i thought I'd start a discussion wher all the anti CCE contributors can vent their spleen over Comhaaltas, Lamhras, the Battle of Clontarf, Bru Boru and anything else they can knock about Comhaltas.
When they are finished perhaps we could have a discussion about some of the positive aspects of Comhaltas and what they do.
Free your mind and your Music from the Tyrrany of Comhaltas!
As I posted previously on this site:
“Remember a few years ago when the [then] head of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann said there was no traditional music outside of Comhaltas?”
This shows a total contempt from the Comhaltas hierarchy towards those who play actual Irish music (i.e., one of the regional styles).
People think that it’s traditional music because it’s largely taught by ear. But the important thing is: What are they teaching? That’s the problem …it’s standardized Irish-music-lite!
Why do the Comhaltas corporation need so much defending? Aren't they successful in their aim of filling their pockets with pots of money, and standardizing away any genuinely traditional Irish music into a “stereotyped revivalism”, (as Séamus Tansey called it)? Here's what Séamus Tansey said about the deplorable attack Comhaltas has made on traditional regional styles.
“If the different regional traditions die out, as they are at the moment, well,… Irish music is dead! You’ll have some other thing representing Irish music. You’ll have a stereotyped revivalism, which Comhaltas are doing, were everyone is playing the same…”
There have been a good many previous discussions about this lot before. Here’s a few related threads for your attention:
I hope some day traditional musicians will forget about Comhaltas, Riverdance and other abominations, (when these have disappeared into the darkness of history and the need for saving traditional music from their attack will have abated) and focus wholly on music, in an environment free from the tyranny of standardized and bland Irish-music-lite!!
So Southpaw, you want us to put Labhras, Clontarf, Bru Boru and the publication (or non-publication) of accounts to one side and discuss the positive aspects of Comhaltas?
Well OK, here goes. In our local Comhaltas branch in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan we've managed the following in the last four years:
The provision of cheap music classes each week, which run at a loss but are subsidised by the branch.
We have had an increase in numbers taking lessons over the four years from 48 individual students to 79 now. With many taking more than one lesson it works out at 112 students in total. This has meant that we've had to take on an additional three teachers leaving us with five now.
We've put on uilleann pipe classes for first time in this area. This has resulted in going from having only one piper four years ago to seven now. In addition we provide practice flutes and fiddles which we loan out rent free to beginners.
Each year we run an end of term class concert where everyone (from age seven up) gets an opportunity to perform in their class groups. Seeing the sense of achievement in the new beginners on stage and the pride of their families is really powerful. We run a number of beginners or slow sessions throughout the year to build on this.
We of course run a monthly adult session as well and also put on an annual traditional music festival before Easter. Named after a local nineteenth century harper (Patrick Byrne) we'll have 13 music, singing and dancing workshops over two days this year. Teada are headlining our concert which will also feature Grainne Hambly. There'll be sessions of course and also a public lecture with Fintan Vallely (all free admission by the way). And once again we'll probably end up losing money on it but then we're not in it to feather our own nests.
I should mention that Comhaltas Nationally will be our main source of grant aid through its Meitheal programme. Also our involvement as part of a larger national organisation means we can get a level of insurance protection at a price that would not be available to us independently (although it's still expensive @ €400 per year).
Finally, we also hold a Pancake Supper every Shrove Tuesday (still recovering from last nights) with all proceeds raised going to the local cancer charity. Many thanks to Martin Donohoe, Seamus Fay and Michael McDonnell for coming all the way from Cavan to support us last night.
All this (and more) is done on a volunteer basis. So trying to be as objective as I can, I would guess that the undisputed positive aspects of Comhaltas are with the work of the grass roots - something CCE bashers rarely acknowledge.
Do any of those who are so quick to come on here and attack Comhaltas give up their spare time to put on classes, organise sessions, fundraise or do any of the other tedious, mundane and thankless tasks that are necessary to keep the music healthy?
By the way, I'm not suggesting Comhaltas is perfect - far from it in fact. Nor am I against criticism, just the unbalanced and unconstructive type that seems so popular here.
I'll put in a good word for the CCE branches in England and say that they have brought a lot of youngsters through the music and the quality of music in some of our cities is because of the dedicated tutors in Comhaltas. Most of Manchester's finest Mike McGoldrick, John-jo and Grace Kelly, Emma Sweeney, Kevin Madden, Colin, Miread, Shane and Adele Farrel, Dezzie Donnelly all went through the branches. Our kid is getting lovely, attentative guidance from brilliant teachers for a donation of £3 for 30 mins.
The problem I think is a generational one and there are some people who are trapped in the CCE bubble, are opinionated, very judgemental, who believe their own rhetoric/hype and perhaps need to consider a wider perspective.
Oh no, hang on, that sounds like us all on this list!
fionan, sounds like there is a lot of good being done in Carrickmacross. But I think you and the people organising it should be more selfish and take some credit for it because what you are saying here it does not seem that CCE has any input at all. It is done to the hard work of the people on the ground. Granted the idea of a branch creates the opportunity for people to meet but the hard work is being done by you and others while CCE take immediate credit.
as regards CCE bashing, well the reason for this is that there is lots to complain about. Its not for the sake of complaining. there are some things that have to be addressed because CCE cant go around portraying itself as the bastion of the tradition when it has so many internal faults. As i said ANY good work to do with CCE is done by unappreciated people on the ground who volunteer their time willingly. They do it fo the love of the music and NOT for the love of CCE.
I'm heartened by the positive contributions about CCE.
At grass roots level from my limited experience there are many good people giving freely of their time running branches, classes and sessions and regional and national competitions, all for the love of the music. CCE happens to be the orginisation that has a large presence with ITM. Where else do you go to learn irish music at very affordable rates with some branches hiring you instruments at a fraction of their cost to promote the instrument.
Like all orginisations the higher up you go the more politics becomes involved and this is not unique to music. Look at whats going on in Cork Hurling, the various groupings in Irish Dancing, it just goes on and on.
Two things the Irish are good at - knocking the achievements of others and the split. Even the IRA could not have a united front yet their stated aims were the same.
So why don't all the CCE bashers form their own grouping, fundraise, set up classes teach music for the love of it and lets see how you get on. And then maybe we can have a go at bashing your efforts.
have you even taken notice of what people are complaining about regarding CCE? clearly not.
nobody is 'bashing' ,as you so eloquently put it, the grouping, fundraising or the classes that the volunteers on the ground do so much for. you even said it yourself, you have limited experience of the grass roots level. CCE, the organisation itself, has little input here as the majority of the fundraising and hard work and teaching is done by the volunteers you mention. The term 'Comhaltas Branch' is merely a name given to the branches that are signed onto CCE's books. The rest of the work is left to the individuals. It is basically the same as if someone set up a local music group and did the same work. In the CCE case the name is the only difference and the very odd bit of money from the organisation.
can you not see that people are not giving out about the good work that CCE do which is basically done by the people at grass roots?
People have a problem with the work of the heads of the organisation and the messages they give out and their conduct. That has nothing to do with the people on the ground.
People want CCE to succeed but the way the heads are going about their business at the moment it is giving the organisation a bad name. take these for example:
The phasing out of regional styles, the lite- low fat semi-trad style and packaging it peddles about, Treoir magazine the terrible propoganda and 'how many pictures of Labhras with old people can we get into a magazine each month' farce that it is, the emphasis on competition, the pointless money making excercise and condensing down of trad music into around 12 tunes that are the CCE exams, Bru Boru, the now pointless CCE tours which dont seem to make sense anymore due to the wide number of concerts and music available to people at home and abroad, the whole selling of Irish music rights to IMRO debacle, the childish report on Irish Music for the arts minister by Labhras a number of years ago that was retracted after protests by musicians and traditional scholars, the Clasac debacle and the dissolving of Clontarf branch, Labhras' position as a senator and his use of this position to involve Comhaltas in politics, the lack of democracy within the organisation itself, the confusion over where they get their funding and how much they get and where it goes, the promotion of the organisation and the 'how great they are that they try to promote irish music' thing they do so well rather than actually promoting the music, the need to have their hand in almost everything going in trad music today for example the attempts to get involved in the Willie Clancy Week and turn it into a competition festival, the ignoring of traditional style dance such as sean nos and step, the ignoring of traditional singing like sean nos and singing in english, the ignoring of and prejudice shown to new age instrument like mandolin, bouzouki, mandola, guitar and any other that are new since the 60s and 70s.
Shall I go on?
I am not a begrudger. These things are very real problems that need to be sorted. I want CCE to be successful promoting all aspects of Trad but cannot see it doing that in a positive light with the way they are going about it at the moment.
Of course there are positives but these are all due to the good work of people on the ground, like my own mother. As a result I have seen all of it first hand. Any negatives that have arisen are due to the bureaucracy and amateurish and *nudge and wink* and 'sure it'll be grand' attitude that the powers that be in CCE seem to have.
Isn't Fiddleruairi doing just that by making an informed opinion - that's how you change peoples minds and attitudes.
Don't hold out too much hope though as CCE seems to be akin to many similar organisational mindsets in Ireland - look at the row going on down in Cork over the hurling - same old story, same politics, same business with the clubs doing all the work on the ground but I think were being criticised yesterday for daring to discuss opposition to the almighty County Board.
Southpaw started this thread by stating some of the positives about Comhaltas. Apart from enabling people to become part of a grouping of music lovers in Ireland and abroad and the wonderful contacts that we make down through the years, there are also the more tangible benefits such as forty or so fleadh cheoils annually, the numerous music classes run by local branches, the traditional music examinations, the annual diploma course for traditional music teachers - I could go on. In my opinion we'd be very much poorer without these and I doubt very much that any other group or organisation would step into the breach to organise such activities if Comhaltas decided to call it a day.
There's more than enough gloom and doom around these days without all this negativity on the Yellowboard so lets get back to the serious business of learning and playing more tunes!
Sorry Southpaw for the inaccuracy in my initial statement - it should have read "Southpaw started this thread by asking posters to state some of the positives about Comhaltas".
Bannerman's post reminds me of a piece in the introduction of The Armagh pipers club Tutor for the Uilleann Pipes tha tI learned from 29 years or so ago:
'It is rare to find an instrument used exclusively for folk-music which has three different types of scales, three drones, three or fours sets of keys for accompanying the melody, plays two octaves and a good few semi tones. The Uilleann pipes have all of these.'
I other words, you take all the things you do and say 'aren't we great for doing things we do'. It's a bit of a silly exercise.
Being un-critically gushing all the time is just as tiresome as forever 'bashing'.
It would be quite refreshing to see things for what they are: that being critical is not just negative and 'bashing' for it's own sake but that also be taken as a contribution to change things for the better, to work for the greater good.
As I quoted before: 'Great respect for the roots, but very little for the top'. And that's how I feel about it.
Nobody is asking Comhaltas to call it a day Bannerman, like fiddleruari said, we all want it to succeed. Everybody except those with a vested interest are asking for transparent financial statements, a more democratic election process, less (ideally no) political interference, full disclosure and a more rounded view of the Irish Traditional Arts among other things. I am, by the way, an ex committee member and I devote hours every day to the teaching of traditional music. I also run concerts and have a weekly radio show dedicated to the music as well as hosting a number a weekly sessions here in Toronto, all with no help from CCE.
Hussar, please read the other part of Southpaw's post - "When they are finished perhaps we could have a discussion about some of the positive aspects of Comhaltas and what they do." - now who's being selective?
TomB-R, it is very hard for people who see these faults and want to change to do anything about it. i am a member of a Comhaltas branch and i help out every week because i know that if i stopped going and a number of other people also then the whole thing would peter out. CCE needs to help branches more and encourage more activities. Myself and a few others have just started up a series of intimate concerts every month with well known musicians so people in the area and the kids can see and hear established musicians without having to go into the city to a pub they wont be allowed into. the older ones also get the chance to play on stage which is invaluable at their age ie: 16 and up, to improve confidence. This is done in conjunction with the local branch but we get no money from CCE. its a pity.
The fact that Labhras and the Ard-Comhairle have been there almost as long as each other means they are in it together so any likelihood of someone looking for vast changes simply wont be given the chance! it has gotten to the point that only higher authorities will be able to oversee any change, or if the Ard-Comhairle has a vote of no confidence which is unlikely.
Fionan.
Fair play on all the good work going on in Carrickmacross. Pardon my ignorance, but could you expand a bit on the Meitheal Program funding the branch receives. I have been involved down the years at various levels with my local Comhaltas branch but can't recall the branch receiving funding from the national organisation. All money from membership, comhaltas concerts etc always went back to the national central fund. We always had to raise all our funds ourselves. Admitedly, I haven't been involved in the last few years.
Seeing as i started this discussion I'd like to give my experience of CCE.
I'm a late arrival to traditional music. At 47 my knowledge of trad was limited to my Horslips collection, some tunes from Planxty, the Bothy Band and whatever i heard on radio.
I decided to learn an instrument and went about looking for classes. I couldn't speel Comhaltas (who can) and eventually made contact with a Dublin branch.
I was met with smiling faces, great encouragement and patient teachers. 3 years on i have done a stint on the branch committe (had to stand down due to work committments) and have worked at 2 Dublin fleadhs.
Recently a chance remark of mine to a very respected staff member about a slow set to bring on struggling musicians up to session speed very quickly led to a weekly very well attended dedicated session.
Sorry if my limited experience with CCE still has me enthusiastic about it but it's one of the best decisions I've made regarding spare time activities. I've made great friends, established a wide circle of aquaintances and, above all, enjoyed thee music.
I'm not 100% sure when it was set up but the Meitheal programme seems to have been established as a method for Comhaltas to disburse the money it received in the last few years from the Government.
It divides the country into regions - in Monaghan we're in with Cavan, Meath, Louth and Armagh. If we have a festival or publication or other project we can apply to the Meitheal programme for funding. It's also used for the development of regional centres.
We made an application last year and received €3,000 towards running our Féile Patrick Byrne - an amount which allowed us to break even on the whole weekend. The money has been scaled back this year so the most we can expect is €2,000. The crucial point about it though is that you need to have a definite project planned before you can apply, so it's very similar to applying to the arts council for funding. Hope that helps.
I have to agree with Southpaw, as my experience has been similarly positive. Go along to your local branch enjoy the music and dont read Trieor if you dont want to.
OK about Treoir but what about the great tunes that are sometimes in it? The new edition has some reels and jigs from the Kilfenora Céilí Band's new CD that hasn't even been released yet! If you don't read it, make sure you have a look at the centre pages.
I suppose that's the same as being an 'a la carte Catholic' - you take the bits you like and pretend you didn't hear the rest??
The GAA and CCE have a lot in common - great work & committment at local and club level. But as you go further up the chain of committees, things become progressively more mired. Some people don't see the forest for the trees.
My own branch of Comhaltas received a meitheal grant to run a very successfull series of workshops for teeage sean-nós dancers here in dublin last year. We ended each workshop with a meal and folowed with a musical session, It was open to all branchwes to attend and we had memebrs from a number of branches.
So much for the "No Help" and "No Seán Nós" agrument.
As regards the death of regional styles this has little to do with Comahaltas. In the past people copied the local best musician and this was called the regional style . Nowadays withe opportunity to recordings people are just copying the most highly recorded musicians. i.e.You can hardly blame Comhaltas for all our country and Western singers singing with an American accent .
eh murcu, there were also recordings of players available throughout the 70s and 80s aswell. many people agree with CCE and regional styles argument. there is actual evidence in the playing of lots of musicians. the death of regional styles has a lot to do with CCE. if they are going to be promoting traditional music then they cant just ignore this fact. just go to any of the competitions and hear some of the players and who gets placed.
Fiddleruairi, you amaze me, Why do you stay with an organization about which you know so little and insist on knocking. You help at your Branch functions, in voluntary organisations that happens in fact that’s how they work. CCE is voluntary from the ground up and is, despite what you may think accountable .
If you are involved on a branch it is open to you ,to present issues you wish to be dealt with ,to your Branch Committee, who may, if they agree with you, bring to County level, where again if there is a consensus in favour of your proposal/s they can bring to Provincial Councils and on to National Congress. Your Branch has also the right to short circuit this and put forward proposals to NationalCongress ,direct
At National Congress motions appropriate to the year are presented, discussed and voted on . This process takes place after Consideration of |Annual Report and of course Consideration of Provincial Reports and then CCE’s Financial Report. This is circulated to all present , discussed and ratified. The delegates who attend have the right to ask questions and take back to their units contrary to what you, would have your readers believe. If you have never seen heard a report from Congress at your Branch, might I suggest you attend your branch meetings and ask for one . Congress is held on the May Bank Holiday where those that actually know what they’re talking about ,give up their free time to ensure that the Organisation who’s Aims and Objects they believe in are discussed and it’s Rules are put in place.
Carrickmackross are to be commended for what they do as are all Comhaltas Branches. Innovative projects coming from Individuals, Branches and indeed any source within the Comhaltas family , can be funded in full or in part through Meitheal which usual ly has County and Provincial Officers ordinary members elected by ordinary members, not an elite uberclass.
Regional Styles ????
Where do you get your notions. All Regional Resource Centres , ,have Archives which pay particular attention to “LOCAL” styles, variations etc. They are or will be available for research and use by Members and scholars. The SCT examinations , have as part of the Syllabus a complete section on regional styles.
None of the above are secrets and all should have been reported on at Branch level.
Perhaps you missed those meetings
Now I don’t know why you joined Comhaltas and I can’t remember why I did but I can tell you that
I have taught when you didn‘t get paid, sat on Branch committees, listened to uninformed crap but stayed until I found out the truth. I have moved chairs in, moved chairs out. I have paid into concerts, ceilithe and sessions and worked my backside off all night after paying in and then swept up. I have transported ungrateful little gits to venues and taken stocious loonies home, miles out of my way. I have worked at Fleadheanna , cleaned up rooms left in flitters and attended Congresses when I could have been at home or on holiday. I have eaten the best apple tarts and trifles in the world, I have eaten the worst sandwiches on the planet, I have had the pleasure of making music with the greatest , not only in Ireland but the world. I have caused kids and grownups to sing and or take up music, I have given some world renowned musicians their first gigs, I have watched great musicians fall apart at Fleadheanna and mediocrities rise to levels that made me cry with pride. I have fought for things I believed in and helped make things happen and it’s not that hard to do. I have screamed with fury and bawled with pride . I have made the best friendships with people from all over the world. I have been invited all over the world and occasionally taken people up on their invitations. I enjoyed EVERY minute of it and will continue to do so . There are 40,000 Comhaltas people who enjoy membership in our Movement and it’s open to all 40,000 to get what I’ve got out of it
“As regards the death of regional styles this has little to do with Comahaltas. In the past people copied the local best musician and this was called the regional style . Nowadays with the opportunity [listen] to recordings people are just copying the most highly recorded musicians.”
Translation: “Regional styles are irrelevant to Irish traditional music.”
This is a sentiment very common in Comhaltas circles. I was once told by a Comhaltas-head from Donegal that I was not even playing Irish music. I had to inform him that people in Donegal have been playing Highlands and Strathspeys on fiddles and highland pipes before accordions or banjos were invented, and before the European polka craze.
