiently be communicated over text channels that, by today's standards, worked at a snail's pace. It was hugely valuable, and my guess is that something like it will remain valuable for a long time as a way of jotting down mnemonics for tunes - on the proverbial back of a beer mat. (Hopefully nobody still has cigarette packets....
Anyway, things are changing in terms of available data storage and speed, so that mp3 files and the like are small and quickly transferred. They can be made by almost anyone, attached to e-mails, posted on websites and so on. There are large and growing collections of tunes recorded by players well-versed in the tradition, freely available, in one case I know with slow versions to help the learner and faster versions to truly represent the tune. There is also free, easy-to-use software to handle those audio files - they can be slowed down or speeded up with no pitch change, the pitch can be changed to a different key or to tweak the tuning. You have a recording of a tune played on a fife in F? Drop it three steps. But it was a bit of a flat F? Raise it 12 cents. It's still too fast? Slow it up 15%. OK, it won't sound as good as with the original settings, but the point is that using our computers to transfer, tweak and learn from recorded audio is now almost trivial, both in terms of required skill and in terms of necessary equipment.
But this has only relatively recently become true, and our internet culture is still, I think, catching up with itself here. I think this will be the way in future though. In real life, we sit round a table and say "Oh, how does that tune you played yesterday go, Brenda - The Mouse at the Keyboard?". Brenda won't reach for a pencil and paper, a book of printed tunes or a MIDI synthesizer, she'll start to just play. We can do that now in cyberspace - just click "record", play a bit, send the file. At some stage I think collections of recorded audio will largely take the place of collections of ABCs or dots.
One of the hurdles will be searching without taking the route through notation. When I can play a snatch into the mic here, and the search engine can within moments report that there are similar snatches in specific tunes that it knows, then we'll really be flying!
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by Alex Wilding
is anyone participating in a flash rave ever listening to Irish traditional?
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
at it’s core, irish traditional music is untouchable on many plains _ nice observations by llig and Random
and AllBrown and The Silver Spear are at odds but both right, the former by realising the internets power in ''keeping the diversity of the tradition alive'' and . . . Spear's more grounded people/place tradition with a ''so what?'' to the nets ''zillions of tunes''
in a short essay (based on a series of tv programmes), David Hammond on 'the popular tradition in ireland today', writing 30 years ago, said ''there are healthy signs'' and '' . . . a recognition of the music as a relevant art form, open to a wide range of critical sensibilities, providing opportunities for challenges and the sharing of new techniques.''
one would presume this new internet malarkey comes under that ''sharing'' bit, but what will come of all this by mid-century?
if you can, draw up a 'questionnaire' dlunney, to crystalise specifics, and don't be afraid to ask the deeper questions, best of luck with the whole project as it's one i see that needs addressing
Hammond ends with it's release '' . . . into the wide world to take it's chance with other music.’’
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
There's already an iphone ap where you hold your phone up to a pop song and it tells you what it is.
I'm amused by doing in a session and the message comes back and say it's ... "reel". tee he
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
The problem I have with the internet being used to mediate is that while there is lots of good advice, anyone can post and defend their viewpoint no matter how skewed they may be. So if you have got a fair clue and can dismiss nonsense then it is a decent resource.
# Posted on October 11th 2009 by bogman
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
"At its core"
An interesting turn of phrse. But if it's true that the internet is of more importance to the periphery than the core, is there still a problem. Could the ubiquity of the internet end up causing the periphery to eventually swamp the core? I dunno
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I've found, particularly here, that dismissing nonsense is much much harder than it should be. I get banned for it regularly
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Well said Llig All that is needed is for common sence to become common
.........its not goingoro happen soon I fear
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Going to I should say
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
as i said, the core can't be touched as it's way beyond the clinical coillection of nonsense here that is the 'periphery' and, with respect, a tangable starting point for outsiders to work their way in
what about that for a load of nonsense, or am i for real?
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
... as I well know llig ... being beyond the periphery in Central Australia and therefore totally irrelevant to be dissed on at every single opportunity ... sigh! Been there done that.
What goes on on thesession.org has huge implications to me personally (which is why I remain a highly regular lurker). There are other far less self opinionated sites than this one, thank goodness. What is harmless blather to some here, is quite harmful to others IMHE.
