I just received the Trac magazine which covers Welsh traditional music. Their reporter visited Ennis and wrote the following, which I thought was worth seeing. Apologies for quoting it in its entirety but unless you get Trac, you won't see this. I found bits of it quite provocative. Maybe it's cobblers? As I don't live in Ireland I can't tell - but it has some interesting things to say...
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For fans of Irish music, the annual Traditional Music Festival in Ennis is an important calendar date, so including a conference for professional musicians is a welcome development in the programming.
Organised in and by Glor Irish Music Centre, Cruinniu '07 focused on "Making a Living in the Traditional Arts" and featured some of the Big Guns of the Irish Trad scene. Fiddler and local-boy-made-good Martin Hayes gave the Opening Address, and the conference closed with an 'audience' and masterclass with Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains. In between, speakers included Garry West, MD of Compass Records; US Music Attorney Bob Donnelly; Donald Shaw of Capercaillie; Brian McDonagh of Dervish; and Bryn Ormrod, programmer at the Barbican - to name a few.
From a Welsh perspective, it was interesting to hear some top names admit that the current 'high' of Irish trad music is largely based on perception rather than fact - a perception that is fuelled by Guinness ad campaigns and 'bought' largely by the Irish diaspora. One artist despaired that Irish music was being defined by the 'session' to the detriment of the art, and the craft. Indeed, although the Festival ensured that pubs throughout the town hired in musicians to 'create' sessions, the product for the most part lacked vitality and was pretty formulaic.
The professional musicians at Cruinniu repeatedly appealed to artists to remember that they must communicate beyond the committed trad community. Performances need to be 'tight', with programme variety and no 'dead air'.
The Conference shifted up a gear when discussions turned to the gritty world of business. Garry West of Compass Records offered some interesting statistics. For instance, although top Irish artists might sell 20,000 CDs, the average in the Irish market is more like 1000. All the American contingent, however, subscribed to the "Long Tail" economic theory which shows that a big selling pop CD might 'go platinum', it only sells in the short term; niche market product, like 'Celtic', sells respectably initially and goes on selling - a long tail - for up to years thereafter. (Food for thought. Where should Wales be investing, then?)
No quick answers were supplied for the big questions facing the recording industry. All were agreed that on-line downloads were killing the CD market, with sales in the USA down by 28%. Artists aren't, however, doing themselves any favours by self-publishing; '"unfettered and free' artists do not necessarily produce good CDs. Publishers still add discernment, technical expertise, distribution, 'branding', and a host of other values to the product. Repeatedly, reference was made to the "360° Deal" as the future paradigm, with the artist signing to a label or promoter which offered a package of publishing, distribution, promotion, tours, et al - and taking its cut at all levels.
All conference sessions took place in the Glor Centre, purpose built as an Irish Music Centre in 2001 but already forced to move into a broad base programme. Built on the false assumption that bus-loads of tourists would appear on a regular basis for Irish music extravaganzas, reality has bitten hard. It's a lovely centre, with a genuine welcome, but not in keeping with the true nature of the music for which it is built. In complete contrast was the amazing Cois na hAbhna on the edge of town - a stunning centre for East Clare, with round auditorium seating perhaps 200, three smaller spaces, and a Comholtas traditional music library. Would that Wales had one of these in each county!
A two-day conference has provided much food for thought. Attending from Wales were myself, and Antony Owen Hicks from ACW, which also funded bursaries for three young Welsh musicians to attend - fiddlers Jo Cooper and Angharad Jenkins and flautist Elin Roberts. Interesting it was to listen to Irish worries of being marginalised (!) and it may be that we can learn to avoid some of the pitfalls facing the more 'mature' Celtic artists. Maybe the grass isn't so much greener on the other side.
My own 2 cents: I guess it's saying that the traditional arts aren't inherently "commercial". No surprises there - but there is also a picture of Paul Flynn, who has a new post of "Trad Music Officer at Arts Council Ireland, with a 4,000,000 euro budget for the genre." I'm never totally convinced about throwing public money at the arts - but let's hope it does the right sort of good!
Admittedly coming from the sidelines of the whole commercial thing, still I tend to agree with Mark. Really retro ITM is not very commercial yet, and I believe to be more commercial it would likely have to transform into something else. (Riverdance?)
I am not certain who the artists/speakers were addressing when they called for presentations that will reach beyond the existant trad fandom of ITM. And tighter performances, greater variety, with no dead air? They are speaking only to other paid professionals, right?
BTW: Different topic, sorry -- Could someone recommend any good traditional Welsh fiddle music recordings? I would be interested to hear what WTM is supposed to sound like on fiddle, from a Welshman who really plays it correctly.
( Nothing progressive or electric, please!)
Well no surprise there. But rook, they are not talking about pros but all of us. This dead air thing is a killer! chat chat etc. a big part of the buzz from music is a cumulative effect building up from the start to the finish, if you stop for a fag and a natter after every tune this does not happen.
A lot of the complaints above have been issues we have discussed here, for eg's Formulaic sessions etc.
Pay me and you can have two full sets with an intermission. I'll even announce the sets and songs. I'll make jokes, tell stories, and relate history. I'll even flirt with the sweet little old Irish American ladies. Not paying? I'll yackety yack and smoke when I please, thank you very much.
Well some comment is possible there, Glor was built for Ennis, The Chamber of commerce and the business heads all assumed it would bring in the 'millions' of tourist revenue if 100% traditional music was programmed.
Putting Katie Verling at the helm of the centre was a good move as from the start she took the broader view and profiled Glor as a broad cultural centre for Ennis, and despite initial financial losses (that could be expected really, the first summer of every evening trad concerts that were part of the brief for tourist saw many night of audience numbers of two to five) the centre does bring wonderful programming to Clare.
Cois na hAbhna takes the typical narrow Comhaltas view of music and while I am far from putting down the efforts of Frank Whelan and his team I would personally not go near it, not even after 4 million of government money was poured in to renovate it and bring it to it's current standard.
On the other hand I have appeared at several concerts in Glor and been in the audience for many more and contrary to what the article puts forward it is an excellent venue for traditional music, especially when the concerts are smaller and the artists play 'on the floor' close to the audience.
Some examples recorded at a small setting in Glor a few weeks ago:
Self produced CDs are the norm in Irish music, no record company is interested in small fry selling 1000 t o1500 copies over a number of years. It's fine, I wouldn't do it any other way. It's not a music that suits a business model.
SWFL. That is hardly the point is it? The point surely, [if there is one!] is that we have fun making music, therefor; the better the music, the better the fun, the better the fun, the better the music, a positive spiral. Payment is hardly relevant, ok perhaps you are not interested in the players or listeners enjoying them selves but i find that unlikely. My point is that making music is like making love.
Of course that's the point. I do it because I love it and I want to share it. If demands are going to be made on me, when I am doing what I love, then pay me. You want a PERFORMANCE that is tight with variety and no dead air? Well of course, that's what a PERFORMANCE is. You have to PAY me for a PERFORMANCE. Seems simple to me.
I guess the conference was about making a living in the traditional arts. Perhaps the session is an exchange / conversation involving the mutual giving and receiving of music (I can see the making love analogy here) and a performance is also an exchange, but between music and money (not sure I want to go there with the analogy, but there's nothing wrong with exchanging music for money). As soon as money becomes involved, to me it becomes a different transaction, and one that's less equal and more of a customer-supplier relationship.
But there allready demands, you play ITm at an ITM session,[with exceptions of course], You need to know the tunes, another demand. play together, another demand, etc.