And as regards “the death of regional styles”, they may be mostly expired from the Comhaltas competition culture (where the ‘Comhaltas Elect’ dictate what traditional music should sound like, something for which they are supremely unqualified), but traditional styles are alive in the playing of many, many people , despite Comhaltas’ efforts. (Sorry to disappoint!)
[Incidentally, apparently a ‘regional style’ is equivalent to ‘how some local guy plays’, I must inform the ethnomusicologists that they’re been wasting their time! Classic Comhaltas!]
Comhaltas can’t get off the hook for their sustained attack on traditional music, in favour of their vision of what Irish music should be, (a social experiment where everyone everywhere can play exactly the same tunes exactly the same way). Listen to recordings from the 30s and 40s and see if there has been anything lost. I keep hearing the older generation of musicians being compared unfavourably to the supposed ‘virtuosity’ of contemporary Irish traditional musicians. But what dominated this pub session social scene created by Comhaltas is people playing fairly easy two-octave exercises evenly, in tune, at a fixed volume, like a one-man Céilidh-bands with lifeless music that all sounds the same; (amazing technique they call it on RTE). No wonder many young musicians feel they have to give a contemporary overhaul to Irish music to make it interesting. They’ve only ever been exposed to a dim shadow of Irish music. Some younger musicians have thankfully gone the other way, and have studied the old styles properly. Their final aim is not just to dazzle the judges at the competition or the people in the pub; they have developed a passion for Gaelic music.
well what amazes me byrne is that you go to the trouble of getting all that off your chest without actually taking in anything that i have said before.
well first of all i have been a 'member' of CCE since I was 7 i am 21 now. In that 14 years I have experienced a lot from the perspective of a child playing within the organisation up until the last few years where I have seen things from the other side. I am now in the position where I feel that I have gotten so much from the people who have been volunteering when I was young that I feel only right that I give something back by helping out for at least a few years. I have played music basically my whole life and have been to the moon and back playing. I havent been walking around all of that time with my eyes closed and my ears shut. I dont go saying the things I do about CCE without actually having some bloody reason or facts on what I say.
The reason I stay with the organisation is NOT because of a love for CCE it is because of the music and because i feel like I need to give something back to the volunteer in my branch that helped me. I did get good years from being a branch member but that was down to the volunteers not labhras or the ard comhairle.
And please, dont feel the need to belittle me with notions that I havent attended branch meetings and know nothing of the structure. I actually went to the bother of reading through the whole CCE Bunreacht for a college essay. Sure the last meeting i was at was little over a month ago out of which myself and two other people my age took it upon ourselves to organise monthly concerts rather like the ones in the Cobblestone for the local people - basically funded a lot by our own pockets. Again, read the earlier comments.
This is apart from helping at the branch session every friday night when I could easily just be in town somewhere with mates in a session. No, I want to give something back to the kids. Its because of loyalty to them that I still go not loyalty to CCE. Of course i wont always be a member of CCE, but as soon as I feel like I have given something back then il move on. I do not spend my whole musical life in CCE, that is a very small part. I have paid some of my dues, I teach, I gig, I've travelled everywhere, i've friends from all over, I help the branch or whatever. Dont treat me like a mug.
Anyway, you even said it yourself. Everything you said in that last paragraph there began with 'I have'. Any good that people do get out of CCE is down to volunteers like yourself. now here is the important bit: ANY PROBLEM I HAVE WITH CCE LIKE THE ONES I MENTIONED ARE ALL TO DO WITH THE TOP BRASS AND THEIR ACTIONS. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ORGANISATIONS AIMS, IT IS THE WAY THE TOP BRASS GO ABOUT IT. I NEVER SAID A BAD WORD ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES AT GRASS ROOTS LEVEL. ANY PROBLEMS OR NEGATIVES WITH CCE ARE FROM THE TOP.
All the things i listed off are real problems and the events I mentioned actually happened. I am not beings begruding as I said in my earlier comment. I am being realistic. Do things like the funding transparency issue or the selling of Trad music rights to IMRO not bother you at all?
and dont tell me that you havent heard of the Comhaltas style of playing? everybody has. oh the Comhltas exams explains it all? come on! they dumb it down to a couple of tunes! its childish at best. i could tell you a number of players that have been groomed by Comhaltas for years that do not play in the style of where they are from, they play in the Comhaltas style, monotonous and with no cutting edge or taste.
I think whistelblower there explains it perfectly! Oh and just regards that whistelblower, i agree that regional styles are still alive its just that CCE doesnt seem to appreciate it thats all.
I am sincerely glad you have enjoyed your experiences running your branch and the experiences working with the kids. I WANT CCE to be successful in the long run but cannot see that with the way the heads are going about their business and the 'twee' and tired image they want to promote. The problems are with the upper echelons of the organisation.
Do you actually know how many musicians I have talked to that have said the same things I am saying here???
I agree with you that all branches should be commended! I said (you know you really should just read my earlier comment) that it is them that do all of the hard and good work in CCE.
my whole branch has said that labhras should go and we have said it countless times. even well known people in the branch that would be known wihtin Comhaltas circles have said it. we have said it to the councils as well. But do you honestly think that any branch if they are unhappy will sway the Ard Comhairle or Labhras seeing as they support each other so much? That is the democratic problem. We have the vote but it is practically useless.
This isnt just me blurting things out because of a rush of blood to the head. And where did I complain about the rules of CCE or its aims? My problem is with the way the top brass go about their business, but obviously you must have skipped over that part.
I may still be young but i am lucky to be surrounded by music all the time and grown up with it. Its the life in my years thats the reason I put faith in my comments. That may sound arrogant to you but, hey, you seem to have faith in what you say aswell so there we have something in common. Thats the funny thing, we both believe that the grass roots is great. Read my earlier comments.
Don't like competitions don't apply but don't whinge when you come nowhere
highly recorded musician??? it's about volume then
"as regards the "death of regional styles" ,they may be mostly expire from the Comhaltas competition culture."
What does that mean? What language is it ? In fact who cares?
well done byrne, you've just crossed the line into completely useless.
Grow up man. You know you have a problem when a 21 year old is telling you that.
whistleblower( in the language of English if you are wondering) meant that regional styles are no longer appreciated (they are 'expired', ie; dead. look it up in a dictionary) in CCE competition. That only a certain CCE style permeating down from the competitions will be promoted by CCE. And to answer your question, thats what that means. And to answer you're other question, anyone who cares about irish music or knows anything about irish music cares.
Yes Byrne,
If you’re going to criticise my English please quote me correctly. By “ …mostly expired from the Comhaltas competition culture,” I mean that regional styles within Comhaltas Irish-traditional-music-lite are dead, they are no more, they are deceased. Forgive the cumbersome language, English is my second language.
This complaint about the comprehensibility of language comes, incidentally from someone who describes himself as: “A Trad enthusiast who has 'a huge grá' for All things diddly Aye”.
“Conversation held partially ‘i nGaeilge’” — very Comhaltas!
From what I'm reading most people appear to be happy with CCE at grassroots level. The annimosity appears to be with the leadership and the Director General, an unelected position.
As with all democratic bodies people can be voted in and out of office, boards can require the chief executive to atep down. If there is so much resentment with the CEC the next Congress is coming up soon and it is your democratic right to propose a motion to congress on whatever topic.
Personally, I don't mind who is running CCE because I think whoever is running CCE they will do it to further Traditional Irish Music in the best way they think possible.
You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Article showing the real Labhras O'Murchu for the shrewd operator he is. Interesting things to note, he said in the Pat Kenny interview that Olivia Mitchell should be criticised for politicising CCE. However this article shows clear evidence that he in fact does this himself on a regular basis. He is also the 'editor' (although what qualifications he has for this il never know) of treoir magazine, which is another example of using a money spending venture to forward his personal views which lacks any repsect for ethical behaviour.
The Phoenix December 6th 2002
LABHRÁS Ó MURCHÚ
Pillars of Society
IT IS not often that the subject of traditional Irish music and dancing achieves more than a passing reference in the Dublin media but the debate on the current Arts Bill - focusing on the creation of a standing committee outside the Arts Council with funding power - has generated plenty of column inches and dominated large swathes of The Irish Times letters page. At the heart of this debate is Senator Labhras Ó Murchú, the all-powerful director general of the traditional music body, Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (CCE). If the Bill is passed in its current format, Ó Murchú will have not only achieved a notable victory over his old enemies on the Arts Council but will also be in a position to tap into a new source of public funding. Not many are betting against him at this stage given his good relationship with Minister for the Arts, John O'Donoghue.
Section 21 of the Arts Bill 2002 states that the Arts Council "shall establish three standing committees of which one shall assist and advise on matters relating to traditional arts". In each case the Minister will appoint the chair and two members of the five-member committee but alone of the three committees, the one dealing with the traditional Irish arts "shall make recommendations to the Council in relation to the advance of to any person relating to traditional Irish arts".
The apoplexy at Merrion Square over this inclusion in the Bill is hard to overestimate. For the first time, it is proposed that the power to allocate funding is taken out of the hands of the Council and the question is, if such a committee can do this work, why have an Arts Council at all? Why not just have six or ten standing committees? Given his frosty relationship with the Council, Labhras Ó Murchú will be enjoying the discomfort on Merrion Square.
THE SPLIT
Meanwhile, the battle of the Arts Bill began in earnest last week when the select committee chaired by Cecelia Keaveney received submissions from various interested parties, including CCE. The only issue on the agenda was Section 21 and the level of division within the arts community was clearly evident. Letters to The Irish Times in recent weeks have also highlighted the split with Arts Council clients such as the Contemporary Music Centre and the Willie Clancy Summer School expressing their opposition to the proposal. Even the Arts Council itself stepped into the fray when Dermot McLaughlin questioned CCE's need for funding from Merrion Square.
Meanwhile, Ó Murchú and his organisation have been lobbying TDs and senators directly with deputies receiving a letter referring to "a covert campaign launched against the provisions of the Bill that favour the traditional arts". This is actually looking like a rather even battle. While the Arts Council has a lot of muscle courtesy of its €44 million in EU annual funding and the powers of patronage this carries, CCE is a very large organisation and in Ó Murchú it has a man on the inside. Indeed, with his wife, Una Ó Murchú - the director of the Brú Ború traditional music centre in Cashel - now sitting on the Arts Council herself, it could be argued that CCE has a presence on both sides of this particular fence .
What is most remarkable about the manner in which Ó Murchú got the standing committee on traditional arts inserted into the Bill - and there is no argument that he is the man responsible - is that this was thought to be dead and buried. The Comhaltas supremo had originally floated the idea of a sort of separate Traditional Arts Council in a report for the Joint Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language which he had prepared as its rapporteur. This controversial report - the first ever on traditional Irish music - was passed by the committee only to run into serious flak when it emerged that apart from CCÉ, no other body was mentioned by Ó Murchú. The Arts Council was particularly animated over the recommendation for an outside body to promote the traditional arts.
In an unprecedented move, the Oireachtas Committee was forced to request submissions from outside on the report (described in the CCÉ newsletter, Treoir, as "comprehensive") after it had been published and the document subsequently gathered dust. The Merrion Square Mafia breathed a sigh of relief only for the issue to arise again in 2001 when the Department of Arts sought submissions on Síle Dev's proposed new Arts legislation.
The vast bulk of these submissions concerned the traditional arts but Theo Dorgan - who was brought in by the Minister to analyse the various submissions - noted that the arguments in favour of the traditional arts council "can be considered a single point of view expressed by a multitude of people acting in concert" (ie, a CCE campaign). More interestingly, the Department of the Taoiseach stated that such a body would be "deeply regressive" and would "both ghettoise and patronise practitioners" (see The Phoenix 16/3/01).
So that was that? Not quite. When the new Arts Bill was drafted, the Arts Council's worst fears were realised. A committee with funding powers for the traditional arts had suddenly materialised, controlled not by Merrion Square but by Ministerial appointees. Patricia Quinn et al viewed this a way for CCE to get on the arts funding gravy train to complement its income from the Department of Gaeltacht, which is supposed to be ring-fenced for promoting the Irish language.
This year CCE got €500,000 from this source and, indeed, Ó Murchú has proved very effective at tapping the public purse and is a consistent recipient of Cultural Relations Committee funding for US events. Also, Brú Ború in Cashel -one of a number of Comhaltas centres around the country - managed to land no less than €1.5 million from Bord Fáilte to build an underground theatre. There was a further €650,000 from the Department of Arts last year for this project which was officially opened by Síle Dev.
FUNDING
However, relations with Merrion Square are very poor and CCÉ has never been able to get funding from the Arts Council. Not surprisingly perhaps, Comhaltas did bung in a couple of unsuccessful applications (for around €300,000) in 1998 and 1999 - immediately after Una Ó Murchú was appointed to the Council by Síle Dev.
This week the Arts Council will be the last body to address the select committee on the Arts Bill and it will have to be an impressive performance. As it stands, the word is that Senator Ó Murchú has edged ahead and his access to John O'Donoghue gives him further leverage in the coming months, with the Bill due to be finally passed by March.
Ó Murchú (born Larry Murphy in 1939, he changed his name by deed poll in the 1950s) is not the typical Fianna Failer although to Dublin 4 he represents all that is awful about the Soldiers of Destiny, with his CCE organisation and its gaelgeoirí jigging and reeling at the crossroads perceived as a glorified Fianna Fail network. However, within the party, Ó Murchú is viewed with suspicion and certainly he was nowhere to be seen on the favoured list of Seanad candidates circulated by Ray MacSharry's committee before the recent election. Along with the likes of Paschal Mooney, Dan Kiely and Camillus Glynn, Ó Murchú and the so-called old guard were earmarked for the chop by FF HQ.
Things didn't work out that way, however, and the CCE supremo was re-elected onto the Cultural and Educational Panel on the 14th count - ahead of Brian Hayes, Noel Coonan and Ann Ormonde. Indeed the poll topper on that panel - Paschal Mooney - and
Ó Murchú were not even nominated by FF. Mooney's name was put forward by the Association of Libraries while Ó Murchú was the not so surprising choice of CCE.
Since the election, Ó Murchú has been made spokesman on Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and added to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sport and Tourism, the Seanad Committee on Procedure and Privilege as well as the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. While he is best known for his obsession with Irish traditional arts, the Cashel senator has spoken out on a range of contentious issues, most recently the Colombia Three. He is also centrally involved with the creation of a new body, the Irish Rural Dwellers Association, set up last month to take on the likes of Michael Smith's An Taisce and help push for a more populated countryside (ie, one-off housing).
In his time Ó Murchú has also called for support for the likes of Michelle de Brúin -"one of our national treasures" - and Roisin McAliskey. He also spends his time denouncing the likes of comedian Tommy Tiernan for "blasphemy" (after a Late Late Show performance) and complaining about the McDonald's restaurant chain's "insult" to the memory of Peig Sayers in a TV advert a couple of years ago: "I can only suggest that it is the product of a sick mind. No right-thinking Irish person should accept it".
But above all else, Labhras Ó Murchú uses the Seanad to push forward CCE policies. CCE is his bread and butter and he is the permanent (since 1968) full-time director general of the organisation. As top dog and plenipotentiary, there are few figures who hold such power in any organisation. Not only does Ó Murchú hold the post of director general until whenever he decides to call it a day but he is also the CCE spokesman on everything, the editor of its quarterly journal, Treoir, and one of the three permanent trustees in whom CCE's various properties are vested, including the very valuable and impressive headquarters on Belgrave Square in Monkstown. In the past, the senator has also held the elected post of President General of CCE.
PROFITS OF €1.5 MILLION
Comhaltas regularly claims to have 400 branches even if some of these are very small indeed. Nevertheless, the organisation is a very successful one and although the accounts are not published, Goldhawk can reveal that there were accumulated profits of €1.5 million at the end of last year. "Wages, pension, travel and subsistence" amounted to €550,000 (including a top-up sum for pensions). The biggest single element here would be Ó Murchú's salary although the senator refused to elucidate Goldhawk on the amount he takes out of his organisation every year. Ó Murchú's right-hand man in Comhaltas is Seamus Mac Mathuna - hubby of anti-abortion firebrand, Una, and father of Youth Defence's Niamh Nic Mhatuna. The director general himself is also an outspoken anti-abortionist, both in the Seanad and in the pages of Treoir.
Ó Murchú's ability to use the Seanad to push the interests of CCE was never clearer than with the passage of the Copyright Bill in 1999 which was initially opposed by the senator despite the fact that the Government was pushing it through. In this case, he put Comhaltas before FF but in a most Machiavellian manner, managed to end up onside at the end of the day after tying up a very unusual deal with the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) whereby CCE was issued a blanket licence "to cover all official
Comhaltas functions".
The Letter of Agreement also stated that IMRO would fund CCE to the tune of €63,500 annually and also provided for an annual €32,000 subvention for the Brú Ború venue run by Ó Murchú's wife, Una. No other CCE centre was mentioned.
In return, CCE agreed "to support IMRO's submission to the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment in relation to the proposed Copyright Bill". In other words, Ó Murchú did a U-turn on his stance on the Bill but only when he protected CCE from the clutches of IMRO. Clearly, other traditional music bodies - outsiders in his eyes - could fend for themselves.
This deal suggests that it is very foolish to underestimate Ó Murchú's ability to get what he wants. He has the ear of the Minister and a formidable public relations machine going head to head with the Arts Council, which has everything to lose. With John O'Donoghue also on side, the senator is already preparing to draw up his list of nominees for the standing committee that will examine his inevitable funding application. What all this could mean for the future of the slimmed down Arts Council is, however, far from clear.
Especially the the quote: "Labhras Ó Murchú ... is the permanent (since 1968) full-time director general of the organisation."
I respect the work of my local CCE reps in promoting the music and culture, but from what I read in the above article, the CCE executive level stinks to high heaven!
Like I said earlier, I have limited knowledge of Comhaltas, about 3 years.
From What I'm reading about Labhras he has been singlehandly in charge of CCE since 1968, that's over 40 years.
We are talking about a man who by all accounts has singlehandly brough CCE from small beginings to what it is now, a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide, has a huge membership, has seen off rock music, pop music, punk whatever, has thousnands of children worldwide attending music classes despite ipods, bebo wiii's etc. Contributors slag him off because of his regular appearances in Treoir. Have a look at where the photopraphs are taken. It shows he's on the road recognising peoples involvement in CCE and he's in touch with the grass roots.
Come on guys this man should be placed on a pedestal and thanked for dedicating his life to his achievement CCE.
In case you think I am a staffer or a Lamhras deciple I'm not. He shook my hand once, an annonomus face in a crowd a concert who passed through a door where he was holding court.
So why don't we stand back and look at the good CCE has achieved and stop knocking it.
Re: The Real Issue: Traditional Irish Music vs. Irish-music-lite.
Nowhere in your posts have you addressed the serious issue that this organization (and the shady character you are defending) have mounted a systematic attack on traditional music!
"a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide"??
What it promotes is a generic competition style of its own invention, and the existence of this dreadful organization threatens the continued existence of any genuinely traditional music in Ireland.
None of the positive comments you have made have addressed the serious musical and cultural point that there is a big difference between the actual survival and flourishing of “Traditional” Irish music and the widespread popularity of what some people decide to give the label "ITM"! (The flourishing of one thing is not the same as the popularity of some completely different thing!)
