Blimey, Bannerman, how you manage to misinterpret the very first words in this thought-provoking article is beyond me! Siobhán Long raised 'Did Planxty and The Bothy Band cross the final frontiers?' as a question and didn't in any way suggest it was a statement.
What a load of codswallop, meaning what is woven around the extracts of quotation, and, in my opinion, badly written, pretentious, even ignorant? It was a pain to work through to the end, I was wanting to give up from the first couple of sentences, finding it initially to be rediculous, irritating, those loosely and badly chosen metaphors. Who is the author's intended audience? I imagine something like "Friends", only the Dublin take on the cafe society, something that has been on the rise... The evidence for this, well, just walk the streets and stick your head into some of the new boutique businesses, start with Grafton street and its tributaries...
I'm not in disagreement with the need to discuss, but this is a just a steaming pile, it stinks ~ except for the excerpts, the words of those other than the author... Can you really trust someone who starts a paragraph "TO BE HONEST ~", and capped? It's just so awful, trite, cliche... It is clear that the author has an appreciation for only one faction and direction for this multifaceted music... There's little balance to be found. The authors contributions to the debate lack that edge that being unsure can have, the conflict between loving and hating the 'same' thing, of not being sure... This is not a discussion, this is a rant. I know, from experience, I've done my share...
But, the quotations, not bad, enjoyed, and I smiled reading singer Niamh Parson's little aside ~
"I just think that there are a lot of very closed minds in Ireland, musically. I love the pure drop, and I don't think that there's a need to break new ground in that sense. But there are an awful lot of fast players, who have great ability, but there's nothing there emotionally."
The quotes have more content than the fluff around them...
On the raised subject of 'emotion' in this music, there is honest emotion and there is syrupy melodrama. By content, the later is part of what is being discussed, and I haven't much interest or patience for anything OTT...to excess... Some of the 'new' ways are cringingly melodramatic, even to the point of being silly... I've been in the position of having to leave a concert by one of those mentioned because I couldn't hold back my need to laugh.
I'm not holding my breath for the next two installments...unless they are mostly quotes...
As for Comhaltas etc., at least it aims to implant a comprehensive and coherent skills base in its young musos. As does more or less any serious education system in one subject or another. The result is - or should be, which is not necessarily the same - that the kids will be able to use the learned material in ways of their own once they've grown up, and be capable of doing that much more as a result of learning / being tested in it than if they hadn't been.
Today I was actually thinking about Comhaltas, in a very favourable way, in that I think they are actually improving, if only they can get rid of the old guard and bring in some of the sparks that are out and about. There are a few knocking away at the wall, like dear Bannerman...
''All that protectionism can result in an incurious environment, one that casts a baleful rather than an inquisitive glance at the art of the possible, rather than the craft of the predictable".
Two things stand out for me in this article given the above quote, a fundamental lack of understanding of what the word 'traditional' means in relation to this genre i.e. the Music, and secondly the ignorance of the art of the performers of the Music in bringing their own personalities and insights to the playing of it i.e. the art of the possible.
You want new and shiney Madam? I suggest you shop elsewhere or better still learn to appreciate what it is that makes the Music the thing that it is; not some gaudy toy to be enjoyed briefly and then disposed of when you get tired of it. If you love something you will, of course, protect it and cherish it.
I felt that the article in the Irish Times was an interesting piece of observation journalism. Let's face facts......apart from people on this site and a percentage of an older generation of Irish people, who are not computer literate, what percentage of the young Western World Population like or would buy a CD of Irish Traditional? I'd imagine that it's very small in comparison with say... Modern Music (Rock, Pop, etc etc) or Classical for instance. Put a trad session in an Irish Town pub, and I emphasise Irish Town pub, and put a Rock session in a neighbouring pub in the same town. Which one will have the biggest crowd. Let's not get carried away with our own importance. It's a minority style of fun music, enjoyable to play, and nice to listen to. As for Séan Nós singing, even people who play the music don't necessarily like it either From my own point of view, it reminds me of my days in the Middle East listening to the Arabs caterwauling, and I certainly didn't go for that. I happened to hear Iarla O Lionaírd singing on the radio the other night. I asked my twenty something son what he thought of that. 'Painful' was his answer. That from a lad who was reared in a house steeped in all types of music, with Trad to the fore. I rest my case!!!!!