The point is that the music and energy is better if you acknowledge these things. Thats the point. If you understand the myrid aspects of trad you will be better at it. This building up of energy is one. Untill you have experiance of the way a session can build up and reach unimaginable heights you wont know what you are missing. And the puntrs wont understand what is so incredible about a kicking session. There are so many different aspects and its only when all the ground is covered, so to speak, that the full potential is realised. Technical virtuosity in a mechanical skill is but one, and not such an important one as well! The spirit, energy, feel, power, comes from other less tangible parts. this tightness of performance , continuation of the buzz without down time is another.
I know there has been a lot of discussion about 'performance' but I personally feel that any public playing of music is a 'performance' and if its not then its only because the players are too wrapped up in their own ego's.
The demands that I put on myself and my fellow session players put on themselves are done out of love and respect for the music and culture, not from the expectations of an audience, an employer or a professional musician handing down dictates.
We study it, practice it and live with it daily out of love. Of course it's wonderful when you have the magic building of energy, the sets that never end, etc. but these can not be forced, dictated or paid for. They must come spontaneously from the love the musicians have of the music.
...and if someone wants to go smoke, go smoke. If there's a break in the action and someone wants to yack, yack. We should all ban that from our sessions because of a conference of professional musicians complaining about it? This is what I have issue with. Is not the informality of a session a significant part of why it is so wonderful and a vital ingredient of the elusive magic we seek to generate every time? It seems to me they are speaking about paid performances and they're spot on, yes, no dead air, variety, keep it moving, etc., but why whine about sessions?
The clips were recorded at the Kitty Hayes Tribute concert in Glor on nov 15th. A lovely intimate evening in an environment that suited it down to the ground. Kitty Hayes played ofcourse, Josephine Marsh played box on the Galway Rambler and fiddle on everything else, Mick Kinsella harmonica, Peter Laban pipes, Eoin O Neill bouzouki and on the second clip the Fear an Ti Tim Dennehy introduced and sang and Dympna O Sullivan joined on concertina
It still seems to me you are missing my point, that being that the music is but one part of this traditional art form, the suprficial obvious apect. The craic is a big part as well, without his you just have notes but no 'music'. the dance as well, is the exhuberant manifestation of the music in a pysical form.
My point, admitadly not well expressed, is that any seperation between 'audiance' and player is an illusion, It is simply the ego of the performer that puts forward this concept. we are all part of the occasion, we are not seperate but togther. So the idea that we play or perform for the 'audiance' just shows a lack of understanding of this deeper level.
So these gaps, the dead air, is simply an energy drop in the 'event' of the session, the egos of th performers telling them that they are the ones that matter, they can do as they please, Some players may even frown upon other playrs filling the space ttime with a tune because its not 'them' ! Perhap they dont want to be shown up, to loose their pre-eminant position as 'star' performers, or a s 'anchor' men, or as 'name 'players. !! What a bunch of egocentric gits there are in this field as there are in any.
Power and control! sad eh?
Fortunately this kind of thing is not prevalent , allthough there is too much. WE are fortunate that the true upholders of this tradition understand this . I just sit at the feet of these people, masters of 20 30 40 50 years of total imersion, a living tradition.
I hear ya jig, and I gotcha, but with a paid gig, a performance, you are pandering to an audience. You have to, that's what you're being paid for. When it's a session, it is the community of which you speak: a collective event.
What makes a session special for me as a musician is the lack of work-related pressure. It doesn't feel like work. If I must constantly worry about the audience, dead air, etc., that's a lot of work. It prevents the magic of a session from occurring. The magic requires informality and spontaneity, among many other things.
Build a massive emporium where traditional music is to the fore. Put different groups of good musicians on stage and watch them squirm with embarrassment as they try in vain, with eyes cast downwards, to have a chat with the audience between sets. Some of the old pros can get away with it, but the majority just want to get it over with and get back to the pub where they can play their hearts out and enjoy the music. Let's face it, traditional music is a minority music played mostly by country folk. I'll change my mind on that when our local Bank Manager sits in on one of our sessions.
[the product for the most part lacked formality and was pretty formulaic.]
i'm not sure who said this, the poster or the welsh article author, or someone at the conference.
but traditional irish music as played by some of the cream of county clare & beyond in the pubs & hotels of ennis & at glor during that festival, is not a "product." it does not lack vitality. and it was no more "formulaic" than any other traditional roots music such as klezmer, cajun, or tex-mex. these comments make sense only from a perspective requiring constant variation, and "novelty" in music rather than playing to traditional parameters. and that sort of perspective is not apt in this context.
there is something nauseating about, not the article, which is indeed provocative and fascinating, but about the comments ascribed to the irish-musician panelists, actually, about their very participation. i almost can't believe that the named musicians would say stuff like this. there is no "living" to speak of, be made in this music. or, as kilfar put it, it does not fit a business model. it never did. the great players of it, who remain unmatched, have been farmers, tinkers, bricklayers, a coffin builder or two, and other trades. and today, most of the fine and serious traditional exponents of this music make their dosh at another profession or trade & remain free to play the music as excellently as they can, not as a "business," but to do justice to this music.....god, did martin hayes and moloney really say stuff like this???? i can't believe it.
well, here is an attempt to paste the link to the pdf of the programme and panelist bios for this wing-ding. i think the five minutes that the music was slightly commerically "hot" during the 60s/70s bothy period, and the five minutes that it was slightly commercially "hot" during the 90s riverdance-meets-world-music thing, have some folks confused....
'but traditional irish music as played by some of the cream of county clare & beyond in the pubs & hotels of ennis & at glor during that festival, is not a "product." it does not lack vitality.'
The problem is the festival is contrary to what you say looked upon by the Ennis Chamber of Commerce and the various business interests and sponsors as a product. The local papers only write about it in terms of financial worth to the town, numbers of foreign visitors it attracts and 'bed nights' for the local hotels and B&Bs. I am sure the organisers would have a different take but to pub owners and businesses it's just 'a product' and they'd be happy to trade for the next fad that gets people in the door. Unfortunately I think you'll find the festival will have no venue as soon as it's sales potential to the town runs out.
I am not sure 'there's no money to be made' by musicians. In fact I don't think it's never been better if you're willing to go travelling the States and work the tionols etc for workshops and concerts. Some people are doing quite nicely out of that, which is fine, they're doing what they love. But it's not a life that suits all.
Very nicely put, ceemonster, if I may say so,and thanks for the link.
As I see it, the core of the music is the actual experience of making it. Seems to me that the thinking behind both the 'Making a living' get together and the welsh journalist's piece is an attempt to move the emphasis towards 'commercial product and profitable exploitation'.
Some time ago the RTE program 'The Raw Bar' devoted one of it's slots to a discussion of the future of irish music (I know, it's a bit done to death as a subject for papers and seminars). Nicholas Carolan saw the music go back, after the hype, to something shared among peers. Music played by musicians and being discussed among musicians. To an extend I believe the core of it never actually got far away from that in the first place and he was probably right in predicting that as the future direction.
I don't particularly favour the attitudes of those newly jumped on the bandwagon who merely look upon traditional culture (let's cast the net a bit wider than just music) as a resource there to be milked for the purpose of various agendas (be they financial, political etc).
I agree with Wolfbird and Kilfarboy Those who are only product selling for gain will drop it for the next quick euro /pound/dollar, we can expect no more ,no less .
I like the idea of a community or peers, sharing music and enjoyment. A web site would help this great idea …………………………………………………………………………….