I am very interested in your study David ... but I'm not about to put up publicly (a performance!!! for unwelcome criticism) on thesession. I'll email my humble peripheral opinions to you personally, if that's alright with you. Good luck with the study. The results should make for very interesting reading. Cheers
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Clear Drops
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
PS: I have a total reliance on the internet for ANYTHING related to Irish Traditional Music
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Clear Drops
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Lunny - I like what Rm. Ilig says above, about the periphery overwhelming the core. O'Shea touches on the effect of that dynamic in her book, but not specifically about the web. Might be an interesting thing to look at.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Yeah, I guess it's a difference of perspective depending on whether you are the "periphery" or the "core." For me, this website is a bit of craic. Sometimes has gems of information but as Micheal said, you have to already have a bit of a clue to shift the gems from the sh*te. But I hang out mostly for the craic and to be fair, I actually know a few regular posters in real life so I enjoy the banter a bit more than I would on a site where everyone is just a screen name.
That all said, when I learn a new tune I usually look for it in the database, not to get the dots (shock horror) but to see what people say about it in the comments. Sometimes you get the composer or a nice wee story about the tune. That sort of thing would be a lot harder to come by without the net or this website.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I echo what Clear Drops said. Without the internet and an MP3 player/recorder
I probably would have put this music into the 'too hard' basket. One advantage
I have is a good weekly fast session and some strong players in this
town - a lot considering its size.
When I visited Pittsburgh (USA) earlier this year there was nothing happening
in a much bigger metro area.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Hup
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
You sure do Hup! Reelly good strong stuff in the 'berra ... a core of the periphery
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Clear Drops
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
... or a good strong hard core within the periphery?
... or a periphery of the core?
Whatever way it is perceived, and there could be an infinite number of different perceptions ... your sess, Hup, could never be perceived as any kind of threat to the core, sheeze. In fact it probably does a lot to keep Trad alive and well a long way from the core. My humble opinion.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Clear Drops
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
"I think it's pretty clear that the people who consider sites like this as important resources are, at best, merely sniffing the periphery of the tradition.
It's really just a place for a bit of a natter."
llig leahcim
Absolutely! This site - and the net in general - seems to be for people who are removed from the center of the tradition. While I do use the net, its importance can't compare to sessions and live contact with other musicians. Some people might find the net invaluable. Those same people tend to over-rate the importance of the net in ITM. The tradition would survive just fine if the net crashed.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by David Levine
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Internet is a very good resource, and getting better, for those who have an aptitude for studying and learning, when you do not belong to the lucky few who are ethnically proper to play this music in a proper ambience, as Michael was kind to remark. Of course, it doesn't hinder the myths and idiotisms to be spread around, but for the few who have the perseverance, it is an incredible thing.
Just the fact that you can learn from a very good musician online or via a communicator, or watch players on Youtube, read, listen, etc. is invaluable for those who were not lucky enough to be born in the right place and of a proper pedigree.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Janek
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
The above is of course a point of view from someone removed from the core of tradition, and having full understanding that it is NOT a tradition to me. But I would be interested in the views of Irish-American or Irish-Australian players.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Janek
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
For us on the periphery I wonder if the influence of the internet is more like the start of commercial recording rather than of printed music for the tunes. But we don't just get a few recordings of each tune as in the early years of recording. We get access to a whole range of them, including an increasing number of those early recordings. And for the commercial recordings the tunes and recordings databases here are a good way of getting to know about then, often with a bit of discussion and recommendations from people who have expressed there views about the music.
I guess those nearer the core can do those things by talking to their mates.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by David50
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Wow, I've woken up this morning to lots of replies, I'll have them read soon, a quick skim over them shows me theirs lots of differing opinions, which is great, thanks
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by dlunney
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
sorry to anyone i may of offended on here with my rantings
i love words, play with them, twist them around, can't always express myself properly with them, and i am not out to demonise anyone or the things discussed on here, we are one big family and, in the main, we look after one another with thoughtful advice and friendly banter
dlunney's taking on a challenging project there, for which the 'periphory / core' issue is one worth exploring
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Lunney, I'm confused as to what you mean by "mediator". How can the internet mediate? Between whom is the internet mediating?
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Research methods suggestion....