"Put a trad session in an Irish Town pub ~ and put a Rock session in a neighbouring pub in the same town." ~ FR
Great idea, reminds me of some awful jokes about how to keep flies off of ~ no, I'm not going there, sorry... But it did remind me of that.
I happen to like Arabic music, even what some might call caterwauling... But I accept, at least outside of the home of such things, I am in a minority.
Damn, you mean true worth is measured in CD sales? I knew I was missing the proper measurement of a things value, its commercial success. We're all doomed... I mean, when was the last time you cut a CD and made platinum? I haven't! I guess that makes us both worthless wastes of space?
Free Reed ~ it's you... Sorry, I was suffering another semi-conscious episode, too little sleep due to asthma in the season of grass pollen ~ wheeeezzzzzz...
The appeal of pop / rock / disco etc. venues is largely that under the smokescreen of the racket, strobes and whatever, people can continually try to pull, show off or compare their finery, drink at will, buy / sell / consume drugs and otherwise occupy the place and the hour, as their brain cells expire in astronomical numbers and their hearing is primed to self-destruct a little later in life. This set-up is obviously popular with punters and seriously profitable for its handlers. But does trad really want to compete with this on its own terms?
(Not, of course, that trad knows nothing of some of the things mentioned.)
I am with ceolachan...very irritating reading. But that was the first time I read it. The second time was a good laugh.
I couldn't wait for the next installment. I looked up some other material by the author. Some choice lines, indeed:
"You can almost feel the deepest breaths of the ghostly listeners alongside you on this superb live recording. Judicious excerpts chiselled from nine years of the Clare Festival of Traditional Singing (the brainchild of the late, lamented Tom Munnelly, to whose memory this collection is dedicated) paint a Technicolour portrait of a song tradition that includes the familiar and the scintillatingly strange in its ample gabháil. Standouts are plentiful: Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin's lung-filled openness catapults An Bhean Chaointe into the ether, while Stan Scott's Bhatiali-Bengali Boatman's Song brings to mind Bob Quinn's compelling Atlantean theory, linking the singing traditions of Ireland and India."
and
"If an instrument can be said to have a heart, then the cardiac muscle of the fiddle is pumping healthily on this remarkable collection. "
and
"Seamus Ennis is here, lauding the blinding originality of Cassidy's idiosyncratic style. This style was born, according to the evocative sleeve notes by Rab Cherry and Dermot McLaughlin, of the fiddler's personal virtuosity rather than of anything as lazily serendipidous as geographical location."
and
"The gender balance is somehow more striking in this collection, rooting some 20 tunes and songs in the present, rather than in a stratospheric netherworld to which they were prone to disappear in the past. Replenishing."
and lastly
"It's seldom that instruments are reinvented by individual musicians. Larry Adler did it with a harmonica; so did Pierre Bensusan with his acoustic fingerstyle guitar. And now Niall Vallely has done it again with the humble concertina, a vastly underrated instrument in the traditional firmament. Vallely has penned some 14 original tunes for this dynamo of an album: full of fire-breathing verve"
feardearg, I started feeling a bit ill, and as I reached the end I was laughing uncontrollably... Thanks!!!
nicholas, with regards to the pop/rock/disco thing, I take it you're speaking from personal experience? To achieve the state of 'stratospheric netherworld' requires something other than pints of porter, maybe a gallon of that flourescent cr*p, the numerous sickeningly sweet poisons of the alco-popaholic...
This is an excellent, well-written article.
I look forward to the next installments of the series.
It was thought provoking and made me more interested
in listening carefully to the recordings of a number of musicians mentioned in the article.
well don't be worried if you do not like iarla's singing. i think, and a lot of my peers agree, that he is an incredibly overrated singer. i love sean nos, but i cant stand listening to him. if i wanted good sliabh luachra style singing then i would listen to diarmaidin o'shuillibhain. iarla performance at the gradaim ceoil with the crash ensemble i think it was, was truely awful. a complete p*ss take.
also i wouldn't really take into account anything written by siobhan long. she doesn't have a clue about irish music and she has her favourites. she brown noses a lot, and her writing style reads like a failed novelist. pretty poor really!