A nice yellow mustard back ground would be look good as will. I had better start searching
I don't know about that now. I actually quite agree with whoever bemoaned the fact that to some people 'the session' has become the ultimate (and to some people 'the tradition', as if joining a session for a few tunes would suddenly make you part of that tradition. Sessions may be a very visible side of the musical tradition but to me they are only a small part of what I perceive as 'the tradition'). And I would agree that (tunnel) vision is limiting and detrimental to the craft and art of musicians. Maybe that's a subject for another day though.
Sounds like an interesting and important point that you are making there, kilfarboy. Perhaps if you have time you'll expand on what you mean. I'm curious as to what the less visible constituents, the larger portion, of 'the tradition' are, in your view.
hi - the part about 'formulaic' was made by someone at the conference - I think. I just posted the article as I found it interesting. I did find that line slightly weird - the "product" being, presumably, music. I guess it's just music-business-jargon.
' " Marketing is vital to the success of folk music as it is to all types of music. "
Quoted from pdf on TRAC site.
Seems to me it's the usual phenomena of bureaucrats and marketing folks trying to create jobs for themselves. '
Their premiss is that it's something that needs to be sold (the 'product' thing again) which, in fairness, follows from the 'how to make a living at it' theme of the conference.
That aside, it's obvious the thing has survived quite nicely for a while without marketing strategies and business models in place although Garret Barry, Johnny Doran and the like making a living at it must have placed themselves in a position that could to a degree be interpreted as marketing themselves.
There's the standard business model for products which assumes that markets are created by advertising and persuading people to buy, which has eclipsed that old adage that "if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door".
Seems to me a number of Irish musicians are sufficiently known and revered, they don't need " signing to a label or promoter which offered a package of publishing, distribution, promotion, tours, et al - and taking its cut at all levels."
Obviously, the traditions of Wales and Ireland are very different, the welsh traditional music of rural areas is almost entirely lost apart from a few fragments, so there's no continuity going back over time. Maybe there are sound arguments for using public funds to promote 'folk' music in Wales. I'm not confident that such artificial aids can produce authentic enthusiasm.
I wonder if Max Boyce had it right when he said that the Welsh had kept their language but lost their music to Hymns and Arias?
Thank goodness Ireland has had a different path .
I am no expert, but from what i have gleaned, at one time, villages and towns had fiddlers and whistlers who emerged for local celebrations, along with itinerant musicians who attended markets and fairs, but those native tradition got crushed during the 19th.C religious revivals, when the zealots wanted the population regulated and controlled.The ministers preached to congregations sitting on the pews in chapel that singing hymns was acceptable whilst dancing about to fiddle tunes belonged to the devil.
I was fascinated to read macruiskeen's (if I remember right?) post and link a few days ago concerning the Irish Dance Halls Act, and Junior Crehan's account of what happened. I don't think that 'top down' bureacratic manipulation of music (and much else) can produce genuine heart-felt music. It's like the difference between the punk movement and the eurovison song contest.
hmm....about the money to be made or not made....sorry, when i said "living," i meant, a real living, not zero money. i'm guessing here, and i'm talking in the u.s., but i know a fair share of pro musicians, in rock and other genres, (ha, the front man of flogging molly lived on my street for several years) and my guess would be on the itm circuit, that you could make what jane austen might call some nice "pin money," doing rounds of tionols or whatever....beyond the "pin money" level, i would guess that if you were not raising a family or carrying a mortgage, and you had a free-or-cheap living situation, and (if you're america-based and not privy to european universal health care) you are willing to chance it without health insurance, you could makea sort of a living and have the time of your life until you got sick of it. but, a "real" living....i grant there are a few doing it, but i would be surprised if there were more than a few. some of them are married to people, (often females), who have professions which provide the anchor income that enables the musician to make the rounds. this is not true in all cases, of course. i do know for sure of two extremely accomplished u.s.-based itm musicians who tried it and had to desist. they had families, and equal-partnership type marriages. and it is simply not possible to even contribute 50% to raising a family on house concerts & tionols. this is all the more true for "pure drop" players. because the fact is that of those who are making more of a go of it, a fair share are tweaking the "product" in the kinds of ways "suggested" by this panel discussion, indeed because it draws the commercial audiences. that's not bad, but if you want to play the p.d., you need a day job. and even the folks on the riverdance circuit often are uni-educated profession types of some sort....this is a fascinating discussion.
I am not quite sure what 'living' in the US sense is I suppose on forums I hear US people complain they can't 'live' on incomes two to five times of what my family are getting by on (not complaining, we're fine even though the cost of living in Ireland is very high) and I do see people live quite happily off their playing, nothing lavish in most cases (although comfortably suburban in some other). I know of one who has given up a uni teaching position for the life of a roaming tionol teacher/gigger.
It's whatever you love doing and makes you happy I suppose.
I think this takes us into quite deep waters...I mentioned in another thread that when a person plays music, inevitably, whether they are at all conscious of it or not, they are doing it from an internal psychological, emotional, philosophical position.
You've got your biblical or ancient greek shepherd boy, alone in the mountains all day with his flock, who plays flute that nobody else hears. The music comes straight from the heart, it's whatever pleases his ears. There's no question of self-promotion or pleasing a crowd or competing with others. It's just a natural expression of being human, like birds singing.
That kind of playing is in very marked contrast to someone who is in a studio, with a deadline to meet, who is required to produce something that will appeal to the widest possible market sector, with profits that will satisfy the record label and the publicity agency and all the other vested interests. The exec producer will say 'You can't do that, nobody will buy it!'
Mark restrained himself from pursuing the 'making love,making money' analogy, but I think it's pertinent. You can go to bed with your sweetheart, your dearest love to whom you're faithful, or, you can have sex with someone you find rather unpleasant to make a bit of money. Isn't this something everybody knows, since Adam delved and Eve spun ?
As I see it, one quality that makes ITM special and attractive is that it has retained integrity. There are still people who play what they believe is honouring the tradition, not what will earn them an easy dollar/pound/euro.
It's a very different cultural paradigm to the planned obsolescence of mainstream popular music. In pop and rock music, you buy the best, but then a week later, there's a new 'best', so you're obliged to buy that, so you're always chasing the beast and throwing money at it. That's what the music industry likes. It's the revenue stream that matters, not the music.
Comes down to a matter of philosphy and morality and personal integrity. I think a lot of people hate what they have to do to earn their money, feed the kids, pay the mortgage. It's maybe a good reason to admire and respect those few who refuse to sell out.
I wish we had something like a Glor Centre in Australia funded by the government, instead of having to grovel to publicans (landlords you call them! That is being very generous isn't it?)
for a place to play, and getting the shove when the dollars don't start flowing to the owners in quantities unrealistically expected.
If you are ever unlucky enough to have your government in Ireland approve (I don't think they have - yet) gaming machines poker machines, variously called, then you will have a difficult time finding any publican wanting a session of any type to get in the way of gambling machines in the same space.
I think there is approximately one pub in Sydney Australia now which has a session, and this takes place hard up against the lines of machines with their various signature digital riff drifting through the tunes. (And this is a pub with Irish management. Others just regard the genre as wholly too foreign, and just can't get their heads around it, because there aren't laser lights to go with it.
'I wish we had something like a Glor Centre in Australia funded by the government, instead of having to grovel to publicans (landlords you call them! That is being very generous isn't it?)
for a place to play, and getting the shove when the dollars don't start flowing to the owners in quantities unrealistically expected.'
Well, I guess you probably have, it's a theatre/concert hall/exhibition place/ coffeeshop with a programming of a broad spectrum of cultural activities. www.glor.ie
I know it, Kil. I've seen the site with envy. We don't have one, unless you want to include the Sydney Opera House in that.
