you heard your first Irish trad tune?
What were you doing?
How old were you?
What got you into Irish music?
What/who inspired you to take up the tradition?
Hi Fiddlerdan!
Funny, i didn't come on this site since very long until today, so i thought of when i started to play irish music... and few minutes later i'm reading your questions!!
i think i heard my first irish trad tune, i mean the one who made me want to play irish music, in the Boulder's library, Colorado. I was working as "au-pair", looking after children in a familly. i was 20. It was a concert (by Siùcra), and i just fell in love with the sound of the wooden flute. Later i went to speak with the great flute player, and she started to teach me! (Thanks to her!!). That's how started this great adventure! I never left my flute since, even if (as i just wrote it in my discussion) it's sometimes difficult!
Cecama77
I remember mom bouncing me on her knee singing the chorus to "The Moonshiner", but can't remember the first trad song. A good guess would have been an instrumental on one of dad's Dubliners albums.
I was in my early 20's. My roommate had an LP copy of "Below the Salt" by Steeleye Span, so it was their "Tancy's Fancy/The Bride's Favorite" set, although I don't know how Irish that is. Anyway, I just got interested in jigs, so I little by little I started seeking out acquiring various recordings, among them being early Bothy Band, De Dannan, the Andy Irvine and Paul Brady one, Ron Kavana's "Home Fire," the first "Celtic Fiddle Festival" CD, and some others. That formed my first exposure to the music. Then I took up mandolin, learned a few tunes and songs, and started playing with three-piece acoustic group that played a mixture of folk music, not just Irish, but that was mixed in, mostly songs but some intrumental music, including a couple of jig sets because I couldn't handle reels at the time. "Blarney Pilgrim was the first tune I every learned." Now, years later, having married a girl from Belfast and having visitied Ireland a few times and listened to a few sessions around the north, and given that I had some exposure to the music in the past plus having played a tiny bit of it on mando, that inspired me to start seeking out local sessions to participate in on the occasions that my busy life will allow, which sadly about once a month. Once my two children get a little older and I have finished my Masters, I will have a little more time, maybe even twice a month! I intend to play whenever I can as late into life as possible.
Five years ago, at age 54. A friend invited me to the local session. I found the Slow Session website the day before, learned Kesh from the dots, and went to the session with my grandfather's fiddle.
I was about 3 or 4 years old, in the kitchen with my mother, when some lively music came on the radio. My mother commented, in a tone expressing something just on the delighted side of indifference, "Oh, some Irish music." It evoked a degree of curiosity in me, but there were things that were of far greater fascination to me at that age. I don't remember the tune - only, in retrospect, that it was probably a jig and that it was played on the instrument I now know to be an accordion.
It wasn't until my early 20s that I revisited Irish music, having had an interest in Scottish and Northumbrian music for a few years prior to that. I can't pinpoint one particular tune, but De Danann's 'The Mist Covered Mountain' was probably the recording that tipped the balance for me - and an Irish musician friend at university (up to that point, I had no-one to play tunes with).
Probably it was seeing the Dubliners on TV. I must have liked them because when I bought my first (secondhand) record player I also bought a Dubliners LP, Finegan Wakes, 1966. I can remember listening intently to the Sunshine Hornpipe and Chief O'Neill's, they must have been the first tunes I learned to play.
Hiding under the a wooden dancing platform at our local Féis (Fesh) with my older brother and his gang. They were looking up through the cracks in the boards at the girls dancing, and I been all of eight years old was listening to the fiddler playing what I now know to be 'The Rakes of Mallow'. Circa mid 1940s
Do I count the Val Doonican albums my parents had when I was young - NO!
In my thirties I borrowed some Altan cd's from the local library and from then on was hooked on listening. Didn't start playing the stuff for another 5-6 years though.
McGann's (sp?) Doolin. A roaring session in 1987 led by a flute player. Bought a pennywhistle, moved to the flute soon enough and never put it down. Sadly, things aren't the same in Doolin these days.
I have a fairly typical story for a Yankee. One of the first harmonica tunes I learned when I taught myself in high school was Irish Washerwoman, but my exposure in my youth was sparse. I always enjoyed folk music, and liked listening to public radio. Then, in the mid '90s, I was in a writing workshop in the Boston area, and the Celtic Sojourn program was on the radio on my way to the workshops. The music started to grow on me, so I bought a tin whistle, started hanging around the local ceilidhe club, found the local session, and pretty soon, I was hooked.
