With all those excursions to Breton, Galician, Scandinavian, Canadian etc. etc. tunes, I sometimes wonder why so few English tunes are played in the Irish music scene. Is there (still) a political reason for this or is it something else? Or am I simply wrong with my observation?
possibly because the ETM scene is so small compared to ITm there is less chance of hearing English tunes. There is, or was, also an antipathy against irish tunes on the English scene. This was possibly to allow the English musics session to concentrate on English stuff but I think it might be that many English practitioners were put off by the perceived virtuosity of Irish music.
There is a large common repertoire and if you listen to older recordings there is more commanality of style as well.
Agree with Paul - there is a large common repertoire. In my limited experience English music has its own "scene" - there are English sessions here in London, such as Greenwich Trad: http://www.greentrad.org.uk/
and in East Anglia: http://www.eatmt.org.uk/
and these are thriving in their own right. Is it possibly because of the intertwining with the Morris tradition that not much seeps into the Irish tradition?
Personally, I don't think there is a "political" reason why English tunes are not played at Irish music sessions. I just think some of them don't "fit" very well. We do get some English tunes played at our session by John Offord and Paul Gross, when they are both present, but we also get some Scottish tunes played. And anyway the number of, as you say, Breton, Galician, Scandinavian, Canadian etc tunes which seep in are relatively small (IMHO).
The rise of some excellent (and younger) performers has helped the ETM side of things a lot, but 10 years ago I think those playing English music felt they were holding back the tide of ITM dominance in sessions. to my mind things are more relaxed now.
It's worth bearing in mind that there are at least three sections under the "English" banner. There's the common "British Isles" repertoire, lots of examples in Peter Kennedy's Fiddlers tune books.
There's the older "Playford" repertoire (and all the 3:2's as collected by John Offord.)
Then there's the "melodeon" repertoire (possibly most of the "lumpy" tunes in this section Mark?) My suspicion is that a lot of this is actually Dutch/German, brought in by bands and mechanical organs in the nineteenth century and highly suitable for melodeons with the rise of the polka.
(Morris tunes cross all three categories. Northumbrian is really a seperate tradition.)
IMHO....
I think paul_draper is right about the defensiveness of some ETM enthusiasts back in the 70s and the reasons for this - to which I would add, irritation at hearing Irish music being played badly by English beginners.
English music has come on over the last few decades. It has been very much investigated and experimented with, and techniques and instruments have come on a whole lot. But listening to an old Old Swan Band disc the other day, I could put my finger on something that differentiates much English band music from Irish equivalents, though it's a big generalisation: Irish bands play tunes, English bands make a band sound. This can be hectic, mellow or hypnotic; at worst, gimmicky and annoying; and it subsumes the tunes. However it also buoys up dull tunes, rather as colouring and flavouring pep up bland food, and there are rather a lot of dull tunes.
However, there are many tunes in the English repertoire that are very ITM-compatible and delightful in their own right. The Durham band Horseplay are fishing these up from Northern English tunebooks etcetera - the discovery of England's past traditional music is by no means complete.
I've been looking at the tunes in Pete Cooper's "Eastern European Fiddle Tunes". I think there are one or two which could just about slip in under the radar in an Irish session.
The weekly English session I go to usually has a smattering of Irish, French, Cornish and Scottish tunes.
TomB-R wrote: 'The rise of some excellent (and younger) performers has helped the ETM side of things a lot '.
It was actually a recent recording, simply called 'Tunes' by Boden and Spiers, which is so brillant (bothe tunes and their playing) that I started wondering.
Added the Sportsman's Hornpipe from this recording to my repertoire.
The antipathy to ITM did indeed come from the behaviour of some English players of Irish music. who would turn up at an English session and try to dominate it by playing endless sets of reels that no-one else knew or wanted to play. Many players of English music also play Irish music or enjoy listening to it, it's just if we've gone to an English/French/Scandinavian session it's because that's what we want to play on that night, I've never come across this 'why don't you stop playing this rubbish and play something decent' attitude from Irish people.
The Morris tradition is important in English music, but by and large Morris tunes arn't played much at sessions. Also we have regional differences! Music in the Gloucestershire area, for example, is much lumpier than up here in 't'North. It reflects the dance style.