Altan last played there in the Sydney Festival, but only because the managing director of the festival was an Irishman. Many people walked out of the concert because they couldn't relate.
I recognised a lot of the hundreds who stayed though, but there is a sense of isolation nevertheless among them.
We don't have a glor.ie unfortunately. I would think though that it is fairly unrealistic for them to think they will be very profitable with trad-only shows. A broader "cultural" program would be great, and necessary. Literature, music, current events, etc, etc. It looks like a great venue to me.
I will be following you up for a few tunes when I'm next there.
Well my point was it was instigated as a 'traditonal music centre of excellence' by the town's business interests. It took a while to get it built but eventually it arrived and Katie Verling was put in place as managing director. There was some resistance against her, she has a mind of her own, but she immediately took on the broader view and programmed stand-up, modern dance, classical, theatre and whatever came to hand as well as offering a stage for traditional music (but only as a part of the whole cultural package). Clare is lucky to have it, that's for sure.
Point taken, Kil. I can imagine the business community thinking like that. It's the compartmentalising/ *productising* approach.
Although ITM (I don't really go for the label, but it's handy I suppose) has a strong following, it's well to remember that the vast majority of *the rest* of the population maybe don't go for it. It seems to me there are vast numbers of people who much much prefer to hear songs, trad in this context, but in the general population too - the sung word seems to have sway over instrumental music. Just look at most radio stations around the world. As well, vast numbers love dance (not just Riverdance, but dance in general, and the music is something that is a necessary adjunct to the dance, but it is very much in the background.) Vast numbers also like spoken word in the context for example of television drama, and movies, arguably the modern equivalent increasingly, of stage plays in previous times.
A place like glor can certainly be a place of excellence for ITM, but it they were to have relied on that solely, maybe the numbers wouldn't ever have been there, often enough, to make it viable - and allow it to survive.
Same with opera perhaps - opera houses often have other things than opera on there, for the same reason I suspect.
hmmm....ok, in terms of making a "living" in america, i can assure you, that if you are raising a family as opposed to committing to being single or childlessin order to be able to live a gigging life as an itm musician, you are not going to be able to pay rent on a family dwelling, let alone purchase a home, nor are you going to be able to secure health insurance for your children, on tionols & house concerts. no way, jose. people try it and have to quit. there is a lot of mythology out there, i'm not saying out-and-out-lying, but smoke and mirrors, about these realities, because of the mythology that holds you're not an "artist" if you work a profession or job. but most of the people playing the tionols i've experienced, as well as house concerts & serious fests such as catskills, have professions. they sked their performing & teaching around their jobs and they have wonderful lives in the music. they play, record, & teach in their home communities, and then they travel selectively. those who are doing the itm circuit on a fulltime basis, either do it for a short while and stop, or they are single or childless and often subsidized by a significant other who is carrying the heavy weight, an arrangement that tends to take a toll on relationships. some of these folks are at a young life phase where they are free and happy to sleep on sleep on couches in the towns where they perform. others have made a point of remaining single or childless precisely so they can perform as a lifestyle. others are single/childless because they torched early marriages/families due to pitfalls of the touring life. it might be true that there are fulltime itm performers in ireland making a living doing it, but the great majority of irish players i know of, have jobs, and sked around their jobs as do the u.s.-based folks. i'm not saying it's impossible. but.....once that little folkie organization bringing you in to perform in their town has paid your airfare & put you up on their couch and cooked you breakfast while you're there, there ain't much cash over that.
What worries me about the scene, seems to be the tendency of younger sessioneers to devote the large part of their lives in their twenties and even thirties to learning and *belonging* to the scene, and not attending to the *establishment* phase of their lives e.g. getting a house, establishing a career, family, and then hit the wall in the mid-thirties or the famous 40 crunch, and not have the economic underpining. I have heard excellent players then give up, saying they have *work to do, mortgages to pay*. It is a whole lot less stressful approaching the scene *after* all that boring spade work has been done.
The problem in Ireland - if it is a problem - is that it's patrons expect and get their pleasure very cheaply. They are offered dances and concerts at around the ten euro mark. In most of the other music forms the bottom price is at least five times that.
At the 'Crossroads' conference in Dublin a few years back Reg Hall read a paper about the history of the music. He pointed out that in the eighteenth centuary music making was restricted to pofessionals who owned quite expensive musical instruments which the ordinary person couldn't afford and wouldn't have the time or opportunity to learn how to play. Blind people were often set up by philanthropists as in the case of Carolan and the pipers as a proffession that would give them a living.
Reg then pointed out that it was only the industrial revolution that could supply instruments affordable by the general public. This resulted in a boom in rural music-making and lead to the formation of bands of ear-players where the only member who could read music might be the local school mistress on the piano.
The early part of the last century saw the vast majority of musicians treating their music as a subsidised hobby with the day job providing the living and music at night a few bob to play around with.
At the moment with the admission prices mentioned at the begining most of the participents, organisers and players opperate on an amature basis. A lot like the GAA (in fact a lot of the people are the same) who are concerned about their amature status. This has lead to the two or three piece ceili band - melody instrument, keyboard and drum machine.
Traditional (dance) music is very much a minority interest and although its not difficult to find in certain areas very few people are making a living soley from it.
i think that the post Romantic notion of "Art" or, "the Artist," as separate and apart from the rest of life, while seductive, perhaps has done more harm than good to culture.....whether you're using the ancient Green or Renaissance model, where one was artistically excellent while also excelling in science, scholarship, statesmanship and/or warfare, or whether you're using the model that has served just about every world culture until the industrial era, namely, that one created what we now separate as capital-a "Art," just as part of life, while hunting, gathering, farming, etc.....that more holistic approach may be the one that proves more profound and long-lived. the problem with the paradigm that prevails in america, where people believe only the teeny fraction who can make gazillions at it are allowed to be "creative," is that you then have a culture where everybody else is a consuming vegetable. big-time sports is the most revolting example of this phenom, but it also prevails in arts & culture. i'm a believer in the DIY aesthetic forged by the punk movement, where you subsidize your creativity with a job or do it all the time on subsistence level, and i think this works great for people whose muse calls them to art forms such as itm, which don't fit a commercial business model. fair play to those these panelists claim can do it, but there is an incredibly fun, rich, and creative life to be had in the music for those who can find resourceful ways to work and also play. natch, it helps if you got your chops as a kid. this seems to be the case with just about every lovely young player in the "bloom of youth" interviews, virtually all of which are studying astronomy, dentistry, teaching, nursing, etc-----and still playing up a storm.
State of the Art in Ireland?
State of the Art in Ireland?
I just received the Trac magazine which covers Welsh traditional music. Their reporter visited Ennis and wrote the following, which I thought was worth seeing. Apologies for quoting it in its entirety but unless you get Trac, you won't see this. I found bits of it quite provocative. Maybe it's cobblers? As I don't live in Ireland I can't tell - but it has some interesting things to say...
*****
For fans of Irish music, the annual Traditional Music Festival in Ennis is an important calendar date, so including a conference for professional musicians is a welcome development in the programming.
Organised in and by Glor Irish Music Centre, Cruinniu '07 focused on "Making a Living in the Traditional Arts" and featured some of the Big Guns of the Irish Trad scene. Fiddler and local-boy-made-good Martin Hayes gave the Opening Address, and the conference closed with an 'audience' and masterclass with Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains. In between, speakers included Garry West, MD of Compass Records; US Music Attorney Bob Donnelly; Donald Shaw of Capercaillie; Brian McDonagh of Dervish; and Bryn Ormrod, programmer at the Barbican - to name a few.