I once asked a well-known flute player in Dublin why he was no longer showing up at sessions and he said it was hard to get anyone to attend a concert if they could see him regularly at the local pub for free. I think this makes some sense, but I don't think local sessions threaten the market for recordings and paid gigs. Maybe more so in places like Dublin perhaps, but certainly not in the outback of ITM where I live. People aren't going to choose to come to one of our sessions in lieu of going to see Dervish or someone like that.
As far as trad musicians pushing the envelope goes, I see no harm in it when the musicians fully understand the music their toying with. What I object to is when musicians skip over the leaning of the music part and jump ahead to the fusion part. It's as if their tearing bits off of the trad and taping them to whatever other music they're ripping off. But when knowledgeable musicians do it the results can be stunning.
I also see no problem with the concept of preserving ITM the way Comhaltas does, and I'm sure there's room for improvement for this, but anyone who's capable of pushing the envelope responsibly will have already moved way beyond the stage of entering competitions.
Better said than that shight article... Though, as said, I enjoyed the quotes. Also, after a little attitude adjustment I learned to laugh at what had previously just irritated the hell out of me...
I so wish the smily with horns was available here...
Yes indeed, but while I have an appreciation for the finer things, and a lean toward Islay malts, I haven't yet refused a good poteen, slivovitz or other intoxicatin' potion... I was enjoying bubbles tonight, the two of us, and it was pink, where I am now, just before calling it a night, I mean morning...
Pleasant dreams, when it eventually comes your way... 'c'
[I once asked a well-known flute player in Dublin why he was no longer showing up at sessions and he said it was hard to get anyone to attend a concert if they could see him regularly at the local pub for free.] i read almost these precise words from paddy keenan in a printed interview somewhere....perhaps he said it other way 'round, i.e., it dawned on him that if people weren't seeing him frequently and for free out at sessions, he could pack 'em in infrequently at paying venues.....
seems like there are two distinct motifs of complaint being expressed in this article: one, gee, there just isn't experimentation and innovation in this dull old musical genre. two, and not at all the same thing---gee, the pure drop and staying within traditional parameters is great by ME, MY beef is too much speed/technique, not enough emotion.
these are very different whings. i agree wholeheartedly with number two. as for number one---well, i think people should be perfectly free to er, "innovate" all they like, but i don't see changing the genre as a signal obligation or a make-or-break criteria for whether you are an artist. martin hayes has spoken eloquently about it being ridiculous to expect that a traditional form be completely revolutionized every five minutes. that idea (this is me now, not MH) is the old modernist canard, that you're only creating if you're breaking down or extending existing forms, etc......
of course, creating within the parameters of a traditional form won't get you the bucks. traditional irish music in its "pure drop" sense is not analagous to jazz, classical or rock. it is analagous to klezmer, rom gypsy, cajun, tex-mex conjunto, appalachian oldtime, and other traditional dance-based roots music genres. and they're all brilliant art forms worth devoting your life and creativity to if that is what calls to you, but there is no dough or "career" revenue to speak of in playing any of them. pin money, sure. "career" money, no way, or only for the very few. and part of what these "whings" are about, is that fact. paddy canny and joe ryan's generation didn't expect that----yet their art is not going to be topped any time soon. many of the post-bothy generation find it hard to accept that this is not commercial or revenue-generating music. it's ok to go for the revenue, but to get it, you will have to schlock it up or jack it up or schtick it up into something else. like they said in that panel discussion at the ennis fest last year---to get the revenue, you have to tweak it, don't you. if you have the stomach for it, that is.....
Nice one ceemonster... I enjoyed that read too... Now, off to the countryside for some fresh rain... I can't say fesh air as we tend to have a predominance of farmy smells, including feshly slewn slurry. You know, that article has some similarities with the other. You lot have done a fine job of reworking it into a more useful compost. Damn, does that make us all earthworms?
Nicely put, ceemonster. I was irritated by the article but now see it quite differently. I enjoy it (the Music) for it's own sake and maybe, I'm wondering, in Ms Long's case, is success to be judged in terms of monetary gain and or in terms of novelty value. I'd be very interested to find out if this is the case and would she admit or deny it. Should I be worried about it? I don't think so. FWIW I had never heard of her before now and probably never will again.
Even though I am well on my way towards my own "stratospheric netherworld" with the help of three bottles of Shiner Bock, I would like to point out that I play various types of music (not just Irish music) for fun instead of expecting to make money.