We have the usual range of hornpipes, reels, jigs polkas, waltzes . . .
BUT - style should follow the dance. Irish polkas and English polkas have a completely different feel and you can't dance one to t'other,
I have to cut this short otherwise I'll be here for hours, and, in reference to the 'Why do you bother thread'. It's a displacement activity - I should be doing some work.
But just to illustrate. I was at an English festival session. Someone played a long ITm set. Everyone listened politely, then played an English set. Chummy leapt in with another ITM set. This went on all the way through - every other set was long and no-one else could join in. Long? He started another set. I listened for a while and then went to the bar. I asked for a pint of Guiness. The barrel had run out and the barman went and put another one on. He pulled a pint and we went through the waiting-for-it-to settle-business. I went back to the session - and he was still playing the same set. Mr. Insensitivity or what!
Tom BR's triple division of English music - common "British Isles" tunes, melodeon music and Playford etc. - makes a lot of sense to me. Playford could stand as an ancestor of the metropolitan popular music industry tunes that have influenced English music so much, through to music hall, musical numbers and pop music itself.
In cg's story above, pity two or three melodeons didn't agree on a tune and just start in! (For some reason an image of lions and buffaloes comes to mind.....)
I'm not sure any tradition is more guilty of session hogging than any other, (apart from that wretched Klingon music!) If we're there to play Y and someone keeps playing Z, that's irritating, and for some reason their sets always seem to go on much longer than ours....
Sometimes songs and tunes get labelled as Irish when they're good and catchy. I don't think politics come into it. E.g. I'm pretty sure Jump at the Sun is an English tune because it was written by John Kirkpatrick. But I found it classed as an Irish jig. As for songs, you may know that Dirty Old Town was written in Salford and not in Dublin.
If the Irish Washerwoman is Irish, why isn't she just The Washerwoman?
I did some work on a musician's tune book from Leeds (North East of England) I'm either irritated or amused to find it listed in various places on the net as 'Irish'
The tune variously known as Jack/Jacky/Jock Latin/Latten'Layton (and several other variants) appears to be Irish but occurs in several English and Scottish manuscripts and printed sources, indicating it had travelled widely since it's probable origin in 18th century Kildare.
On the other hand, 'Curlew Hills' is often attributed to Michael Gorman, but it exists in a printed source from the 1840's which is in an Australian library, and may well have an Austrian or German original.
Jump at the Sun is a tune written in England by an Englishman working in the English tradition, so it is English! - but if it works in an Irish style, great.
My feeling is, musicians didn't care where a tune came from as long as it was a good tune, and it could be played in their style
I think Key Maniac has it, about English tunes not seeming to fit in an Irish session: their times, speeds, emphases are generally, or often, out of synch with those of ITM.
Some ITM-compatible tunes do arise from English players who are or were accustomed to playing Irish music: Joe Scurfield's Balls To Hall and Dave Richardson's Calliope House are examples. The last is the sort of tune that makes me think "Celtic music" is quite useful as a catch-all label: composed by a Geordie long-term resident in Scotland, named after a building in America, recorded by plenty of people in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere - it's hard to label it more narrowly!
It's often not the tune - it's the style! The Other Person In The House is an extremely good musician with a very good understanding of Irish, Scots and English music (could be something to do with playing a lot for dancing . . .) We've experimented with playing tunes in various style (play it Donegal style, play it Kerry style, play it West Coast Scots style, play it Southern English) With some tunes it works, with others it doesn't. I think it's something to do with the construction of the tune - possibly the instrument it was written for. I think, for example, you can tell pipe tunes by certain patterns in the melody which fall under the fingers particularly well on pipes.
Etm?
Etm?
With all those excursions to Breton, Galician, Scandinavian, Canadian etc. etc. tunes, I sometimes wonder why so few English tunes are played in the Irish music scene. Is there (still) a political reason for this or is it something else? Or am I simply wrong with my observation?
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by Henk Bos
Re: Etm?
possibly because the ETM scene is so small compared to ITm there is less chance of hearing English tunes. There is, or was, also an antipathy against irish tunes on the English scene. This was possibly to allow the English musics session to concentrate on English stuff but I think it might be that many English practitioners were put off by the perceived virtuosity of Irish music.
