Our instruments came from abroad.
Our Music came from abroad.
Irish Dance music as we know it is about 250 years old.
How traditional to Ireland is it?
The music should be preserved and recorded - but - it should also be allowed to grow and flourish. So musicians like Mike McGoldrick compose tunes maybe in 7/8 or Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin incorporates a bit of jazz... it's people like them that keep the music growing. Irish Traditional Music is a new tradition.
I would say it's both new and old. There is, for instance, masses of muance in the phrase "as we know it".
I agree that the new and even the foreign should be welcomed and embraced whenever and wherever it adds value. But it's also important, IMO, to embrace the essence of the music, which is old.
having argued with scores of musicians, all who claim to love irish traditional music, ive concluded that "traditional" means "the stuff i like" and "not traditional" means "the stuff i dont like"
Michael, in a nutshell it sounds like you enjoy hearing fusion versions of music, 7/8 rhythms, modern compositions, older dance tunes, world music ... maybe not in a nutshell, actually it's quite a large concept.
....the point being the its a waste of time debating this, its like arguing over the definition of Art, or debating the morals and contradictions of vegetarianism. it just comes down to a personal preference.
i think it would be better to promote the use of the word "diddly" rather than use the word traditional. "Traditional" in this context is a loaded word and means different things to different people, thus it actually means nothing.
Are you Irish, Premier? Of course, you may well be - but I'd bet if your genes were examined, you'd find a fair smattering of English, Spanish and God knows what else in there. But who cares, you grew up here and learnt the nuances of being Irish.
Ditto for the music, it matters little where it came from - it's how it's interpreted by Irish musicians. We learn from those that have gone before and you should always remember to respect that.
Webster's says:
Definition of TRADITION
1a : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) b : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2: the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3: cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4: characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
ok, I'll bite...ethical, for me, has a firm argument that I agree with. Incorporate what can be added without disrupting and distorting the form. I'll go out on a limb and say that there is a true form to this music that distinguishes it from other musical forms. When you try and blend it with a very forgein (musically forgien, I mean. it could be physically from Sligo and not change my basic argument here) and the music becomes something else. Something we all would say was not this music.
I say if you want to play jazz, play jazz. Don't mix modern jazz with a hornpipe. That doesn't mean we as individual players can't experiment. I'm just saying that we shouldn't expect other folks to just accept the result as diddly just because it was played with a concertina and pennywhistle. that's just using different instrumentation to play a different music.
well, all that said, I better get back out on the porch so I can turn the hose on those pesky kids walking across my lawn. That's one of the perks of getting old, you know
Jeez, fifteen years after the RTÉ/BBC TV series 'A River of Sound' and the same arguments remain unburied. Premierflute, I'd strongly suggest that you hunt down a copy of 'Crosbhealach an Cheoil' ('The Crossroads Conference').
The dilution of or the enhancement of any traditional music from anywhere in the world by the addition of outside influence is purely a matter of personal taste. Can something be diluted by adding something? IMO, yes. Can some tradition be improved by interference? IMO, yes. That's only my opinion and quite frankly the only opinion that I'm interested in.
I agree a lot with what Nate said. Even though this music remains open to influences, things that stretch too far outside the notions of acceptability don't last. Whatever works well, stays - what doesn't, falls away. The consensus is defined by those who play it.
This is true with the evolution of any type of music. All music evolves with each generation's expression of it.
>> it matters little where it came from - it's how it's interpreted by Irish musicians
Wounded H: do you mean Irish as in people of Irish enthnicty or residence, or simply those who play Irish(-style) music? If the former, then presumably Irish music can encompass anything from classical to heavy metal so long as it is Made in Ireland; if the latter, then there is no hope for the rest of us!
>>the word "diddly" rather than use the word traditional. "Traditional" in this context is a loaded word and means different things to different people, thus it actually means nothing.
Rumpole: whatever the ambiguities, personally I prefer the word 'Traditional' to 'Folk' - do you? For my money, what we play has very little to do with the world of Peter, Paul and Mary, The Spinners, Pentangle, Dylan etc. or indeed the vast majority of mediocre singer/song-writerdom out there, who infest singers' nights at a multitude of folk clubs up and down the land - or indeed that which the media is currently calling nu-folk, such as Mumford & Sons.
'Diddly' might be useful, but you now risk turning it into a genre as defined by its sound or style rather than its geo-cultural origins, at which point we might as well rename it World Music. That would in some ways help all those of us who play the stuff without a drop of ethnic authenticity, but I am not sure it would help the music itself. It's hardly flattering either, though I did hear it used by an non-musical Irish neighbour the other day
Personally, I really can't decide *what* I think about some of the very exciting acts who are doing new things with the music, (some of which work better than others), but who are arguably diluting the purer form of the music, which I love best. I would lump a lot of 'new' tunes in there, too - for example a lot of Michael McGoldrick's tunes, amongst others, just don't work for me - they just don't feel right. But on the other hand, tradition has always evolved, and new tunes have always been written... so why should now be any different? Right now, the Scots seem to be making a much stronger hand of updating their tradition than the Irish, though at what historic cost, I don't know.
I do know that I feel some regret that the top end is increasingly becoming just a branch of commercialised light entertainment, with many of the trappings of pop music, rather than cultural/art music. It's getting *too* slick.
For me, a benefit of having joined this list has been a decrease in my over-preoccupation with the big band scene, and a growing appreciation of the more subtle attractions of the smaller acts and 'genuine' traditional musicians. I'm not sure how well that would have worked if they had been mixing it too much.
p.s. Interesting article in The Independent today, discussing the dliemma of increasing popularity for folk-type acts - the need for arena-sized gigs versus the negative impact such large venues have on the experience of the music and the type of performance.
Calling it an old or new tradition is relative, isn't it? To someone in China, for example, calling it old is probably a bit of a joke. To your average American, however, it's practically ancient.
There has always been push and pull within the tradition. That's part of what keeps it alive. The tradition isn't a thing on a shelf, to be admired and preserved. It is us. The people. We're the tradition. We're the ones that learned it form those who came before us, and will pass it on to those who come after.
Technology has long been responsible for changes within the tradition. And people have long "pushed the envelope" of the (somewhat nebulous) boundaries of the tradition. They may be somewhat more noticeable these days, because of how fast they can spread, but they're nothing new.
Michael McGoldrick writing tunes in 7/8 is nothing new. Incorporating other styles or tunes into the tradition is nothing new. JNE's point is well taken. The tradition is pretty good at taking care of itself, rejecting the things that don't work, and incorporating the things that do. And remember that the tradition is us. So it is we that are doing the work. The nice thing about the push and pull is that it both provides some diversity in the music, and space in the middle - between the extremes - for us to all get along. The diversity allows for both regional styles, and personal styles. And we each get to make our own personal choices about how we respect the tradition, and where we fall on the spectrum between the trad police and the experimenters.
It is good to note that some rhythms (polka, mazurka, and waltz come to mind) spread from central Europe to the rest of the continent (and across the Atlantic) in the 19th century. But when they came to Ireland, they were altered by the Irish musicians who played them so that accents were different and melodic phrasing was still distinctly Irish. For example, old 6/8 marches were shifted into jig rhythms. I read on these forums (fora?) that some Scottish strathspeys were turned into Irish reels. So there's historically been a give and take, right? The problem I see with a lot of 'fusion' is that phrasing often gets abandoned and rhythms are typically taken wholesale without adjustment. So long as these are overlooked, there will be people who use the word "fusion" instead of classifying these experiments as ITM.
For example, I've heard West African polyrhythms played on djembe with Irish music. Doesn't sound quite right. It's not that the djembe is 100% unsuited to ITM, it's that the style played on them doesn't fit the rhythmic world of the music. It's more a musical collage than thoughtful incorporation, IMHO.
Speaking of musical collage, Bob Brozman recently did an Irish album (which was a surprise) with McSherry and O'Connor. One of the tunes was composed in the Lydian mode but has a [largely] Irish phraseology and it doesn't sound too out of place to my ears. So, I guess what I'm getting at is experiments are good, but for tunes or rhythms to be taken into the tradition they probably have to sound traditional, which means change is likely going to be more incremental than wholesale.