Like many musicians I lament the existence of this organization. And I can see plainly that they are using their dodgy money and their organizational structure, their competition culture, their exams, etc. to dictate what qualifies as Irish music, and are in fact threatening genuine traditional music! All this nonsense about local volunteers and the rest is just sidestepping the real issue here: An attack on traditional music from an organization supremely unqualified to set itself us as guardian and judge of a music it has no respect for and does not understand.
None of the defenders of Comhaltas here have addressed this point.
southpaw, you liek Labhras because he shook your hand once? He shakes everybody's hand because he is a politician!! You are right in what you said, that you were an anonymous face to him. That is what the majority of people are to him.
You completely ignored the article and focussed in on one point, the fact he has been there for 40 years. You completely missed the rest of the articel pointing out the dodgy dealings, the politicisin of the music, the lack of democracy, the confusion about funding and where it goes.
Labhras has no single handedly brought the music back from the dead. He cant even PLAY an instrument for goodness sake let alone tell a reel from a jig. It is the hard work of the grassroots that does all the work and the executives that reap all of the plaudits.
And about treoir, yes i see him attended functions all of the time on the funding that is suppose to be used for the music. The tullamore court hotel last year for example was COMPLETELY booked out for himself and the Ard Comhairle, and thats a fact! even ask the hotel. He regularly gets all expenses paid trips to america to visit branches and functions out there. Oh yea, he is doing agood job posing for the photos alright! lol!
the idea of comhaltas isnt to 'see off' rock or pop music. This is something Labhras says in a lot of his speeches that ive heard about seeing off these other types of music. But people who like trad like other music aswell so why all the animosity towards completely different genres?
You have not taken in anything, any of the facts that we have bright to the table. We have read all of your comments and they are all the same, simple blind praise for Labhras and the organisation without any real concern for the facts! You have said nothing that would defend the top brass of the organisation. I am yet to be convinced.
Re: CCE bashers. The Issue of Traditional Music vs. Irish-music-lite
Nowhere in your posts have you addressed the serious issue that this organization (and the shady character you are defending) have mounted a systematic attack on traditional music!
"a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide"??
What it promotes is a generic competition style of its own invention, and the existence of this dreadful organization threatens the continued existence of any genuinely traditional music in Ireland.
None of the positive comments you have made have addressed the serious musical and cultural point that there is a big difference between the actual survival and flourishing of “Traditional” Irish music and the widespread popularity of what some people decide to give the label "ITM"! (The flourishing of one thing is not the same as the popularity of some completely different thing!)
Like many musicians I lament the existence of this organization. And I can see plainly that they are using their dodgy money and their organizational structure, their competition culture, their exams, etc. to dictate what qualifies as Irish music, and are in fact threatening genuine traditional music! All this nonsense about local volunteers and the rest is just sidestepping the real issue here: an attack on traditional music from an organization supremely unqualified to set itself us as guardian and judge of a music it has no respect for and does not understand.
None of the defenders of Comhaltas have addressed this point.
Southpaw, I've been a member of Comhaltas (St James the Great, Pollock, Glasgow) for a number of years, but this:
>From What I'm reading about Labhras he has been >singlehandly in charge of CCE since 1968, that's over 40 >years.
>We are talking about a man who by all accounts has >singlehandly brough CCE from small beginings to what it is >now, a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide, <snip...>
>Come on guys this man should be placed on a pedestal and >thanked for dedicating his life to his achievement CCE.
...is the biggest dollop of sychophantic drool* I've read in a long time.
Single handed my Rs.
Maybe the hundreds, more likely thousands, of folks who ever taught for free at a comhaltas class, played a fundraising ceili to buy instruments for the kids or cover bus fairs, etc should all never have bothered seeing as the senator has it all covered.
- chris
* yes, I know. Drool doesn't really dollop, but other bodily emmisions fall foul of the filters.
I made the suggestion that Labhras should be put on a pedestal for his achievements in responce to the postings regarding him being in charge for the last 40 years. Surely this is the impression that someone from outside would take from the comments made. Maybe I was being sarcastic.
If you don't like the leadership of any organisation, CCE included, get involved in the democratic process and have a new director general appointed. Then what happens, no matter who gets appointed, he or she won't be to everyone's taste or politics, another big row will ensue and in the best of Irish traditions, there will be a split.
As to the ability to play an instrument I doubt John Delaney can kick a ball. Just because you are agood musician doesn't make you a goo administrator or leader. How many wonderful chefs make dreadful businessmen?
As to using political connections to obtain funding, how did Croke Park get re-developed?. I'm sure it's no accident that Tullamore has got a 3 in a row. Likewise I've been in Monkstown when a senior republican figure held a book launch, the Green Party were there last week anouncing grants for home improvements.
As to the Phoenix article I have a subscription to it for a number of years and find Phoenix informative. Regarding the Arts Council, I informally met the then Chairperson of the Arts Council and she led me to believe that their funding was for the Arts and were not for the common people playing jigs and reels. I'm not aware of the IMRO debate so I can't comment. It wasn't the purpose of this post to defend the position of the director general but he seems to be getting all the flack.
My purpose is to highlight the good work that is done at branch level all around the country and how ITM gives so much pleasure to so many people and to recognise the efforts of the many unpaid and undervalued members who give so freely of their time in order that the music lives on.
"I informally met the then Chairperson of the Arts Council and she led me to believe that their funding was for the Arts and were not for the common people playing jigs and reels" - now it's beginning to fit into place as I could never understand at the time why only 0.9% of Arts Council money went to the Traditional Arts. Whatever people's views are about Labhrás, if one agrees that traditional arts are special and not just "diddley aye" in the corner of a pub, one has to applaud his efforts in getting the funding situation redressed.
In view of the severity of the economic downturn and cuts to funding being made or planned, maybe it's a bit handy at the moment having a senator on board who is good at getting the money.
Other than the rather mundane point of the organization's dodgy leadership, have you any interest in the substantive issue of Comhaltas' radically dumbed-down version of Irish traditional music (its “stereotyped revivalism”), or would you rather that the thorny issue of the dubious authenticity of what this organization is 'preserving' be ignored? This issue will not be fixed by a new leader, Comhaltas would need a whole new ethos!
Wouldn't know enough about it myself, mate. But from the perspective of someone on the other side of the world who'd like to learn some tunes, the website is a great resource, as well as things like the fion sessuin? cds, etc.
I know it seems like a lot of money to devote just to get resources like that onto a website, and maybe that luxury won't continue in the future, I don't know, but it is helpful - whether the cost justifies that, it isn't for me to say, but it does seem like a lot.
In respect of regional styles not being "upheld" "taught", whatever, I don't see any problem in local CCE branches actually teaching those - are they banned from doing so?
It would be nice to see money being provided though to branches to remunerate people for their efforts too.
In my experience, if there was ever an issue to generate public discontent it is the issue of financial transparency and open books, especially, especially, in a body that is funded from taxpayer funds. Unless they address that, the problem for them is not going to go away.
Going a bit further on that, I would have thought it would a particular drawcard for CCE (and importantly individual branches) if regional styles were emphasised in branches in those regions...and be advertised by CCE in the context of education and festivals. I would have thought there'd be plenty of people who would want to go to a CCE branch "regional style workshop program" as part of a festival in whatever part of Ireland they would be held. What a great idea for tourism as well, perhaps needless to say.
Is this desirable/possible, or not, or am I missing something?
Can the branches not make these decisions? Maybe it would give extra leverage in manoeuvering funding from CCE head office, if not, I would have thought that the tourism minister mightn't be too happy.
Southpaw:
>I made the suggestion that Labhras should be put on a >pedestal for his achievements in responce to the >postings .regarding him being in charge for the last 40 >years .Surely this is the impression that someone from >outside would take from the comments made. Maybe I was >being sarcastic.
If it was an attempt at sarcasm it badly missed the mark
>If you don't like the leadership of any organisation, CCE >included, get involved in the democratic process and have a >new director general appointed. Then what happens, no >matter who gets appointed, he or she won't be
I've been an active member of CCE for a fair few years. I'm happy to be involved in the day to day practical activities.
But lets not pretend that CCE's structures are not incredibly beaurocratic. They are apparently designed to stiffle any suggestion of change in policy or structure from within the organisation.
I've been a member of many organisations down the years and nothing I've ever came into contact with can touch comhaltas for beaurocracy.
Now, I've got a lot of time for CCE. Literally. I' ve given up plenty of hours of time to teach, play fundraisers etc (though I'm not keen on the competition aspects of the organisation). Much less time than some, but i've done it nonetheless. I wouldn't be wasting my time getting involved in trying to change the central structures and politics of CCE though. There is no chance of that happening.
Wasn't the shady leadership of this organization the reason for your starting this thread? Surely the phrase needs little explanation in this context. For information on the "dodgy leadership" refer to these posts:
I've made it quite clear above that the issue of shifty leadership and questionable financial propriety is something I'm not interested in, just as you are apparently not interested in discussing what I regard as the most important issue: the systematic damage done by Comhaltas to traditional music.
"Dodgy leadership" was not the reason for starting this thread. I've seen a lot of anti CCE sentiment on this website and I thought it was time to show some of the positive aspects of CCE.
Whistleblower, I wish I had your knowledge and passion for the music to be able to form the opinions that you do. I take the music for what it is and while having little knowledge of regional styles, no one seems to play a tune the same way. Look at how many different variants there are to tunes, none of them can be deemed to be the correct one, unless of course you composed it. even then people hear what they hear and play what they thought they heard and if a little deviatiion or ornamentation sounds better, so much the better.
As to the Comhaltas style my knowledge of learning music started with the CCE series of music books and from that I use music books that I picked up here and this excellent website. Yes there can be difficulties with everyone playing the same version of a tune but in a session can you imagine everyone playing their own version of a tune We can't even agree on the name of a tune unless its 'gan ainm'.
I'm all for transparency of matters financial so if there's nothing to hide let's see the accounts published for all to see.
whistleblower:
>I've made it quite clear above that the issue of shifty >leadership and questionable financial propriety is something >I'm not interested in, just as you are apparently not interested >in discussing what I regard as the most important issue: the >systematic damage done by Comhaltas to traditional music
I can't speak fro the situation within Ireland, but CCE has played a major role in passing Irish trad music on the succeeding generations outside of ireland.
It makes me smile whenever I hear the charge that CCDE encourages one particular style. Maybe for competitions (about which I don't really care), but in the CCE branch that I attend there have been a number of different approaches & styles to the music taken by various members down the years.
Outside of Ireland there is probably little danger of a local style being diluted by CCE, and there certainly hasn't been a single style that has dominated my experience of CCE at branch level.
BTW, a number of folks here have been passionate about the preservation of local styles within Ireland. This strikes me as a worthy cause, but can I draw attention to a question I asked on another thread (started by Jusa)? It is a genuine question that I hoped to see discussed. It isn't an attempt to disparage local playing styles. I'd still be interested in opinions if anyone cares to voice one.
Have to agree with the last two posts about Comhaltas attempting to subvert regional styles or establish one of their own. I've been a member of Comhaltas now for more than 30 years in both UK and Irish branches and have never seen any evidence of a preference for a particular style. Like Southpaw I would have been more interested in the enjoyable task of finding new music and tunes rather than concentrating on any one style or other. In any case it's hard to be dogmatic about whether styles are indeed really regional or more down to influential musicians such as Coleman, Doherty and Canny. If you take the latter there's a big difference between Paddy Canny's (Tulla in East Clare) playing and Joe Ryan (Inagh, in West Clare) and these musicians would have only lived twenty or so miles apart. Similarly while Johnny Doherty and Tommy Peoples are both Donegal fiddlers, I would contend that Tommy's is really a "Peoples" style.
Having said all that, ramblingpitchfork's link is well worth a visit and a further link from there (www.resinand bow or similar) provides some invaluable information on the whole business of styles.
"The reason Donegal Gaelic is distinct from the Gaelic of Kerry or South Uist is not because the people were poorly travelled, but because the Gaelic comes from a living community of speakers, and the same goes for music."
from: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16800
I will go further: Any genuine Gaelic belongs to one or other of the regional dialects. The Dublin government standard Irish invented in the 1950s is an artificial language. Likewise the only genuinely traditional Irish music is an instance of one or other of the regional styles. Traditional music in Scandinavia has not suffered the same attack on traditional styles because it has not been popularized internationally, with the dumbing down that appears to come with it. As Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh said, nowadays with our being bombarded with various musical influences (from other musical traditions, and of course from the insidious Irish-music-lite) we need to do a little scholarship in order to play traditional music, unless of course one is not interested in whether or not the music one plays is actually traditional.
I agree with Bannerman that Tommy Peoples' style originated with him, and fiddlers who play like him in my experience got that style directly from him. The Donegal style is a good example of where commentators have focused on one person to the exclusion of nearly everyone else. John Doherty was one among many hundreds of superb players. His style was actually quite unusual in that he played mostly without swing, and this is now copied by many others as if it is THE defining feature of Donegal style. This is Mistake! Mickey Doherty, Neillie Boyle and just about every old player I heard in the Rosses played with considerable swing.
(There are at least 6 distinct styles in Donegal, and surely more subtle variations than that. I have certainly found variations between villages no more than 5 miles apart, typically meaning that there are variations based on one or two families and their distinctive way of playing that has its own distinctive history. But there are such similarities in the styles that the regional style forms a natural category).
Commentators focus on one or two players and the reader can be forgive for thinking that these examples are the origin of the style. On one of John Doherty’s records he talked to Padraig Boyle about how he lived with the Rann na Feirste fiddler Sean Chormac for 2 years when he was around 20 years old. The West Highland tunes and old Rosses reels and highlands were still popular around that area when I was growing up. And today when I play many of the old tunes from the Rosses its hardly surprising that people say, “AH, you got that from Johnny Doherty’s playing!” But of course Johnny Doherty learned these tunes from somewhere, he was part of a vast musical landscape; he didn’t invent it, he didn't write the tunes, he didn't forge the links to the West Highland style (though the lack of swing appears to be his own), and he was not the only guardian of it. We can’t credit John Doherty or any other player (or even a few dozen players) with the Donegal style, no more that we can credit a great poet with creating the dialect he writes in.
Whistleblower has already addressed all your points eloquently yet you still choose to ignore them. You obviously don't have enough knowledge of the music to comment on whistleblowers posts so please don't.
What about the Comhaltas tours i.e. 'Echo's of Erin' - I wonder how much those kids are getting paid? Anyone hazard a guess? The words 'for Ireland' come to mind.
It seems to me that a few ,denigrate all the good that CCE has done since it's inception. I see no other organization that has 'steped up to the plate' like CCE. Instead of all the negativity on the yellow board, why not extoll the good 'Tings' CCE has done for Trad. Music World, It is indeed a very good resource . Enough with the few 'Negative Apples'!!!
Bannerman should send some time in his regional archive in Cois na hAbhna if he brings up Paddy Canny and Joe Ryan to make a point about (the lack) of regional styles.
He could have placed Paddy Canny in his regional or local context with Peter Woods, Martin Rochford, P Joe Hayes, Vincent Griffin and made connections through Paddy's father Pat who taught or influenced most of the above. Going back we would have found Pat Canny's contemporaries like Michael Touhey (an uncle of Patsy Touhey by the way), Johnny Allen, Patrick Moloney who were in turn all taught by Paddy McNamara, a travelling fiddler. Then we would have had a point about a regional style.
The same could have been done for the West Clare styles, the lineage of Scully Casey, Thady Casey, Junior Crehan, Bobby Casey, Michael Downes, John Joe Tuttle JP Shannon, Paddy Galvin, Joe Ryan, the influences of pat Barron and other travelling musicians on the local style and repertoire.
the connections an influences between Canny, Ryan, Rochford and Tommy Potts..
South West Clare centering of Paddy Kelly, John kelly, ellen Galvin and other pupils of Joh nwhelan, travelling fiddle teacher from North Kerry and their cross- overs to both the West Clare fiddlers and the East Clare ones (Martin Rochford went to see both Paddy Kelly and Junior Crehan regularly)
And that's all before we start on North Clare, Doolin, Kilfenora, Bellharbour.
If we deny it's there we won't be able to say it's not been promoted, or have the regional styles like these not been noticed by Clare CCE officials like Bannerman?
VocalDivaSteed.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Idon't have whistleblowers knowledge of the music, I have said that and I wished I had his and probably your passion and knowledge of the music to recognise regional styles, I'll leave that to self proclaimed experts like your selves.
Kilfarboy, I think you’ve established your point admirably. It's good to see someone who knows their stuff!
I did notice Bannerman’s statement that he “would have been more interested in the enjoyable task of finding new music and tunes rather than concentrating on any one style or other.” Again, this is something I have noticed from Comhaltas folk, even the ones who admit that regional styles do exist, they depreciate them and marginalise their importance to the tradition, as if regional traditions were a minor side-issue, in itself of little importance to Irish music. (Accumulate more tunes and forget about the little stuff of traditional regional styles!)
This malady will not be fixed by tweaking the organization slightly. The aim of the popularizing movement is that anyone will be able to go into an ‘Irish’ pub in Dublin, Galway, Leeds, London, New York, Berlin and hear exactly the same tune played in exactly the same way. Traditional music in Ireland is increasingly going in this direction. Even Cairdeas na bhFidiléirí, an association of South Donegal fiddlers, seems to be launching themselves towards a standardization of the Donegal style.
As I said in a previous post:
The recent revivalist movement in South Donegal that has fixed dubious rules for Donegal playing, such as “no swing, no slurring, no finder ornamentation,…”, this type of playing was far from the norm in Donegal. All of these outlawed things are features of the non-John Doherty styles, and even he did slur notes and use finger ornamentation, though not as much as the was typical of the Rosses style [e.g., Neillie Boyle].
Nothing particularly to show off about. But it seems somehow typical of a Comhaltas project officer to dismiss local styles and the importance of people and places and the footsteps the ones before us left because he seems to prefer to sit in 'Seisiun'. As if those two things would be mutually exclusive.
I think it's all the more a shame as Bannerman has Paddy Canny's grandchildren Emeair and Gerald coming into Cois na hAbhna, lovely whistle and harp players and especially Eimeair has 'the touch' on the fiddle, a direct lineage and unbroken continuity right back to Paddy Mac. And apparently he fails to acknowledge the importance of that.
"Having said all that, ramblingpitchfork's link is well worth a visit and a further link from there (www.resinand bow or similar) provides some invaluable information on the whole business of styles."
Well worth a visit? Invaluable information? Yes totally Dismissive of styles....
I believe you are being incredibly unfair Kilfarboy. So Bannerman doesn't spend his every waking hour tracking down what specific style was practiced in a specific townland in a specific parish in a specific county taught by a specific teacher in a specific decade. You honestly believe he wants to subvert and destroy regional heritage in someway?
Congratulations you know something about music in Clare.
Maybe you should work for Comhaltas....I'm sure you would gain respect from people of the county, shunning the 'Seisiún' of the commoners, locking yourself away with your pipes and collection of old photos.
So you think that Bannerman disrespects Paddy Cannys grandchildren in some way? Failing to acknowledge their heritage? What would make you believe this?
Clare is a small place. Ask any musician from Clare if they think that the target of your abuse has dismissed the "importance of people and places and the footsteps the ones before us left".
