Check this out (if you haven't allready). This is a really old recording (somewhere between 1912 and 1917) of The Irish Washerwoman and several other tunes on cylinder
Check out the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php You can buy this very recording from them if you like. Says the issue date was 1919, but this could be a later issue - these studio rats like Harold Veo tended to record the same lame medleys over and over again.
A more interesting musician, at least from a historical standpoint, was Edison studio violinist Charles D'Almaine. His hornpipe medleys are full of tunes which were later adopted by Irish and Cape Breton Scottish fiddlers - the Acrobat, Minnie Foster's, Jimmy Linn's, the Champion, etc. These are by and large all in Ryan's/Cole's, but it is puzzling that these trad players would pick up the very same tunes D'Almaine had recorded, perhaps they were familiar with his records.
I just wonder what the results would sound like if some of today's trad doyens were recorded on that kind of apparatus, if there's still any in existence, or on something simulating it.
It - i.e., the difference between what these musicians sound like in 'real life' and what they might sound like recorded in such a way - might indicate with some precision how such recording tweaks the musicians' sound one way or another, and help us the better to imagine how the players of the distant past actually sounded live - or would have sounded with today's recording techniques.
The amazing thing about that recording was although it was recorded around 90 years ago, last Sunday night I played both The Irish Washerwoman and Larry O'Gaffe aka Daniel O'Connell, as if they had just come on stream. That's the great thing about Trad...it's ageless!!
That once through approach reminds me of what is done with Scottish "country" (or set if you prefer) dancing. Tunes once through in a particular order. I wonder if the performance had any relation to real life in that respect.
Making babies by steam is a song set to the tune Daniel O'Connell, which in the normal manner of these things means it has become a nem for the tune.
I always think Daniel O'Connell"goes with Haste to the Wedding, because every time I hear it I remember part of the lyrics from Making Babies by steam:
"She was jigging a tune called 'Make haste to the weddin'',
Or some other ditty, I can't tell you now".
I've read somewhere (maybe in one of the comments in one of the shaskeen tunebooks?) a complaint that Larry O'Gaff is misapplied to Daniel O'Connell, when LO'G is really a similar tune in G. But objections like that always sound a little petty to me, I take the pragmatic view that if enough traddies call a tune by a name then that is de facto a name for that tune. NO more a single correct name than a single correct setting
Old Skool!
Old Skool!
Check this out (if you haven't allready). This is a really old recording (somewhere between 1912 and 1917) of The Irish Washerwoman and several other tunes on cylinder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp8KSmJA0kc
Really cool, really old school.
Cheers!
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by Dark Raven
Re: Old Skool!
Funny way to put a set together compared to nowadays!
Great to actually SEE the cylinder working.
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by Henk Bos
Re: Old Skool!
I wonder how many session.org members it would take to change an Edison light bulb - or in this case, an Edison cylinder? ...
(Sigh) well, they just don't make them like that any more ...... thinks .... maybe just as well ....
Q. Can anyone name the other tunes in the set?
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Old Skool!
Paddy Whack, Larry O'Gaff, Come Under My Pladdie.
Check out the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php You can buy this very recording from them if you like. Says the issue date was 1919, but this could be a later issue - these studio rats like Harold Veo tended to record the same lame medleys over and over again.
A more interesting musician, at least from a historical standpoint, was Edison studio violinist Charles D'Almaine. His hornpipe medleys are full of tunes which were later adopted by Irish and Cape Breton Scottish fiddlers - the Acrobat, Minnie Foster's, Jimmy Linn's, the Champion, etc. These are by and large all in Ryan's/Cole's, but it is puzzling that these trad players would pick up the very same tunes D'Almaine had recorded, perhaps they were familiar with his records.
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by KLR
Re: Old Skool!
I just wonder what the results would sound like if some of today's trad doyens were recorded on that kind of apparatus, if there's still any in existence, or on something simulating it.
It - i.e., the difference between what these musicians sound like in 'real life' and what they might sound like recorded in such a way - might indicate with some precision how such recording tweaks the musicians' sound one way or another, and help us the better to imagine how the players of the distant past actually sounded live - or would have sounded with today's recording techniques.
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Old Skool!
The amazing thing about that recording was although it was recorded around 90 years ago, last Sunday night I played both The Irish Washerwoman and Larry O'Gaffe aka Daniel O'Connell, as if they had just come on stream. That's the great thing about Trad...it's ageless!!
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Old Skool!
Some of these tunes have been in print for over 200 years. Pretty cool.
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by KLR
Re: Old Skool!
Does anyone know who the fiddler is? Am I missing something?
# Posted on December 15th 2009 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Old Skool!
Harold Veo, a studio musician.
# Posted on December 16th 2009 by KLR
Re: Old Skool!
Isn't the tune which is known as "Larry O'Gaff" and "Daniel O'Connell" also known as "Making Babies By Steam"?
# Posted on December 21st 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Old Skool!
That once through approach reminds me of what is done with Scottish "country" (or set if you prefer) dancing. Tunes once through in a particular order. I wonder if the performance had any relation to real life in that respect.
# Posted on December 22nd 2009 by cboody
Re: Old Skool!
Making babies by steam is a song set to the tune Daniel O'Connell, which in the normal manner of these things means it has become a nem for the tune.
I always think Daniel O'Connell"goes with Haste to the Wedding, because every time I hear it I remember part of the lyrics from Making Babies by steam:
"She was jigging a tune called 'Make haste to the weddin'',
Or some other ditty, I can't tell you now".
I've read somewhere (maybe in one of the comments in one of the shaskeen tunebooks?) a complaint that Larry O'Gaff is misapplied to Daniel O'Connell, when LO'G is really a similar tune in G. But objections like that always sound a little petty to me, I take the pragmatic view that if enough traddies call a tune by a name then that is de facto a name for that tune. NO more a single correct name than a single correct setting
- chris
- chris
# Posted on December 22nd 2009 by ramblingpitchfork