Maybe I'm wrong, I am a novice. I know many Irish musicians are apt to play tunes Breton An Dros and such on their albums, but how often do these album experiments make headway into sessions? I ask this honestly. Do you play Scottish, Breton, Galician, Norwegian, etc, tunes in sets with Irish ones at sessions? I have a feeling that people might be getting a little worked up about adventurous recorded material when the material most non-professionals play is less adventurous. Like Ian said, the top tier of the entertain has the trappings of pop music. There may be a disconnect between what that tier plays, how they play it, and what they play it with and what most players play, etc.
But yes, tradition has changed and will always change so long as it's alive. I love what Martin Hayes and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh do with dynamics, and that Ó Raghallaigh uses Hardanger and viola, for example. But these changes, while they veer a little bit away from the established tradition, I feel draw from it very strongly, too. Their focus is still very strongly on the tune itself.
So I guess I'm in the middle ground. I don't know.
Also, how thread have there been on here now about what constitutes tradition? Either we're all stubborn or we're terrible rhetoricians. ;p
Without thinking it over or particularly wishing to do so, I feel when listening to De Dannan's playing of The Entry Of The Queen Of Sheba (by Handel) that I am listening to Irish music. The piece of course is neither Irish nor traditional in origin. But the instrumentation, playing style and speed/rhythm are very much in line with today's Irish traditional music. I feel similarly about their song Hard Times as sung by Mary Black - early c20 American, I think, but the tune at any rate might as easily have been composed for a ballad in Ireland if the cards had fallen differently. Both pieces have strong, exhilarating melodies, the Handel one being of course the more complicated and atypical of actual trad.
I suspect, then, that a great deal of the essence of trad lies in the environment of the tunes, rather than in the tunes alone: their instrumentation, playing style, speed, characteristic rhythms. And of course, instrumentation hasn't remained static. (Some) kids nowadays will later associate the sound of the bouzouki or new-style accordeons with earliest childhood in a way earlier generations didn't, because they weren't there.
Handed down from one generation to the next for me would be My Wild Irish Rose and Danny Boy, and other Irish-inspired music hall tunes! One man's tradition is another's "oh Lord, what drivel!"
Paddy went up a mountain and God wrote down "the music" on tablets of stone which Paddy could not cart back down the hill because there was like thousands of them.
And that's the truth!
A mention of Danny Boy made me think, How can one limit the over-familiarity factor in this and other tunes that are, in fact, great tunes?
One solution is - make them seasonal. And the traditions of Britain and Ireland, not to mention the various churches, have done precisely this with quite a lot of songs and tunes.
I just throw this in as a thought...I wonder if seasonality was a more significant factor in the choice and playing of trad tunes in the remote past before electric media made it that much easier to access them whenever. But it's a passing thought, not a suggestion that this was so.
"Paddy went up a mountain and God wrote down "the music" on tablets of stone which Paddy could not cart back down the hill because there was like thousands of them.
And that's the truth!"
Paddy? I thought it was Frank. And when he came back down the mountain, he found all his fellow Irishmen dancing the Foxtrot and he was so irate that he smashed the tablets of stone on the Chicago sidewalk. So he had to go back up the mountain and transcribe them all by hand, as God played them to him on his Stratocaster. But Frank could only manage 1001 tunes before he had to be back on duty at the police station.
...He went back for another 849 at some later date, but due to increasing crime rates in the Chicago area, he never managed to get enough time off to recover the entire repertory.
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/25699
Let's put ourselves to the test, then. The above link is to the discussion immediately posted before this one. Reactions to the piece of music being asked about have been fairly negative so far. Where does that particular piece of playing fit in to your "new tradition" ?
That one's easy, Kenny. It's not part of 'the tradition', new or old. It's coming from someone who doesn't understand the basics. Totally different from, say, mike McGoldrick, who fully undertstands where the music's coming from, even when he's creating something completely new with it - not always my particular cup of tea, mind you, but God, I wouldn't criticise him as a musician or for one moment question his place in 'the tradition'. Unlike the perpetrators of that other clip.
When I go to the sessions here (the Glasgow area) I hear tunes from many different musical strands. Scottish, Irish, English, Breton, Spanish, Canadian, American and Jewish tunes are played and enjoyed.
There can be some argument as to whether a particular tune is Scottish/Irish/whatever, but unless the composer is definitively known, then there is no iron clad way of proving it one way or the other, and we get back to the important business of enjoying good tunes.
As was mentioned earlier the tradition looks after itself. The good "new tunes" get accepted into the tradition gradually if musicians like them enough. On another forum some became upset because I didn't consider Ed Reavey tunes to be trad tunes. I certainly don't consider Mike McGoldrick tunes to be trad tunes.
It's interesting to me that both of the innovations cited in the original posting tend to divorce "traditional music" from the dance tradition. There are no 7/8 dances in Irish dance that I know of, and the improvisatory character of jazz tends to upend the rhythms as played by the melody instrument, which fundamentally changes the relation of the tune to the dance.
For me, "Irish traditional music" is "music suited to Irish dance". This leaves out the airs, of course, but they are more related to the song tradition, which is a kettle of fish of a different color. Taken this way, "traditional" is certainly not something arbitrary, and it is not stagnant, but it only changes in tandem with another tradition. Both have changed over time and will continue to change, but the linkage makes for a more stable or a more conservative tradition overall.
The supposed equivalence of "traditional" with "the speaker's personal preference" seems to me a bit of a red herring. Most players prefer their trad music to be traditional, and what they prefer will tend to be within the tradition, but that does not by ay means imply that the tradition is defined by any one player's preferences, even for that player. Looking for a formal, static "definition" of a tradition is a further misconception. Traditions are defined by a community's preferences, not those of any one person - for this we need to go to Wittgenstein and his "family resemblances" rather than some idealized definition. Tunes are more like games or jokes or languages than they are like mathematical formulas. They are really what they are at any given moment, but what they really are at any given moment will not necessarily be what they will be ten years on, or what they were ten years before. This doesn't mean that what went before or what is to come is incorrect, it means that the tradition is a tradition.
I consider each of these to be traditional tunes. Most have a known composer. Some are dance tunes, though I would not say all of them are. At least one, "My Mind Will Never be Easy" has been played at different tempos & with different rhythms, basically alot of variation.
Are the tunes trad?
Any, all, or none?
"Sergeant Early's Dream"
"Derry Craig Wood"
"Over the Moor to Maggie"
"The New Broom"
"The Cat's Meow"
"The Didda"
"Eleanor Plunkett"
"Farewell to Whalley Range"
"My Mind Will Never be Easy"
For me, "Irish traditional music" is "music suited to Irish dance".
As a dancer, yes they can arguably be linked. But I can dance an "irish reel" to Johnny Cash's Fulsom Prison Blues... does that make the song "Irish" because I can dance a reel to it?
Okay, so my reponse to this thread is a bit silly, but the logic there just seemed off, though I "get" what was implied.
Oh, and to put my two cents in on the tunes part, for what it's worth:
I think that "tradition" becomes what the "care takers" of that tradition make of it. But I think excluding new things that don't seem to "fit" is rather subjective. I think that "traditional" is a subgenre of a broader genre, which folks on here hate to use: Celtic in it's broadest sense. There are so many subgenres under that umbrella genre... so, while we might not consider some of the "big band stuff" traditional, they are usually influenced by traditional tunes and motifs.
What gets me is the implied tone to some responses that other, newer interpretations or uses of tunes is somehow inferior. I might hear a very "trad" player play a tune and it's good; but I might hear one of those "big band" do something interesting with it and like it better. It doesn't mean that one is worse than another; it's my personal taste for a given song, individual, or group.
Ben - a friend just gave me a copy of Conal O'Grada's album Cnoc Bui. I notice that several of the tunes have a note like "The Rookery composed by Vincent Broderick. Both tunes trad arr. Conal O'Grada"
I think this is correct - the tunes were composed, and they are traditional.