Where I live there are or were various jam sessions (Irish and Blues and Old-Time) on different nights of the week and all of these sessions usually were well attended, i.e. the owners of the restaurant and/or the bar actually made money on the evening when the jam session was there.
At the Blues Jam, I had the opportunity to work with and listen to and talk to some semi-retired professional musicians. After talking to these musicians, I decided that I would probably be happier and enjoy making music more if I held on to my day job and must played music in my spare time.
Are the people who play so-called "classical" music just regurgitating what they see on the page in front of them since they are supposed to play the music exactly as written? That is what some unfortunate fools tried to teach me when I took piano lessons.
Speaking from my own experience playing ragtime piano music, you are supposed to and expected to improvise on the written music the second time through. I have listened to many musicians who know much more about playing ragtime music than I do. That doesn't exactly seem like "regurgitation" to me.
Many years ago, on the wall of the men's bathroom in a restaurant/bar in Norfolk, Virginia, I saw the following words: "Regurgitato, Ergo Suum."
You must learn what the "rules" are in any genre of music before you can try to bend them and/or break them.
Interesting article.
Interesting article.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2008/0704/1215054796304.html
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by molaoch
Re: Interesting article.
I think it's a bit unfair to bands such as Danú, Altan, Solas, Lunasa, etc, etc to say it all stopped with Planxty and the Bothy Band.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by Bannerman
Re: Interesting article.
Blimey, Bannerman, how you manage to misinterpret the very first words in this thought-provoking article is beyond me! Siobhán Long raised 'Did Planxty and The Bothy Band cross the final frontiers?' as a question and didn't in any way suggest it was a statement.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Interesting article.
I first read a bit of it wrong too, but I've been losing sleep ~
"Challenges ahead: 'Traditional musicians are jostling for space alongside an ever-swelling amalgam of alternative Martin Hayeses" ~
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
What a load of codswallop, meaning what is woven around the extracts of quotation, and, in my opinion, badly written, pretentious, even ignorant? It was a pain to work through to the end, I was wanting to give up from the first couple of sentences, finding it initially to be rediculous, irritating, those loosely and badly chosen metaphors. Who is the author's intended audience? I imagine something like "Friends", only the Dublin take on the cafe society, something that has been on the rise... The evidence for this, well, just walk the streets and stick your head into some of the new boutique businesses, start with Grafton street and its tributaries...
I'm not in disagreement with the need to discuss, but this is a just a steaming pile, it stinks ~ except for the excerpts, the words of those other than the author... Can you really trust someone who starts a paragraph "TO BE HONEST ~", and capped? It's just so awful, trite, cliche... It is clear that the author has an appreciation for only one faction and direction for this multifaceted music... There's little balance to be found. The authors contributions to the debate lack that edge that being unsure can have, the conflict between loving and hating the 'same' thing, of not being sure... This is not a discussion, this is a rant. I know, from experience, I've done my share...
But, the quotations, not bad, enjoyed, and I smiled reading singer Niamh Parson's little aside ~
"I just think that there are a lot of very closed minds in Ireland, musically. I love the pure drop, and I don't think that there's a need to break new ground in that sense. But there are an awful lot of fast players, who have great ability, but there's nothing there emotionally."
The quotes have more content than the fluff around them...
On the raised subject of 'emotion' in this music, there is honest emotion and there is syrupy melodrama. By content, the later is part of what is being discussed, and I haven't much interest or patience for anything OTT...to excess... Some of the 'new' ways are cringingly melodramatic, even to the point of being silly... I've been in the position of having to leave a concert by one of those mentioned because I couldn't hold back my need to laugh.
I'm not holding my breath for the next two installments...unless they are mostly quotes...
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
This Iarla O'Lionaird sounds an interesting cove.
As for Comhaltas etc., at least it aims to implant a comprehensive and coherent skills base in its young musos. As does more or less any serious education system in one subject or another. The result is - or should be, which is not necessarily the same - that the kids will be able to use the learned material in ways of their own once they've grown up, and be capable of doing that much more as a result of learning / being tested in it than if they hadn't been.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Interesting article.
Today I was actually thinking about Comhaltas, in a very favourable way, in that I think they are actually improving, if only they can get rid of the old guard and bring in some of the sparks that are out and about. There are a few knocking away at the wall, like dear Bannerman...