You hate CCE. Thats great. You've spent years on the Internet criticizing them, glued to your computer on IrTrad, MudCat, this site etc. etc. as is your right. Go ahead and criticise the organisation some more if you want. But to initiate personal attacks on people implying that they dismiss styles, and even worse that they dismiss certain young people and their lineage is bang out of order.
When you came over to Co. Clare, you were "bitten by the bug". Well, I wonder if that bug didn't inject you with the venom that you often seem to display on threads such as these.
Happened to come across the CCE magazine "Ceol" dated 1968.
Brendán Breathnach wrote an article entitled "An Appraisal of the past and future of C.C.E." I think Brendán has some good points which were ignored for 30+ years.
Here is the article (you might have to connect the link if the page breaks)
>I agree with Bannerman that Tommy Peoples' style >originated with him, and fiddlers who play like him in my >experience got that style directly from him. The Donegal style >is a good example of where commentators ...<sniped for space . We can’t credit John Doherty or any other player (or >even a few dozen players) with the Donegal style, no more >that we can credit a great poet with creating the dialect he >writes in.
Interesting post whistleblower. This was exactly the type of discussion I was hoping for.
I'm not sure that it was me that provided the link that has been mentioned. The only link I made was to another recent discussion on this forum. And I did so to try and provoke someone into answering a question of mine that nobody had shown interest in answering previously.
I'm sure that anything helpful must have come from someone else
Things get heated sometimes PJ, you're right there.
I didn't intend a swipe at Bannerman as a person, some prefer just sitting down for a few tunes over finding out a bit of background, a bit of history and what it is that makes this music what it is. Which is just fine.
As an officer of a cultural movement I don't think it would look bad on him if insight in local styles would show a bit more depth than declaring that Joe Ryan and Paddy Canny loved twenty miles apart and yet played very differently. As I showed above, there's a context to that difference.
Clare's a small place indeed, but which a rich variety of local styles.
And complaints over things getting to personal, why do they always continue on going even more for the person? It's fine though, it's the way of the internet.
Okay, here is a question for kilfarboy and whistleblower and anyone else lamenting the dismissal of regional styles.
If you are a musician from somewhere without a regional style (arguably even New York and Chicago do) how do you position your own playing? I know people who come from a non-traditional music background but have extensively researched and listened to playing from one or two areas and are striving to play like that, which is admirable but just as much of a construct as listening to an amalgamation of music and letting your style develop from there. In other words, how does it all benefit regional styles if someone from Boulder, Colorado arbitrarily decides she will learn one or the other. If you haven't had the training and the tacit knowledge passed down from that lineage of players, will you *really* be playing in that style? To me it feels like a bit of a false pretense to say I play in regional style x, especially if I have hardly spent time in that area. Sure, I may have a lot of influences from regional style x if I study loads of recordings of it but am I really an x player? I'm not convinced.
That all said, if you really love regional style x and want to play like that as much as possible, then by all means go for it. I'd caution that one should be mindful about how they frame it but absolutely, play like you want. I think it's grand that people are interested in regional styles and discussing them, as it is undoubtedly an important aspect of the music. I suppose where I see it as problematic is when you attribute moral values to regional styles and the lack thereof, especially when addressing players who come from areas where Irish music has only very recently been played. Short of moving to Clare or Sligo or wherever, how is one to master a regional style, or is it not better to accept that your style will be sort of an aggregrate style (like everyone's really) because that's your own background.
It certainly reflects modernity, where we have access to hundreds of recordings and through things like Willie Week, easy access to real live players. Obviously the argument is that this is part of the problem: everyone can hear everything so subtle regional variations are lost in the noise. I find this whole issue very much grounded in Romantic dualities of traditional/modern, past/present, old/new, where the latter is held as inferior to the former. But were the "old" styles that timeless? Did players from West Clare play in one particular way, unbroken and unchanging, until the twentieth century when it all went pear shaped?
All I can say about that anyone's playing is necessarily the sum of that person's influences. You accumulate bit and pieces from people you learn from, people you spend time with. I don't think you can go out and say 'I am going to be a Sligo style player', that's not how it works.
I don't think old styles are as you say 'timeless' in the sense that they were formed and remained unchanged. Bannerman brought up personal styles and I agree with him there that personal input plays a part. The way I see it is that there's continuity in a particular style and each player, each generation puts a personal slant on it of which elements will stay within the style and that can include purely personal traits but also things picked up from outside the style that can become incorporated (think of the influence of travelling musicians in the past both on repertoire and style).
That is the context of my earlier remark regarding 'footsteps' if you talk to musicians who are aware of the history you will find that there are certain turns and twists in tunes that can be traced back to one player or other, it's the essence of what I think 'tradition' means : players long gone remain in the living memory by the imprint they made on the music and so a continuity is maintained.
I don't think 'things went pearshaped' altogether, in West Clare there is a large number of young musicians who play a recognisable West Clare style (and the same holds true to East Clare and no doubt other regions I know less about) as they have learned their music in a way that makes them part of that lineage. Brid O Donohue's whistle and flute students for example or in the east Mary MacNamara's students. There are still a lot of teachers who make a point of passing on the local repertoire and style.
In fairness there are people working within Comhaltas who care a lot about the local styles and put a lot of work into collecting and disseminating them. I could name Mick O Connor who does seem to know the flute style of every townland and clachan around, Nick and Ann McAuliffe and a good few others. Unfortunately it's the competitions that steer a lot of result-driven young players in a certain direction that has become known as 'the Comhaltas style'.
But it's a complex subject and this were merely a few random thoughts.
24 hours, the time I've been away from this thread, is indeed an age in Internet time. I made a statement (a purely personal view) that maybe styles are influenced by individualistic, and great musicians such as Canny and Peoples without any expectation of the outrage this might cause to one individual on this site. To take this as an indication of a disrespect for Clare musicians on my part is so ridiculous as to be hardly worth a response. Thank you PJ Johnson for picking up on this and I'm sure that anybody who knows me (and the people who don't who may be familiar with my posts over the last 8 years or so) will realise that the last thing I would do is disrespect anyone.
I probably wouldn't be responding at all but I have to put the record straight regarding two young musicians who regularly perform in Cois na hAbhna whom I've also been accused of disrespecting. These two young people (I won't mention names as I think it's extremely unfair to try and personalise these mattters, particularly when abuse is being dished out) are both excellent young musicians from a wonderful family who have a very bright future ahead of them. It's for the future of the tradition and the next generation of musicians that we should stop all this bickering and get on with the positive work of promoting and promulgating our unique musical heritage whether this task is done within Comhaltas or elsewhere.
As for your comments Kilfarboy that "And complaints over things getting to personal, why do they always continue on going even more for the person? It's fine though, it's the way of the internet." I don't buy that as the Internet cannot be blamed for individual intolerance and misrepresentation of others' views or motives.
Bannerman, you say that you,
“made a statement (a purely personal view) that maybe styles are influenced by individualistic, and great musicians such as Canny and Peoples…”
But in fact you made the much more contentious claim that:
“In any case it's hard to be dogmatic about whether styles are indeed really regional or more down to influential musicians such as Coleman, Doherty and Canny.”
I think it has been conclusively demonstrated that regional styles are really “regional”, belonging to a community of musicians just as a dialect belongs to a community of speakers, and not merely “down to influential musicians”.
The distinctive regional styles of Scottish fiddle music in the 20th /21st century were formed by the 18th century. The same is true, I am told, with the regional fiddle traditions in Sweden. Shoddy recent scholarship has claimed that all Donegal music is (in effect) down to John Doherty, but of course a little thought about the situation will show with certainty that this is not the case.
I honestly can never understand why Tommy Peoples (among others) is ever referred to in the same breath as Paddy Canny or John Doherty. I think that this lack of discernment in understanding of traditional music, coupled with a pre-existing indifference to (or disregard of) regional styles, leads inevitably to the opinion that regional styles are utterly insignificant to traditional music, rather than their being something without which there IS no traditional music.
I've read in more than one place (although I cannot remember where, and cannot vouch for the quality of the sources) Paddy Canny credited with effectively creating the East Clare fiddle style. Perhaps developing it from something earlier might have been a better way of putting it.
I'm not saying that he did create this style (and I am a massive fan of Canny's). But I think it is perfectly acceptible to ask how long local styles have been existence, and whether there has been a succesion of dominant local styles over time in any given region. It is possible to ask this without disparaging local styles or questioning their validity. I don't think we should be scared to ask such questions.
If there was an older style of playing in East Clare before Paddy Canny, should we be upset that Canny's wonderful playing supplanted that style? (Of course this isn't quite the same thing as the complete loss of all regional differences through exposure to mass media etc)
It is also interesting to ask how dominant were local styles in the area where they developed. E.g. a particular style of playing may be strongly associated with one area of Ireland, but does that mean that all players from that area played in that style? This does not appear to have been the case for Johnny Doherty as you point out above. Does that make Doherty's music of less value?
I realise that this thread has feelings running high, but it is possible to ask questions such as these without having an anti-regional style agenda. I'm not as keen on a lot of modern fiddle players who often sound like they are obsessed with technique. For me there has to be some dirt in the music for it to be interesting. (And gimmicks like syncopation just don't cut it)
I don't get your point about Tommy Peoples.
At first I thought you meant he was not a good example of a player with a strong regional style (as opposed to a powerful individual style). But you don't want to group him with Johnny Doherty who you point out did not play in the typical style of the place he lived.
Are you just not as impressed with Tommy's playing?
For what it is worth I think the man is a genius. At this point in my life I'd rather listen to Canny or Peoples than Doherty, with Canny probbaly coming out on top. Don't know how I'll feel in 10 or 20 years though.
I think it would be wrong to state Paddy Canny invented the East Clare style, while his playing was ultimately his own I think it's well accepted elements now seen as making up the 'East Clare style' came down through the lineage I described above, through the father Pat Canny down to Pat McNamara. As such Canny doesn't stand alone.
Point in case would be the playing of players before Paddy Canny like Johnny Allen and contemporaries like Martin Rochford and Martin Woods (I said Peter Woods above which was ofcourse wrong, that's the writer) who all had that 'lonesome' quality . They shared many elements of the style although Canny, like anybody would, added elements from players he took an interest in, the ones he heard on the 78rpms and a very large part of Tommy Potts.
Any local style would be informed by the past but also constantly being replenished and informed by new elements or developments brought in by individuals.
Just as an illustration I have uploaded a clip from recordings I made at Martin Rochford's house in Bodyke while camping out beside the house for a few days in 1989. The tune is sometimes known as Scully Casey's but has been more recently identified as The Quilty Shore, composed by Bobby Casey (and as such recorded by Canny). Whatever the way, Martin learned it form Junior Crehan. Interesting bit of cross pollination but audibly Clare music, East meets West as it were.
Both Rochford and Canny took influences from Tommy Potts but both were close and life-long friends as well so there would be a lot of cross pollination there too.
I don't want to come across as "anti-regional style" either -- I'm not -- and I certainly agree that there are styles of playing music which we happily label as "West Clare," "Leitrim," "Roscommon," et. al. I guess my questions have to do with how robust are these things historically and can we make claims like, "This is the traditional style of playing in West Clare." We know how some individuals played, who were lucky enough to either be recorded or in a position to pass their knowledge on to the next generation. But can we argue that most musos in that geographical area played that way and can we argue that music in that geographical area has sounded more or less like the people we are claiming are exponents of a regional style.
We know from manuscripts that tunes -- and therefore people -- got around a fair bit, since the same tunes appear in both Irish and Scottish tune collections. You also had a very transient labour population in both Ireland and Scotland so there was undoubtedly a lot of "cross-pollination" on both sides of the Irish sea. Surely all of these things would have had an effect on regional styles.
I think exactly the same I point made above about Donegal fiddle has been made about East & West Clare music. Personally I much prefer P.J. Hayes’ playing to Paddy Canny’s (especially when his recordings for Radio Eireann). Is it plausible that Paddy Canny invented P.J. Hayes’ style? My point about Tommy Peoples is that I have never understood his being placed alongside good musicians. His de-tuned triplets are copied by many people these days (and not just his students) and are just an indication that he never learned to do Donegal triplets properly (which are properly pitched); he admits as much here: http://www.irishfiddle.com/peoplesinterview.html I think that a lot of damage has been done to Donegal fiddling by placing the likes of him in the same category as our great traditional players! (as discussed previously): http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/20477 If you take Paddy Glackin, Tommy Peoples, or Máiread Ní Mhaonaigh (who sadly was influenced by Glackin & Peoples) and compare their playing with old recordings of highlands, they have rounded off the strong Scottish rhythms and play them more like the Austrian barndances popular in East Donegal in the 1900s. No wonder some people now have difficulty telling highlands apart from hornpipes and reels.
You'll have to be careful separating a local repertoire from a local style. While there are tunes that will be more popular in one location, there will always be an exchange with other areas. Great players have always been mad for new tunes, Rochford would knock on your door if he heard you play a tune he liked and he wouldn't go until you'd written it down for him. He had a large manuscript collection and was known to give tunes to many people, Canny included.
One of Martin's signature tunes and often attributed to him as a composer was 'Forget me Not', in fact a Larry Redican composition.
It's the way the new tunes are incorporated in the local repertoire and the way they are adapted to the local style that is interesting. Below a clip of Paddy Galvin playing the Morning Dew, no doubt learned from the Coleman recording but absolutely adapted to the West Clare treatment, you can hear the elements you found in for example Junior's playing and Bobby Casey's, the stuff that goes back (according to those who heard him) to Scully Casey.
Thanks Whistle. I wasn't sure If I was just not clever enough to draw the point you wanted to make out of the earlier link. (It has been known to happen)
>>Standardisation of playing unfortunately came about in the mid nineteenth century thanks to the efforts of the Highland Society of London. It, along with the competition system started by the same society in the late eighteenth century has nearly strangled piping. Competition forces a degree of standardisation, demanding uniformity at the expense of expression. Approving only standard or recognised settings to be played is the principal enemy of the art. It has thinned down the music to one common setting of each piece and playing has become mechanised. The Highland Society’s of London and Scotland used competition to force a dependence on written music as a means of instruction and “improvement” of the music. Piobaireachd began to rigidify into an increasingly non-Gaelic museum piece. Regularity and conformity became the order of nineteenth century Piobaireachd. In 1838, the (1) MacDonald and (2) MacArthur styles of playing became supplanted by the piping style of one (3) Angus MacKay. His book proclaimed him an absolute authority and was sponsored by the H S L. All the great players accepted him without question; however, his piping style differed from his predecessors. How and why this happened are questions, which have not been adequately answered. He was piper to Queen Victoria; the commanding reputation of his father John MacKay probably gave Angus a stamp of approval in piping circles. This gave him the ability to displace all other styles and settings. The book is accepted as a faithful record of his father’s teachings.>?>
In a much earlier post, fionan informed us about his application and his receiving €3,000 towards running theFéile Patrick Byrne
He also likened it to the Arts Council Application process. Well I can tell you that as a seasoned receipient of Arts Council funding, there is a very different process than Comhaltas.
Arts Council process:
Complete the official application form (about 15 pages) List all details. Tax registration, bank details, Organization structure (elected committee), tax clearance certificate, details of other funding sources, detailed budget proposals, If approved you receive half of the approved grant. (Not what you asked for). On completion of event, submit detailed report, including accounts. If satisfactory, you receive remainder of grant. List of recipients of funding grants are published.
Comhaltas process:
Uh! Not sure. Process not listed anywhere that I can see. Who benefits? Only Comhaltas branches I suppose. Rules? Uh dunno. Who makes the funding decisions. Not sure, but probably some existing officers of Provincial councils , etc. Application form? None that I know of - back of a cigarette box ? - sure that'l be grand. When making the application, does it help to be an outspoken critic of any aspect of Comhaltas? It may diminish your chances of funding success. List of funding recipients and their projects? Oh Jez we could'nt be publishing that now. Perish the thought.
I admire the Arts Council process. No harm in making organizations work and sweat for their funding. If it's worthy and you make a good application , your application will be favourably considered. Better that the Comhalthas method anyway
CCE bashers
CCE bashers
i thought I'd start a discussion wher all the anti CCE contributors can vent their spleen over Comhaaltas, Lamhras, the Battle of Clontarf, Bru Boru and anything else they can knock about Comhaltas.
When they are finished perhaps we could have a discussion about some of the positive aspects of Comhaltas and what they do.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
What's the point? We all know CCÉ's defects so why don't you just list the 'positive aspects' and we'll take it from there.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by MacCruiskeen
Re: CCE bashers
Ah you're not fooling us there senator now.
- chris
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
How about this:
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_285_1_orlaith_mcauliffe
Giving people worldwide the opportunity to listen to music like this is pretty positive.
Orlaith has never had a lesson on the flute, and she was only 14 when this was recorded.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Dragut Reis
Re: CCE bashers
Sorry but I don't get your point Robert.
This girl has never been tutored by CCE, so obviously CCE can take NO credit for her playing.
As for the video, well she could have posted that just as well on YouTube & reached just as many people that way.
Oh I get it now Robert, you were being sarcastic after all.
Yeah I quite agree, there is little point to CCE!
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: CCE bashers
I try to remember that everything has a point; even if it doesn't have one. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZHsVBRa1Q&feature=related
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Free your mind and your Music from the Tyrrany of Comhaltas!
As I posted previously on this site:
“Remember a few years ago when the [then] head of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann said there was no traditional music outside of Comhaltas?”
This shows a total contempt from the Comhaltas hierarchy towards those who play actual Irish music (i.e., one of the regional styles).
People think that it’s traditional music because it’s largely taught by ear. But the important thing is: What are they teaching? That’s the problem …it’s standardized Irish-music-lite!
Why do the Comhaltas corporation need so much defending? Aren't they successful in their aim of filling their pockets with pots of money, and standardizing away any genuinely traditional Irish music into a “stereotyped revivalism”, (as Séamus Tansey called it)? Here's what Séamus Tansey said about the deplorable attack Comhaltas has made on traditional regional styles.
“If the different regional traditions die out, as they are at the moment, well,… Irish music is dead! You’ll have some other thing representing Irish music. You’ll have a stereotyped revivalism, which Comhaltas are doing, were everyone is playing the same…”
There have been a good many previous discussions about this lot before. Here’s a few related threads for your attention:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16884
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16482
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16800
I hope some day traditional musicians will forget about Comhaltas, Riverdance and other abominations, (when these have disappeared into the darkness of history and the need for saving traditional music from their attack will have abated) and focus wholly on music, in an environment free from the tyranny of standardized and bland Irish-music-lite!!
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
So Southpaw, you want us to put Labhras, Clontarf, Bru Boru and the publication (or non-publication) of accounts to one side and discuss the positive aspects of Comhaltas?
Well OK, here goes. In our local Comhaltas branch in Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan we've managed the following in the last four years:
The provision of cheap music classes each week, which run at a loss but are subsidised by the branch.
We have had an increase in numbers taking lessons over the four years from 48 individual students to 79 now. With many taking more than one lesson it works out at 112 students in total. This has meant that we've had to take on an additional three teachers leaving us with five now.
We've put on uilleann pipe classes for first time in this area. This has resulted in going from having only one piper four years ago to seven now. In addition we provide practice flutes and fiddles which we loan out rent free to beginners.