The notion that a traditional tune is one which was never composed is self-evidently silly. More useful is the notion that a traditional tune is one which has been passed through the Folk Processor enough times that it has taken on the feel of a traditional tune. One frequent symptom of this is the loss of the author's name, but clearly there is no shortage of traditional tunes whose authors are known.
Personal taste is not separate from whatever community one is part of. Community is made up of individuals who will have different interpretations & styles of playing music (& dancing). It is how the community comes together to actually make music together which makes for tradition.
Perhaps new *traditions* are always forming, though it is impossible to know which of these will become part of tradition or even what it means to be part of tradition. It all goes back to community. Without community tradition is merely something being observed rather than something being lived.
Your community is your tradition.
"Okay, so my reponse to this thread is a bit silly, but the logic there just seemed off, though I "get" what was implied"
Yes, it is a bit silly. The linkage to dance was intended to highlight why the tradition is conservative without being arbitrary - you can't have traditional Irish music without traditional Irish dance at least hovering over you, if not present in the room. This was addressing the original posting, which cited as potentially "traditional" tunes in odd meters.
It doesn't follow that anything that has a 4/4 meter is traditional music, so the fact that you could dance a reel while a Johnny Cash record - not "to" the record! - is playing doesn't seem like much of a problem.
Once again I should be off to work. 1st off ... Fiddlechick, I'd love to see a dance along with a tune in 7/8.
Jon, regarding known vs. unknown composer there is alot to talk about there. Wish I had more time. In a nutshell I was going to ask Steamwilkes if he considered "Over the Moor to Maggie" a traditional tune. Problem with tunes is they never travel alone. Before I could post the question with just one tune these others sprang up in my head & they still won't stop. Those pesky tunes.
ethical, I don't know of a composer for "My Mind Will Never be Easy" & I'm just guessing that someone can place a composer with "Sergeant Early's" (either him or someone who knew him), but it's merely a guess on my part. The other tunes have known composers.
Who wrote Over the Moor to Maggie? I could have sworn it was an old, old tune, but maybe I got that wrong ... I'd be amazed if Sergeant Early actually wrote Sgt Early's Dream, just as I'd be amazed if he wrote Boil the Breakfast Early, named in his honour. I think they were just old tunes that O'Neill and his cronies didn't have names for.
Jon, I suppose my main concern about how traditional is or isn't a tune is its' resilience. If a tune is too iconic it always gets played according to the most iconic interpretation, which may be its' association with a composer or a recording artist. In a sense the tune becomes frozen & no one plays with the tune. That is not a living tradition. This doesn't mean that if you want to play "Morning Thrush" like Seamus Ennis that you're killing the tradition. Nor does it mean if you know exactly who composed the tune it is not a traditional tune. It simply means that tradition is continuous between the past, present, & future & yet is happening right now.
I have no idea if that makes sense. I'm off to work.
Fair play, Ben! I don't know where I got the idea "Over the Moor to Maggie" was one of Martin Crehan's tunes. Thanks for straightening that out. I was thinking of his tunes & I plan on reading this article later; http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/crehan.htm
I tried to find more info about James Early but don't have much for now. Any of you pipers know anything? Somewhere there are recordings & perhaps manuscripts.
Where's that 7/8 dance? Any Balkan dancers on here?
Minor contribution, merely because I don't like being incorrectly characterized, and since I was the person who steamwilkes was referring to. For the record, I was not upset, I was chastising steamwilkes for a rude comment and then mocking him for his unfortunate opinions about what is and isn't traditional.
Thankfully he is not the arbiter of what is and isn't traditional. Plenty of fine, traditional, musicians disagree with him regarding his opinion of Reavey's compositions.
>>Perhaps new *traditions* are always forming, though it is impossible to know which of these will become part of tradition or even what it means to be part of tradition. It all goes back to community. Without community tradition is merely something being observed rather than something being lived.
Your community is your tradition.
Random - you hit exactly what sometimes bugs me right on the head there, and what I was wittering about yesterday.
For those of us who are not part of the Irish community, there can be no real part in 'The Tradition'. What we are doing is contributing to the absorption of Irish-origin music into the wider world community.
Maybe that is a tradition of its own in the making - but does it risk devaluing the 'real thing' in the process? In other words, the music as many of us make it may be traditional, but it is no longer the sole preserve of the Irish, and therefore may not really be eligible to be described as ITM. In which case, what do we call it instead?
I was conducting a sixth-form lesson (i.e. 17 year-olds) today, on the benefits and drawbacks of globalisation, during which the caretaker with superb timing came in with a parcel containing my new Hedwitschack bodhran just in from Germany. The students were, of course, dead curious - so we had a three-minute discussion on the role of Irish music played by an Englishman on a German instrument in the process of globalisation. Isn't this really what we are talking about here, for better or worse?
Big subject this one folks. I can only tell you what I think - and what works for me. Lets look at each word in turn for a start.
Irish - obviously the music must come from, ie be "composed" in Ireland. From anywhere else, it may be nice, but it is'nt Irish. This does'nt mean that "foreign" music should'nt be played, simply that it should'nt be passed of as Irish when its not. A bit like Parma Ham.
Traditional - passed through the generations. Anything written in the last 25 years therefore is'nt traditional. It may, in the fullness of time, become part of "the tradition" but for the moment, its not. You can apply the same timescale to the instuments used as well. At some point however, you may want to define the number of generations involved here. The logic being that it probably does'nt count as traditional if you have to plug it in to make it work.
Music - well, any sort of noise you like ! - but it must, of course, be both Irish and traditional as defined above.
Just put the 3 together and you have it. Having said that, its possible to play other music in a traditional Irish style (the use of the word traditional is important here - U2 anyone?). Playing "foreign" music in an Irish traditional style does'nt make it Irsh though.
At the end of the day, we all play what we want, what we as individuals like to hear. But that does'nt make it Irish, traditional or, in extreme case music !
Oh, and one bit I forgot. The musicians don't have to be either Irish or traditional. They just have to play in an Irish traditional style - on the instruments that I defined earlier.
Sorry ormepipes, but I can't agree with your first two points at all. There are many many tunes that were composed outside of Ireland and/or not by an Ireland-born person that are considered traditional.
Furthermore, why 25? Why not 50? Or 75? With your logic, a tune written 26 years ago is traditional. Furthermore, electric and electronic instruments have been around for well over 25 years, probably more than 50 or 75 even at this point.
The only logical definition for me is that it is a style of music that is defined by consensus of the community. And you know it when you hear it. (That's for thesilverspear!) Of course, then you can simply say someone or something isn't part of the community if you wish to exclude it...
From where I'm sitting, it's obvious that there is a significant north american contribution to the community.
wow, I would tend to disagree pretty firmly with some of your definitions there, ormepipes.
First off, I tend to view the "Irish" part of it as referring to the Tradition, not the music specifically. And the tradition DID come from Ireland, but it thrives in places all over the world that aren't in Ireland.
Secondly there's something like 6 times the number of people that claim Irish heritage in the U.S. than there are in Ireland. Not all of them honor the traditions of their ancestry, but neither do many of the people in Ireland.
So I think that the Irish Tradition of music has grown beyond Ireland, and the tradition is alive and well, even if it contains tunes that weren't "composed" in Ireland. They were composed within the Tradition.
But it's been a while since we had a good old "you have to be Irish to play this music" kind of argument. So carry on...
"There are many many tunes that were composed outside of Ireland and/or not by an Ireland-born person that are considered traditional." - thats fine - I agree - but they can't be Irish.
"Furthermore, why 25? Why not 50? Or 75? With your logic, a tune written 26 years ago is traditional. Furthermore, electric and electronic instruments have been around for well over 25 years, probably more than 50 or 75 even at this point." - I think 25 years is the standard timespan accepted to be a "generation" - and you should have read it all - "At some point however, you may want to define the number of generations involved here. The logic being that it probably does'nt count as traditional if you have to plug it in to make it work."