Lunney, an interesting thing for you to do might be to incorporate a more rigorous research method into your study. Instead of only relying on responses on a discussion board, take some of the responses here and formulate them into questions you can ask people in one-and-one interviews. Then try to put out the call for interview participants, via Skype or some such thing ideally, and do a qualitative analysis of the interview data. You might attempt to get a selection of participants from "periphery" and "core" areas and have an inquiry into how they experience the internet and if those experiences actually differ depending on where participants live. I don't know if they teach qualitative methods on your course but a good place to start is Edmund Husserl's work on phenomenology, or for some really heavy reading, Heidegger. They should have that in your library.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Interesting to hear the comments of the others in application to their circumstances.
I have to admit that my laptop is an important part of my learning tunes, I regularly use thesession and Michael Clarkson's site as two points of reference for tunes.
If I was laptopless/webless, I would continue to learn tunes from sessions or lessons but probably slower and less of a repetoire.
Also when initially getting into the music, t'was my first reference and irrespective of rights or wrongs of it I'd say that the future generations it will also be their first referrence, isn't the web the first reference to our kids for everything.
I would suggest that the internet while not 'important' in the sustaining of the music will act as a source and a growth accelerator.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Andyras1
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
By the way, be careful of how you define the terms "core" and "periphery." Sure, Ireland is the core, but what about Scotland, England, and Wales? I'd say they are part of the core but if I was writing a paper on it I'd have to argue why (don't ever think it's obvious. I gave a paper once on something -- unrelated to music -- to do with both Scotland and Ireland and got raked over the coals for talking about two "seemingly" random countries, or at least not justifying why I used those two countries. I thought the connections between them were self-evident. Clearly not). Is the United States part of the core or periphery? I don't know if I would write the whole country off as the periphery since the big cities, Boston, New York, and Chicago, have been hotbeds of Irish trad music since the 19th century. A lot of the great players of the 20th century were based there, i.e. Michael Coleman. So yeah, have to be careful but so long as you justify your distinctions, I think they are legitimate distinctions.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
One aspect of the internet that I find valuable is that you can find versions of tunes other than those of the music industry, i.e. the recording studios, which have done more to weaken the traditional base than anything else. The internet for the global villager now works much as fairs once did for the local villager: you get to hear other people's music the way they play it, not the way the recording studios want it to sound. Good luck with your thesis.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by gam
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
"... isn't the web the first reference to our kids for everything?"
I don't know what relationship you have with your kids, but my kids' first reference is me and their mother.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
But recordings in trad are almost always how the artist wants to play the tune. The recording studio never has anything to do with it. The engineer will do the job he's asked to and the producer, who has a lot to do with the sound is usually chosen by the artist. Sometimes they may be chosen by the record company but that's not the norm with trad. The actual tunes will have been played the way the artist learned or arranged them.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by bogman
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
my 13-year old daughter will ask me and mum in the first instance about whatever shes researching for school, but without delay will have 'googled' for herself what she's chasing, using the 'britannica' set (not one foot from the keyboard) as back-up
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I agree. To refer to the music "industry" with regards to diddley music is daft. It's not an industry. It's not like pop music where the content is specifically designed to be one amorphous blob. The recording made and sold out of the backs of suitcases are controlled by the people who made them.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
And with the references to "core" and "periphery", it's important to note that while certain extreme cases can be geographically biased, the majority of either have nothing to do with geography.
It's quite possible, for a number of reasons, to live at the heart of an area that many would describe as the heart of the music and yet still be very firmly on the periphery. I can think of a number of cases.
And conversley, if anyone has the core of the music within them, That core will travel with them.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
llig, you're on a roll. Every comment concise, elegant, and truthful. I can only dream.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I agree with you, Michael, (says the outsider who has moved to a place considered a core of the music), but that's more of a function of the social life of musicians and other variables. But I don't think geography is irrelevant, either. Quite the opposite. The way people access the music, the type of people who are playing the music, the way the music is taught, has a lot to do with geography. Here for instance you have kids growing up in CCE, learning to play from a young age; you have people studying music at RSAMD (controversial as that might be, its presence is noticeable on the Glasgow scene), you have families with a long history of playing the music You also have some individuals who come into it as adults, and incomers who move in with their own musical baggage. But they, in some capacity or other, do get plugged into the core scene and have some kind of access to it. You get completely different kinds of musical and social interactions here than you do in a place where Irish music is imported, where a lot of the players, the majority of them, have learned as adults and often have to learn and play in isolation.