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
"Regurgitative activity." So that's what we do down at the session. Fair enough...
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by grego
Re: Interesting article.
Did you have to bring that up again, grego?
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by GaryAMartin
Re: Interesting article.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
But seriously, it's interesting that we session players at the pub appear to be taking business away from the professional musicians.
Per the Hunter S. Thompson quote on another thread "There's also a negative side."
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by grego
Re: Interesting article.
''All that protectionism can result in an incurious environment, one that casts a baleful rather than an inquisitive glance at the art of the possible, rather than the craft of the predictable".
Two things stand out for me in this article given the above quote, a fundamental lack of understanding of what the word 'traditional' means in relation to this genre i.e. the Music, and secondly the ignorance of the art of the performers of the Music in bringing their own personalities and insights to the playing of it i.e. the art of the possible.
You want new and shiney Madam? I suggest you shop elsewhere or better still learn to appreciate what it is that makes the Music the thing that it is; not some gaudy toy to be enjoyed briefly and then disposed of when you get tired of it. If you love something you will, of course, protect it and cherish it.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by john knoss
Re: Interesting article.
I felt that the article in the Irish Times was an interesting piece of observation journalism. Let's face facts......apart from people on this site and a percentage of an older generation of Irish people, who are not computer literate, what percentage of the young Western World Population like or would buy a CD of Irish Traditional? I'd imagine that it's very small in comparison with say... Modern Music (Rock, Pop, etc etc) or Classical for instance. Put a trad session in an Irish Town pub, and I emphasise Irish Town pub, and put a Rock session in a neighbouring pub in the same town. Which one will have the biggest crowd. Let's not get carried away with our own importance. It's a minority style of fun music, enjoyable to play, and nice to listen to. As for Séan Nós singing, even people who play the music don't necessarily like it either From my own point of view, it reminds me of my days in the Middle East listening to the Arabs caterwauling, and I certainly didn't go for that. I happened to hear Iarla O Lionaírd singing on the radio the other night. I asked my twenty something son what he thought of that. 'Painful' was his answer. That from a lad who was reared in a house steeped in all types of music, with Trad to the fore. I rest my case!!!!!
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Interesting article.
"Put a trad session in an Irish Town pub ~ and put a Rock session in a neighbouring pub in the same town." ~ FR
Great idea, reminds me of some awful jokes about how to keep flies off of ~ no, I'm not going there, sorry... But it did remind me of that.
I happen to like Arabic music, even what some might call caterwauling... But I accept, at least outside of the home of such things, I am in a minority.
Damn, you mean true worth is measured in CD sales? I knew I was missing the proper measurement of a things value, its commercial success. We're all doomed... I mean, when was the last time you cut a CD and made platinum? I haven't! I guess that makes us both worthless wastes of space?
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
Free Reed ~ it's you... Sorry, I was suffering another semi-conscious episode, too little sleep due to asthma in the season of grass pollen ~ wheeeezzzzzz...
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
Try counting 'The Sheep on the Mountain'
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Interesting article.
The appeal of pop / rock / disco etc. venues is largely that under the smokescreen of the racket, strobes and whatever, people can continually try to pull, show off or compare their finery, drink at will, buy / sell / consume drugs and otherwise occupy the place and the hour, as their brain cells expire in astronomical numbers and their hearing is primed to self-destruct a little later in life. This set-up is obviously popular with punters and seriously profitable for its handlers. But does trad really want to compete with this on its own terms?
(Not, of course, that trad knows nothing of some of the things mentioned.)
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Interesting article
I don't trust people who use the word PLETHORA.
I am with ceolachan...very irritating reading. But that was the first time I read it. The second time was a good laugh.