"From where I'm sitting, it's obvious that there is a significant north american contribution to the community." - I agree - but they are'nt Irish - That does'nt mean they are no good!
Up front - I'm not Irish - not a drop of Irish blood in me - no axe to grind here - HONEST. Like I said, it just works for me. And just because what I define as Irish Traditional Music is played all over the planet does not devalue in any way what "foreign" players do for "the cause". Its just a matter of definition.
I agree 110% about "foreign" tunes being composed "in the tradition" - I did'nt say they were sub-standard.
Ormepipes, I'm afraid I'm in complete disagreement with you as well. Modern tunes like Dusty WIndowsills, Road to Errogie, etc are played in sessions all around the globe. The community has embraced them, therefore they are within the tradition. Furthermore, many of what we now call Irish reels are reworked/renamed Scottish reels for example. Shall we cast off Lads of Laois from the tradition because it was once possibly called Lads of Leith in Scotland? Gosh I hope not. This stuff flows like water, and seeps into the areas of willing acceptance.
What reaaly defines the tradition is the flowing tradition itself. It polices itself. It embraces what works and discards what doesn't.
Taking a backward, rather than a forward, look, you'll find people like O'Neill, Henebry, Rohe et al agonising over what can be defined as 'Irish'. The concluding consensus back then was that it was whatever was accepted in the tradition, because those guys already recognised that the music had come from all over the place - not just "these islands" but further afield as well.
So I take it Irish traditional music is both tunes generated within Ireland (and Irish communities elsewhere?) *and* tunes generated quite outside these, but which players in Ireland take up and keep playing with consistency.
This leads to intriguing questions - e.g., is Cape Breton music Scottish? Sort of, absolutely: literally, no. But fortunately this is only likely ever to generate animated discussion among afficionados and not real problems.
Classical music has lived with this on a large scale for a very long time. Modern-era Britain imported most of its Classical music and compositional styles from the Continent, notably from Italy and above all Germany. But a piece composed by a Briton which could have fitted well into Italian or German music would be described as being "in the Italian / German style" - not as Italian or German music.
Nicholas, I completely agree with you there. And the matter is further complicated for those of us who don't actually play traditional instruments either.
E.B., with some regret, I think you are right - it has just become a generic term for a specific type of music - which isn't to deny its own inherent merit. As soon as it leaves its homeland and diaspora, it can be nothing else. But I am also puzzled why Scottish doesn't get an equal look-in on here...
I don't think we disagree that much to be honest. I don't say we should stop playing anything, just acknowledge it for what it is. Not a poor relation, just a different source. Its just a minor detail in getting the "sleeve notes" to be accurate.
"Shall we cast off Lads of Laois from the tradition because it was once possibly called Lads of Leith in Scotland?" - absolutely not - just put that on the sleeve notes. Above all else, play it because you enjoy it.
Sorry ornepipes, you're still a little confused about your own argument I think. Define "Irish" please. Many people not born in Ireland call themselves Irish by dint of heritage and ancestry. There can be no doubt that Andy McGann was an "Irish traditional musician".
I also disagree with your statement that "25 years is the standard timespan accepted to be a "generation" and its applicability to this discussion. I've heard people say that 50 years is the cut-off point for a tune to be traditional. But it doesn't matter what number and unit you give it (25 years, 1 generation, 1/2 century, etc) it's still nonsense and easily disproven. After all, you only need one counterexample.
I agree that the term Irish Traditional Music is a shorthand term... aka a label! After all, you have to call it something.
What binds us together is what we have in common, and that seems to be defined by the title "Irish Traditional Music".
I would still love it if it was called Martian Spontaneus Noise - and I bet you would as well.
My definintion still works for me - If you have your own, and it works for you - thats fine. I can still enjoy lots of stuff that won't fit my definintion. In my experience, most musicians have enough trouble remembering the names of tunes, let alone their origins!
What is interesting is that, no matter what we call it, we all seem to understand pretty much what it is we are talking about. Perhaps the music is its own language, and we are all pretty fluent in that?
Forgive me for asking this then, but it seems like you are saying that you don't think tunes that were composed by non-Irish people or outside of Ireland, or less than 25 years ago can be referred to by the title Irish Traditional Music (or the alternative Martian Spontaneus Noise).
So please, tell me, is this what you are saying? Or are you trying to say that they can be called that, but at the same time can't be called *just* Irish?
Because, again, the tune Lads of Laois is a good example of a tune that is accepted as being Irish Traditional Music, yet was not composed by an Irish person. O'Farrell's Welcome to Limerick was most likely composed while O'Farrell was in London. Most of Ed Reavy's compositions were composed in America. I can't think of a tune I know that was composed within the last 25 years and is considered traditional, but perhaps the Twelve Pins is an example that you'll consider. These are all accepted as being Irish Traditional Music, yet fall outside of your definition.
Therefor your definition is not useful as it is incorrect.
Gentlemen - thanks to all of you - we're having a delightful, yet polite disagreement on the Mustardboard without a hint of nastiness so far. Perhaps there is hope for us afterall.
Ormepipes - I guess my question is, you seem to suggest that because a tune is from a source outside of Ireland, it is not technically within the tradition - isn't that what you said initially? If so, I think many of us disagree emphatically. Furthermore, many of the true sources have been lost in the mists of time - so how are we to know really? That brings me full circle to my first post - the tradition defines itself as it moves through time, and the consensus of the players act as gatekeepers.
A tune like Brenda Stubberts or an Ed Reavy tune - in. That tune I wrote last night that combines elements of an old Rush tune - probably out...
"you are saying that you don't think tunes that were composed by non-Irish people or outside of Ireland, or less than 25 years ago can be referred to by the title Irish Traditional Music" - Yes, thats what I'm saying. But you could say that they were in the style of Traditional Irish Music. And, at the end of the day - YOU can call them whatever you like - thats fine.
"I can't think of a tune I know that was composed within the last 25 years and is considered traditional" - QED
BUT - I'll bet that if we were in a session together we would play them all AND enjoy everything !
"Gentlemen - thanks to all of you - we're having a delightful, yet polite disagreement on the Mustardboard without a hint of nastiness so far. Perhaps there is hope for us afterall."
Bodhráns! Feck! Gobsh*te! Performance! *rse! These islands! Y'se 'r all a bunch of nazis!!!
There. That's got that out of the way. I agree with you Jusa. Cracking thread this. Gotta leave for my bed now, but I'll be looking forward to more of it by morning.
Ormepipes - sorry but we'll have to agree to disagree. With your definition, all of Andy McGann's tunes are out. I can't buy into the notion that "Drag her 'round the Road" is not an Irish tune because it was composed in New York...
Maybe we should convene an international council to officially rename it "diddley". Rock and roll has spread happily all over the world without arguments about its Americanness or its boundaries. Is that because it was never labeled as indigenous American music?
""I can't think of a tune I know that was composed within the last 25 years and is considered traditional" - QED"
Um... no. Wow, I really can't believe that you think this at all. No, no, no.
I can't think of a specific tune, but I know they exist. I also offered one that I can't be sure was written in the last 25 years, but I know isn't that old.
So, no, no QED at all. As I said, it only takes one to disprove your theory, and I've already blown holes through the rest of it, so...
Does anyone know when Dusty WIndowsill was written by Chicagoan John Harling? (1970s?) It probably misses the 25 years arbitrary cut-off date, but the tune has been recorded by a great many artists over the past 25 years.
Fine - you stick with your definintion - I don't mind one bit - HONEST.
But like I said - because we don't agree it would'nt stop us enjoying the tunes together - if they fit my definiton or not. That is because I love loads of stuff that won't fit my definition.
It is a good discussion this one - I've have (and am) enjoying it greatly. Like I say, the music binds us, it does'nt divide us.
Interesting debate with like-minded souls - great way to spend an evening !
I really am not concerned with whether you mind my definition or not... I just don't want anyone else to go down the wrong path of thinking your definition is anything other than fallacious...