Each year we run an end of term class concert where everyone (from age seven up) gets an opportunity to perform in their class groups. Seeing the sense of achievement in the new beginners on stage and the pride of their families is really powerful. We run a number of beginners or slow sessions throughout the year to build on this.
We of course run a monthly adult session as well and also put on an annual traditional music festival before Easter. Named after a local nineteenth century harper (Patrick Byrne) we'll have 13 music, singing and dancing workshops over two days this year. Teada are headlining our concert which will also feature Grainne Hambly. There'll be sessions of course and also a public lecture with Fintan Vallely (all free admission by the way). And once again we'll probably end up losing money on it but then we're not in it to feather our own nests.
I should mention that Comhaltas Nationally will be our main source of grant aid through its Meitheal programme. Also our involvement as part of a larger national organisation means we can get a level of insurance protection at a price that would not be available to us independently (although it's still expensive @ €400 per year).
Finally, we also hold a Pancake Supper every Shrove Tuesday (still recovering from last nights) with all proceeds raised going to the local cancer charity. Many thanks to Martin Donohoe, Seamus Fay and Michael McDonnell for coming all the way from Cavan to support us last night.
All this (and more) is done on a volunteer basis. So trying to be as objective as I can, I would guess that the undisputed positive aspects of Comhaltas are with the work of the grass roots - something CCE bashers rarely acknowledge.
Do any of those who are so quick to come on here and attack Comhaltas give up their spare time to put on classes, organise sessions, fundraise or do any of the other tedious, mundane and thankless tasks that are necessary to keep the music healthy?
By the way, I'm not suggesting Comhaltas is perfect - far from it in fact. Nor am I against criticism, just the unbalanced and unconstructive type that seems so popular here.
Or am I being unfair to CCE bashers?
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by fionan
Re: CCE bashers
I'll put in a good word for the CCE branches in England and say that they have brought a lot of youngsters through the music and the quality of music in some of our cities is because of the dedicated tutors in Comhaltas. Most of Manchester's finest Mike McGoldrick, John-jo and Grace Kelly, Emma Sweeney, Kevin Madden, Colin, Miread, Shane and Adele Farrel, Dezzie Donnelly all went through the branches. Our kid is getting lovely, attentative guidance from brilliant teachers for a donation of £3 for 30 mins.
The problem I think is a generational one and there are some people who are trapped in the CCE bubble, are opinionated, very judgemental, who believe their own rhetoric/hype and perhaps need to consider a wider perspective.
Oh no, hang on, that sounds like us all on this list!
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by portnasaol
Re: CCE bashers
fionan, sounds like there is a lot of good being done in Carrickmacross. But I think you and the people organising it should be more selfish and take some credit for it because what you are saying here it does not seem that CCE has any input at all. It is done to the hard work of the people on the ground. Granted the idea of a branch creates the opportunity for people to meet but the hard work is being done by you and others while CCE take immediate credit.
as regards CCE bashing, well the reason for this is that there is lots to complain about. Its not for the sake of complaining. there are some things that have to be addressed because CCE cant go around portraying itself as the bastion of the tradition when it has so many internal faults. As i said ANY good work to do with CCE is done by unappreciated people on the ground who volunteer their time willingly. They do it fo the love of the music and NOT for the love of CCE.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
I'm heartened by the positive contributions about CCE.
At grass roots level from my limited experience there are many good people giving freely of their time running branches, classes and sessions and regional and national competitions, all for the love of the music. CCE happens to be the orginisation that has a large presence with ITM. Where else do you go to learn irish music at very affordable rates with some branches hiring you instruments at a fraction of their cost to promote the instrument.
Like all orginisations the higher up you go the more politics becomes involved and this is not unique to music. Look at whats going on in Cork Hurling, the various groupings in Irish Dancing, it just goes on and on.
Two things the Irish are good at - knocking the achievements of others and the split. Even the IRA could not have a united front yet their stated aims were the same.
So why don't all the CCE bashers form their own grouping, fundraise, set up classes teach music for the love of it and lets see how you get on. And then maybe we can have a go at bashing your efforts.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely ...
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by the wounded hussar
Re: CCE bashers
southpaw,
have you even taken notice of what people are complaining about regarding CCE? clearly not.
nobody is 'bashing' ,as you so eloquently put it, the grouping, fundraising or the classes that the volunteers on the ground do so much for. you even said it yourself, you have limited experience of the grass roots level. CCE, the organisation itself, has little input here as the majority of the fundraising and hard work and teaching is done by the volunteers you mention. The term 'Comhaltas Branch' is merely a name given to the branches that are signed onto CCE's books. The rest of the work is left to the individuals. It is basically the same as if someone set up a local music group and did the same work. In the CCE case the name is the only difference and the very odd bit of money from the organisation.
can you not see that people are not giving out about the good work that CCE do which is basically done by the people at grass roots?
People have a problem with the work of the heads of the organisation and the messages they give out and their conduct. That has nothing to do with the people on the ground.
People want CCE to succeed but the way the heads are going about their business at the moment it is giving the organisation a bad name. take these for example:
The phasing out of regional styles, the lite- low fat semi-trad style and packaging it peddles about, Treoir magazine the terrible propoganda and 'how many pictures of Labhras with old people can we get into a magazine each month' farce that it is, the emphasis on competition, the pointless money making excercise and condensing down of trad music into around 12 tunes that are the CCE exams, Bru Boru, the now pointless CCE tours which dont seem to make sense anymore due to the wide number of concerts and music available to people at home and abroad, the whole selling of Irish music rights to IMRO debacle, the childish report on Irish Music for the arts minister by Labhras a number of years ago that was retracted after protests by musicians and traditional scholars, the Clasac debacle and the dissolving of Clontarf branch, Labhras' position as a senator and his use of this position to involve Comhaltas in politics, the lack of democracy within the organisation itself, the confusion over where they get their funding and how much they get and where it goes, the promotion of the organisation and the 'how great they are that they try to promote irish music' thing they do so well rather than actually promoting the music, the need to have their hand in almost everything going in trad music today for example the attempts to get involved in the Willie Clancy Week and turn it into a competition festival, the ignoring of traditional style dance such as sean nos and step, the ignoring of traditional singing like sean nos and singing in english, the ignoring of and prejudice shown to new age instrument like mandolin, bouzouki, mandola, guitar and any other that are new since the 60s and 70s.
Shall I go on?
I am not a begrudger. These things are very real problems that need to be sorted. I want CCE to be successful promoting all aspects of Trad but cannot see it doing that in a positive light with the way they are going about it at the moment.
Of course there are positives but these are all due to the good work of people on the ground, like my own mother. As a result I have seen all of it first hand. Any negatives that have arisen are due to the bureaucracy and amateurish and *nudge and wink* and 'sure it'll be grand' attitude that the powers that be in CCE seem to have.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
Are you going to do anything about it, fiddleruari?
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by TomB-R
Re: CCE bashers
Isn't Fiddleruairi doing just that by making an informed opinion - that's how you change peoples minds and attitudes.
Don't hold out too much hope though as CCE seems to be akin to many similar organisational mindsets in Ireland - look at the row going on down in Cork over the hurling - same old story, same politics, same business with the clubs doing all the work on the ground but I think were being criticised yesterday for daring to discuss opposition to the almighty County Board.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by the wounded hussar
Re: CCE bashers
Southpaw started this thread by stating some of the positives about Comhaltas. Apart from enabling people to become part of a grouping of music lovers in Ireland and abroad and the wonderful contacts that we make down through the years, there are also the more tangible benefits such as forty or so fleadh cheoils annually, the numerous music classes run by local branches, the traditional music examinations, the annual diploma course for traditional music teachers - I could go on. In my opinion we'd be very much poorer without these and I doubt very much that any other group or organisation would step into the breach to organise such activities if Comhaltas decided to call it a day.
There's more than enough gloom and doom around these days without all this negativity on the Yellowboard so lets get back to the serious business of learning and playing more tunes!
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
Sorry Southpaw for the inaccuracy in my initial statement - it should have read "Southpaw started this thread by asking posters to state some of the positives about Comhaltas".
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
Maybe my browser is acting up but I'd swear Southpaw started this thread as follows:
"i thought I'd start a discussion wher all the anti CCE contributors can vent their spleen over Comhaaltas"
Seems clear enough !!! A case of selective interpretation?
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by the wounded hussar
Re: CCE bashers
Bannerman's post reminds me of a piece in the introduction of The Armagh pipers club Tutor for the Uilleann Pipes tha tI learned from 29 years or so ago:
'It is rare to find an instrument used exclusively for folk-music which has three different types of scales, three drones, three or fours sets of keys for accompanying the melody, plays two octaves and a good few semi tones. The Uilleann pipes have all of these.'
I other words, you take all the things you do and say 'aren't we great for doing things we do'. It's a bit of a silly exercise.
Being un-critically gushing all the time is just as tiresome as forever 'bashing'.
It would be quite refreshing to see things for what they are: that being critical is not just negative and 'bashing' for it's own sake but that also be taken as a contribution to change things for the better, to work for the greater good.
As I quoted before: 'Great respect for the roots, but very little for the top'. And that's how I feel about it.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
Nobody is asking Comhaltas to call it a day Bannerman, like fiddleruari said, we all want it to succeed. Everybody except those with a vested interest are asking for transparent financial statements, a more democratic election process, less (ideally no) political interference, full disclosure and a more rounded view of the Irish Traditional Arts among other things. I am, by the way, an ex committee member and I devote hours every day to the teaching of traditional music. I also run concerts and have a weekly radio show dedicated to the music as well as hosting a number a weekly sessions here in Toronto, all with no help from CCE.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Patkiwi
Re: CCE bashers
Hussar, please read the other part of Southpaw's post - "When they are finished perhaps we could have a discussion about some of the positive aspects of Comhaltas and what they do." - now who's being selective?
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
ah bannerman, but we're not finished! haha!
TomB-R, it is very hard for people who see these faults and want to change to do anything about it. i am a member of a Comhaltas branch and i help out every week because i know that if i stopped going and a number of other people also then the whole thing would peter out. CCE needs to help branches more and encourage more activities. Myself and a few others have just started up a series of intimate concerts every month with well known musicians so people in the area and the kids can see and hear established musicians without having to go into the city to a pub they wont be allowed into. the older ones also get the chance to play on stage which is invaluable at their age ie: 16 and up, to improve confidence. This is done in conjunction with the local branch but we get no money from CCE. its a pity.
The fact that Labhras and the Ard-Comhairle have been there almost as long as each other means they are in it together so any likelihood of someone looking for vast changes simply wont be given the chance! it has gotten to the point that only higher authorities will be able to oversee any change, or if the Ard-Comhairle has a vote of no confidence which is unlikely.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
Fionan.
Fair play on all the good work going on in Carrickmacross. Pardon my ignorance, but could you expand a bit on the Meitheal Program funding the branch receives. I have been involved down the years at various levels with my local Comhaltas branch but can't recall the branch receiving funding from the national organisation. All money from membership, comhaltas concerts etc always went back to the national central fund. We always had to raise all our funds ourselves. Admitedly, I haven't been involved in the last few years.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by macc
Re: CCE bashers
Seeing as i started this discussion I'd like to give my experience of CCE.
I'm a late arrival to traditional music. At 47 my knowledge of trad was limited to my Horslips collection, some tunes from Planxty, the Bothy Band and whatever i heard on radio.
I decided to learn an instrument and went about looking for classes. I couldn't speel Comhaltas (who can) and eventually made contact with a Dublin branch.
I was met with smiling faces, great encouragement and patient teachers. 3 years on i have done a stint on the branch committe (had to stand down due to work committments) and have worked at 2 Dublin fleadhs.
Recently a chance remark of mine to a very respected staff member about a slow set to bring on struggling musicians up to session speed very quickly led to a weekly very well attended dedicated session.
Sorry if my limited experience with CCE still has me enthusiastic about it but it's one of the best decisions I've made regarding spare time activities. I've made great friends, established a wide circle of aquaintances and, above all, enjoyed thee music.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
Macc,
I'm not 100% sure when it was set up but the Meitheal programme seems to have been established as a method for Comhaltas to disburse the money it received in the last few years from the Government.
It divides the country into regions - in Monaghan we're in with Cavan, Meath, Louth and Armagh. If we have a festival or publication or other project we can apply to the Meitheal programme for funding. It's also used for the development of regional centres.
We made an application last year and received €3,000 towards running our Féile Patrick Byrne - an amount which allowed us to break even on the whole weekend. The money has been scaled back this year so the most we can expect is €2,000. The crucial point about it though is that you need to have a definite project planned before you can apply, so it's very similar to applying to the arts council for funding. Hope that helps.
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by fionan
Re: CCE bashers
Thanks Fionan. Sounds like a decent enough scheme.
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by macc
Re: CCE bashers
I have to agree with Southpaw, as my experience has been similarly positive. Go along to your local branch enjoy the music and dont read Trieor if you dont want to.
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by See You Wins
Re: CCE bashers
OK about Treoir but what about the great tunes that are sometimes in it? The new edition has some reels and jigs from the Kilfenora Céilí Band's new CD that hasn't even been released yet! If you don't read it, make sure you have a look at the centre pages.
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
I suppose that's the same as being an 'a la carte Catholic' - you take the bits you like and pretend you didn't hear the rest??
The GAA and CCE have a lot in common - great work & committment at local and club level. But as you go further up the chain of committees, things become progressively more mired. Some people don't see the forest for the trees.
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by the wounded hussar
Re: CCE bashers
My own branch of Comhaltas received a meitheal grant to run a very successfull series of workshops for teeage sean-nós dancers here in dublin last year. We ended each workshop with a meal and folowed with a musical session, It was open to all branchwes to attend and we had memebrs from a number of branches.
So much for the "No Help" and "No Seán Nós" agrument.
As regards the death of regional styles this has little to do with Comahaltas. In the past people copied the local best musician and this was called the regional style . Nowadays withe opportunity to recordings people are just copying the most highly recorded musicians. i.e.You can hardly blame Comhaltas for all our country and Western singers singing with an American accent .
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by murcu
Re: CCE bashers
eh murcu, there were also recordings of players available throughout the 70s and 80s aswell. many people agree with CCE and regional styles argument. there is actual evidence in the playing of lots of musicians. the death of regional styles has a lot to do with CCE. if they are going to be promoting traditional music then they cant just ignore this fact. just go to any of the competitions and hear some of the players and who gets placed.
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
'a la carte Catholic'
Nice one Hussar, ... but why stop at Catholics. Let's be honest ..... aren't they all just 'Pick-'n'-Mix Christians'! 
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: CCE bashers
Well done Fionan!
Sounds like you're doing a fantastic job in Carrickmacross......in fact it sounds just like what we were doing in Clontarf!
# Posted on February 27th 2009 by An Rogaire Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
Fiddleruairi, you amaze me, Why do you stay with an organization about which you know so little and insist on knocking. You help at your Branch functions, in voluntary organisations that happens in fact that’s how they work. CCE is voluntary from the ground up and is, despite what you may think accountable .
If you are involved on a branch it is open to you ,to present issues you wish to be dealt with ,to your Branch Committee, who may, if they agree with you, bring to County level, where again if there is a consensus in favour of your proposal/s they can bring to Provincial Councils and on to National Congress. Your Branch has also the right to short circuit this and put forward proposals to NationalCongress ,direct
At National Congress motions appropriate to the year are presented, discussed and voted on . This process takes place after Consideration of |Annual Report and of course Consideration of Provincial Reports and then CCE’s Financial Report. This is circulated to all present , discussed and ratified. The delegates who attend have the right to ask questions and take back to their units contrary to what you, would have your readers believe. If you have never seen heard a report from Congress at your Branch, might I suggest you attend your branch meetings and ask for one . Congress is held on the May Bank Holiday where those that actually know what they’re talking about ,give up their free time to ensure that the Organisation who’s Aims and Objects they believe in are discussed and it’s Rules are put in place.
Carrickmackross are to be commended for what they do as are all Comhaltas Branches. Innovative projects coming from Individuals, Branches and indeed any source within the Comhaltas family , can be funded in full or in part through Meitheal which usual ly has County and Provincial Officers ordinary members elected by ordinary members, not an elite uberclass.
Regional Styles ????
Where do you get your notions. All Regional Resource Centres , ,have Archives which pay particular attention to “LOCAL” styles, variations etc. They are or will be available for research and use by Members and scholars. The SCT examinations , have as part of the Syllabus a complete section on regional styles.
None of the above are secrets and all should have been reported on at Branch level.
Perhaps you missed those meetings
Now I don’t know why you joined Comhaltas and I can’t remember why I did but I can tell you that
I have taught when you didn‘t get paid, sat on Branch committees, listened to uninformed crap but stayed until I found out the truth. I have moved chairs in, moved chairs out. I have paid into concerts, ceilithe and sessions and worked my backside off all night after paying in and then swept up. I have transported ungrateful little gits to venues and taken stocious loonies home, miles out of my way. I have worked at Fleadheanna , cleaned up rooms left in flitters and attended Congresses when I could have been at home or on holiday. I have eaten the best apple tarts and trifles in the world, I have eaten the worst sandwiches on the planet, I have had the pleasure of making music with the greatest , not only in Ireland but the world. I have caused kids and grownups to sing and or take up music, I have given some world renowned musicians their first gigs, I have watched great musicians fall apart at Fleadheanna and mediocrities rise to levels that made me cry with pride. I have fought for things I believed in and helped make things happen and it’s not that hard to do. I have screamed with fury and bawled with pride . I have made the best friendships with people from all over the world. I have been invited all over the world and occasionally taken people up on their invitations. I enjoyed EVERY minute of it and will continue to do so . There are 40,000 Comhaltas people who enjoy membership in our Movement and it’s open to all 40,000 to get what I’ve got out of it
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by Byrne
Re: CCÉ attitude towards traditional music
“As regards the death of regional styles this has little to do with Comahaltas. In the past people copied the local best musician and this was called the regional style . Nowadays with the opportunity [listen] to recordings people are just copying the most highly recorded musicians.”
Translation: “Regional styles are irrelevant to Irish traditional music.”
This is a sentiment very common in Comhaltas circles. I was once told by a Comhaltas-head from Donegal that I was not even playing Irish music. I had to inform him that people in Donegal have been playing Highlands and Strathspeys on fiddles and highland pipes before accordions or banjos were invented, and before the European polka craze.
And as regards “the death of regional styles”, they may be mostly expired from the Comhaltas competition culture (where the ‘Comhaltas Elect’ dictate what traditional music should sound like, something for which they are supremely unqualified), but traditional styles are alive in the playing of many, many people , despite Comhaltas’ efforts. (Sorry to disappoint!)
[Incidentally, apparently a ‘regional style’ is equivalent to ‘how some local guy plays’, I must inform the ethnomusicologists that they’re been wasting their time! Classic Comhaltas!]
Comhaltas can’t get off the hook for their sustained attack on traditional music, in favour of their vision of what Irish music should be, (a social experiment where everyone everywhere can play exactly the same tunes exactly the same way). Listen to recordings from the 30s and 40s and see if there has been anything lost. I keep hearing the older generation of musicians being compared unfavourably to the supposed ‘virtuosity’ of contemporary Irish traditional musicians. But what dominated this pub session social scene created by Comhaltas is people playing fairly easy two-octave exercises evenly, in tune, at a fixed volume, like a one-man Céilidh-bands with lifeless music that all sounds the same; (amazing technique they call it on RTE). No wonder many young musicians feel they have to give a contemporary overhaul to Irish music to make it interesting. They’ve only ever been exposed to a dim shadow of Irish music. Some younger musicians have thankfully gone the other way, and have studied the old styles properly. Their final aim is not just to dazzle the judges at the competition or the people in the pub; they have developed a passion for Gaelic music.
