I really enjoyed that episode. The general soundtrack from Caoimhin was gorgeous and there was a lot of good humour. It was also honest. The fiddle is a difficult instrument, and this programme didn't pretend it is easy.
As an adult learner of the fiddle, I am really curious how other adult learners get on. I really believe it is possible to go on to improve and play well enough in sessions, if you listen enough, spend enough time with it and are open to absorption of the music. And the comments about it being 'play' and making it fun were good reminders of what is should be all about. It is too easy to bet bogged down in technique and use too much left brain in the learning process at the exclusion of the right brain.
Forgive me for being such a wet blanket. But if Jeremy Irons really wanted to learn to play the fiddle, rather than to pose and prance for the camera, he would quietly take lessons, find a place where he could practice for a few years, and sit in the back of some sessions while he learned tunes and technique. As we all have done.
His rhythm is spotty, his intonation is awful, and he is up to his neck in his own plamas. Does he really care about playing well? It shouldn’t be work to play well, he says … it should just be fun. It sounds as if he doesn’t care how he sounds so long as he’s having a good time. And it is great fun of course when you’re being pulled along in a polka set by the likes of Hayes, O'Rhaillagh, Begley, and Cahill.
The bits with Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Martin Hayes (and Dennis Cahill!) were lovely. It looks as if they had some fun (Caoimhin at any rate) and I am glad if they were able to make a buck or two by hanging out with a star. But the episode is nothing but a bit of puffery. It is TG4's low-brow answer to reality shows set in the jungle. It makes me appreciate Geantrai and Come West Along the Road, where musicians are actually shown doing what they do best.
What a clever way to expose the Irish language and irish traditional music to other people?? Its closed minded remarks like that above that keeps our culture where it is (in the stone age).... I can guarantee that people who have never turned on TG4 or listened to traditional music tuned in on Weds night to witness a brilliant production!!!
Excuse me Class act. You have made one contribution to this forum. We are not the ones who are closed-minded. To date your participation has been:
Number of tunes submitted: 0
Number of tunes requested: 0
Number of recordings submitted: 0
Number of links submitted: 0
Number of sessions submitted: 0
Number of events submitted: 0
Number of discussions submitted: 0
Number of comments submitted: 1
If you would take the culture out of the stone age I'd like to see more participation on your part. Frankly I don't give a damn whether - or how many - people tune in to TG4 or how many people listen to traditional music. I don't think broad audience appeal - and certainly not this particular program - is necessarily desirable.
I'm glad you think it was a brilliant production. Many of us think it was basically just crap.
If it's such a brilliant fecking idea then why choose Jeremy Irons? why not choose someone who wasn't a "name" for instance? then it would/might actually have some validity instead of some privileged personality for whom money is no object...
....why not for instance, take some kid who's underprivileged, or adult, from Ireland, and see what some high power helped could do? now THAT would be interesting...or maybe someone with a disability, someone's who's been "written off" by society...that might make for interesting tv and might be more of a
"class act"...
this is Pygmallion all over again except with fiddles.....
if only tony macmahon would weigh in on this one....
myself, i find this particular starf*****r adventure asinine, though harmless. it is certainly true that lame though this is, it probably will have some value in the ambassador-for-itm area. but it is equally true that a sincere late-starting nobody with no more or less ability or willingness to work at learning the music than this particular thespian (or even with MORE willingness to work), would not be able to get the time of day from these particular names.....so i guess "asinine, yet harmless" or "harmless, yet asinine" is my take on it.
Haven't seen this episode but really enjoyed an earlier one where a playwright learned a few box tunes, and a football player the bodhran. I enjoyed it because it's one of the rare programs I've ever seen about people learning ANYTHING as an adult that they weren't already skilled at - and showed the journey of the issues that come up about embarassment, self consciousness, finding the time, having a willing heart and soul but uncooperative body parts etc.
Capitalism encourages specialisation, expertism and professionalisation, and for everyone else to just passively consume.....and this seemed to me to actually use the 'idol' 'so you think you can' model subversively to undo that...it encourages people to give it a go and learn.
I don't think any of the programs said 'hey - this person is now a star an expert and good now'. But I think by the end they'd communicated 'this person has a richer life because they are engaging with learning and playing this type of music'.
There seems to be a fear in some of the arguments above that if too many people like it and want to have a go that they'll destroy it - that ITM should be an arcane secret with special initiation rites that enable you to be allowed to try and join in.
I like it when people discover it and want to learn it - because its the doing and handing on that make it a living tradition not a musical museum exhibition.