I agree about it not stopping us from enjoying tunes together.
"Ormepipes - I guess my question is, you seem to suggest that because a tune is from a source outside of Ireland, it is not technically within the tradition - isn't that what you said initially? If so, I think many of us disagree emphatically. Furthermore, many of the true sources have been lost in the mists of time - so how are we to know really? That brings me full circle to my first post - the tradition defines itself as it moves through time, and the consensus of the players act as gatekeepers. "
I guess my question is, you seem to suggest that because a tune is from a source outside of Ireland, it is not technically within the tradition - YES - thats what I'm saying - buts what is wrong with something being in "The style of ITM" ? - It's not meant to imply that it is a child of a lesser God.
I could pretend to be Irish, but I don't. Not because there is anything wrong with being Irish but because I would be being dishonest if I did.
And, to my mind, the thing that makes a tune a traditional Irish tune is that it has stood the test of remaining popular through several generations. We simply don't know if the "new" stuff will pass that test - its not been around long enough. "Pop" music is popular now, but will anyone be doing covers of any of it in 100 years time ? - back to U2 again - how did I know we would end up back with them ? - I think we actually agree on the "tradition" bit completely.
I suspect that some "new" tunes are so rapidly assimilated by traditional musicians that any arbitrary time span (25 years?) for such assimilation is meaningless.
I also suspect that some new tunes have been inserted into the tradition by people who claimed they were "old traditional" tunes, and no one batted an eye.
And what if a tune is penned by James Kelly while living in Miami? Does that make it not Irish?
Well, the biggest problem for me, ormepipes, is that there is a very strong tradition in the US, with probably nearly as many, if not more, musicians than Ireland. By taking the boat over, did they suddenly not become part of the tradition? No, that's patently ridiculous.
By taking the boat over, they became part of a parallel universe of Irish music; no longer Irish, but not exactly American either. We're in limbo. That's my take on it, anyway. I like the notion of "Boil The Breakfast" Early. Boil The Breakfast, Early! is also good.
I still think that for a thing to be traditional, it has to have been passed down the generations. Is'nt the stuff that has'nt been around long enough better termed as "folk" music?
The English have this "early music" thing going in their tradition that gives tunes age related provenance.
To me, by calling it all "traditional" - without a further explination of the origins of each individual tune, it just makes it impossible to distinguish between the "real" old stuff and the modern additions.
Regarding the "Irish" bit, perhaps the other stuff (not written in Ireland) should carry a prefix. It is not be born out of the same community as the Irish Irish stuff. Not all of the "local" factors were present at its "birth". Like Parma Ham thats not from Parma.
Ultimately, we all sit in the same sessions and play the same tunes. Does it actually matter that much where the stuff comes from? - If your a historian it does, but otherwise no.
orempipes, a lot of what you might consider the old tunes (from generations ago) first got into the tradition by being played, without worry much about where the tunes came from, or how old they were, or whether they were "traditional" or not. All those Scottish reels and highlands, for example.
So if the past generations absorbed tunes in ways that you're not willing to accept, yet you base your sense of "traditional" on those same generations' choices, you're talking in circles.
And your analogy to Parma ham doesn't hold. "Irish traditional" isn't a marketing ploy or trademark.
I like to know a lot about the tunes I play, their stories and histories, who kept them alive during hard times, etc. But where a tune comes from or how old it is doesn't matter if it's a good or great tune, eh?
Your closing statement and my "Ultimately, we all sit in the same sessions and play the same tunes. Does it actually matter that much where the stuff comes from? - If your a historian it does, but otherwise no."
Just belatedly (again) read through this whole thread and really enjoyed the debate
"this music's extremely portable" - I misread that initially as potable
Problem with making too many rules is that there always seems to be exceptions. We all have our perceptions but the music is bigger than any of us and will go on growing .
My only rule is just "play some tunes" except that I have to go off to the dentist now and I hate that big time!
LOL, ormepipes, I like your tenacity in looking for the happy agreement instead of focusing on where we diverge. We may not be in the same boat, but we're bobbing around in the same water, eh?
Donough, maybe I'm misquoting Martin. Maybe "potable" is what he really said.
"If fat old bald guys play it in a pub on acoustic instruments, it is traditional. How is that for a definition?" Al Brown.
Close Al, but what if it's fat old bald ladies down the pub?
Ed Reavey tunes are just that, Ed Reavey tunes - nothing wrong with fat old bald guys and gals playing them down the pub though is there
I think the thing that keeps getting missed is that I quote Ed Reavy tunes only because they're what I'm most familiar with in regards to a composer who composed tunes outside of Ireland that are also considered to be traditional. (There really is no arguing with that, it's simply a fact that you'll have to deal with.)
At any rate, there are plenty of others, as well, I'm just not as familiar with them, and haven't studied them.
A friend once mentioned that a lot of the tunes that Peter Horan plays were composed in his lifetime. I guess he's not traditional either!
"These days pipe music falls on calloused ears." Not quoted from the Sergt. Early bio, but from the bit about John Cummings. Thanks for the link, Nico.
Coming to the party late, I know. Have been Stateside hanging out with friends and family and not sitting around on the internet.
I pretty much agree with everything Nick and Jusa have said. I want to add that coming up with a strict definition of Irish Traditional Music is a somewhat meaningless exercise, since we all know what we mean by community consensus (as Nick said) but it is a fluid, dynamic category. As soon as you come up with rigid rules, like it must be composed in Ireland, you can easily point to a zillion examples which problematize or flat-out disprove your arbitrary rule.
"I think the thing that keeps getting missed is that I quote Ed Reavy tunes only because they're what I'm most familiar with in regards to a composer who composed tunes outside of Ireland that are also considered to be traditional. " Nico.
I beg to differ regarding Ed Reavey's material. To me they don't sound traditional, some are in odd keys, odd sharps and flats thrown in, something not quite right with them to my ears. Prehaps it's because I play the pipes and flute that Reavey's stuff sounds like flashy contrived fiddle material. Especially compared say to Junior Crehan's tunes or other "newly composed material". Junior's tunes feel how shall I say, just natural.
This has nothing to do with Ed's tunes being composed outside Ireland, that doesn't matter. However many people like Reavey's tunes and they are played which is fine by me. I don't mind as long as I don't have to play them. There are so many better traditional tunes, or tunes written in the traditional idiom out there. So let's just agree to disagree Nico. You think Reavey's tunes are traditional, I know they are not. They are just Ed Reavey tunes. Welcome back Emily
Hehe, sorry steamwilkes, the problem is that I'm not saying it's just my opinion, I'm saying that they are regarded as traditional. By many traditional musicians, particularly ones of much more authority than you. Now, I can clarify that and say that it may only be many of his tunes, but it doesn't really matter. I only need one to disprove ormepipes theories.
You may "know they are not" but what you don't realize is that you know wrong. We can agree to disagree all you want, it still doesn't change the fact that they are traditional.
Holy Guacamole - what is it with you pipers on this thread? Silver Spear will you talk some sense into your fellow instrumentalists por favor?
So if I am following these concepts correctly, since Eric Clapton wasn't born a black child in Mississippi in 1910, he isn't playing Blues music, he is playing "in the style of the Blues."
Anyone composing a waltz outside of the patronage of an Austrian king isn't playing a waltz they are playing in the "style of Austrian dance music."
Keith Urban was born in Australia and records in Nashville but he isn't writing country & western music, he is "writing in the style of country western music"
I could go on with obvious examples. The point is, it seems you, Ormepipes and steamwilkes, are arguing from the viewpoint of needless semantics and self-serving definitions, not the other way around.
Reavy's tunes are in. McGann's tunes are in. Paddy Killoran's Maids of Mt Cisco - IN, and all composed & recorded outside your defination.
I think that IS the point Nico has been making Professor E - Good tunes are absorbed into the tradition, and crap ones are not. Reavy wrote some beauties and they have been absorbed as good tunes into the tradition. Their origins are irrelevant.