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Thank you for replying to my question fiddleruairi, I'm impressed with what you are doing in a positive way. Cheers.
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by TomB-R
Re: CCE bashers
well what amazes me byrne is that you go to the trouble of getting all that off your chest without actually taking in anything that i have said before.
well first of all i have been a 'member' of CCE since I was 7 i am 21 now. In that 14 years I have experienced a lot from the perspective of a child playing within the organisation up until the last few years where I have seen things from the other side. I am now in the position where I feel that I have gotten so much from the people who have been volunteering when I was young that I feel only right that I give something back by helping out for at least a few years. I have played music basically my whole life and have been to the moon and back playing. I havent been walking around all of that time with my eyes closed and my ears shut. I dont go saying the things I do about CCE without actually having some bloody reason or facts on what I say.
The reason I stay with the organisation is NOT because of a love for CCE it is because of the music and because i feel like I need to give something back to the volunteer in my branch that helped me. I did get good years from being a branch member but that was down to the volunteers not labhras or the ard comhairle.
And please, dont feel the need to belittle me with notions that I havent attended branch meetings and know nothing of the structure. I actually went to the bother of reading through the whole CCE Bunreacht for a college essay. Sure the last meeting i was at was little over a month ago out of which myself and two other people my age took it upon ourselves to organise monthly concerts rather like the ones in the Cobblestone for the local people - basically funded a lot by our own pockets. Again, read the earlier comments.
This is apart from helping at the branch session every friday night when I could easily just be in town somewhere with mates in a session. No, I want to give something back to the kids. Its because of loyalty to them that I still go not loyalty to CCE. Of course i wont always be a member of CCE, but as soon as I feel like I have given something back then il move on. I do not spend my whole musical life in CCE, that is a very small part. I have paid some of my dues, I teach, I gig, I've travelled everywhere, i've friends from all over, I help the branch or whatever. Dont treat me like a mug.
Anyway, you even said it yourself. Everything you said in that last paragraph there began with 'I have'. Any good that people do get out of CCE is down to volunteers like yourself. now here is the important bit: ANY PROBLEM I HAVE WITH CCE LIKE THE ONES I MENTIONED ARE ALL TO DO WITH THE TOP BRASS AND THEIR ACTIONS. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ORGANISATIONS AIMS, IT IS THE WAY THE TOP BRASS GO ABOUT IT. I NEVER SAID A BAD WORD ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES AT GRASS ROOTS LEVEL. ANY PROBLEMS OR NEGATIVES WITH CCE ARE FROM THE TOP.
All the things i listed off are real problems and the events I mentioned actually happened. I am not beings begruding as I said in my earlier comment. I am being realistic. Do things like the funding transparency issue or the selling of Trad music rights to IMRO not bother you at all?
and dont tell me that you havent heard of the Comhaltas style of playing? everybody has. oh the Comhltas exams explains it all? come on! they dumb it down to a couple of tunes! its childish at best. i could tell you a number of players that have been groomed by Comhaltas for years that do not play in the style of where they are from, they play in the Comhaltas style, monotonous and with no cutting edge or taste.
I think whistelblower there explains it perfectly! Oh and just regards that whistelblower, i agree that regional styles are still alive its just that CCE doesnt seem to appreciate it thats all.
I am sincerely glad you have enjoyed your experiences running your branch and the experiences working with the kids. I WANT CCE to be successful in the long run but cannot see that with the way the heads are going about their business and the 'twee' and tired image they want to promote. The problems are with the upper echelons of the organisation.
Do you actually know how many musicians I have talked to that have said the same things I am saying here???
I agree with you that all branches should be commended! I said (you know you really should just read my earlier comment) that it is them that do all of the hard and good work in CCE.
my whole branch has said that labhras should go and we have said it countless times. even well known people in the branch that would be known wihtin Comhaltas circles have said it. we have said it to the councils as well. But do you honestly think that any branch if they are unhappy will sway the Ard Comhairle or Labhras seeing as they support each other so much? That is the democratic problem. We have the vote but it is practically useless.
This isnt just me blurting things out because of a rush of blood to the head. And where did I complain about the rules of CCE or its aims? My problem is with the way the top brass go about their business, but obviously you must have skipped over that part.
I may still be young but i am lucky to be surrounded by music all the time and grown up with it. Its the life in my years thats the reason I put faith in my comments. That may sound arrogant to you but, hey, you seem to have faith in what you say aswell so there we have something in common. Thats the funny thing, we both believe that the grass roots is great. Read my earlier comments.
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
Don't like competitions don't apply but don't whinge when you come nowhere
highly recorded musician??? it's about volume then
"as regards the "death of regional styles" ,they may be mostly expire from the Comhaltas competition culture."
What does that mean? What language is it ? In fact who cares?
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by Byrne
Re: CCE bashers
well done byrne, you've just crossed the line into completely useless.
Grow up man. You know you have a problem when a 21 year old is telling you that.
whistleblower( in the language of English if you are wondering) meant that regional styles are no longer appreciated (they are 'expired', ie; dead. look it up in a dictionary) in CCE competition. That only a certain CCE style permeating down from the competitions will be promoted by CCE. And to answer your question, thats what that means. And to answer you're other question, anyone who cares about irish music or knows anything about irish music cares.
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
Byrne you are out of your depth.
What instrument does Lamhras (the head of the foremost traditional Irish music organisation) play anyway?
One word - CHARLATAN.
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by Gerry1972
Re: CCE bashers
Yes Byrne,
If you’re going to criticise my English please quote me correctly. By “ …mostly expired from the Comhaltas competition culture,” I mean that regional styles within Comhaltas Irish-traditional-music-lite are dead, they are no more, they are deceased. Forgive the cumbersome language, English is my second language.
This complaint about the comprehensibility of language comes, incidentally from someone who describes himself as: “A Trad enthusiast who has 'a huge grá' for All things diddly Aye”.
“Conversation held partially ‘i nGaeilge’” — very Comhaltas!
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
From what I'm reading most people appear to be happy with CCE at grassroots level. The annimosity appears to be with the leadership and the Director General, an unelected position.
As with all democratic bodies people can be voted in and out of office, boards can require the chief executive to atep down. If there is so much resentment with the CEC the next Congress is coming up soon and it is your democratic right to propose a motion to congress on whatever topic.
Personally, I don't mind who is running CCE because I think whoever is running CCE they will do it to further Traditional Irish Music in the best way they think possible.
You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
Is there a danger of CCE funding not continuing or being severely reduced in the worsening economic climate?
# Posted on February 28th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
Article showing the real Labhras O'Murchu for the shrewd operator he is. Interesting things to note, he said in the Pat Kenny interview that Olivia Mitchell should be criticised for politicising CCE. However this article shows clear evidence that he in fact does this himself on a regular basis. He is also the 'editor' (although what qualifications he has for this il never know) of treoir magazine, which is another example of using a money spending venture to forward his personal views which lacks any repsect for ethical behaviour.
The Phoenix December 6th 2002
LABHRÁS Ó MURCHÚ
Pillars of Society
IT IS not often that the subject of traditional Irish music and dancing achieves more than a passing reference in the Dublin media but the debate on the current Arts Bill - focusing on the creation of a standing committee outside the Arts Council with funding power - has generated plenty of column inches and dominated large swathes of The Irish Times letters page. At the heart of this debate is Senator Labhras Ó Murchú, the all-powerful director general of the traditional music body, Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (CCE). If the Bill is passed in its current format, Ó Murchú will have not only achieved a notable victory over his old enemies on the Arts Council but will also be in a position to tap into a new source of public funding. Not many are betting against him at this stage given his good relationship with Minister for the Arts, John O'Donoghue.
Section 21 of the Arts Bill 2002 states that the Arts Council "shall establish three standing committees of which one shall assist and advise on matters relating to traditional arts". In each case the Minister will appoint the chair and two members of the five-member committee but alone of the three committees, the one dealing with the traditional Irish arts "shall make recommendations to the Council in relation to the advance of to any person relating to traditional Irish arts".
The apoplexy at Merrion Square over this inclusion in the Bill is hard to overestimate. For the first time, it is proposed that the power to allocate funding is taken out of the hands of the Council and the question is, if such a committee can do this work, why have an Arts Council at all? Why not just have six or ten standing committees? Given his frosty relationship with the Council, Labhras Ó Murchú will be enjoying the discomfort on Merrion Square.
THE SPLIT
Meanwhile, the battle of the Arts Bill began in earnest last week when the select committee chaired by Cecelia Keaveney received submissions from various interested parties, including CCE. The only issue on the agenda was Section 21 and the level of division within the arts community was clearly evident. Letters to The Irish Times in recent weeks have also highlighted the split with Arts Council clients such as the Contemporary Music Centre and the Willie Clancy Summer School expressing their opposition to the proposal. Even the Arts Council itself stepped into the fray when Dermot McLaughlin questioned CCE's need for funding from Merrion Square.
Meanwhile, Ó Murchú and his organisation have been lobbying TDs and senators directly with deputies receiving a letter referring to "a covert campaign launched against the provisions of the Bill that favour the traditional arts". This is actually looking like a rather even battle. While the Arts Council has a lot of muscle courtesy of its €44 million in EU annual funding and the powers of patronage this carries, CCE is a very large organisation and in Ó Murchú it has a man on the inside. Indeed, with his wife, Una Ó Murchú - the director of the Brú Ború traditional music centre in Cashel - now sitting on the Arts Council herself, it could be argued that CCE has a presence on both sides of this particular fence .
What is most remarkable about the manner in which Ó Murchú got the standing committee on traditional arts inserted into the Bill - and there is no argument that he is the man responsible - is that this was thought to be dead and buried. The Comhaltas supremo had originally floated the idea of a sort of separate Traditional Arts Council in a report for the Joint Committee on Heritage and the Irish Language which he had prepared as its rapporteur. This controversial report - the first ever on traditional Irish music - was passed by the committee only to run into serious flak when it emerged that apart from CCÉ, no other body was mentioned by Ó Murchú. The Arts Council was particularly animated over the recommendation for an outside body to promote the traditional arts.
In an unprecedented move, the Oireachtas Committee was forced to request submissions from outside on the report (described in the CCÉ newsletter, Treoir, as "comprehensive") after it had been published and the document subsequently gathered dust. The Merrion Square Mafia breathed a sigh of relief only for the issue to arise again in 2001 when the Department of Arts sought submissions on Síle Dev's proposed new Arts legislation.
The vast bulk of these submissions concerned the traditional arts but Theo Dorgan - who was brought in by the Minister to analyse the various submissions - noted that the arguments in favour of the traditional arts council "can be considered a single point of view expressed by a multitude of people acting in concert" (ie, a CCE campaign). More interestingly, the Department of the Taoiseach stated that such a body would be "deeply regressive" and would "both ghettoise and patronise practitioners" (see The Phoenix 16/3/01).
So that was that? Not quite. When the new Arts Bill was drafted, the Arts Council's worst fears were realised. A committee with funding powers for the traditional arts had suddenly materialised, controlled not by Merrion Square but by Ministerial appointees. Patricia Quinn et al viewed this a way for CCE to get on the arts funding gravy train to complement its income from the Department of Gaeltacht, which is supposed to be ring-fenced for promoting the Irish language.
This year CCE got €500,000 from this source and, indeed, Ó Murchú has proved very effective at tapping the public purse and is a consistent recipient of Cultural Relations Committee funding for US events. Also, Brú Ború in Cashel -one of a number of Comhaltas centres around the country - managed to land no less than €1.5 million from Bord Fáilte to build an underground theatre. There was a further €650,000 from the Department of Arts last year for this project which was officially opened by Síle Dev.
FUNDING
However, relations with Merrion Square are very poor and CCÉ has never been able to get funding from the Arts Council. Not surprisingly perhaps, Comhaltas did bung in a couple of unsuccessful applications (for around €300,000) in 1998 and 1999 - immediately after Una Ó Murchú was appointed to the Council by Síle Dev.
This week the Arts Council will be the last body to address the select committee on the Arts Bill and it will have to be an impressive performance. As it stands, the word is that Senator Ó Murchú has edged ahead and his access to John O'Donoghue gives him further leverage in the coming months, with the Bill due to be finally passed by March.
Ó Murchú (born Larry Murphy in 1939, he changed his name by deed poll in the 1950s) is not the typical Fianna Failer although to Dublin 4 he represents all that is awful about the Soldiers of Destiny, with his CCE organisation and its gaelgeoirí jigging and reeling at the crossroads perceived as a glorified Fianna Fail network. However, within the party, Ó Murchú is viewed with suspicion and certainly he was nowhere to be seen on the favoured list of Seanad candidates circulated by Ray MacSharry's committee before the recent election. Along with the likes of Paschal Mooney, Dan Kiely and Camillus Glynn, Ó Murchú and the so-called old guard were earmarked for the chop by FF HQ.
Things didn't work out that way, however, and the CCE supremo was re-elected onto the Cultural and Educational Panel on the 14th count - ahead of Brian Hayes, Noel Coonan and Ann Ormonde. Indeed the poll topper on that panel - Paschal Mooney - and
Ó Murchú were not even nominated by FF. Mooney's name was put forward by the Association of Libraries while Ó Murchú was the not so surprising choice of CCE.
Since the election, Ó Murchú has been made spokesman on Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs and added to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Sport and Tourism, the Seanad Committee on Procedure and Privilege as well as the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. While he is best known for his obsession with Irish traditional arts, the Cashel senator has spoken out on a range of contentious issues, most recently the Colombia Three. He is also centrally involved with the creation of a new body, the Irish Rural Dwellers Association, set up last month to take on the likes of Michael Smith's An Taisce and help push for a more populated countryside (ie, one-off housing).
In his time Ó Murchú has also called for support for the likes of Michelle de Brúin -"one of our national treasures" - and Roisin McAliskey. He also spends his time denouncing the likes of comedian Tommy Tiernan for "blasphemy" (after a Late Late Show performance) and complaining about the McDonald's restaurant chain's "insult" to the memory of Peig Sayers in a TV advert a couple of years ago: "I can only suggest that it is the product of a sick mind. No right-thinking Irish person should accept it".
But above all else, Labhras Ó Murchú uses the Seanad to push forward CCE policies. CCE is his bread and butter and he is the permanent (since 1968) full-time director general of the organisation. As top dog and plenipotentiary, there are few figures who hold such power in any organisation. Not only does Ó Murchú hold the post of director general until whenever he decides to call it a day but he is also the CCE spokesman on everything, the editor of its quarterly journal, Treoir, and one of the three permanent trustees in whom CCE's various properties are vested, including the very valuable and impressive headquarters on Belgrave Square in Monkstown. In the past, the senator has also held the elected post of President General of CCE.
PROFITS OF €1.5 MILLION
Comhaltas regularly claims to have 400 branches even if some of these are very small indeed. Nevertheless, the organisation is a very successful one and although the accounts are not published, Goldhawk can reveal that there were accumulated profits of €1.5 million at the end of last year. "Wages, pension, travel and subsistence" amounted to €550,000 (including a top-up sum for pensions). The biggest single element here would be Ó Murchú's salary although the senator refused to elucidate Goldhawk on the amount he takes out of his organisation every year. Ó Murchú's right-hand man in Comhaltas is Seamus Mac Mathuna - hubby of anti-abortion firebrand, Una, and father of Youth Defence's Niamh Nic Mhatuna. The director general himself is also an outspoken anti-abortionist, both in the Seanad and in the pages of Treoir.
Ó Murchú's ability to use the Seanad to push the interests of CCE was never clearer than with the passage of the Copyright Bill in 1999 which was initially opposed by the senator despite the fact that the Government was pushing it through. In this case, he put Comhaltas before FF but in a most Machiavellian manner, managed to end up onside at the end of the day after tying up a very unusual deal with the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) whereby CCE was issued a blanket licence "to cover all official
Comhaltas functions".
The Letter of Agreement also stated that IMRO would fund CCE to the tune of €63,500 annually and also provided for an annual €32,000 subvention for the Brú Ború venue run by Ó Murchú's wife, Una. No other CCE centre was mentioned.
In return, CCE agreed "to support IMRO's submission to the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment in relation to the proposed Copyright Bill". In other words, Ó Murchú did a U-turn on his stance on the Bill but only when he protected CCE from the clutches of IMRO. Clearly, other traditional music bodies - outsiders in his eyes - could fend for themselves.
This deal suggests that it is very foolish to underestimate Ó Murchú's ability to get what he wants. He has the ear of the Minister and a formidable public relations machine going head to head with the Arts Council, which has everything to lose. With John O'Donoghue also on side, the senator is already preparing to draw up his list of nominees for the standing committee that will examine his inevitable funding application. What all this could mean for the future of the slimmed down Arts Council is, however, far from clear.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers
thanks fiddleruairi
The article has opened my eyes to CCE politics.
Especially the the quote: "Labhras Ó Murchú ... is the permanent (since 1968) full-time director general of the organisation."
I respect the work of my local CCE reps in promoting the music and culture, but from what I read in the above article, the CCE executive level stinks to high heaven!
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by dogbox
Re: CCE bashers
So... are the executives of CCE musicians? Anyone know?
curious..
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by madfluter
Re: CCE bashers
Like I said earlier, I have limited knowledge of Comhaltas, about 3 years.
From What I'm reading about Labhras he has been singlehandly in charge of CCE since 1968, that's over 40 years.
We are talking about a man who by all accounts has singlehandly brough CCE from small beginings to what it is now, a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide, has a huge membership, has seen off rock music, pop music, punk whatever, has thousnands of children worldwide attending music classes despite ipods, bebo wiii's etc. Contributors slag him off because of his regular appearances in Treoir. Have a look at where the photopraphs are taken. It shows he's on the road recognising peoples involvement in CCE and he's in touch with the grass roots.
Come on guys this man should be placed on a pedestal and thanked for dedicating his life to his achievement CCE.
In case you think I am a staffer or a Lamhras deciple I'm not. He shook my hand once, an annonomus face in a crowd a concert who passed through a door where he was holding court.
So why don't we stand back and look at the good CCE has achieved and stop knocking it.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by southpaw
Re: The Real Issue: Traditional Irish Music vs. Irish-music-lite.
Nowhere in your posts have you addressed the serious issue that this organization (and the shady character you are defending) have mounted a systematic attack on traditional music!
"a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide"??
What it promotes is a generic competition style of its own invention, and the existence of this dreadful organization threatens the continued existence of any genuinely traditional music in Ireland.
None of the positive comments you have made have addressed the serious musical and cultural point that there is a big difference between the actual survival and flourishing of “Traditional” Irish music and the widespread popularity of what some people decide to give the label "ITM"! (The flourishing of one thing is not the same as the popularity of some completely different thing!)