There is a large common repertoire and if you listen to older recordings there is more commanality of style as well.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by Paul_draper
Re: Etm?
Agree with Paul - there is a large common repertoire. In my limited experience English music has its own "scene" - there are English sessions here in London, such as Greenwich Trad:
http://www.greentrad.org.uk/
and in East Anglia:
http://www.eatmt.org.uk/
and these are thriving in their own right. Is it possibly because of the intertwining with the Morris tradition that not much seeps into the Irish tradition?
Personally, I don't think there is a "political" reason why English tunes are not played at Irish music sessions. I just think some of them don't "fit" very well. We do get some English tunes played at our session by John Offord and Paul Gross, when they are both present, but we also get some Scottish tunes played. And anyway the number of, as you say, Breton, Galician, Scandinavian, Canadian etc tunes which seep in are relatively small (IMHO).
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Etm?
I find many English tunes just plain lumpy!
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Etm?
The rise of some excellent (and younger) performers has helped the ETM side of things a lot, but 10 years ago I think those playing English music felt they were holding back the tide of ITM dominance in sessions. to my mind things are more relaxed now.
It's worth bearing in mind that there are at least three sections under the "English" banner. There's the common "British Isles" repertoire, lots of examples in Peter Kennedy's Fiddlers tune books.
There's the older "Playford" repertoire (and all the 3:2's as collected by John Offord.)
Then there's the "melodeon" repertoire (possibly most of the "lumpy" tunes in this section Mark?) My suspicion is that a lot of this is actually Dutch/German, brought in by bands and mechanical organs in the nineteenth century and highly suitable for melodeons with the rise of the polka.
(Morris tunes cross all three categories. Northumbrian is really a seperate tradition.)
IMHO....
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by TomB-R
Re: Etm?
I think paul_draper is right about the defensiveness of some ETM enthusiasts back in the 70s and the reasons for this - to which I would add, irritation at hearing Irish music being played badly by English beginners.
English music has come on over the last few decades. It has been very much investigated and experimented with, and techniques and instruments have come on a whole lot. But listening to an old Old Swan Band disc the other day, I could put my finger on something that differentiates much English band music from Irish equivalents, though it's a big generalisation: Irish bands play tunes, English bands make a band sound. This can be hectic, mellow or hypnotic; at worst, gimmicky and annoying; and it subsumes the tunes. However it also buoys up dull tunes, rather as colouring and flavouring pep up bland food, and there are rather a lot of dull tunes.
However, there are many tunes in the English repertoire that are very ITM-compatible and delightful in their own right. The Durham band Horseplay are fishing these up from Northern English tunebooks etcetera - the discovery of England's past traditional music is by no means complete.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Etm?
I've been looking at the tunes in Pete Cooper's "Eastern European Fiddle Tunes". I think there are one or two which could just about slip in under the radar in an Irish session.
The weekly English session I go to usually has a smattering of Irish, French, Cornish and Scottish tunes.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Etm?
TomB-R wrote: 'The rise of some excellent (and younger) performers has helped the ETM side of things a lot '.
It was actually a recent recording, simply called 'Tunes' by Boden and Spiers, which is so brillant (bothe tunes and their playing) that I started wondering.
Added the Sportsman's Hornpipe from this recording to my repertoire.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by Henk Bos
Re: Etm?
The antipathy to ITM did indeed come from the behaviour of some English players of Irish music. who would turn up at an English session and try to dominate it by playing endless sets of reels that no-one else knew or wanted to play. Many players of English music also play Irish music or enjoy listening to it, it's just if we've gone to an English/French/Scandinavian session it's because that's what we want to play on that night, I've never come across this 'why don't you stop playing this rubbish and play something decent' attitude from Irish people.
The Morris tradition is important in English music, but by and large Morris tunes arn't played much at sessions. Also we have regional differences! Music in the Gloucestershire area, for example, is much lumpier than up here in 't'North. It reflects the dance style.
We have the usual range of hornpipes, reels, jigs polkas, waltzes . . .