I guess I was leaping a step ahead of that to argue that because traditional musicians (my authorities referenced above) choose to play Ed Reavy tunes they must think they are good tunes. Because they play them, and other people learn these tunes from them, and so on and so forth, I see that they have become part of the tradition.
Also, I was just trying to point out the loose thinking and reasoning going on behind some of the definitions described above (and elsewhere).
First and foremost - 90% agree - but those of us interested in history like to know what we are looking at - original or re-pro.
Jusa,
Hi again,
"Blues music" is just that - no nationality in the title, a waltz doesnt have to be Austrian no more than a Jig has to be Irish. "country and Western" - again, no nationality in the title.
Nico,
Do you not accept at all that in order to be "traditional" it must have stood "the test of time" ?
Hi Ormepipes.
The Blues, Jazz, Country and Western, and Rock and Roll are all American music styles. Just because the Nationality isn't included in the title does not mean it isn't well accepted. Under that concept, if we simply call it "diddly" as others have suggested, then would McGann and Reavy's music be in?
You just don't get it do you Nico & Jusa? Some of Reavey's tunes have been accepted and played by some traditional musicians in the "tradition" that's all well and good, but I don't consider them to be trad tunes, ok. They may well be considered good tunes by some but that still doesn't make them trad tunes to my ears.
Paddy Killoran's Maids of Mt Cisco, now there's a good tune that sounds traditional
Eric Clapton is a rock and blues guitar player, doesn't matter where he was born or where he lives
Or let me put it this way; if it was called Traditional American Blues music, and a young lad from Ballyfeckit, Ireland fell in love with it, learned to play it, and composed tunes that were later embraced by other who played Trad American Blues, under your definition, they still wouldn't be traditional would they.
"Do you not accept at all that in order to be "traditional" it must have stood "the test of time" ?"
The point I'm quibbling with is the ability to assign a distinct time period (in your case 25 years or 1 generation. I've heard 50 years from other people). The problem is that a tune could very well have "stood the test of time" in far less. The reason why your definition fails is that you can't nail down a specific time. It is impossible. You'll always find an exception or arrive at a definition that is useless. I know there are tunes less than 25 years old that have been accepted in the tradition. At the same time, I know of older ones that have not. So to put any distinct time frame on it is useless.
I haven't followed this thread and don't want to get into the debate either.
The test of time? I have been playing a lot of Peadar ORiada tunes recently, tunes composed by Paddy O Donoghue and others by people who I have met, some I know well. They're new. They're fine.
If you look back a generation, or two. During the eightiesand nineties I visited Martin Rochford a lot. At some point I was goign through a tape I made during one of these visits. I realised Martin's favourite tunes included an remarkable large proportion of recent compositions. A few each by Sean Ryan, Paddy Fahey, Larry Redican, Ed Reavey, Breandan McGlinchey, Junior Crehan, Paddy Canny, Bobby Casey, Tommy Coen, Eddie Kelly, Frank McCollum and others. And on top of that a quite few (like the Caoilte Mountain) I have found no composer for. Most of these are compositions by his contemporaries and a few from younger generations as well. He was also very keen to hear more, he got me to write several tunes on different occasions, I remember him particularly hounding me for a John Brosnan reel. When talking about Rochford's hunger for tunes Bill Ochs told me how Martin pursued him to get the Killarney Boys of Pleasure (which Bill got off a Boys of the Lough lp), a tune that through Martin has become one of the stalwarts of the East Clare repertoire.
How does that rate in your book? Should the trad police have had a quiet word? Or does it show that time isn't much of a factor? I know what I think.
"At the same time, I know of older ones that have not."
That is because they have not stood the "test of time" that defines a tradition.
The actual time frame that defines a "tradition" is open to debate. But for something to have been handed on, it must have passed from at least one generation to the next. Passed around in the same generation does'nt count.
Cross-post. Actually Steamwilkes, I do get it. I got it a long time ago. You don't think they are traditional, because you don't think they sound traditional. For the last part of that sentence: fine, that's your opinion. For the first part: sorry, you're wrong. Again, maybe not all, but many have been fully accepted in the tradition, by being played, recorded, taught, shared, sessioned with, etc.
Honestly, I think you're just being sloppy with your thinking and your writing. I totally understand not liking tunes. There are traditional tunes (and styles!) that I don't care for. I think your explanations as to why you think Reavy tunes don't sound traditional fall a little flat, because there are many other composer's tunes and also tunes that I don't know the composer to, that sound similar, are related, or just have a similar feel, and are also accepted in the tradition. I pointed out this flaw in your reasoning by offering examples in the past, and can again if you'd like to have a meaningful discussion about it.
But you really have to stop making the blanket statement that "Reavy tunes aren't traditional". It's just not true.
Cross-post one last time: ormepipes, I believe the Prof. just explained better than I could why I don't agree that "Passed around in the same generation does'nt count."
Honestly, if we go down that route, than almost all of irish traditional music isn't traditional. It really is just semantics, in the end!
Well said Professor E and Nico. Right. Sorted. Now let's all go meet down at the pub, have a few jars, get pie-eyed and play Hunter's House shall we? Then we can all decide if it's trad enough...
One dark winter night in Coore things were slow and we went into some more unusual tuens. Jackie Daly played a few of his own and we kept at it until we all had them.
He then told me that he had taught the same tune to his father who remarked 'isn't it great to have a tune handed UP to you every now and then'.
Did the time space continuum implode into a black hole at that moment?
What actually impinges first, on someone who has never heard Irish music before but hears it on the radio or across a crowded bar / town centre, is the pulse, speed, rhythm and characteristic sounds of the usual instruments. Distinguishing tunes is likely to come a bit later.
I think I've pinpointed four factors that, in play, define at once Irish trad to a hearer - once of course, he's been told it *is* Irish, of course! They separate it out from anything else, except (for those not familiar with these musics) for some Scottish or other Anglosphere music when played in a similar style.
But it cannot be confused with various other musics that each have this characteristic of instant 'genre' identifiability, and are each alike impossible to mistake for anything else. Things like:
'Latin' music,
'Gypsy' music (i.e., the Hungarian type),
Paris accordion music,
Greek bouzouki music,
Inca / Andean music,
Calypso,
- and so on.
This may seem rather depressing. It may look as if the key to a tradition's identity and survivability is its effectiveness in lobbing a telling soundbite. But I'd say rather - the key to a tradition's identity and survivability is the players getting on with it, and letting the telling soundbites look after themselves. Irish music has a *very* distinctive one, it's got nothing at all to worry about on that score.
I think you're confusing a few things. I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic. The sense of what fits, or belongs, and what doesn't. That is what gives the whole things it's continuity.
Do you really feel Martin Rochford in the old house near Bodyke sat in the kitchen contemporary music? ( One time I asked Martin how long he had been there 'Ah, two hundred years' he replied. I stopped to look at the house last week, and maybe take a few photographs. The roof had partly fallen. )
You'll probably argue compositions may have been contemporary, but I'll tell you, the music certainly wasn't.
"I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic." - That would be the "style" I talk about. It would be, of course, a "traditional style" because the "style" itself passes through the generations.
The word "contemporary" relates to the present time whilst the word "traditional" relates to something passed from one generation to another. "contemporary style" means, of course, something altogether different.
Sorry Ormey old boy - but I still can't get past your 25 years requirement. I think aesthetic is a nice word to describe what we're on about - and in this internet age, a cracker tune with the exact "aesthic" as described can be composed and quickly spread around the globe. Furthermore, because it possesses the aesthic or signature sound as Nicholas mentioned above, it could be passed from musician to musician very quickly - evenyually with all knowledge that it is a modern tune, written by a contemporary. If I heard Will Harmon's Bang your Frog on the Sofa in a session without knowing who had composed it, and somebody told me it was an old Irish tune - I would accept it as completely within the tradition. Wouldn't you? How do we know then. It is or it isn't right - based upon the sound or "aesthetic" of the tune. Isn't that all there is to it?
Sorry ormepipes, but at this point I think it's clear you don't really know what you're arguing with or against or what you're trying to say at all.