Like many musicians I lament the existence of this organization. And I can see plainly that they are using their dodgy money and their organizational structure, their competition culture, their exams, etc. to dictate what qualifies as Irish music, and are in fact threatening genuine traditional music! All this nonsense about local volunteers and the rest is just sidestepping the real issue here: An attack on traditional music from an organization supremely unqualified to set itself us as guardian and judge of a music it has no respect for and does not understand.
None of the defenders of Comhaltas here have addressed this point.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
southpaw, you liek Labhras because he shook your hand once? He shakes everybody's hand because he is a politician!! You are right in what you said, that you were an anonymous face to him. That is what the majority of people are to him.
You completely ignored the article and focussed in on one point, the fact he has been there for 40 years. You completely missed the rest of the articel pointing out the dodgy dealings, the politicisin of the music, the lack of democracy, the confusion about funding and where it goes.
Labhras has no single handedly brought the music back from the dead. He cant even PLAY an instrument for goodness sake let alone tell a reel from a jig. It is the hard work of the grassroots that does all the work and the executives that reap all of the plaudits.
And about treoir, yes i see him attended functions all of the time on the funding that is suppose to be used for the music. The tullamore court hotel last year for example was COMPLETELY booked out for himself and the Ard Comhairle, and thats a fact! even ask the hotel. He regularly gets all expenses paid trips to america to visit branches and functions out there. Oh yea, he is doing agood job posing for the photos alright! lol!
the idea of comhaltas isnt to 'see off' rock or pop music. This is something Labhras says in a lot of his speeches that ive heard about seeing off these other types of music. But people who like trad like other music aswell so why all the animosity towards completely different genres?
You have not taken in anything, any of the facts that we have bright to the table. We have read all of your comments and they are all the same, simple blind praise for Labhras and the organisation without any real concern for the facts! You have said nothing that would defend the top brass of the organisation. I am yet to be convinced.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by fiddleruairi
Re: CCE bashers. The Issue of Traditional Music vs. Irish-music-lite
Nowhere in your posts have you addressed the serious issue that this organization (and the shady character you are defending) have mounted a systematic attack on traditional music!
"a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide"??
What it promotes is a generic competition style of its own invention, and the existence of this dreadful organization threatens the continued existence of any genuinely traditional music in Ireland.
None of the positive comments you have made have addressed the serious musical and cultural point that there is a big difference between the actual survival and flourishing of “Traditional” Irish music and the widespread popularity of what some people decide to give the label "ITM"! (The flourishing of one thing is not the same as the popularity of some completely different thing!)
Like many musicians I lament the existence of this organization. And I can see plainly that they are using their dodgy money and their organizational structure, their competition culture, their exams, etc. to dictate what qualifies as Irish music, and are in fact threatening genuine traditional music! All this nonsense about local volunteers and the rest is just sidestepping the real issue here: an attack on traditional music from an organization supremely unqualified to set itself us as guardian and judge of a music it has no respect for and does not understand.
None of the defenders of Comhaltas have addressed this point.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Oops! Posted same thing twice.
Fiddleruairi, all good points!
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Southpaw, I've been a member of Comhaltas (St James the Great, Pollock, Glasgow) for a number of years, but this:
>From What I'm reading about Labhras he has been >singlehandly in charge of CCE since 1968, that's over 40 >years.
>We are talking about a man who by all accounts has >singlehandly brough CCE from small beginings to what it is >now, a worldwide organisation that promotes ITM world wide, <snip...>
>Come on guys this man should be placed on a pedestal and >thanked for dedicating his life to his achievement CCE.
...is the biggest dollop of sychophantic drool* I've read in a long time.
Single handed my Rs.
Maybe the hundreds, more likely thousands, of folks who ever taught for free at a comhaltas class, played a fundraising ceili to buy instruments for the kids or cover bus fairs, etc should all never have bothered seeing as the senator has it all covered.
- chris
* yes, I know. Drool doesn't really dollop, but other bodily emmisions fall foul of the filters.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
I made the suggestion that Labhras should be put on a pedestal for his achievements in responce to the postings regarding him being in charge for the last 40 years. Surely this is the impression that someone from outside would take from the comments made. Maybe I was being sarcastic.
If you don't like the leadership of any organisation, CCE included, get involved in the democratic process and have a new director general appointed. Then what happens, no matter who gets appointed, he or she won't be to everyone's taste or politics, another big row will ensue and in the best of Irish traditions, there will be a split.
As to the ability to play an instrument I doubt John Delaney can kick a ball. Just because you are agood musician doesn't make you a goo administrator or leader. How many wonderful chefs make dreadful businessmen?
As to using political connections to obtain funding, how did Croke Park get re-developed?. I'm sure it's no accident that Tullamore has got a 3 in a row. Likewise I've been in Monkstown when a senior republican figure held a book launch, the Green Party were there last week anouncing grants for home improvements.
As to the Phoenix article I have a subscription to it for a number of years and find Phoenix informative. Regarding the Arts Council, I informally met the then Chairperson of the Arts Council and she led me to believe that their funding was for the Arts and were not for the common people playing jigs and reels. I'm not aware of the IMRO debate so I can't comment. It wasn't the purpose of this post to defend the position of the director general but he seems to be getting all the flack.
My purpose is to highlight the good work that is done at branch level all around the country and how ITM gives so much pleasure to so many people and to recognise the efforts of the many unpaid and undervalued members who give so freely of their time in order that the music lives on.
# Posted on March 1st 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
"I informally met the then Chairperson of the Arts Council and she led me to believe that their funding was for the Arts and were not for the common people playing jigs and reels" - now it's beginning to fit into place as I could never understand at the time why only 0.9% of Arts Council money went to the Traditional Arts. Whatever people's views are about Labhrás, if one agrees that traditional arts are special and not just "diddley aye" in the corner of a pub, one has to applaud his efforts in getting the funding situation redressed.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
In view of the severity of the economic downturn and cuts to funding being made or planned, maybe it's a bit handy at the moment having a senator on board who is good at getting the money.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
...and if he can't get it, so you could turf him then - and he might want to go anyway. Good luck.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
Other than the rather mundane point of the organization's dodgy leadership, have you any interest in the substantive issue of Comhaltas' radically dumbed-down version of Irish traditional music (its “stereotyped revivalism”), or would you rather that the thorny issue of the dubious authenticity of what this organization is 'preserving' be ignored? This issue will not be fixed by a new leader, Comhaltas would need a whole new ethos!
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Wouldn't know enough about it myself, mate. But from the perspective of someone on the other side of the world who'd like to learn some tunes, the website is a great resource, as well as things like the fion sessuin? cds, etc.
I know it seems like a lot of money to devote just to get resources like that onto a website, and maybe that luxury won't continue in the future, I don't know, but it is helpful - whether the cost justifies that, it isn't for me to say, but it does seem like a lot.
In respect of regional styles not being "upheld" "taught", whatever, I don't see any problem in local CCE branches actually teaching those - are they banned from doing so?
It would be nice to see money being provided though to branches to remunerate people for their efforts too.
In my experience, if there was ever an issue to generate public discontent it is the issue of financial transparency and open books, especially, especially, in a body that is funded from taxpayer funds. Unless they address that, the problem for them is not going to go away.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
Going a bit further on that, I would have thought it would a particular drawcard for CCE (and importantly individual branches) if regional styles were emphasised in branches in those regions...and be advertised by CCE in the context of education and festivals. I would have thought there'd be plenty of people who would want to go to a CCE branch "regional style workshop program" as part of a festival in whatever part of Ireland they would be held. What a great idea for tourism as well, perhaps needless to say.
Is this desirable/possible, or not, or am I missing something?
Can the branches not make these decisions? Maybe it would give extra leverage in manoeuvering funding from CCE head office, if not, I would have thought that the tourism minister mightn't be too happy.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
Seems like it might be good timing as well:
http://www.arts-sport-tourism.gov.ie/tourism/tourismrenewal.html
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: CCE bashers
Southpaw:
>I made the suggestion that Labhras should be put on a >pedestal for his achievements in responce to the >postings .regarding him being in charge for the last 40 >years .Surely this is the impression that someone from >outside would take from the comments made. Maybe I was >being sarcastic.
If it was an attempt at sarcasm it badly missed the mark
>If you don't like the leadership of any organisation, CCE >included, get involved in the democratic process and have a >new director general appointed. Then what happens, no >matter who gets appointed, he or she won't be
I've been an active member of CCE for a fair few years. I'm happy to be involved in the day to day practical activities.
But lets not pretend that CCE's structures are not incredibly beaurocratic. They are apparently designed to stiffle any suggestion of change in policy or structure from within the organisation.
I've been a member of many organisations down the years and nothing I've ever came into contact with can touch comhaltas for beaurocracy.
Now, I've got a lot of time for CCE. Literally. I' ve given up plenty of hours of time to teach, play fundraisers etc (though I'm not keen on the competition aspects of the organisation). Much less time than some, but i've done it nonetheless. I wouldn't be wasting my time getting involved in trying to change the central structures and politics of CCE though. There is no chance of that happening.
- Chris
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
Whistleblower
would you or any other contributor care to elaborate on "the organizations dodgy leadership". I'm interested to see what's behind all this animosity.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
Wasn't the shady leadership of this organization the reason for your starting this thread? Surely the phrase needs little explanation in this context. For information on the "dodgy leadership" refer to these posts:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/20731
http://www.thesession.org/index.php/search?q=labhras&start=0&scope=The+Session
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17108
I've made it quite clear above that the issue of shifty leadership and questionable financial propriety is something I'm not interested in, just as you are apparently not interested in discussing what I regard as the most important issue: the systematic damage done by Comhaltas to traditional music.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/20375
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
"Dodgy leadership" was not the reason for starting this thread. I've seen a lot of anti CCE sentiment on this website and I thought it was time to show some of the positive aspects of CCE.
Whistleblower, I wish I had your knowledge and passion for the music to be able to form the opinions that you do. I take the music for what it is and while having little knowledge of regional styles, no one seems to play a tune the same way. Look at how many different variants there are to tunes, none of them can be deemed to be the correct one, unless of course you composed it. even then people hear what they hear and play what they thought they heard and if a little deviatiion or ornamentation sounds better, so much the better.
As to the Comhaltas style my knowledge of learning music started with the CCE series of music books and from that I use music books that I picked up here and this excellent website. Yes there can be difficulties with everyone playing the same version of a tune but in a session can you imagine everyone playing their own version of a tune We can't even agree on the name of a tune unless its 'gan ainm'.
I'm all for transparency of matters financial so if there's nothing to hide let's see the accounts published for all to see.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
whistleblower:
>I've made it quite clear above that the issue of shifty >leadership and questionable financial propriety is something >I'm not interested in, just as you are apparently not interested >in discussing what I regard as the most important issue: the >systematic damage done by Comhaltas to traditional music
I can't speak fro the situation within Ireland, but CCE has played a major role in passing Irish trad music on the succeeding generations outside of ireland.
It makes me smile whenever I hear the charge that CCDE encourages one particular style. Maybe for competitions (about which I don't really care), but in the CCE branch that I attend there have been a number of different approaches & styles to the music taken by various members down the years.
Outside of Ireland there is probably little danger of a local style being diluted by CCE, and there certainly hasn't been a single style that has dominated my experience of CCE at branch level.
BTW, a number of folks here have been passionate about the preservation of local styles within Ireland. This strikes me as a worthy cause, but can I draw attention to a question I asked on another thread (started by Jusa)? It is a genuine question that I hoped to see discussed. It isn't an attempt to disparage local playing styles. I'd still be interested in opinions if anyone cares to voice one.
cheers - chris
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
bother! forgot the link:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/20783
- chris
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
Have to agree with the last two posts about Comhaltas attempting to subvert regional styles or establish one of their own. I've been a member of Comhaltas now for more than 30 years in both UK and Irish branches and have never seen any evidence of a preference for a particular style. Like Southpaw I would have been more interested in the enjoyable task of finding new music and tunes rather than concentrating on any one style or other. In any case it's hard to be dogmatic about whether styles are indeed really regional or more down to influential musicians such as Coleman, Doherty and Canny. If you take the latter there's a big difference between Paddy Canny's (Tulla in East Clare) playing and Joe Ryan (Inagh, in West Clare) and these musicians would have only lived twenty or so miles apart. Similarly while Johnny Doherty and Tommy Peoples are both Donegal fiddlers, I would contend that Tommy's is really a "Peoples" style.
Having said all that, ramblingpitchfork's link is well worth a visit and a further link from there (www.resinand bow or similar) provides some invaluable information on the whole business of styles.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
http://www.resinandbow.com/ is the full URL I meant to refer to above
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
I agree with a statement made in another thread:
"The reason Donegal Gaelic is distinct from the Gaelic of Kerry or South Uist is not because the people were poorly travelled, but because the Gaelic comes from a living community of speakers, and the same goes for music."
from:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16800
I will go further: Any genuine Gaelic belongs to one or other of the regional dialects. The Dublin government standard Irish invented in the 1950s is an artificial language. Likewise the only genuinely traditional Irish music is an instance of one or other of the regional styles. Traditional music in Scandinavia has not suffered the same attack on traditional styles because it has not been popularized internationally, with the dumbing down that appears to come with it. As Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh said, nowadays with our being bombarded with various musical influences (from other musical traditions, and of course from the insidious Irish-music-lite) we need to do a little scholarship in order to play traditional music, unless of course one is not interested in whether or not the music one plays is actually traditional.
Also worth looking at:
Teaching an Obscure repertoire:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16748
Those who scorn "purism"...:
http://66.216.73.96/discussions/display/15534
Regional Styles:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/14690
I agree with Bannerman that Tommy Peoples' style originated with him, and fiddlers who play like him in my experience got that style directly from him. The Donegal style is a good example of where commentators have focused on one person to the exclusion of nearly everyone else. John Doherty was one among many hundreds of superb players. His style was actually quite unusual in that he played mostly without swing, and this is now copied by many others as if it is THE defining feature of Donegal style. This is Mistake! Mickey Doherty, Neillie Boyle and just about every old player I heard in the Rosses played with considerable swing.
(There are at least 6 distinct styles in Donegal, and surely more subtle variations than that. I have certainly found variations between villages no more than 5 miles apart, typically meaning that there are variations based on one or two families and their distinctive way of playing that has its own distinctive history. But there are such similarities in the styles that the regional style forms a natural category).
Commentators focus on one or two players and the reader can be forgive for thinking that these examples are the origin of the style. On one of John Doherty’s records he talked to Padraig Boyle about how he lived with the Rann na Feirste fiddler Sean Chormac for 2 years when he was around 20 years old. The West Highland tunes and old Rosses reels and highlands were still popular around that area when I was growing up. And today when I play many of the old tunes from the Rosses its hardly surprising that people say, “AH, you got that from Johnny Doherty’s playing!” But of course Johnny Doherty learned these tunes from somewhere, he was part of a vast musical landscape; he didn’t invent it, he didn't write the tunes, he didn't forge the links to the West Highland style (though the lack of swing appears to be his own), and he was not the only guardian of it. We can’t credit John Doherty or any other player (or even a few dozen players) with the Donegal style, no more that we can credit a great poet with creating the dialect he writes in.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
That should be "Seán Chormac"
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Southpaw what planet are you living on?
Whistleblower has already addressed all your points eloquently yet you still choose to ignore them. You obviously don't have enough knowledge of the music to comment on whistleblowers posts so please don't.
What about the Comhaltas tours i.e. 'Echo's of Erin' - I wonder how much those kids are getting paid? Anyone hazard a guess? The words 'for Ireland' come to mind.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Gerry1972
Re: CCE bashers
It seems to me that a few ,denigrate all the good that CCE has done since it's inception. I see no other organization that has 'steped up to the plate' like CCE. Instead of all the negativity on the yellow board, why not extoll the good 'Tings' CCE has done for Trad. Music World, It is indeed a very good resource . Enough with the few 'Negative Apples'!!!
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by firnatine
Re: CCE bashers
Bannerman should send some time in his regional archive in Cois na hAbhna if he brings up Paddy Canny and Joe Ryan to make a point about (the lack) of regional styles.
He could have placed Paddy Canny in his regional or local context with Peter Woods, Martin Rochford, P Joe Hayes, Vincent Griffin and made connections through Paddy's father Pat who taught or influenced most of the above. Going back we would have found Pat Canny's contemporaries like Michael Touhey (an uncle of Patsy Touhey by the way), Johnny Allen, Patrick Moloney who were in turn all taught by Paddy McNamara, a travelling fiddler. Then we would have had a point about a regional style.
The same could have been done for the West Clare styles, the lineage of Scully Casey, Thady Casey, Junior Crehan, Bobby Casey, Michael Downes, John Joe Tuttle JP Shannon, Paddy Galvin, Joe Ryan, the influences of pat Barron and other travelling musicians on the local style and repertoire.
the connections an influences between Canny, Ryan, Rochford and Tommy Potts..
South West Clare centering of Paddy Kelly, John kelly, ellen Galvin and other pupils of Joh nwhelan, travelling fiddle teacher from North Kerry and their cross- overs to both the West Clare fiddlers and the East Clare ones (Martin Rochford went to see both Paddy Kelly and Junior Crehan regularly)
And that's all before we start on North Clare, Doolin, Kilfenora, Bellharbour.
If we deny it's there we won't be able to say it's not been promoted, or have the regional styles like these not been noticed by Clare CCE officials like Bannerman?
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
VocalDivaSteed.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Idon't have whistleblowers knowledge of the music, I have said that and I wished I had his and probably your passion and knowledge of the music to recognise regional styles, I'll leave that to self proclaimed experts like your selves.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by southpaw
Re: CCE bashers
show off kilfarboy!
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Gerry1972
Re: CCE bashers
Kilfarboy, I think you’ve established your point admirably. It's good to see someone who knows their stuff!
I did notice Bannerman’s statement that he “would have been more interested in the enjoyable task of finding new music and tunes rather than concentrating on any one style or other.” Again, this is something I have noticed from Comhaltas folk, even the ones who admit that regional styles do exist, they depreciate them and marginalise their importance to the tradition, as if regional traditions were a minor side-issue, in itself of little importance to Irish music. (Accumulate more tunes and forget about the little stuff of traditional regional styles!)
This malady will not be fixed by tweaking the organization slightly. The aim of the popularizing movement is that anyone will be able to go into an ‘Irish’ pub in Dublin, Galway, Leeds, London, New York, Berlin and hear exactly the same tune played in exactly the same way. Traditional music in Ireland is increasingly going in this direction. Even Cairdeas na bhFidiléirí, an association of South Donegal fiddlers, seems to be launching themselves towards a standardization of the Donegal style.
As I said in a previous post:
The recent revivalist movement in South Donegal that has fixed dubious rules for Donegal playing, such as “no swing, no slurring, no finder ornamentation,…”, this type of playing was far from the norm in Donegal. All of these outlawed things are features of the non-John Doherty styles, and even he did slur notes and use finger ornamentation, though not as much as the was typical of the Rosses style [e.g., Neillie Boyle].
Down with this sort of thing!
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Nothing particularly to show off about. But it seems somehow typical of a Comhaltas project officer to dismiss local styles and the importance of people and places and the footsteps the ones before us left because he seems to prefer to sit in 'Seisiun'. As if those two things would be mutually exclusive.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
Whistleblower got in just before I did.