From a Welsh perspective, it was interesting to hear some top names admit that the current 'high' of Irish trad music is largely based on perception rather than fact - a perception that is fuelled by Guinness ad campaigns and 'bought' largely by the Irish diaspora. One artist despaired that Irish music was being defined by the 'session' to the detriment of the art, and the craft. Indeed, although the Festival ensured that pubs throughout the town hired in musicians to 'create' sessions, the product for the most part lacked vitality and was pretty formulaic.
The professional musicians at Cruinniu repeatedly appealed to artists to remember that they must communicate beyond the committed trad community. Performances need to be 'tight', with programme variety and no 'dead air'.
The Conference shifted up a gear when discussions turned to the gritty world of business. Garry West of Compass Records offered some interesting statistics. For instance, although top Irish artists might sell 20,000 CDs, the average in the Irish market is more like 1000. All the American contingent, however, subscribed to the "Long Tail" economic theory which shows that a big selling pop CD might 'go platinum', it only sells in the short term; niche market product, like 'Celtic', sells respectably initially and goes on selling - a long tail - for up to years thereafter. (Food for thought. Where should Wales be investing, then?)
No quick answers were supplied for the big questions facing the recording industry. All were agreed that on-line downloads were killing the CD market, with sales in the USA down by 28%. Artists aren't, however, doing themselves any favours by self-publishing; '"unfettered and free' artists do not necessarily produce good CDs. Publishers still add discernment, technical expertise, distribution, 'branding', and a host of other values to the product. Repeatedly, reference was made to the "360° Deal" as the future paradigm, with the artist signing to a label or promoter which offered a package of publishing, distribution, promotion, tours, et al - and taking its cut at all levels.
All conference sessions took place in the Glor Centre, purpose built as an Irish Music Centre in 2001 but already forced to move into a broad base programme. Built on the false assumption that bus-loads of tourists would appear on a regular basis for Irish music extravaganzas, reality has bitten hard. It's a lovely centre, with a genuine welcome, but not in keeping with the true nature of the music for which it is built. In complete contrast was the amazing Cois na hAbhna on the edge of town - a stunning centre for East Clare, with round auditorium seating perhaps 200, three smaller spaces, and a Comholtas traditional music library. Would that Wales had one of these in each county!
A two-day conference has provided much food for thought. Attending from Wales were myself, and Antony Owen Hicks from ACW, which also funded bursaries for three young Welsh musicians to attend - fiddlers Jo Cooper and Angharad Jenkins and flautist Elin Roberts. Interesting it was to listen to Irish worries of being marginalised (!) and it may be that we can learn to avoid some of the pitfalls facing the more 'mature' Celtic artists. Maybe the grass isn't so much greener on the other side.
*****
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
My own 2 cents: I guess it's saying that the traditional arts aren't inherently "commercial". No surprises there - but there is also a picture of Paul Flynn, who has a new post of "Trad Music Officer at Arts Council Ireland, with a 4,000,000 euro budget for the genre." I'm never totally convinced about throwing public money at the arts - but let's hope it does the right sort of good!
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Admittedly coming from the sidelines of the whole commercial thing, still I tend to agree with Mark. Really retro ITM is not very commercial yet, and I believe to be more commercial it would likely have to transform into something else. (Riverdance?)
I am not certain who the artists/speakers were addressing when they called for presentations that will reach beyond the existant trad fandom of ITM. And tighter performances, greater variety, with no dead air? They are speaking only to other paid professionals, right?
BTW: Different topic, sorry -- Could someone recommend any good traditional Welsh fiddle music recordings? I would be interested to hear what WTM is supposed to sound like on fiddle, from a Welshman who really plays it correctly.
( Nothing progressive or electric, please!)
Many thanks.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Rook
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
For starters, go to 'Recordings', click on 'Search', enter just 'Welsh'...
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by ceolachan
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
http://www.fflach.co.uk/cms/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=58
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Well no surprise there. But rook, they are not talking about pros but all of us. This dead air thing is a killer! chat chat etc. a big part of the buzz from music is a cumulative effect building up from the start to the finish, if you stop for a fag and a natter after every tune this does not happen.
A lot of the complaints above have been issues we have discussed here, for eg's Formulaic sessions etc.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by jig
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Pay me and you can have two full sets with an intermission. I'll even announce the sets and songs. I'll make jokes, tell stories, and relate history. I'll even flirt with the sweet little old Irish American ladies. Not paying? I'll yackety yack and smoke when I please, thank you very much.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
"Really retro ITM"
That's the first time I've heard that term used in reference to traditional music.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by granama
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Well some comment is possible there, Glor was built for Ennis, The Chamber of commerce and the business heads all assumed it would bring in the 'millions' of tourist revenue if 100% traditional music was programmed.
Putting Katie Verling at the helm of the centre was a good move as from the start she took the broader view and profiled Glor as a broad cultural centre for Ennis, and despite initial financial losses (that could be expected really, the first summer of every evening trad concerts that were part of the brief for tourist saw many night of audience numbers of two to five) the centre does bring wonderful programming to Clare.
Cois na hAbhna takes the typical narrow Comhaltas view of music and while I am far from putting down the efforts of Frank Whelan and his team I would personally not go near it, not even after 4 million of government money was poured in to renovate it and bring it to it's current standard.
On the other hand I have appeared at several concerts in Glor and been in the audience for many more and contrary to what the article puts forward it is an excellent venue for traditional music, especially when the concerts are smaller and the artists play 'on the floor' close to the audience.
Some examples recorded at a small setting in Glor a few weeks ago:
http://www.box.net/shared/xzvcm5pq0j
http://www.box.net/shared/nq2prhsku4
Self produced CDs are the norm in Irish music, no record company is interested in small fry selling 1000 t o1500 copies over a number of years. It's fine, I wouldn't do it any other way. It's not a music that suits a business model.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
SWFL. That is hardly the point is it? The point surely, [if there is one!] is that we have fun making music, therefor; the better the music, the better the fun, the better the fun, the better the music, a positive spiral. Payment is hardly relevant, ok perhaps you are not interested in the players or listeners enjoying them selves but i find that unlikely. My point is that making music is like making love.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by jig
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Thank god I have a big instrument!!
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Of course that's the point. I do it because I love it and I want to share it. If demands are going to be made on me, when I am doing what I love, then pay me. You want a PERFORMANCE that is tight with variety and no dead air? Well of course, that's what a PERFORMANCE is. You have to PAY me for a PERFORMANCE. Seems simple to me.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I guess the conference was about making a living in the traditional arts. Perhaps the session is an exchange / conversation involving the mutual giving and receiving of music (I can see the making love analogy here) and a performance is also an exchange, but between music and money (not sure I want to go there with the analogy, but there's nothing wrong with exchanging music for money). As soon as money becomes involved, to me it becomes a different transaction, and one that's less equal and more of a customer-supplier relationship.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
But there allready demands, you play ITm at an ITM session,[with exceptions of course], You need to know the tunes, another demand. play together, another demand, etc.
The point is that the music and energy is better if you acknowledge these things. Thats the point. If you understand the myrid aspects of trad you will be better at it. This building up of energy is one. Untill you have experiance of the way a session can build up and reach unimaginable heights you wont know what you are missing. And the puntrs wont understand what is so incredible about a kicking session. There are so many different aspects and its only when all the ground is covered, so to speak, that the full potential is realised. Technical virtuosity in a mechanical skill is but one, and not such an important one as well! The spirit, energy, feel, power, comes from other less tangible parts. this tightness of performance , continuation of the buzz without down time is another.