How clever of you cocus?? And whats your point I have just joined this forum... EH Big Deal??? And believe you me I have contributed in ways you will never comprehend or understand...
The reason that celebrities were used was to appeal to the wider audience.. And if you called TG4 and asked what was the most viewed show on Weds Im sure you will be suprised at the answer??? As for me it was no suprise at all!!
Its such a difficult and complicated genre of music to learn and and Jeremy and the rest have them portrayed that difficulty and also showed how much fun and how satisfying it is to do...
well, there is also the hilarious yet fascinating fact that fiddling is apparently not the first metier jeremy irons has become infatuated with. it is the latest in a series of manias......when i first read the OP here, a little bell went off, and i mused to myself, hmmmm, didn't i read something and promptly lock it away in my brain's Demented Flotsam of the Day drawer during the PR for his last film to the effect that he took up....shoemaking....for a while.....???....ok, i just googled "daniel day lewis" and "shoemaking," and not only is this demented memory of mine correct, but shoemaking apparently followed woodworking, so this is chronic and probably won't be the last by any means....fiddling is merely the latest in a series. though didn the fiddling originally start for a movie? or was it the post-shoemaking mania? my bet for the next one is beekeeping. this from the wiki entry, which seems to need an update filling the public in on the fiddling chapter. i nominate tony macmahon to do it.
[Following The Boxer, Day-Lewis took a leave of absence from acting by putting himself into "semi-retirement" and returning to his old passion of woodworking. He moved to Florence, Italy, where he became intrigued by the craft of shoemaking, eventually apprenticing as a shoemaker.[2] For a time his exact whereabouts and actions were not made publicly known.[13] Day-Lewis has declined to discuss this period of his life, stating that "it was a period of my life that I had a right to without any intervention of that kind."]
Kilfarboy, I saw many links to many different things - priscilla queen of the desert came to mind, also the seen in the Fast Show when Ted and Ralph share a motorbike journey into town. But the one that I found myself thinking about the most was spinal tap.
i can't help myself. i actually do think of these particular characters as interchangeable, but on a more general level....one of the things that makes many actors good actors is blurry personality contours and rich fantasy lives, and i do think there's a hilarious confluence there...i mean, look at the boxing thing with mickey rourke, the less said the better. of course, paul newman took up car racing....in his case, though, once he got into it he stuck with it for the rest of his life and apparently got respectable at it. so, aside from the question of the silliness (or not) of this tg4 segment, what odds does anybody give that he actually sticks with it? and what about....beekeeping?
I've just stumbled on this thread and have quickly scanned through some of the contributions. My overall view is that many of us should lighten up on this whole business of what goes out on RTE or TG4. Anything of a trad nature is to be welcomed as opposed to all this West Brit (Pat Kenny, Ryan Tubridy, TV3) crap. And the likes of Jeremy Irons or any other well known personality making an attempt to play our music can only be a positive.
Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
He gets a lesson from Martin Hayes, extremely interesting for you fiddlers out there
Regards
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by Shylock
Faoi Lán Cheoil is the correct name of the show
Regards
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by Shylock
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Not in the WebTV archive yet - can't wait!
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by Hup
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I think it will be in the Web TV archive on Sunday. Can't wait either!
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by fiddlinsue
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I saw it last night.
My favourite bit was when Jeremy Irons said that he didn't enjoy the concert of Hayes, O'reilly, Begley, and Cahill. I agreed with him completely.
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by The Sailor on the Rock
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I wonder, after the show, did Kevin get the ride?
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
And by ride, I mean on Jeremy's big dirty BMW?
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I noticed they had amplification for the final performance - I assume all the amps were turned up to eleven!
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
not jeremy's.
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by The Sailor on the Rock
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Haha skip, nice quote, we all know that 11 is better than 10 :P
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by Joneser
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
An even better quote from Jeremy was when he said, in relation to the music, that the English have a lot to learn!
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by mariaphilmurphy
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I really enjoyed that episode. The general soundtrack from Caoimhin was gorgeous and there was a lot of good humour. It was also honest. The fiddle is a difficult instrument, and this programme didn't pretend it is easy.
As an adult learner of the fiddle, I am really curious how other adult learners get on. I really believe it is possible to go on to improve and play well enough in sessions, if you listen enough, spend enough time with it and are open to absorption of the music. And the comments about it being 'play' and making it fun were good reminders of what is should be all about. It is too easy to bet bogged down in technique and use too much left brain in the learning process at the exclusion of the right brain.
# Posted on November 27th 2008 by dontshoutout
Jeremy Who?