Prof. hit it right on the head, what makes a tune traditional is the fact that it's played in a traditional style as part of a traditional community, because the aesthetic has been passed on.
All along, all I've been doing is easily poking holes in your definition. After all, one hole is all that's need to show that it is an incorrect definition.
Now that you know your definition is wrong, we can move on to a much more interesting question: why is it wrong? Refine your thoughts and then you can get back to the business of talking about tradition and what defines it.
I'm terribly sorry for everyone involved with this discussion! I've just realized the problem: Ormepipes (and to an extent Steamwilkes) are prescribers, rather than describers.
This whole time I've been referring to "What Is", but they've been refuting from a stand-point of "What Should Be".
It is of course a fundamental idealogical difference that renders such discussions impossible.
I think you're confusing a few things. I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic. The sense of what fits, or belongs, and what doesn't. That is what gives the whole things it's continuity. quote
subjective opinion, its my subjective opinion that SeamusEnnis was a great player,and that aesthetically his playing is beautiful but that Paddy Moloneys is not.
that which is aesthetically pleasing is subjective.
"How can something be Irish if its not from Ireland?
How can something be traditional without the passage of time being involved?"
And I already tried to answer that before, but I'll try to state it more succinctly:
What is "Irish" is the Tradition of playing and passing on these kinds of tunes. It has it's roots in Ireland, so we call it Irish, and it has a long history of being done this way (more or less) for many generations, so it can be considered a "Tradition".
Therefore, tunes that are "composed within the tradition" CAN be considered "traditional". Even if a *specific* tune hasn't been around "long enough" (whatever that means), it is still part of the long tradition of playing and passing on these kinds of tunes. So the moniker "traditional", in my mind, means that it is part of the Tradition, not that any specific tune has been around long enough to be considered a tradition in its own right. (One might make a distinction between a "Traditional Irish Tune", and a "tune that is part of the Irish Tradition", but that would be a bit like arguing semantics, which never gets us much of anywhere... )
The nice thing about defining it this way is that there are no arbitrary numbers placed on it to decide how long it has to be before a tune can be considered a tradition, and it has no boundaries placed on when or where tunes were added to the tradition. Where it does get a little fuzzy is around the edges, in deciding whether a specific tune was really "composed within the tradition". And we each get to make those choices for ourselves. There is no governing authority of the tradition (no matter how much Comhaltas would like to be just that...), and the Tradition is made up of the people who learn, play, and pass on the music. So yes, there are grey areas, as evidenced by disagreement about where to draw the lines on things like Ed Reavy tunes...
Thanks Reverend for summarizing succinctly what some of us have been rambling on about for several posts now.
Music reader said "that which is aesthetically pleasing is subjective"
True - The tunes that are aesthetically pleasing are welcomed into the tradition (in some cases quite rapidly) where crap is tossed aside. The participants within the tradition make that decision. How long will a pop tune stay on the charts? It's up to the bubble-gum popping listeners. How long will a tune stay in the tradition of Irish music? As long as we continue to play it.
Ormepipes - I'm a Guinness man meself - it's your turn to get the next round mate - slante!
Thanks to the Prof there for interesting ,well put together thoughts on the music,which sort of makes the rest of the thread slightly redundant. Thats great to hear that The Killarney Boys of Pleasure came off a Boys of the lough recording and through Martin Rochford became such a renowned traditional East Clare tune. It amazed me.
"But you really have to stop making the blanket statement that "Reavy tunes aren't traditional". It's just not true." Nico.
It is true Nico, and you've obviously succumbed to the "Emporer's new clothes" syndrome if you believe otherwise. You shouldn't believe everything you hear.
No matter, it's been an interesting discussion gentlemen and women and I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this subject
There were 149 contributions to this discussion, and I hadn't even put my oar in yet.......
Let's not forget that traditional musicians of old not only played traditional music, but also popular music of the time, little bits of classical and art music too.
Where, tell me where, can you draw the line, sometimes ?
That just doesn't even make any sense, Steamwilkes. Your reply, for something so short, is amazingly condescending and wonderfully designed to try to make any reply impossible. "You are wrong and it's obviously because you just believe anything you hear."
Sorry, but I think you need to stop with your prescriptive nonsense and start paying attention to what's actually going on in the community of traditional musicians. You seem to have missed the point that something is traditional if it is accepted into the community of traditional musicians who make up the tradition. That's the only definition that is workable, in my view. Your definition seems to be "Something is traditional because I say it is, and none of Ed Reavy's tunes are."
Well, all I need is one Reavy tune that is considered traditional to disprove your theory that none of his tunes are traditional. You play two... yet you don't consider them traditional?
Fine.
Red Tom of the Hills: recorded by Paddy Carty and the Kane sisters, played in sessions around the world, played by traditional musicians in their kitchens.
Never Was Piping So Gay: recorded by a large number of people, played in sessions around the world, played by traditional musicians in their kitchens, it's even been discussed here, and Paddy Fahey has a version of it too.
Leddy From Cavan: recorded by Claire Keville and the Kane sisters (and five others on here), played in sessions around the world, played by traditional musicians in their kitchens and elsewhere.
The Ceilier, Ireland We Knew, and many others are similarly quite popular and played all over.
And I haven't even touched on Maudebawn Chapel or Love at the Endings.
QED
The interesting thing is that you admit above that they are accepted by traditional musicians, yet continue to maintain that because they don't fit *your* ears, they aren't traditional. Do you really consider yourself to be the final arbiter of what is and isn't traditional?
I'm sure all this will just fall on deaf ears, but I'd be interested to know how far your ignorance goes. Are none of Paddy Fahey's tunes traditional? What about Sean Ryan's? Or Paddy Kelly's? Or Eddie Kelly's? What about Finbarr Dwyer's? See, the reason I ask is that they all share similarities with many of Ed Reavy's tunes, so your only criteria (that "some are in odd keys, odd sharps and flats thrown in, something not quite right with them to my ears") applies equally to these other composer's tunes... and in fact to many of the styles of playing found in Galway and East Clare.
Like I said previously, maybe you should accept that they are traditional, and then ask yourself why.
This discussion reminds me of a gag by street performers The Chipolatas concerning Street Entertainment. Firstly, they would say, it doesn't necessarily have to happen in the street. Secondly, it doesn't necessarily have to be entertaining!
For me it's the same with Irish Traditional Music. It's a label for a certain genre of music. To me it makes no sense to try and pick that phrase apart it terms of what is 'Irish' and what is 'traditional'. The genre encompasses the musicians, the tunes that they play and the way that they play those tunes. Again, for me it is pointless to consider one of these factors in isolation from the others.
As with any labelling there will be disagreement about the boundaries, but in the great majority of cases there will be a broad consensus that a certain musical performance is ITM or it isn't. By way of illustration, my votes go as follows:
Irish session musicians playing an Ed Reavy tune - ITM, no contest.
Sally Gardens from the album The Very Best of Celtic Chillout (yes, it really does exist) - emphatically not ITM.
McGoldrick's band playing a 7/8 tune - borderline for me. I'd probably label that as an ITM-Balkan crossover.
You'd hope this is the case, though I doubt it is always true, "Traditional musicians are not all that interested in considering whether or not tunes are traditional or not..
They're interested in considering whether or not tunes are good tunes."
Nico - you're wasting your breath. Steamy has his heals dug in. It reminds me of the movie "Amadeus" where the king, lacking any real substancial argument critisizes Mozart's music by saying "em, too many notes."
I am looking forward to Steamy's other essays on subjects like:
"Chairman Mao - not really that much of a communist compared to Stalin"
"Michael Jackson - not really as black as his brother Tito"
"Melanie B - Not really a Spice Girl compared to Posh"
Before there was ever (Irish) Tradition(al) (Music) people probably pointed, grunted, & slapped their thigh. Tradition has come a long ways since then. Now we have the internet ...