I couldn't wait for the next installment. I looked up some other material by the author. Some choice lines, indeed:
"You can almost feel the deepest breaths of the ghostly listeners alongside you on this superb live recording. Judicious excerpts chiselled from nine years of the Clare Festival of Traditional Singing (the brainchild of the late, lamented Tom Munnelly, to whose memory this collection is dedicated) paint a Technicolour portrait of a song tradition that includes the familiar and the scintillatingly strange in its ample gabháil. Standouts are plentiful: Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin's lung-filled openness catapults An Bhean Chaointe into the ether, while Stan Scott's Bhatiali-Bengali Boatman's Song brings to mind Bob Quinn's compelling Atlantean theory, linking the singing traditions of Ireland and India."
and
"If an instrument can be said to have a heart, then the cardiac muscle of the fiddle is pumping healthily on this remarkable collection. "
and
"Seamus Ennis is here, lauding the blinding originality of Cassidy's idiosyncratic style. This style was born, according to the evocative sleeve notes by Rab Cherry and Dermot McLaughlin, of the fiddler's personal virtuosity rather than of anything as lazily serendipidous as geographical location."
and
"The gender balance is somehow more striking in this collection, rooting some 20 tunes and songs in the present, rather than in a stratospheric netherworld to which they were prone to disappear in the past. Replenishing."
and lastly
"It's seldom that instruments are reinvented by individual musicians. Larry Adler did it with a harmonica; so did Pierre Bensusan with his acoustic fingerstyle guitar. And now Niall Vallely has done it again with the humble concertina, a vastly underrated instrument in the traditional firmament. Vallely has penned some 14 original tunes for this dynamo of an album: full of fire-breathing verve"
I hope I am not being mean.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by feardearg
Re: Interesting article.
Overly generous. I'd say.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by leoj
Re: Interesting article.
A stratospheric netherworld only exists after too many pints of Guinness.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Interesting article.
feardearg, I started feeling a bit ill, and as I reached the end I was laughing uncontrollably... Thanks!!!
nicholas, with regards to the pop/rock/disco thing, I take it you're speaking from personal experience? To achieve the state of 'stratospheric netherworld' requires something other than pints of porter, maybe a gallon of that flourescent cr*p, the numerous sickeningly sweet poisons of the alco-popaholic...
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
This is an excellent, well-written article.
I look forward to the next installments of the series.
It was thought provoking and made me more interested
in listening carefully to the recordings of a number of musicians mentioned in the article.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by halfwaythere
Re: Interesting article.
well don't be worried if you do not like iarla's singing. i think, and a lot of my peers agree, that he is an incredibly overrated singer. i love sean nos, but i cant stand listening to him. if i wanted good sliabh luachra style singing then i would listen to diarmaidin o'shuillibhain. iarla performance at the gradaim ceoil with the crash ensemble i think it was, was truely awful. a complete p*ss take.
also i wouldn't really take into account anything written by siobhan long. she doesn't have a clue about irish music and she has her favourites. she brown noses a lot, and her writing style reads like a failed novelist. pretty poor really!
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by tradmoosic
Re: Interesting article.
Yes tradmoosic, your last para, whifs of that were rising up off the text...
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
Niamdh Parsons is now a guru.
I anticipate her erudite words,on this board
.how many gurus can this board take.....
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by dickens metrognome
Re: Interesting article.
I once asked a well-known flute player in Dublin why he was no longer showing up at sessions and he said it was hard to get anyone to attend a concert if they could see him regularly at the local pub for free. I think this makes some sense, but I don't think local sessions threaten the market for recordings and paid gigs. Maybe more so in places like Dublin perhaps, but certainly not in the outback of ITM where I live. People aren't going to choose to come to one of our sessions in lieu of going to see Dervish or someone like that.
As far as trad musicians pushing the envelope goes, I see no harm in it when the musicians fully understand the music their toying with. What I object to is when musicians skip over the leaning of the music part and jump ahead to the fusion part. It's as if their tearing bits off of the trad and taping them to whatever other music they're ripping off. But when knowledgeable musicians do it the results can be stunning.
I also see no problem with the concept of preserving ITM the way Comhaltas does, and I'm sure there's room for improvement for this, but anyone who's capable of pushing the envelope responsibly will have already moved way beyond the stage of entering competitions.
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Interesting article.
Better said than that shight article... Though, as said, I enjoyed the quotes. Also, after a little attitude adjustment I learned to laugh at what had previously just irritated the hell out of me...
I so wish the smily with horns was available here...
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
I enjoy my single-malt "attitude adjustment" too. *hic*
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by Phantom Button
Re: Interesting article.
Yes indeed, but while I have an appreciation for the finer things, and a lean toward Islay malts, I haven't yet refused a good poteen, slivovitz or other intoxicatin' potion... I was enjoying bubbles tonight, the two of us, and it was pink, where I am now, just before calling it a night, I mean morning...