Forgive me for being such a wet blanket. But if Jeremy Irons really wanted to learn to play the fiddle, rather than to pose and prance for the camera, he would quietly take lessons, find a place where he could practice for a few years, and sit in the back of some sessions while he learned tunes and technique. As we all have done.
His rhythm is spotty, his intonation is awful, and he is up to his neck in his own plamas. Does he really care about playing well? It shouldn’t be work to play well, he says … it should just be fun. It sounds as if he doesn’t care how he sounds so long as he’s having a good time. And it is great fun of course when you’re being pulled along in a polka set by the likes of Hayes, O'Rhaillagh, Begley, and Cahill.
The bits with Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Martin Hayes (and Dennis Cahill!) were lovely. It looks as if they had some fun (Caoimhin at any rate) and I am glad if they were able to make a buck or two by hanging out with a star. But the episode is nothing but a bit of puffery. It is TG4's low-brow answer to reality shows set in the jungle. It makes me appreciate Geantrai and Come West Along the Road, where musicians are actually shown doing what they do best.
# Posted on November 28th 2008 by David Levine
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Cocus, right on.
Soon no doubt we'll be seeing episodes like "So you think you can fiddle?" or "So you think you're a piper?"....
it's a gimmick and cheap way to do TV and fill air time using the 'cachet' of a name star.....
# Posted on November 28th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Are the pair of you above for real??
What a clever way to expose the Irish language and irish traditional music to other people?? Its closed minded remarks like that above that keeps our culture where it is (in the stone age).... I can guarantee that people who have never turned on TG4 or listened to traditional music tuned in on Weds night to witness a brilliant production!!!
Please broaden your horizons people!!
# Posted on November 28th 2008 by Class act
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Excuse me Class act. You have made one contribution to this forum. We are not the ones who are closed-minded. To date your participation has been:
Number of tunes submitted: 0
Number of tunes requested: 0
Number of recordings submitted: 0
Number of links submitted: 0
Number of sessions submitted: 0
Number of events submitted: 0
Number of discussions submitted: 0
Number of comments submitted: 1
If you would take the culture out of the stone age I'd like to see more participation on your part. Frankly I don't give a damn whether - or how many - people tune in to TG4 or how many people listen to traditional music. I don't think broad audience appeal - and certainly not this particular program - is necessarily desirable.
I'm glad you think it was a brilliant production. Many of us think it was basically just crap.
# Posted on November 28th 2008 by David Levine
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
If it's such a brilliant fecking idea then why choose Jeremy Irons? why not choose someone who wasn't a "name" for instance? then it would/might actually have some validity instead of some privileged personality for whom money is no object...
....why not for instance, take some kid who's underprivileged, or adult, from Ireland, and see what some high power helped could do? now THAT would be interesting...or maybe someone with a disability, someone's who's been "written off" by society...that might make for interesting tv and might be more of a
"class act"...
this is Pygmallion all over again except with fiddles.....
God help us.
# Posted on November 28th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Great, really enjoyed it, strange though not to hear one of Dennis' really "funny" jokes.....
As for what's gone on above. underprivileged kid adult with a disabillity... WTF!
# Posted on November 29th 2008 by newdeafman
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
if only tony macmahon would weigh in on this one....
myself, i find this particular starf*****r adventure asinine, though harmless. it is certainly true that lame though this is, it probably will have some value in the ambassador-for-itm area. but it is equally true that a sincere late-starting nobody with no more or less ability or willingness to work at learning the music than this particular thespian (or even with MORE willingness to work), would not be able to get the time of day from these particular names.....so i guess "asinine, yet harmless" or "harmless, yet asinine" is my take on it.
# Posted on November 29th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Haven't seen this episode but really enjoyed an earlier one where a playwright learned a few box tunes, and a football player the bodhran. I enjoyed it because it's one of the rare programs I've ever seen about people learning ANYTHING as an adult that they weren't already skilled at - and showed the journey of the issues that come up about embarassment, self consciousness, finding the time, having a willing heart and soul but uncooperative body parts etc.
Capitalism encourages specialisation, expertism and professionalisation, and for everyone else to just passively consume.....and this seemed to me to actually use the 'idol' 'so you think you can' model subversively to undo that...it encourages people to give it a go and learn.
I don't think any of the programs said 'hey - this person is now a star an expert and good now'. But I think by the end they'd communicated 'this person has a richer life because they are engaging with learning and playing this type of music'.
There seems to be a fear in some of the arguments above that if too many people like it and want to have a go that they'll destroy it - that ITM should be an arcane secret with special initiation rites that enable you to be allowed to try and join in.