Steeleye Span did it for me as well. "Original Masters" on a tape from the library. So many good tunes on there, and I didn't realise they were all Irish for about 20 years...Sligo Maid, Mooncoin Jig, Hag With The Money, Tansey's Fancy, Bride's Favourite, Dowd's Favourite, The Morning Dew....ah, memories!
I remember Over the Moor to Maggie and The Girl I Left Behind lilted by my mother, mostly when she was camping with the Girl Scout troop she led. And later hearing uilleann pipes and button box when I was 5, on a trip to Galway City. Two old guys on the sidewalk. I don't recall anything about the tunes they played, just that it was a roaring, rambunctious, wonderful sound. But I do remember that they smelled musty and sour. Smells I now associate with wet wool and whiskey.
It was in the early 80's--'81 or '82 that I attended my first Lark in the Morning Camp. I was learning to play Old-Time, when I was exposed to my first taste of Irish session music at Camp. It was the playing of Mickie Zekley, Michael Hubbert, Cathie Whitesides, and Jeremy Kammerer that inspired me the most. I later took a few lessons from Cathie, and she turned me on to the fiddling of the great Michael Coleman, the Bothy Band, and a number of old 78 recordings of Irish fiddle and box players from the 30's and 40's. A special thanks to Cathie and Jeremy for their help, patience, and encyclopedic knowledge of tunes when I was just getting started...
I was 9 and came across a Chieftains cassette tape at a yard sale. I had just started violin lesson in our local public school, and there was a picture with a fiddle on it. I continued learning classical, but the whole time, up through when I dropped that a few years ago, I was listening to the Chieftains and some other "Mixed" recordings and secretly harboring the desire to play like Sean Keane and Martin Fay.
Where were you when...
Where were you when...
you heard your first Irish trad tune?
What were you doing?
How old were you?
What got you into Irish music?
What/who inspired you to take up the tradition?
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: Where were you when...
Hi Fiddlerdan!
Funny, i didn't come on this site since very long until today, so i thought of when i started to play irish music... and few minutes later i'm reading your questions!!
i think i heard my first irish trad tune, i mean the one who made me want to play irish music, in the Boulder's library, Colorado. I was working as "au-pair", looking after children in a familly. i was 20. It was a concert (by Siùcra), and i just fell in love with the sound of the wooden flute. Later i went to speak with the great flute player, and she started to teach me! (Thanks to her!!). That's how started this great adventure! I never left my flute since, even if (as i just wrote it in my discussion) it's sometimes difficult!
Cecama77
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by Cecama77
Re: Where were you when...
I remember mom bouncing me on her knee singing the chorus to "The Moonshiner", but can't remember the first trad song. A good guess would have been an instrumental on one of dad's Dubliners albums.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by HK
Re: Where were you when...
I was in my early 20's. My roommate had an LP copy of "Below the Salt" by Steeleye Span, so it was their "Tancy's Fancy/The Bride's Favorite" set, although I don't know how Irish that is. Anyway, I just got interested in jigs, so I little by little I started seeking out acquiring various recordings, among them being early Bothy Band, De Dannan, the Andy Irvine and Paul Brady one, Ron Kavana's "Home Fire," the first "Celtic Fiddle Festival" CD, and some others. That formed my first exposure to the music. Then I took up mandolin, learned a few tunes and songs, and started playing with three-piece acoustic group that played a mixture of folk music, not just Irish, but that was mixed in, mostly songs but some intrumental music, including a couple of jig sets because I couldn't handle reels at the time. "Blarney Pilgrim was the first tune I every learned." Now, years later, having married a girl from Belfast and having visitied Ireland a few times and listened to a few sessions around the north, and given that I had some exposure to the music in the past plus having played a tiny bit of it on mando, that inspired me to start seeking out local sessions to participate in on the occasions that my busy life will allow, which sadly about once a month. Once my two children get a little older and I have finished my Masters, I will have a little more time, maybe even twice a month! I intend to play whenever I can as late into life as possible.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Where were you when...
Five years ago, at age 54. A friend invited me to the local session. I found the Slow Session website the day before, learned Kesh from the dots, and went to the session with my grandfather's fiddle.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Where were you when...