Pleasant dreams, when it eventually comes your way... 'c'
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
[I once asked a well-known flute player in Dublin why he was no longer showing up at sessions and he said it was hard to get anyone to attend a concert if they could see him regularly at the local pub for free.] i read almost these precise words from paddy keenan in a printed interview somewhere....perhaps he said it other way 'round, i.e., it dawned on him that if people weren't seeing him frequently and for free out at sessions, he could pack 'em in infrequently at paying venues.....
seems like there are two distinct motifs of complaint being expressed in this article: one, gee, there just isn't experimentation and innovation in this dull old musical genre. two, and not at all the same thing---gee, the pure drop and staying within traditional parameters is great by ME, MY beef is too much speed/technique, not enough emotion.
these are very different whings. i agree wholeheartedly with number two. as for number one---well, i think people should be perfectly free to er, "innovate" all they like, but i don't see changing the genre as a signal obligation or a make-or-break criteria for whether you are an artist. martin hayes has spoken eloquently about it being ridiculous to expect that a traditional form be completely revolutionized every five minutes. that idea (this is me now, not MH) is the old modernist canard, that you're only creating if you're breaking down or extending existing forms, etc......
of course, creating within the parameters of a traditional form won't get you the bucks. traditional irish music in its "pure drop" sense is not analagous to jazz, classical or rock. it is analagous to klezmer, rom gypsy, cajun, tex-mex conjunto, appalachian oldtime, and other traditional dance-based roots music genres. and they're all brilliant art forms worth devoting your life and creativity to if that is what calls to you, but there is no dough or "career" revenue to speak of in playing any of them. pin money, sure. "career" money, no way, or only for the very few. and part of what these "whings" are about, is that fact. paddy canny and joe ryan's generation didn't expect that----yet their art is not going to be topped any time soon. many of the post-bothy generation find it hard to accept that this is not commercial or revenue-generating music. it's ok to go for the revenue, but to get it, you will have to schlock it up or jack it up or schtick it up into something else. like they said in that panel discussion at the ennis fest last year---to get the revenue, you have to tweak it, don't you. if you have the stomach for it, that is.....
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Interesting article.
Nice one ceemonster... I enjoyed that read too... Now, off to the countryside for some fresh rain... I can't say fesh air as we tend to have a predominance of farmy smells, including feshly slewn slurry. You know, that article has some similarities with the other. You lot have done a fine job of reworking it into a more useful compost. Damn, does that make us all earthworms?
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Interesting article.
Nicely put, ceemonster. I was irritated by the article but now see it quite differently. I enjoy it (the Music) for it's own sake and maybe, I'm wondering, in Ms Long's case, is success to be judged in terms of monetary gain and or in terms of novelty value. I'd be very interested to find out if this is the case and would she admit or deny it. Should I be worried about it? I don't think so. FWIW I had never heard of her before now and probably never will again.
# Posted on July 6th 2008 by john knoss
Re: Interesting article.
Even though I am well on my way towards my own "stratospheric netherworld" with the help of three bottles of Shiner Bock, I would like to point out that I play various types of music (not just Irish music) for fun instead of expecting to make money.
Where I live there are or were various jam sessions (Irish and Blues and Old-Time) on different nights of the week and all of these sessions usually were well attended, i.e. the owners of the restaurant and/or the bar actually made money on the evening when the jam session was there.
At the Blues Jam, I had the opportunity to work with and listen to and talk to some semi-retired professional musicians. After talking to these musicians, I decided that I would probably be happier and enjoy making music more if I held on to my day job and must played music in my spare time.
Are the people who play so-called "classical" music just regurgitating what they see on the page in front of them since they are supposed to play the music exactly as written? That is what some unfortunate fools tried to teach me when I took piano lessons.
Speaking from my own experience playing ragtime piano music, you are supposed to and expected to improvise on the written music the second time through. I have listened to many musicians who know much more about playing ragtime music than I do. That doesn't exactly seem like "regurgitation" to me.
Many years ago, on the wall of the men's bathroom in a restaurant/bar in Norfolk, Virginia, I saw the following words: "Regurgitato, Ergo Suum."
You must learn what the "rules" are in any genre of music before you can try to bend them and/or break them.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by fauxcelt