I think it's all the more a shame as Bannerman has Paddy Canny's grandchildren Emeair and Gerald coming into Cois na hAbhna, lovely whistle and harp players and especially Eimeair has 'the touch' on the fiddle, a direct lineage and unbroken continuity right back to Paddy Mac. And apparently he fails to acknowledge the importance of that.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
"Having said all that, ramblingpitchfork's link is well worth a visit and a further link from there (www.resinand bow or similar) provides some invaluable information on the whole business of styles."
Well worth a visit? Invaluable information? Yes totally Dismissive of styles....
I believe you are being incredibly unfair Kilfarboy. So Bannerman doesn't spend his every waking hour tracking down what specific style was practiced in a specific townland in a specific parish in a specific county taught by a specific teacher in a specific decade. You honestly believe he wants to subvert and destroy regional heritage in someway?
Congratulations you know something about music in Clare.
Maybe you should work for Comhaltas....I'm sure you would gain respect from people of the county, shunning the 'Seisiún' of the commoners, locking yourself away with your pipes and collection of old photos.
So you think that Bannerman disrespects Paddy Cannys grandchildren in some way? Failing to acknowledge their heritage? What would make you believe this?
Clare is a small place. Ask any musician from Clare if they think that the target of your abuse has dismissed the "importance of people and places and the footsteps the ones before us left".
You hate CCE. Thats great. You've spent years on the Internet criticizing them, glued to your computer on IrTrad, MudCat, this site etc. etc. as is your right. Go ahead and criticise the organisation some more if you want. But to initiate personal attacks on people implying that they dismiss styles, and even worse that they dismiss certain young people and their lineage is bang out of order.
When you came over to Co. Clare, you were "bitten by the bug". Well, I wonder if that bug didn't inject you with the venom that you often seem to display on threads such as these.
# Posted on March 2nd 2009 by pj johnson
Re: CCE bashers - Brendán Breathnach's thoughts
Happened to come across the CCE magazine "Ceol" dated 1968.
Brendán Breathnach wrote an article entitled "An Appraisal of the past and future of C.C.E." I think Brendán has some good points which were ignored for 30+ years.
Here is the article (you might have to connect the link if the page breaks)
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/642129/An%20Apprasial%20of%20the%20Past%20and%20Future%20of%20CCE.pdf
For what its worth...
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by madfluter
Re: CCE bashers
thanks for that gem madfluter. Makes me wonder what other interesting old articles about the music are floating around on the internet somewhere.
And best wishes to bannerman and his colleagues working with the young musicians.
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by dogbox
Re: CCE bashers
>I agree with Bannerman that Tommy Peoples' style >originated with him, and fiddlers who play like him in my >experience got that style directly from him. The Donegal style >is a good example of where commentators ...<sniped for space . We can’t credit John Doherty or any other player (or >even a few dozen players) with the Donegal style, no more >that we can credit a great poet with creating the dialect he >writes in.
Interesting post whistleblower. This was exactly the type of discussion I was hoping for.
- chris
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
I'm not sure that it was me that provided the link that has been mentioned. The only link I made was to another recent discussion on this forum. And I did so to try and provoke someone into answering a question of mine that nobody had shown interest in answering previously.
I'm sure that anything helpful must have come from someone else
- Chris
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
Things get heated sometimes PJ, you're right there.
I didn't intend a swipe at Bannerman as a person, some prefer just sitting down for a few tunes over finding out a bit of background, a bit of history and what it is that makes this music what it is. Which is just fine.
As an officer of a cultural movement I don't think it would look bad on him if insight in local styles would show a bit more depth than declaring that Joe Ryan and Paddy Canny loved twenty miles apart and yet played very differently. As I showed above, there's a context to that difference.
Clare's a small place indeed, but which a rich variety of local styles.
And complaints over things getting to personal, why do they always continue on going even more for the person? It's fine though, it's the way of the internet.
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
Okay, here is a question for kilfarboy and whistleblower and anyone else lamenting the dismissal of regional styles.
If you are a musician from somewhere without a regional style (arguably even New York and Chicago do) how do you position your own playing? I know people who come from a non-traditional music background but have extensively researched and listened to playing from one or two areas and are striving to play like that, which is admirable but just as much of a construct as listening to an amalgamation of music and letting your style develop from there. In other words, how does it all benefit regional styles if someone from Boulder, Colorado arbitrarily decides she will learn one or the other. If you haven't had the training and the tacit knowledge passed down from that lineage of players, will you *really* be playing in that style? To me it feels like a bit of a false pretense to say I play in regional style x, especially if I have hardly spent time in that area. Sure, I may have a lot of influences from regional style x if I study loads of recordings of it but am I really an x player? I'm not convinced.
That all said, if you really love regional style x and want to play like that as much as possible, then by all means go for it. I'd caution that one should be mindful about how they frame it but absolutely, play like you want. I think it's grand that people are interested in regional styles and discussing them, as it is undoubtedly an important aspect of the music. I suppose where I see it as problematic is when you attribute moral values to regional styles and the lack thereof, especially when addressing players who come from areas where Irish music has only very recently been played. Short of moving to Clare or Sligo or wherever, how is one to master a regional style, or is it not better to accept that your style will be sort of an aggregrate style (like everyone's really) because that's your own background.
It certainly reflects modernity, where we have access to hundreds of recordings and through things like Willie Week, easy access to real live players. Obviously the argument is that this is part of the problem: everyone can hear everything so subtle regional variations are lost in the noise. I find this whole issue very much grounded in Romantic dualities of traditional/modern, past/present, old/new, where the latter is held as inferior to the former. But were the "old" styles that timeless? Did players from West Clare play in one particular way, unbroken and unchanging, until the twentieth century when it all went pear shaped?
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: CCE bashers
All I can say about that anyone's playing is necessarily the sum of that person's influences. You accumulate bit and pieces from people you learn from, people you spend time with. I don't think you can go out and say 'I am going to be a Sligo style player', that's not how it works.
I don't think old styles are as you say 'timeless' in the sense that they were formed and remained unchanged. Bannerman brought up personal styles and I agree with him there that personal input plays a part. The way I see it is that there's continuity in a particular style and each player, each generation puts a personal slant on it of which elements will stay within the style and that can include purely personal traits but also things picked up from outside the style that can become incorporated (think of the influence of travelling musicians in the past both on repertoire and style).
That is the context of my earlier remark regarding 'footsteps' if you talk to musicians who are aware of the history you will find that there are certain turns and twists in tunes that can be traced back to one player or other, it's the essence of what I think 'tradition' means : players long gone remain in the living memory by the imprint they made on the music and so a continuity is maintained.
I don't think 'things went pearshaped' altogether, in West Clare there is a large number of young musicians who play a recognisable West Clare style (and the same holds true to East Clare and no doubt other regions I know less about) as they have learned their music in a way that makes them part of that lineage. Brid O Donohue's whistle and flute students for example or in the east Mary MacNamara's students. There are still a lot of teachers who make a point of passing on the local repertoire and style.
In fairness there are people working within Comhaltas who care a lot about the local styles and put a lot of work into collecting and disseminating them. I could name Mick O Connor who does seem to know the flute style of every townland and clachan around, Nick and Ann McAuliffe and a good few others. Unfortunately it's the competitions that steer a lot of result-driven young players in a certain direction that has become known as 'the Comhaltas style'.
But it's a complex subject and this were merely a few random thoughts.
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
If you want to discus this further it's probably better to open another, separate thread and let this one go it's own way.
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
24 hours, the time I've been away from this thread, is indeed an age in Internet time. I made a statement (a purely personal view) that maybe styles are influenced by individualistic, and great musicians such as Canny and Peoples without any expectation of the outrage this might cause to one individual on this site. To take this as an indication of a disrespect for Clare musicians on my part is so ridiculous as to be hardly worth a response. Thank you PJ Johnson for picking up on this and I'm sure that anybody who knows me (and the people who don't who may be familiar with my posts over the last 8 years or so) will realise that the last thing I would do is disrespect anyone.
I probably wouldn't be responding at all but I have to put the record straight regarding two young musicians who regularly perform in Cois na hAbhna whom I've also been accused of disrespecting. These two young people (I won't mention names as I think it's extremely unfair to try and personalise these mattters, particularly when abuse is being dished out) are both excellent young musicians from a wonderful family who have a very bright future ahead of them. It's for the future of the tradition and the next generation of musicians that we should stop all this bickering and get on with the positive work of promoting and promulgating our unique musical heritage whether this task is done within Comhaltas or elsewhere.
As for your comments Kilfarboy that "And complaints over things getting to personal, why do they always continue on going even more for the person? It's fine though, it's the way of the internet." I don't buy that as the Internet cannot be blamed for individual intolerance and misrepresentation of others' views or motives.
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by Bannerman
Re: CCE bashers
____________________________________________________
# Posted on March 3rd 2009 by dogbox
Re: CCE critics vs. Regional Style bashers
Bannerman, you say that you,
“made a statement (a purely personal view) that maybe styles are influenced by individualistic, and great musicians such as Canny and Peoples…”
But in fact you made the much more contentious claim that:
“In any case it's hard to be dogmatic about whether styles are indeed really regional or more down to influential musicians such as Coleman, Doherty and Canny.”
I think it has been conclusively demonstrated that regional styles are really “regional”, belonging to a community of musicians just as a dialect belongs to a community of speakers, and not merely “down to influential musicians”.
The distinctive regional styles of Scottish fiddle music in the 20th /21st century were formed by the 18th century. The same is true, I am told, with the regional fiddle traditions in Sweden. Shoddy recent scholarship has claimed that all Donegal music is (in effect) down to John Doherty, but of course a little thought about the situation will show with certainty that this is not the case.
I honestly can never understand why Tommy Peoples (among others) is ever referred to in the same breath as Paddy Canny or John Doherty. I think that this lack of discernment in understanding of traditional music, coupled with a pre-existing indifference to (or disregard of) regional styles, leads inevitably to the opinion that regional styles are utterly insignificant to traditional music, rather than their being something without which there IS no traditional music.
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Whistleblower,
I've read in more than one place (although I cannot remember where, and cannot vouch for the quality of the sources) Paddy Canny credited with effectively creating the East Clare fiddle style. Perhaps developing it from something earlier might have been a better way of putting it.
I'm not saying that he did create this style (and I am a massive fan of Canny's). But I think it is perfectly acceptible to ask how long local styles have been existence, and whether there has been a succesion of dominant local styles over time in any given region. It is possible to ask this without disparaging local styles or questioning their validity. I don't think we should be scared to ask such questions.
If there was an older style of playing in East Clare before Paddy Canny, should we be upset that Canny's wonderful playing supplanted that style? (Of course this isn't quite the same thing as the complete loss of all regional differences through exposure to mass media etc)
It is also interesting to ask how dominant were local styles in the area where they developed. E.g. a particular style of playing may be strongly associated with one area of Ireland, but does that mean that all players from that area played in that style? This does not appear to have been the case for Johnny Doherty as you point out above. Does that make Doherty's music of less value?
I realise that this thread has feelings running high, but it is possible to ask questions such as these without having an anti-regional style agenda. I'm not as keen on a lot of modern fiddle players who often sound like they are obsessed with technique. For me there has to be some dirt in the music for it to be interesting. (And gimmicks like syncopation just don't cut it)
I don't get your point about Tommy Peoples.
At first I thought you meant he was not a good example of a player with a strong regional style (as opposed to a powerful individual style). But you don't want to group him with Johnny Doherty who you point out did not play in the typical style of the place he lived.
Are you just not as impressed with Tommy's playing?
For what it is worth I think the man is a genius. At this point in my life I'd rather listen to Canny or Peoples than Doherty, with Canny probbaly coming out on top. Don't know how I'll feel in 10 or 20 years though.
best wishes - chris
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
I think it would be wrong to state Paddy Canny invented the East Clare style, while his playing was ultimately his own I think it's well accepted elements now seen as making up the 'East Clare style' came down through the lineage I described above, through the father Pat Canny down to Pat McNamara. As such Canny doesn't stand alone.
Point in case would be the playing of players before Paddy Canny like Johnny Allen and contemporaries like Martin Rochford and Martin Woods (I said Peter Woods above which was ofcourse wrong, that's the writer) who all had that 'lonesome' quality . They shared many elements of the style although Canny, like anybody would, added elements from players he took an interest in, the ones he heard on the 78rpms and a very large part of Tommy Potts.
Any local style would be informed by the past but also constantly being replenished and informed by new elements or developments brought in by individuals.
That's what I think anyway.
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
Thanks Kilfarboy.
- chris
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
Just as an illustration I have uploaded a clip from recordings I made at Martin Rochford's house in Bodyke while camping out beside the house for a few days in 1989. The tune is sometimes known as Scully Casey's but has been more recently identified as The Quilty Shore, composed by Bobby Casey (and as such recorded by Canny). Whatever the way, Martin learned it form Junior Crehan. Interesting bit of cross pollination but audibly Clare music, East meets West as it were.
Both Rochford and Canny took influences from Tommy Potts but both were close and life-long friends as well so there would be a lot of cross pollination there too.
I'll leave the clip for a day or so at:
http://www.box.net/shared/7dqhqsenv6
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
Nice clip, Peter.
I don't want to come across as "anti-regional style" either -- I'm not -- and I certainly agree that there are styles of playing music which we happily label as "West Clare," "Leitrim," "Roscommon," et. al. I guess my questions have to do with how robust are these things historically and can we make claims like, "This is the traditional style of playing in West Clare." We know how some individuals played, who were lucky enough to either be recorded or in a position to pass their knowledge on to the next generation. But can we argue that most musos in that geographical area played that way and can we argue that music in that geographical area has sounded more or less like the people we are claiming are exponents of a regional style.
We know from manuscripts that tunes -- and therefore people -- got around a fair bit, since the same tunes appear in both Irish and Scottish tune collections. You also had a very transient labour population in both Ireland and Scotland so there was undoubtedly a lot of "cross-pollination" on both sides of the Irish sea. Surely all of these things would have had an effect on regional styles.
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: CCE bashers
I think exactly the same I point made above about Donegal fiddle has been made about East & West Clare music. Personally I much prefer P.J. Hayes’ playing to Paddy Canny’s (especially when his recordings for Radio Eireann). Is it plausible that Paddy Canny invented P.J. Hayes’ style? My point about Tommy Peoples is that I have never understood his being placed alongside good musicians. His de-tuned triplets are copied by many people these days (and not just his students) and are just an indication that he never learned to do Donegal triplets properly (which are properly pitched); he admits as much here: http://www.irishfiddle.com/peoplesinterview.html I think that a lot of damage has been done to Donegal fiddling by placing the likes of him in the same category as our great traditional players! (as discussed previously): http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/20477 If you take Paddy Glackin, Tommy Peoples, or Máiread Ní Mhaonaigh (who sadly was influenced by Glackin & Peoples) and compare their playing with old recordings of highlands, they have rounded off the strong Scottish rhythms and play them more like the Austrian barndances popular in East Donegal in the 1900s. No wonder some people now have difficulty telling highlands apart from hornpipes and reels.
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
You'll have to be careful separating a local repertoire from a local style. While there are tunes that will be more popular in one location, there will always be an exchange with other areas. Great players have always been mad for new tunes, Rochford would knock on your door if he heard you play a tune he liked and he wouldn't go until you'd written it down for him. He had a large manuscript collection and was known to give tunes to many people, Canny included.
One of Martin's signature tunes and often attributed to him as a composer was 'Forget me Not', in fact a Larry Redican composition.
It's the way the new tunes are incorporated in the local repertoire and the way they are adapted to the local style that is interesting. Below a clip of Paddy Galvin playing the Morning Dew, no doubt learned from the Coleman recording but absolutely adapted to the West Clare treatment, you can hear the elements you found in for example Junior's playing and Bobby Casey's, the stuff that goes back (according to those who heard him) to Scully Casey.
http://www.box.net/shared/hzj183a56k
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: CCE bashers
I can't wait to listen to these clips later thanks in advance for posting them guys (gals?)
- chris
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
Hey Whistleblower,
Did you give the correct link for the following?
Teaching an Obscure repertoire:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16748
It is quite an interesting thread, but the link that opens up for me is a discussion about the differences between Scottish & Irish fiddle styles.
cheers - chris
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
Quite right, my mistake!
Teaching an Obscure repertoire: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16800
Difference between Scottish and Irish Fiddle Style: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/16748
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by klhsadhfahslkdfhsalk
Re: CCE bashers
Thanks Whistle. I wasn't sure If I was just not clever enough to draw the point you wanted to make out of the earlier link. (It has been known to happen
)
- Chris
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: CCE bashers
I found this and it shows the powerful effect that an organisation can have on a traditional art:
http://www.bagpipehistory.info/piobaireachd.shtml
>>Standardisation of playing unfortunately came about in the mid nineteenth century thanks to the efforts of the Highland Society of London. It, along with the competition system started by the same society in the late eighteenth century has nearly strangled piping. Competition forces a degree of standardisation, demanding uniformity at the expense of expression. Approving only standard or recognised settings to be played is the principal enemy of the art. It has thinned down the music to one common setting of each piece and playing has become mechanised. The Highland Society’s of London and Scotland used competition to force a dependence on written music as a means of instruction and “improvement” of the music. Piobaireachd began to rigidify into an increasingly non-Gaelic museum piece. Regularity and conformity became the order of nineteenth century Piobaireachd. In 1838, the (1) MacDonald and (2) MacArthur styles of playing became supplanted by the piping style of one (3) Angus MacKay. His book proclaimed him an absolute authority and was sponsored by the H S L. All the great players accepted him without question; however, his piping style differed from his predecessors. How and why this happened are questions, which have not been adequately answered. He was piper to Queen Victoria; the commanding reputation of his father John MacKay probably gave Angus a stamp of approval in piping circles. This gave him the ability to displace all other styles and settings. The book is accepted as a faithful record of his father’s teachings.>?>
# Posted on March 4th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: CCE bashers
............. & then along came Gordon Duncan!
"Competition forces a degree of standardisation, demanding uniformity at the expense of expression."
# Posted on March 5th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: CCE bashers
In a much earlier post, fionan informed us about his application and his receiving €3,000 towards running theFéile Patrick Byrne
He also likened it to the Arts Council Application process. Well I can tell you that as a seasoned receipient of Arts Council funding, there is a very different process than Comhaltas.
Arts Council process:
Complete the official application form (about 15 pages) List all details. Tax registration, bank details, Organization structure (elected committee), tax clearance certificate, details of other funding sources, detailed budget proposals, If approved you receive half of the approved grant. (Not what you asked for). On completion of event, submit detailed report, including accounts. If satisfactory, you receive remainder of grant. List of recipients of funding grants are published.
Comhaltas process:
Uh! Not sure. Process not listed anywhere that I can see. Who benefits? Only Comhaltas branches I suppose. Rules? Uh dunno. Who makes the funding decisions. Not sure, but probably some existing officers of Provincial councils , etc. Application form? None that I know of - back of a cigarette box ? - sure that'l be grand. When making the application, does it help to be an outspoken critic of any aspect of Comhaltas? It may diminish your chances of funding success. List of funding recipients and their projects? Oh Jez we could'nt be publishing that now. Perish the thought.
I admire the Arts Council process. No harm in making organizations work and sweat for their funding. If it's worthy and you make a good application , your application will be favourably considered. Better that the Comhalthas method anyway
# Posted on April 30th 2009 by knightly