I was about 3 or 4 years old, in the kitchen with my mother, when some lively music came on the radio. My mother commented, in a tone expressing something just on the delighted side of indifference, "Oh, some Irish music." It evoked a degree of curiosity in me, but there were things that were of far greater fascination to me at that age. I don't remember the tune - only, in retrospect, that it was probably a jig and that it was played on the instrument I now know to be an accordion.
It wasn't until my early 20s that I revisited Irish music, having had an interest in Scottish and Northumbrian music for a few years prior to that. I can't pinpoint one particular tune, but De Danann's 'The Mist Covered Mountain' was probably the recording that tipped the balance for me - and an Irish musician friend at university (up to that point, I had no-one to play tunes with).
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Where were you when...
Probably it was seeing the Dubliners on TV. I must have liked them because when I bought my first (secondhand) record player I also bought a Dubliners LP, Finegan Wakes, 1966. I can remember listening intently to the Sunshine Hornpipe and Chief O'Neill's, they must have been the first tunes I learned to play.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by Bernie 29
Re: Where were you when...
Hiding under the a wooden dancing platform at our local Féis (Fesh) with my older brother and his gang. They were looking up through the cracks in the boards at the girls dancing, and I been all of eight years old was listening to the fiddler playing what I now know to be 'The Rakes of Mallow'. Circa mid 1940s
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by Free Reed
Re: Where were you when...
Do I count the Val Doonican albums my parents had when I was young - NO!
In my thirties I borrowed some Altan cd's from the local library and from then on was hooked on listening. Didn't start playing the stuff for another 5-6 years though.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by Bredna
Re: Where were you when...
I don't remember hearing my first tune... I remember that my first tune was "Lannigan's Ball" and that I played it on cello.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by scordion
Re: Where were you when...
McGann's (sp?) Doolin. A roaring session in 1987 led by a flute player. Bought a pennywhistle, moved to the flute soon enough and never put it down. Sadly, things aren't the same in Doolin these days.
# Posted on April 7th 2010 by jtrout
Re: Where were you when...
I have a fairly typical story for a Yankee. One of the first harmonica tunes I learned when I taught myself in high school was Irish Washerwoman, but my exposure in my youth was sparse. I always enjoyed folk music, and liked listening to public radio. Then, in the mid '90s, I was in a writing workshop in the Boston area, and the Celtic Sojourn program was on the radio on my way to the workshops. The music started to grow on me, so I bought a tin whistle, started hanging around the local ceilidhe club, found the local session, and pretty soon, I was hooked.
# Posted on April 8th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Where were you when...
Steeleye Span did it for me as well. "Original Masters" on a tape from the library. So many good tunes on there, and I didn't realise they were all Irish for about 20 years...Sligo Maid, Mooncoin Jig, Hag With The Money, Tansey's Fancy, Bride's Favourite, Dowd's Favourite, The Morning Dew....ah, memories!
# Posted on April 8th 2010 by bc_box_player
Re: Where were you when...
I remember Over the Moor to Maggie and The Girl I Left Behind lilted by my mother, mostly when she was camping with the Girl Scout troop she led. And later hearing uilleann pipes and button box when I was 5, on a trip to Galway City. Two old guys on the sidewalk. I don't recall anything about the tunes they played, just that it was a roaring, rambunctious, wonderful sound. But I do remember that they smelled musty and sour. Smells I now associate with wet wool and whiskey.
# Posted on April 8th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Where were you when...
It was in the early 80's--'81 or '82 that I attended my first Lark in the Morning Camp. I was learning to play Old-Time, when I was exposed to my first taste of Irish session music at Camp. It was the playing of Mickie Zekley, Michael Hubbert, Cathie Whitesides, and Jeremy Kammerer that inspired me the most. I later took a few lessons from Cathie, and she turned me on to the fiddling of the great Michael Coleman, the Bothy Band, and a number of old 78 recordings of Irish fiddle and box players from the 30's and 40's. A special thanks to Cathie and Jeremy for their help, patience, and encyclopedic knowledge of tunes when I was just getting started...
# Posted on April 8th 2010 by fiddlerdan
Re: Where were you when...
I was 9 and came across a Chieftains cassette tape at a yard sale. I had just started violin lesson in our local public school, and there was a picture with a fiddle on it. I continued learning classical, but the whole time, up through when I dropped that a few years ago, I was listening to the Chieftains and some other "Mixed" recordings and secretly harboring the desire to play like Sean Keane and Martin Fay.
# Posted on April 10th 2010 by Fiddlechick7