In other words, people's experience of the music is very much tied to geography.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
llig, I have a nagging suspicion that my last post didn't read as the compliment I'd intended!
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
If I may offer my American but very respectful perspective, the Irish, for centuries, have consistently been among the most widely migrated of all people, due to many different reasons and circumstances. And so the music has travelled as well. It's influence can certainly be seen in the folk music of North America, the strains of which can be heard particularly in the Appalachian Mountains. What a glorious thing.
The success of the Internet in further spreading the music of Ireland is to some degree an extension of that, for the migration was already taking place. I, for one, am grateful for sites such as this. When I first started playing a bit of the music in the early to mid 90's, before the prevalence of the Internet as a networking resource, finding a session in Los Angeles would likely have been impossible. Now, I can find sessions in Arizona, for f***'s sake. Granted, the caricatures that Amercans would call Irish pubs are certainly silly and homogenized compared to places like Kelly's in Belfast or House of MacDonnell in Ballycastle. The sessions may suffer from a bit of homogeny as well, but for the most part are very respectful of ITM and do try to hold the core of the tradition as a compass.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Jimmy B
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I disagree, it's not tied to geography, it's tied to communities. Glasgow? Chicargo? etc. It's not about where it is, it's about who's there.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Thanks PJ, but I have a sarcasm bypass. Even if you intended it to be sarcastic, I wouldn't have read it that way
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Can you have a community without geography? As soon as you talk about regional styles, or about the Dublin or Glasgow or New York scene, you are talking about geography. Physical proximity, or the lack thereof, or how people move from one place to another and the reasons therein is all part of what they are calling human geography since it is inextricably tied to place. The fact there *is* a community in Glasgow or Chicago or wherever is based on the fact that certain types of people emigrated to those areas for reasons you can quite easily relate to geography.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
No, you're not talking about places. You are talking about people. If all the people who play the music in Chicago suddenly moved to the moon, The music would not be any different. And then if anyone hoping to learn the music then moved to Chicago, they'd be buggered.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
It probably would be different, since the moon has slightly different conditions than Chicago.
Why did Chicago end up with a strong, core Irish music scene in the first place and not Perth, Australia?
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Chicago (and anywhere else that has a strong, core Irish music scene) ended up as a good place for the music because the right people moved there. The place itself is irrelevant
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I don't think people, much less this network of people we are calling a community, can be beamed from one place to another and remain exactly the same. But that's kind of a silly hypothetical since migration doesn't happen that way (except on Star Trek).
Think about the reasons why big trad music communities developed in some places and not others.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
The right people moved there precisely because the place *isn't* irrelevant.
A lot of these places, Glasgow, Chicago, New York, etc. were (and in most cases still are) big ports with a lot of industry which created a lot of jobs and hence a lot of immigration, especially from small rural places. A city like New York doesn't get as big or develop the economy it does without being in a convenient location to do so. The areas with a strong core Irish music scene are ones which took a lot of Irish immigrants and a strong Irish community developed there as a result.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Yes, the people, firmly seconded. Case in point, Florida. Where do old Irish Americans go with their instruments when they retire from the freezing wastes of Boston, New York or Chicago?
You got it. Orangeville. Beach town. "God's waiting room" as the joke goes.
At yesterday's weekly we had NYC, Dorchester MA, New Hampshire, Michigan, Ohio and Clare represented, for example. We all live here now, or some of them most of the year, 'snowbirds' as they're called, so here we are.
Also, after all, isn't this the crux of what we're talking about?
The Irish went everywhere and brought the music with them. The people did it themselves. May they always.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I never said the place didn't matter or that the reasons for moving there didn't matter. I said they were irrelevant.
As SWFL so succinctly points out, people move to Florida for the weather. And the music comes with them. The sunshine in Florida is as irrelevant to the music as the wind is in Chicago.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I think we're talking about a "community of interest" rather than a community of place.
Which is precisely why terms like core and periphery apply so well. For some of us, this musical tradition is a core interest--we eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff day in and day out our whole lives. For others, it's peripheral, an on-again, off-again past time.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Will Harmon
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Nope, not irrelevant at all. Place is very relevant to who learns tunes, how they learn tunes, how tunes travel and get passed on, the sorts of sessions you might find, etc. etc.