I know there has been a lot of discussion about 'performance' but I personally feel that any public playing of music is a 'performance' and if its not then its only because the players are too wrapped up in their own ego's.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by jig
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
The demands that I put on myself and my fellow session players put on themselves are done out of love and respect for the music and culture, not from the expectations of an audience, an employer or a professional musician handing down dictates.
We study it, practice it and live with it daily out of love. Of course it's wonderful when you have the magic building of energy, the sets that never end, etc. but these can not be forced, dictated or paid for. They must come spontaneously from the love the musicians have of the music.
...and if someone wants to go smoke, go smoke. If there's a break in the action and someone wants to yack, yack. We should all ban that from our sessions because of a conference of professional musicians complaining about it? This is what I have issue with. Is not the informality of a session a significant part of why it is so wonderful and a vital ingredient of the elusive magic we seek to generate every time? It seems to me they are speaking about paid performances and they're spot on, yes, no dead air, variety, keep it moving, etc., but why whine about sessions?
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Kilfarboy- thanks for posting those sound clips- wonderful, warm, relaxed playing. Who are the players?
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by P-K
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
The clips were recorded at the Kitty Hayes Tribute concert in Glor on nov 15th. A lovely intimate evening in an environment that suited it down to the ground. Kitty Hayes played ofcourse, Josephine Marsh played box on the Galway Rambler and fiddle on everything else, Mick Kinsella harmonica, Peter Laban pipes, Eoin O Neill bouzouki and on the second clip the Fear an Ti Tim Dennehy introduced and sang and Dympna O Sullivan joined on concertina
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
It still seems to me you are missing my point, that being that the music is but one part of this traditional art form, the suprficial obvious apect. The craic is a big part as well, without his you just have notes but no 'music'. the dance as well, is the exhuberant manifestation of the music in a pysical form.
My point, admitadly not well expressed, is that any seperation between 'audiance' and player is an illusion, It is simply the ego of the performer that puts forward this concept. we are all part of the occasion, we are not seperate but togther. So the idea that we play or perform for the 'audiance' just shows a lack of understanding of this deeper level.
So these gaps, the dead air, is simply an energy drop in the 'event' of the session, the egos of th performers telling them that they are the ones that matter, they can do as they please, Some players may even frown upon other playrs filling the space ttime with a tune because its not 'them' ! Perhap they dont want to be shown up, to loose their pre-eminant position as 'star' performers, or a s 'anchor' men, or as 'name 'players. !! What a bunch of egocentric gits there are in this field as there are in any.
Power and control! sad eh?
Fortunately this kind of thing is not prevalent , allthough there is too much. WE are fortunate that the true upholders of this tradition understand this . I just sit at the feet of these people, masters of 20 30 40 50 years of total imersion, a living tradition.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by jig
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Thanks, kb- wish I'd been there.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by P-K
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
'the product for the most part lacked vitality and was pretty formulaic'
What a twit.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by eames
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I hear ya jig, and I gotcha, but with a paid gig, a performance, you are pandering to an audience. You have to, that's what you're being paid for. When it's a session, it is the community of which you speak: a collective event.
What makes a session special for me as a musician is the lack of work-related pressure. It doesn't feel like work. If I must constantly worry about the audience, dead air, etc., that's a lot of work. It prevents the magic of a session from occurring. The magic requires informality and spontaneity, among many other things.
eames - "the product" LOL! Seriously. Major twit.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Build a massive emporium where traditional music is to the fore. Put different groups of good musicians on stage and watch them squirm with embarrassment as they try in vain, with eyes cast downwards, to have a chat with the audience between sets. Some of the old pros can get away with it, but the majority just want to get it over with and get back to the pub where they can play their hearts out and enjoy the music. Let's face it, traditional music is a minority music played mostly by country folk. I'll change my mind on that when our local Bank Manager sits in on one of our sessions.
# Posted on December 14th 2007 by Free Reed
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
[the product for the most part lacked formality and was pretty formulaic.]
i'm not sure who said this, the poster or the welsh article author, or someone at the conference.
but traditional irish music as played by some of the cream of county clare & beyond in the pubs & hotels of ennis & at glor during that festival, is not a "product." it does not lack vitality. and it was no more "formulaic" than any other traditional roots music such as klezmer, cajun, or tex-mex. these comments make sense only from a perspective requiring constant variation, and "novelty" in music rather than playing to traditional parameters. and that sort of perspective is not apt in this context.
there is something nauseating about, not the article, which is indeed provocative and fascinating, but about the comments ascribed to the irish-musician panelists, actually, about their very participation. i almost can't believe that the named musicians would say stuff like this. there is no "living" to speak of, be made in this music. or, as kilfar put it, it does not fit a business model. it never did. the great players of it, who remain unmatched, have been farmers, tinkers, bricklayers, a coffin builder or two, and other trades. and today, most of the fine and serious traditional exponents of this music make their dosh at another profession or trade & remain free to play the music as excellently as they can, not as a "business," but to do justice to this music.....god, did martin hayes and moloney really say stuff like this???? i can't believe it.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
well, here is an attempt to paste the link to the pdf of the programme and panelist bios for this wing-ding. i think the five minutes that the music was slightly commerically "hot" during the 60s/70s bothy period, and the five minutes that it was slightly commercially "hot" during the 90s riverdance-meets-world-music thing, have some folks confused....
http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/cominfo/arts/whatson/current/cruinniubooklet_web-4.pdf
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
'but traditional irish music as played by some of the cream of county clare & beyond in the pubs & hotels of ennis & at glor during that festival, is not a "product." it does not lack vitality.'
The problem is the festival is contrary to what you say looked upon by the Ennis Chamber of Commerce and the various business interests and sponsors as a product. The local papers only write about it in terms of financial worth to the town, numbers of foreign visitors it attracts and 'bed nights' for the local hotels and B&Bs. I am sure the organisers would have a different take but to pub owners and businesses it's just 'a product' and they'd be happy to trade for the next fad that gets people in the door. Unfortunately I think you'll find the festival will have no venue as soon as it's sales potential to the town runs out.
I am not sure 'there's no money to be made' by musicians. In fact I don't think it's never been better if you're willing to go travelling the States and work the tionols etc for workshops and concerts. Some people are doing quite nicely out of that, which is fine, they're doing what they love. But it's not a life that suits all.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Very nicely put, ceemonster, if I may say so,and thanks for the link.
As I see it, the core of the music is the actual experience of making it. Seems to me that the thinking behind both the 'Making a living' get together and the welsh journalist's piece is an attempt to move the emphasis towards 'commercial product and profitable exploitation'.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Some time ago the RTE program 'The Raw Bar' devoted one of it's slots to a discussion of the future of irish music (I know, it's a bit done to death as a subject for papers and seminars). Nicholas Carolan saw the music go back, after the hype, to something shared among peers. Music played by musicians and being discussed among musicians. To an extend I believe the core of it never actually got far away from that in the first place and he was probably right in predicting that as the future direction.
I don't particularly favour the attitudes of those newly jumped on the bandwagon who merely look upon traditional culture (let's cast the net a bit wider than just music) as a resource there to be milked for the purpose of various agendas (be they financial, political etc).
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I agree with Wolfbird and Kilfarboy Those who are only product selling for gain will drop it for the next quick euro /pound/dollar, we can expect no more ,no less .