BUT - style should follow the dance. Irish polkas and English polkas have a completely different feel and you can't dance one to t'other,
I have to cut this short otherwise I'll be here for hours, and, in reference to the 'Why do you bother thread'. It's a displacement activity - I should be doing some work.
But just to illustrate. I was at an English festival session. Someone played a long ITm set. Everyone listened politely, then played an English set. Chummy leapt in with another ITM set. This went on all the way through - every other set was long and no-one else could join in. Long? He started another set. I listened for a while and then went to the bar. I asked for a pint of Guiness. The barrel had run out and the barman went and put another one on. He pulled a pint and we went through the waiting-for-it-to settle-business. I went back to the session - and he was still playing the same set. Mr. Insensitivity or what!
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by c.g.
Re: Etm?
Tom BR's triple division of English music - common "British Isles" tunes, melodeon music and Playford etc. - makes a lot of sense to me. Playford could stand as an ancestor of the metropolitan popular music industry tunes that have influenced English music so much, through to music hall, musical numbers and pop music itself.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Etm?
In cg's story above, pity two or three melodeons didn't agree on a tune and just start in! (For some reason an image of lions and buffaloes comes to mind.....)
I'm not sure any tradition is more guilty of session hogging than any other, (apart from that wretched Klingon music!) If we're there to play Y and someone keeps playing Z, that's irritating, and for some reason their sets always seem to go on much longer than ours....
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by TomB-R
Re: Etm?
Klingon music!
Do you know "Aktuh and Melota" ?
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: Etm?
Sometimes songs and tunes get labelled as Irish when they're good and catchy. I don't think politics come into it. E.g. I'm pretty sure Jump at the Sun is an English tune because it was written by John Kirkpatrick. But I found it classed as an Irish jig. As for songs, you may know that Dirty Old Town was written in Salford and not in Dublin.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by kuec
Re: Etm?
Spiers and Boden's "Tunes" album is indeed good - I've just been listening to it. They have a nice light touch.
# Posted on May 14th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Etm?
Tunes don't seem to know any borders. Styles do!
If the Irish Washerwoman is Irish, why isn't she just The Washerwoman?
I did some work on a musician's tune book from Leeds (North East of England) I'm either irritated or amused to find it listed in various places on the net as 'Irish'
The tune variously known as Jack/Jacky/Jock Latin/Latten'Layton (and several other variants) appears to be Irish but occurs in several English and Scottish manuscripts and printed sources, indicating it had travelled widely since it's probable origin in 18th century Kildare.
On the other hand, 'Curlew Hills' is often attributed to Michael Gorman, but it exists in a printed source from the 1840's which is in an Australian library, and may well have an Austrian or German original.
Jump at the Sun is a tune written in England by an Englishman working in the English tradition, so it is English! - but if it works in an Irish style, great.
My feeling is, musicians didn't care where a tune came from as long as it was a good tune, and it could be played in their style
# Posted on May 15th 2008 by c.g.
Re: Etm?
I think Key Maniac has it, about English tunes not seeming to fit in an Irish session: their times, speeds, emphases are generally, or often, out of synch with those of ITM.
Some ITM-compatible tunes do arise from English players who are or were accustomed to playing Irish music: Joe Scurfield's Balls To Hall and Dave Richardson's Calliope House are examples. The last is the sort of tune that makes me think "Celtic music" is quite useful as a catch-all label: composed by a Geordie long-term resident in Scotland, named after a building in America, recorded by plenty of people in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere - it's hard to label it more narrowly!
# Posted on May 15th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Etm?
It's often not the tune - it's the style! The Other Person In The House is an extremely good musician with a very good understanding of Irish, Scots and English music (could be something to do with playing a lot for dancing . . .) We've experimented with playing tunes in various style (play it Donegal style, play it Kerry style, play it West Coast Scots style, play it Southern English) With some tunes it works, with others it doesn't. I think it's something to do with the construction of the tune - possibly the instrument it was written for. I think, for example, you can tell pipe tunes by certain patterns in the melody which fall under the fingers particularly well on pipes.
(Back to work but not concentrating on it!)
# Posted on May 15th 2008 by c.g.