I suspect we might operating from different premises here. I am arguing that geography affects behaviour, that if you look beyond the superficial and dig deep, you can find all sorts of ways in which people's behaviour responds and adapts to their geographical circumstances. You guys seem to be saying that geography doesn't matter, people behave in the exact same way regardless of where they are. I don't think they do.
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
'I don't know what relationship you have with your kids, but my kids' first reference is me and their mother'....Very good I wasn't talking about the meaning of life.
I meant that if they want to check out a cinema or lessons or sale of an instrument etc etc they use the net.
They do frequently use the net to check out latest music and youtube is a frequent hit..
# Posted on October 12th 2009 by Andyras1
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
We are not talking about the general behaviour of people. We are talking about the very specific behaviour of learning and passing on tradition Irish diddley music.
When the musicians from windy, chilly, industrial Chicago move to calm and sunny Florida, they continue to play the music. The local geography may well be relevant to many many things they want out of life. It may well effect their behaviour in many ways. It may well have been the deciding factor in them moving in the first place. But it doesn't effect their wish to play tradition Irish diddley music.
People are the only relevance to who learns tunes, how they learn tunes, how tunes travel and get passed on, the sorts of sessions you might find, etc. etc. Not places.
Why is Cape Breton music more like Scottish music than Irish music? Would Cape Breton music sound more like Irish music if it were the Irish who were the main immigrants? The place is not relevant.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
People don't live in a vacuum. Why did more Scots than Irish immigrate to Cape Breton? For that matter, the substantial distance between Cape Breton and Scotland is probably key to why Cape Breton music does not sound exactly like Scottish music.
Why do regional styles develop in the first place? While in part it's because certain players were in certain areas, do you think that the place has nothing whatsoever to do with it? Could Clare style or Donegal style music have developed in places that were not Clare or Donegal and subject to their particular historical and geographical circumstances?
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
To stick firmly on the fence I'd say you're both right
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by bogman
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
When the first Scots moved to Cape Breton, Cape Breton music sounded exactly like Scottish music. The distance was irrelevant. The key to why Cape Breton music does not sound exactly like Scottish music is the time in isolation, not the distance.
And the reason more Scott's and not the Irish then went to Cape Breton was because their mates were there. Not because of where it was, but because who was there.
Yes, regional styles develop because strong individual players get isolated. Where they are isolated is irrelevant.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
What if a strong Irish player ends in an area of Cape Breton with weaker Scots players or visa versa though?
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by bogman
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Yeah, interesting scenario. I think something like that must have happened in Edinburgh.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I came to Edinburgh about 15 years ago and there was a lot of Irish music being played by the natives
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Yes, the big difference now of course is media. In Scotland 20 years ago Scottish trad went through a bad spell just as the Bothys etc were making Irish music exiting. A big Irish repertoire was built up even here in Skye with no Irish players, though with the resurgence of Scottish trad it's back to mainly Scottish/Gaelic music. Most well versed payers here would still also have 100's of irish tunes so it's almost like bilingual music making.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by bogman
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Though that doesn't answer the question of course.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by bogman
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
That's why I like Skye.
Isolation IS a geographical issue (and will be a whole bloody chapter in my thesis). As is the point that people ended up settling in Cape Breton in the first place, rather than say, Denver, Colorado. You say what matters is who was there, which I agree with, but I am not happy just leaving it at that. Why do certain types of people -- and consequently certain musical traditions - end up in particular places?
Do you think the Donegal tradition and especially West Coast Scottish traditions would have so much in common if geography didn't matter. It matters, in this instance, because of the proximity between Donegal and Scotland and the diffusion of people back and forth.
Obviously I am not arguing that geography is the ONLY thing or even the MAIN thing which defines the music; I'm just saying that it is relevant. When you're talking about things like proximity, isolation, community, these are geographical questions, as they are dealing with place and space.
Geography has a broader meaning than just physical geography.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Proximity, isolation and community are, with respect to diddley music and especially now in the modern world, human conditions.
Why else would you get people in Japan who can play Irish music to exceptionally high standards. And people who live in Clare who are hopeless.
It's not the place, it's the people.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Proximity, isolation, and community are human conditions we are defining in terms of geography -- in terms of space in relation to other spaces. It's problematized in our modern world by technology like the mobile phone and internet, but still, when people use those words, it is usually in a kind of geographical context.