I like the idea of a community or peers, sharing music and enjoyment. A web site would help this great idea …………………………………………………………………………….
A nice yellow mustard back ground would be look good as will. I had better start searching
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
OOOOOOOO look its here already !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I don't know about that now. I actually quite agree with whoever bemoaned the fact that to some people 'the session' has become the ultimate (and to some people 'the tradition', as if joining a session for a few tunes would suddenly make you part of that tradition. Sessions may be a very visible side of the musical tradition but to me they are only a small part of what I perceive as 'the tradition'). And I would agree that (tunnel) vision is limiting and detrimental to the craft and art of musicians. Maybe that's a subject for another day though.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Sounds like an interesting and important point that you are making there, kilfarboy. Perhaps if you have time you'll expand on what you mean. I'm curious as to what the less visible constituents, the larger portion, of 'the tradition' are, in your view.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
hi - the part about 'formulaic' was made by someone at the conference - I think. I just posted the article as I found it interesting. I did find that line slightly weird - the "product" being, presumably, music. I guess it's just music-business-jargon.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
" Marketing is vital to the success of folk music as it is to all types of music. "
Quoted from pdf on TRAC site.
Seems to me it's the usual phenomena of bureaucrats and marketing folks trying to create jobs for themselves.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
' " Marketing is vital to the success of folk music as it is to all types of music. "
Quoted from pdf on TRAC site.
Seems to me it's the usual phenomena of bureaucrats and marketing folks trying to create jobs for themselves. '
Their premiss is that it's something that needs to be sold (the 'product' thing again) which, in fairness, follows from the 'how to make a living at it' theme of the conference.
That aside, it's obvious the thing has survived quite nicely for a while without marketing strategies and business models in place although Garret Barry, Johnny Doran and the like making a living at it must have placed themselves in a position that could to a degree be interpreted as marketing themselves.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
There's the standard business model for products which assumes that markets are created by advertising and persuading people to buy, which has eclipsed that old adage that "if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door".
Seems to me a number of Irish musicians are sufficiently known and revered, they don't need " signing to a label or promoter which offered a package of publishing, distribution, promotion, tours, et al - and taking its cut at all levels."
Obviously, the traditions of Wales and Ireland are very different, the welsh traditional music of rural areas is almost entirely lost apart from a few fragments, so there's no continuity going back over time. Maybe there are sound arguments for using public funds to promote 'folk' music in Wales. I'm not confident that such artificial aids can produce authentic enthusiasm.
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I wonder if Max Boyce had it right when he said that the Welsh had kept their language but lost their music to Hymns and Arias?
Thank goodness Ireland has had a different path .
# Posted on December 15th 2007 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I am no expert, but from what i have gleaned, at one time, villages and towns had fiddlers and whistlers who emerged for local celebrations, along with itinerant musicians who attended markets and fairs, but those native tradition got crushed during the 19th.C religious revivals, when the zealots wanted the population regulated and controlled.The ministers preached to congregations sitting on the pews in chapel that singing hymns was acceptable whilst dancing about to fiddle tunes belonged to the devil.
I was fascinated to read macruiskeen's (if I remember right?) post and link a few days ago concerning the Irish Dance Halls Act, and Junior Crehan's account of what happened. I don't think that 'top down' bureacratic manipulation of music (and much else) can produce genuine heart-felt music. It's like the difference between the punk movement and the eurovison song contest.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
hmm....about the money to be made or not made....sorry, when i said "living," i meant, a real living, not zero money. i'm guessing here, and i'm talking in the u.s., but i know a fair share of pro musicians, in rock and other genres, (ha, the front man of flogging molly lived on my street for several years) and my guess would be on the itm circuit, that you could make what jane austen might call some nice "pin money," doing rounds of tionols or whatever....beyond the "pin money" level, i would guess that if you were not raising a family or carrying a mortgage, and you had a free-or-cheap living situation, and (if you're america-based and not privy to european universal health care) you are willing to chance it without health insurance, you could makea sort of a living and have the time of your life until you got sick of it. but, a "real" living....i grant there are a few doing it, but i would be surprised if there were more than a few. some of them are married to people, (often females), who have professions which provide the anchor income that enables the musician to make the rounds. this is not true in all cases, of course. i do know for sure of two extremely accomplished u.s.-based itm musicians who tried it and had to desist. they had families, and equal-partnership type marriages. and it is simply not possible to even contribute 50% to raising a family on house concerts & tionols. this is all the more true for "pure drop" players. because the fact is that of those who are making more of a go of it, a fair share are tweaking the "product" in the kinds of ways "suggested" by this panel discussion, indeed because it draws the commercial audiences. that's not bad, but if you want to play the p.d., you need a day job. and even the folks on the riverdance circuit often are uni-educated profession types of some sort....this is a fascinating discussion.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I am not quite sure what 'living' in the US sense is I suppose on forums I hear US people complain they can't 'live' on incomes two to five times of what my family are getting by on (not complaining, we're fine even though the cost of living in Ireland is very high) and I do see people live quite happily off their playing, nothing lavish in most cases (although comfortably suburban in some other). I know of one who has given up a uni teaching position for the life of a roaming tionol teacher/gigger.
It's whatever you love doing and makes you happy I suppose.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
"whatever you love doing and makes you happy"
I think this takes us into quite deep waters...I mentioned in another thread that when a person plays music, inevitably, whether they are at all conscious of it or not, they are doing it from an internal psychological, emotional, philosophical position.
You've got your biblical or ancient greek shepherd boy, alone in the mountains all day with his flock, who plays flute that nobody else hears. The music comes straight from the heart, it's whatever pleases his ears. There's no question of self-promotion or pleasing a crowd or competing with others. It's just a natural expression of being human, like birds singing.
That kind of playing is in very marked contrast to someone who is in a studio, with a deadline to meet, who is required to produce something that will appeal to the widest possible market sector, with profits that will satisfy the record label and the publicity agency and all the other vested interests. The exec producer will say 'You can't do that, nobody will buy it!'
Mark restrained himself from pursuing the 'making love,making money' analogy, but I think it's pertinent. You can go to bed with your sweetheart, your dearest love to whom you're faithful, or, you can have sex with someone you find rather unpleasant to make a bit of money. Isn't this something everybody knows, since Adam delved and Eve spun ?
As I see it, one quality that makes ITM special and attractive is that it has retained integrity. There are still people who play what they believe is honouring the tradition, not what will earn them an easy dollar/pound/euro.
It's a very different cultural paradigm to the planned obsolescence of mainstream popular music. In pop and rock music, you buy the best, but then a week later, there's a new 'best', so you're obliged to buy that, so you're always chasing the beast and throwing money at it. That's what the music industry likes. It's the revenue stream that matters, not the music.
Comes down to a matter of philosphy and morality and personal integrity. I think a lot of people hate what they have to do to earn their money, feed the kids, pay the mortgage. It's maybe a good reason to admire and respect those few who refuse to sell out.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by wolfbird
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I wish we had something like a Glor Centre in Australia funded by the government, instead of having to grovel to publicans (landlords you call them! That is being very generous isn't it?)
for a place to play, and getting the shove when the dollars don't start flowing to the owners in quantities unrealistically expected.
If you are ever unlucky enough to have your government in Ireland approve (I don't think they have - yet) gaming machines poker machines, variously called, then you will have a difficult time finding any publican wanting a session of any type to get in the way of gambling machines in the same space.