I like it when people discover it and want to learn it - because its the doing and handing on that make it a living tradition not a musical museum exhibition.
# Posted on November 29th 2008 by ShariFiddles
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
How clever of you cocus?? And whats your point I have just joined this forum... EH Big Deal??? And believe you me I have contributed in ways you will never comprehend or understand...
The reason that celebrities were used was to appeal to the wider audience.. And if you called TG4 and asked what was the most viewed show on Weds Im sure you will be suprised at the answer??? As for me it was no suprise at all!!
Its such a difficult and complicated genre of music to learn and and Jeremy and the rest have them portrayed that difficulty and also showed how much fun and how satisfying it is to do...
Faoi Lán Cheoil Abú
# Posted on November 29th 2008 by Class act
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
well, there is also the hilarious yet fascinating fact that fiddling is apparently not the first metier jeremy irons has become infatuated with. it is the latest in a series of manias......when i first read the OP here, a little bell went off, and i mused to myself, hmmmm, didn't i read something and promptly lock it away in my brain's Demented Flotsam of the Day drawer during the PR for his last film to the effect that he took up....shoemaking....for a while.....???....ok, i just googled "daniel day lewis" and "shoemaking," and not only is this demented memory of mine correct, but shoemaking apparently followed woodworking, so this is chronic and probably won't be the last by any means....fiddling is merely the latest in a series. though didn the fiddling originally start for a movie? or was it the post-shoemaking mania? my bet for the next one is beekeeping. this from the wiki entry, which seems to need an update filling the public in on the fiddling chapter. i nominate tony macmahon to do it.
[Following The Boxer, Day-Lewis took a leave of absence from acting by putting himself into "semi-retirement" and returning to his old passion of woodworking. He moved to Florence, Italy, where he became intrigued by the craft of shoemaking, eventually apprenticing as a shoemaker.[2] For a time his exact whereabouts and actions were not made publicly known.[13] Day-Lewis has declined to discuss this period of his life, stating that "it was a period of my life that I had a right to without any intervention of that kind."]
# Posted on November 30th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
The episode is up on the TG4 site now
# Posted on November 30th 2008 by FiddleFancy
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Am I the only one failing to see the link between Daniel Day-Lewis' shoemaking and Jeremy Irons' fiddling?
# Posted on November 30th 2008 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Kilfarboy, I saw many links to many different things - priscilla queen of the desert came to mind, also the seen in the Fast Show when Ted and Ralph share a motorbike journey into town. But the one that I found myself thinking about the most was spinal tap.
# Posted on November 30th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
one word: beekeeping.
# Posted on December 1st 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I'm still confused. Is Jeremy Irons the new DDL?
# Posted on December 1st 2008 by Pomme de Terre
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
Are they in fact the same person? Or identical twins? Nurse!
# Posted on December 1st 2008 by Pomme de Terre
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
i can't help myself. i actually do think of these particular characters as interchangeable, but on a more general level....one of the things that makes many actors good actors is blurry personality contours and rich fantasy lives, and i do think there's a hilarious confluence there...i mean, look at the boxing thing with mickey rourke, the less said the better. of course, paul newman took up car racing....in his case, though, once he got into it he stuck with it for the rest of his life and apparently got respectable at it. so, aside from the question of the silliness (or not) of this tg4 segment, what odds does anybody give that he actually sticks with it? and what about....beekeeping?
# Posted on December 1st 2008 by ceemonster
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
# Posted on December 1st 2008 by Pomme de Terre
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I've just stumbled on this thread and have quickly scanned through some of the contributions. My overall view is that many of us should lighten up on this whole business of what goes out on RTE or TG4. Anything of a trad nature is to be welcomed as opposed to all this West Brit (Pat Kenny, Ryan Tubridy, TV3) crap. And the likes of Jeremy Irons or any other well known personality making an attempt to play our music can only be a positive.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Bannerman
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I know I'm a bit late with this one, but does anyone know the name of the tune that Martin Hayes was playing for Jeremy Irons? Thanks in advance.
I really enjoyed the whole series; and as someone who has just started playing the fiddle, I particularly liked that programme.
Each to his own I suppose. :D
# Posted on January 7th 2009 by Neil Creedon
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
I think I remember one of them being Lucy Farr's Barndance.
# Posted on January 8th 2009 by Here Lyeth
Re: Check out TG4 faoi lain with Jeremy Irons
That's the one! Thanks P-K.
# Posted on January 8th 2009 by Neil Creedon