Those brilliant players in Japan are going to have learned differently and have a different experience of the music than sh*te players in Clare, or even brilliant players in Clare.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Irish music is a moveable feast in exactly the way Hemingway meant it. I'd say the internet has little bearing on it one way or another, either negative or positive.
Nor has place got much to do with it either. It's self contained and ready to be accessed, unpacked, anywhere, anytime with close frends or total strangers. Which is genius of it surely.
And ....the only one who "mediates" it, is you.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Aye, but we all talk about how where we live affects how we play the music, in terms of how easy or how hard it is to find good sessions, how far we have to travel to get to them, the kind of access we have to teachers, etc. etc. Sure, it can be unpacked anywhere and that is the beauty of it, but your experience of it will depend on where you are.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Geography ~ FWIW
I am a geographer. Some of us use the 5 themes approach; Location, Place, Human/environment Interaction, Movement, Regions. end of lesson . . .
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
I am sitting here in the Glasgow Uni geography department writing this post.......
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
You mean at work?
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Er...... yes.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Obviously being very productive today.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
No worries. I am a former geographer. What happens on the session stays on thesession ~ forever. cheers Silver
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Too bad what stays on the session doesn't increase the word count of the thesis.
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
"It has struck me that as a Dubliner I could have learned the music easily enough through sources other than the internet, should it not have existed. The same however couldn't be said for someone who lives very far away from Ireland (Australia"
Yeah, because no Irish musicians ever emigrated to Australia ....
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by Bren
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Yep, exactly Bren. As if! ... or do they leave "the core" and become periphal the second they leave Ireland? Some Irish ancestry is common amongst people who consider themselves Australian (me included). Loath as I am to agree with some people here, tee hee, I have to agree that its the people who spread Traditional music, and its the geography which determines where and when they end up (or even if they stay at home). Crikey! ... and if you perceive Ireland per se as "the core", I know quite a number of Irish immigrants to the centre of Oz and not one of them plays Trad. Don't think I'm not in there asking at the first opportunity ... sigh! It is clear that even in Ireland not everyone is "core", in fact the core might well be a small minority even in the home of Trad. The peripherals, (one might say like me), who come into the music from somewhere beyond the core (or is it where the core has migrated to somewhere other than Ireland?) are often drawn to connect with the core. The internet is just a means for allowing better communications between, within, amongst the core and the periphery (or the core in Ireland and the core in the physical periphery) wherever they may be geographically. As for the internet being a mediator, in some ways it is and it is great for connecting people in a peaceful and meaningful way, but in other ways it is also misused, perhaps unfortunately, for some people to play games and to indelibly distance peripherals from the core. The funny thing about bullies is that when caught out bullying, they invariably say they were just having a bit of fun ... they don't actually realise at the time the consequences to others of their fun. So while mediation between the core and the periphery has been improved by the internet, so the opportunity for isolating through cyber bullying is also increased. This is my most humble opinion (from beyond the other side of the periphery? ... or the outter edge of the periphery? ... or whatever?).
# Posted on October 13th 2009 by Clear Drops
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
"when caught out bullying, they invariably say they were just having a bit of fun"
and they probably are
thing to remember is that consensus on a web forum doesn't necessarily equal consensus in real life
it's a small self-selecting sample to start with, and like-minded souls tend to congregate and reinforce each other, so giving a false impression.
Nothing sinister about it - it's human nature and we all do it
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by Bren
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
examples please
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
examples of what?
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by Bren
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
cyber bullying
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
can't think of any
have you got some?
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by Bren
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
nope
# Posted on October 16th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
i have but not telling . . .
# Posted on October 17th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
but seriously though, the thrust of what's being touched on above is a form of 'regionalism' within this musical genre
to which i would direct you to a couple of short (but brilliantly thought provoking) papers published 12 years ago by Limerick University after some conference, namley :
(1) my mate Niall Keegan's 'The Verbal Context of Regional Style in Tradional Irish Music', who proposed and explains the following five groups of conceptual categories :
a) irish music trad 'style'
b) particular 'instrument' style
c) musical 'dialect' style
d) individual 'musician' style
e) individual 'performance' style
(2) Sean Corcoran's 'Concepts of Regionalism in Irish Traditional Music', who touches on the same Donegal example as The Silver Spear where 'islands of musical tradition' are kept going 'by a few isolated, ageing men' battling hopelessly against the 'inevitable historical occurence' of modernisation.