I think there is approximately one pub in Sydney Australia now which has a session, and this takes place hard up against the lines of machines with their various signature digital riff drifting through the tunes. (And this is a pub with Irish management. Others just regard the genre as wholly too foreign, and just can't get their heads around it, because there aren't laser lights to go with it.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by Duijera Dubh
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
'I wish we had something like a Glor Centre in Australia funded by the government, instead of having to grovel to publicans (landlords you call them! That is being very generous isn't it?)
for a place to play, and getting the shove when the dollars don't start flowing to the owners in quantities unrealistically expected.'
Well, I guess you probably have, it's a theatre/concert hall/exhibition place/ coffeeshop with a programming of a broad spectrum of cultural activities. www.glor.ie
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
I know it, Kil. I've seen the site with envy. We don't have one, unless you want to include the Sydney Opera House in that.
Altan last played there in the Sydney Festival, but only because the managing director of the festival was an Irishman. Many people walked out of the concert because they couldn't relate.
I recognised a lot of the hundreds who stayed though, but there is a sense of isolation nevertheless among them.
We don't have a glor.ie unfortunately. I would think though that it is fairly unrealistic for them to think they will be very profitable with trad-only shows. A broader "cultural" program would be great, and necessary. Literature, music, current events, etc, etc. It looks like a great venue to me.
I will be following you up for a few tunes when I'm next there.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by Duijera Dubh
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Well my point was it was instigated as a 'traditonal music centre of excellence' by the town's business interests. It took a while to get it built but eventually it arrived and Katie Verling was put in place as managing director. There was some resistance against her, she has a mind of her own, but she immediately took on the broader view and programmed stand-up, modern dance, classical, theatre and whatever came to hand as well as offering a stage for traditional music (but only as a part of the whole cultural package). Clare is lucky to have it, that's for sure.
# Posted on December 16th 2007 by kilfarboy
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
Point taken, Kil. I can imagine the business community thinking like that. It's the compartmentalising/ *productising* approach.
Although ITM (I don't really go for the label, but it's handy I suppose) has a strong following, it's well to remember that the vast majority of *the rest* of the population maybe don't go for it. It seems to me there are vast numbers of people who much much prefer to hear songs, trad in this context, but in the general population too - the sung word seems to have sway over instrumental music. Just look at most radio stations around the world. As well, vast numbers love dance (not just Riverdance, but dance in general, and the music is something that is a necessary adjunct to the dance, but it is very much in the background.) Vast numbers also like spoken word in the context for example of television drama, and movies, arguably the modern equivalent increasingly, of stage plays in previous times.
A place like glor can certainly be a place of excellence for ITM, but it they were to have relied on that solely, maybe the numbers wouldn't ever have been there, often enough, to make it viable - and allow it to survive.
Same with opera perhaps - opera houses often have other things than opera on there, for the same reason I suspect.
# Posted on December 17th 2007 by Duijera Dubh
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
hmmm....ok, in terms of making a "living" in america, i can assure you, that if you are raising a family as opposed to committing to being single or childlessin order to be able to live a gigging life as an itm musician, you are not going to be able to pay rent on a family dwelling, let alone purchase a home, nor are you going to be able to secure health insurance for your children, on tionols & house concerts. no way, jose. people try it and have to quit. there is a lot of mythology out there, i'm not saying out-and-out-lying, but smoke and mirrors, about these realities, because of the mythology that holds you're not an "artist" if you work a profession or job. but most of the people playing the tionols i've experienced, as well as house concerts & serious fests such as catskills, have professions. they sked their performing & teaching around their jobs and they have wonderful lives in the music. they play, record, & teach in their home communities, and then they travel selectively. those who are doing the itm circuit on a fulltime basis, either do it for a short while and stop, or they are single or childless and often subsidized by a significant other who is carrying the heavy weight, an arrangement that tends to take a toll on relationships. some of these folks are at a young life phase where they are free and happy to sleep on sleep on couches in the towns where they perform. others have made a point of remaining single or childless precisely so they can perform as a lifestyle. others are single/childless because they torched early marriages/families due to pitfalls of the touring life. it might be true that there are fulltime itm performers in ireland making a living doing it, but the great majority of irish players i know of, have jobs, and sked around their jobs as do the u.s.-based folks. i'm not saying it's impossible. but.....once that little folkie organization bringing you in to perform in their town has paid your airfare & put you up on their couch and cooked you breakfast while you're there, there ain't much cash over that.
# Posted on December 17th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
What worries me about the scene, seems to be the tendency of younger sessioneers to devote the large part of their lives in their twenties and even thirties to learning and *belonging* to the scene, and not attending to the *establishment* phase of their lives e.g. getting a house, establishing a career, family, and then hit the wall in the mid-thirties or the famous 40 crunch, and not have the economic underpining. I have heard excellent players then give up, saying they have *work to do, mortgages to pay*. It is a whole lot less stressful approaching the scene *after* all that boring spade work has been done.
# Posted on December 17th 2007 by Duijera Dubh
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
The problem in Ireland - if it is a problem - is that it's patrons expect and get their pleasure very cheaply. They are offered dances and concerts at around the ten euro mark. In most of the other music forms the bottom price is at least five times that.
At the 'Crossroads' conference in Dublin a few years back Reg Hall read a paper about the history of the music. He pointed out that in the eighteenth centuary music making was restricted to pofessionals who owned quite expensive musical instruments which the ordinary person couldn't afford and wouldn't have the time or opportunity to learn how to play. Blind people were often set up by philanthropists as in the case of Carolan and the pipers as a proffession that would give them a living.
Reg then pointed out that it was only the industrial revolution that could supply instruments affordable by the general public. This resulted in a boom in rural music-making and lead to the formation of bands of ear-players where the only member who could read music might be the local school mistress on the piano.
The early part of the last century saw the vast majority of musicians treating their music as a subsidised hobby with the day job providing the living and music at night a few bob to play around with.
At the moment with the admission prices mentioned at the begining most of the participents, organisers and players opperate on an amature basis. A lot like the GAA (in fact a lot of the people are the same) who are concerned about their amature status. This has lead to the two or three piece ceili band - melody instrument, keyboard and drum machine.
Traditional (dance) music is very much a minority interest and although its not difficult to find in certain areas very few people are making a living soley from it.
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by Alancorsini
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
i think that the post Romantic notion of "Art" or, "the Artist," as separate and apart from the rest of life, while seductive, perhaps has done more harm than good to culture.....whether you're using the ancient Green or Renaissance model, where one was artistically excellent while also excelling in science, scholarship, statesmanship and/or warfare, or whether you're using the model that has served just about every world culture until the industrial era, namely, that one created what we now separate as capital-a "Art," just as part of life, while hunting, gathering, farming, etc.....that more holistic approach may be the one that proves more profound and long-lived. the problem with the paradigm that prevails in america, where people believe only the teeny fraction who can make gazillions at it are allowed to be "creative," is that you then have a culture where everybody else is a consuming vegetable. big-time sports is the most revolting example of this phenom, but it also prevails in arts & culture. i'm a believer in the DIY aesthetic forged by the punk movement, where you subsidize your creativity with a job or do it all the time on subsistence level, and i think this works great for people whose muse calls them to art forms such as itm, which don't fit a commercial business model. fair play to those these panelists claim can do it, but there is an incredibly fun, rich, and creative life to be had in the music for those who can find resourceful ways to work and also play. natch, it helps if you got your chops as a kid. this seems to be the case with just about every lovely young player in the "bloom of youth" interviews, virtually all of which are studying astronomy, dentistry, teaching, nursing, etc-----and still playing up a storm.
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: State of the Art in Ireland?
ha, ancient Greek that would be, not "Green."
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by ceemonster