Ref: Smith, T. & O'Suilleabhain, M. (Ed's) (1997) 'BLAS _ The Local Accent Conference' Univeristy of Limerick (The Irish World Music Centre) & Folk Music Society Of Ireland, Dublin
note: the Donegal example cited from :
Feldman, A. & O'Doherty, E. (1979) 'The Northern Fiddler.' Belfast: Blackstaff Press
# Posted on October 18th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
HI David,
Seems you got a lot of respnse here - after all these replies, I doubt if any one but you will read this, but here's my observation - hope it helps:
During the 70's and 80's I had a strong interest in traditional Celtic music. There were a few great bands pushing the barrow and releasing records on Topic, Green Linnet etc. Some of these recordings reached me via friends - all of whom were either hopeless hippies or deep-nerd-historians. While there was the odd spark of mainstream interest, it never truly reached the psyche of most. One thing though - I could buy a pennywhistle in any music store. The trad records, however, were largely consigned to a very few specialist shop-fronts in large cities. In my locale, the main flage-bearers were th "Bush Bands" who were pedalling a roiughly 50/50 mix of Trad Ausie tunes and Irish stuff - mostly pinched from records.
Later in life, in the early 200's I decided to get a pennywhistle and get back into the old music I loved. To my surprise, there were no penywhistles to be had in the major city where I lived. It was like the old "folk" music had utterly dissapeared from the planet. The old specialist shopfront was gone. So I decided to import some whistles and try to get them promoted - fill the gap so to speak.
In the process of doing that, I came to realize that the "folk" music thing had not dissapeared at all - there were a lot of festivals dedicated to it and sessions were going on in most towns. There were, in fact, already one or 2 specialist businesses in the country - accessable mostly via the internet.
The internet became, for me, the only entrance from the mainstream back into the modern "folk" scene.
I still import whistles - even make one or 2 myself and cart them around to festivals.
But it is clear to me, that my original desire to promote folk musci back into the mainstream has failed. On both the internet and at folk festivals it's all "preaching to the converted". We remian like an ultra-secret and exclusive society. Without the old media, we have become even more obscure to anyone outside the circle.
The few time I attempted to take my theme into mainstream festivals, it failed for lack of interest - abd those concerns charge the exhibitor fees comensurate with the normal rapacious commercialism the "public" has come to expect. Certainly not viable for a whistle-seller.
Certainly, the COre (and periphery) of traditional celtic music is strong and better networked than ever befor, but for "cultural enrichment" to the wider world, the internet will not be enough whilever it is based on the instant gratification of a google search.
In Ireland, there seems to be better awareness. Seems logical, but the schools there support it and provide more incentive for someone to search youtube for a tune.
There DOES seem to be hope for expanding trad. The internet has done one very important thing - it has destroyed the record companies and made a joke of "intellectual property". The upshot of that is that our cuiltural tastes are no longer dictated by a fake "industry" - the gate-keepers have been struck-down and we can pass without having our pockets emptied. Many will find their way home. We can help by seeding the corporate media and schools with hints and guidelines to make entry more possible. After all - this is the cultural heritage of the mass. TIme will tell.
# Posted on October 19th 2009 by Mozle
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
The internet has *given* us freeware & is willing to *share* certain applications, at a nominal fee. Perhaps we now are the gate keepers, don't know. There is a price though ~ we keep the lights on longer, so the gadgets can do their thing.
Good to know there is still time for the tradition of playing tunes with our mates. Ironically, the only reason I began using email was because I was playing in a session. Now, most of my mates are barely able to read through all their mail.
# Posted on October 19th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
a friend of my father-in-laws' computer froze up recently, jammed with 40,000 emails _ the mind boggles
# Posted on October 19th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
Mozie, you spent a hundred odd words there describing nothing more than an obscure. How then did you come to the conclusion that it is actually "the cultural heritage of the mass"?
# Posted on October 19th 2009 by ...
I don't think I even know 40,000 people. Maybe in some virtual reality.
# Posted on October 19th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
sorry, ... an obscure hobby. How then ...
# Posted on October 19th 2009 by ...
Re: The internet as mediator in ITM: My thesis
now now everyone . . .
# Posted on October 20th 2009 by lisaniska