Ed Reavey -- peace be upon him -- took the boat over, began a new life in an Irish music parallel universe, and composed his tunes accordingly. There's something about those tunes of his that would prevent them from staying put. They even went back over the boundary! It's not that the universes stopped being parallel; it's because the membrane between the two is so thin and flimsy in places. Fwitw, Mr. Reavey had/has his detractors on his side of the membrane too.
The rev makes a very compelling point - and reasons it well. The majority of you seem to agree that what we call it (ITM), in its literal sense, does'nt seem to define it very well. The tunes don't have to be Irish and they don't have to be old. It's more about a style of playing and compositon.
I note that a number of you seem Iand I don't mean this in a bad way) fixated by dance music. There may not be room for Mr Reavey in my definition. But in yours, is there room for Carolan? - and what about Percy French ?
Going back to style of play. I believe that there are some who would sit The Chieftains outside the tradition - because of their more arranged and perhaps orchestral style. Where do they fit?
Like some fellow said earlier - "I know what I think"
Traditional Irish Music = a particular musical style passed down through generations.
There are subcategories:
*old tunes
*established tunes
*newly composed tunes
*popular tunes
*obscure tunes
All of these subcategories are still traditional based on their style. The challenge would be to define in text what Irish Traditional Music sounds like and what defines the style... I'm not about to attempt that. The answer is in listening to the best exponents of traditional music and figuring it out for yourself.
Where do The Chieftains fit? Wherever Paddy Moloney thinks the mazumah is!
Sorry, that's not meant to be cynical - Paddy's probably done more to raise the profile of Ireland's music than anybody else living today. However, there's no doubting that he's a businessman first and a musician second and a canny operator to boot. A friend who once acted as the band's roadie/sound manager on a US tour recalls that when the rest of the group were still sleeping off the excesses of the previous night Paddy would almost certainly have shot off early to undertake an interview promoting the next night's gig on a local radio station's breakfast show (and he would do this at every stage of the tour). In other words, Paddy's a pro through and through and, I'd also add, one of the most amenable people I've ever interviewed.
Yes, The Chieftains have often sounded, but by Ó Riada-inspired intention, 'orchestrated' and arranged', but any band that includes Matt Molloy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtSjM3YU7Qw) or Seán Keane (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnm7cAYs8I0) should never be positioned outside the tradition. Oh, and just, for Steamwilkes, there's a little bit of Reavy there too (plus Roger Daltrey nodding his head in appreciation).
The problem comes when Musicians say one thing is traditional and right and another is non traditional and wrong based on their own opinions and often excluding good music and people
I'm saying Irish Traditional Dance music as we know it is a relativley new tradition and has been brought in over the last few hundred years from abroad and has quickly evolved into the music we know today , what I didn't make too clear is that I think peple should be a little bit more open minded to people who help it to evolve such as Mike McGoldrick.
Ceili Bands are a thing of the 20th centuary, Sean O'Riada put Irish music onto stages in the 1950's, Solo Step Dancing really took of arguably in 1994.
My repetioire would be largley made up of tunes typically found in O'Neils book or newer composition maybe of Paddy O'Brien in the latter 20th centuary and now I can learn from the thousands of tunes from the past and the new compositions of today.... personally Mike McGoldrick in my opinion is the modern day Ed Reevy or Paddy O'Brien and his music will be played for years to come - by me and others.
I once dismissed this so called contempory trad as not being traditional because it's new and different but I've changed my mind seeing that Irish Trad has always been a living and growing tradition.
The question about a fusion style was asked because of the reference to jazz & 7/8 rhythms. For lack of a better way to describe those elements each is very much a tradition in their own right. The term jazz is even more unwieldy than Irish traditional dance music (several styles & a variety of subgenres if not genres). 7/8 rhythms, that is bit more specific. My guess is when Irish style players compose (or play) a 7/8 it is because they have listened to traditional Balkan music.
I think a definition came close when Jon brought up how well music fits with the established dance tradition. Of course, there are nits to be picked there, namely what Premier says, that new dances have come in over time.
For me, what makes something sound Irish is the nature of the melody. There's peculiar phrasing. Intervals between one note and the next tend to be smaller than in, say, Scottish trad, a recognizably related genre. Something that Peadar Ó Riada has said is that a good tune has a circular logic to it-- the end fits back up with the beginning.
But there are some other qualities, too, like tonality, rhythmic accents, ornamentation. When I listen to Denis Murphy play "Turkey in the Straw," it sounds Irish. If I listen to Doc Watson play it, it sounds Bluegrass. So to a certain degree, it's about HOW you play a tune.
Not only is it portable, it's history show's it's porous and open to new influences. Then again, an Irish folk musician composing and/or playing a 7/8 tune does it necessarily make it a trad tune. Perhaps the fact that no one can agree on a definition is a sign that it's not a clearly defined genre. Or that genre labels don't do justice to the music. Sorry as it may be, perhaps all we can do is make a relativistic US Supreme Court kinda ruling; we know Irish music when we hear it. ;p
"I think a definition came close when Jon brought up how well music fits with the established dance tradition."
Sorry, can't agree at all. If you only consider dance music you are selling what I mean by ITM way short.
Perhaps it's the dance music that concerns session musicians the most, and perhaps many sassion musicians don't take an interest in the other forms od music that are "in the tradition". The Ballads - frequently played as airs. I sincerely hope were not trying to write them out of the definition of ITM.
One of the great things about this music is that all, every last single one, of the the really great proponents of it have always had such a beautiful and cavalier attitude to "tradition".
And another great thing about this music is the reams and reams of the run-of-the-mill are enormously protective of tradition.
Square that contradiction in your own psyche and you will be well on your way to understanding the beauty of this music
Ormepipes, I agree actually with you. I thought that it was a suggestion that started to get somewhere, but falls apart when you try and apply it. Sean nos singing and air playing are surely integral (if often overlooked) parts of the tradition.
Perhaps it just needs more work. I've not given up! The sad part is that my theory must contain "the core"- if not The Corrs!
And I strongly agree about the rest of the material that does'nt happen to be dance music. It is a fundamental part of the same tradition.
But its been an interesting journey and there seem to be spin-off threads all over the place. Its a subject that's made lots of people think and its all been good-natured stuff - which is how it should be.
I dont think its even worth arguing over, everyones going to have different opinions. In my view, it has never really been 'Irish', but more 'Celtic', a lot of the old tunes we play came from Scotland and parts of Celtic England.
Its impossible to define what we play - Irish, Celtic, World, Folk, diddly-dee (a term that by the way makes my blood boil).
When a group of friends are sitting around playing music, its impossible to know what might happen next - me and a guitar player in Derry used to play Swamp Thing by The Grid, just for the craic!!!!
Someone said earlier that 'Irish' music can mean anything. It can mean the Dubliners, Christy Moore, The Fureys, or Lunasa, Altan, The Bothy Band, or the Wolfe Tones, Eire Og, or other Irish rebel bands, or it could be U2, the cranberries, Snow PAtrol, Boomtown Rats, the Thrills, The Script, even Derry techno band the Japanese Popstars could be Irish music, and dare I say it - B*witched!!!!!
Irish Traditional Music
Irish Traditional Music
Our instruments came from abroad.
Our Music came from abroad.
Irish Dance music as we know it is about 250 years old.
How traditional to Ireland is it?
The music should be preserved and recorded - but - it should also be allowed to grow and flourish. So musicians like Mike McGoldrick compose tunes maybe in 7/8 or Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin incorporates a bit of jazz... it's people like them that keep the music growing. Irish Traditional Music is a new tradition.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by premier
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I would say it's both new and old. There is, for instance, masses of muance in the phrase "as we know it".
I agree that the new and even the foreign should be welcomed and embraced whenever and wherever it adds value. But it's also important, IMO, to embrace the essence of the music, which is old.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
having argued with scores of musicians, all who claim to love irish traditional music, ive concluded that "traditional" means "the stuff i like" and "not traditional" means "the stuff i dont like"
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by rumpole
Re: Irish Traditional Music
That is partly correct, rumpole. Although there is also traditional music which I do not like & music I enjoy which is not traditional.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
A "new" tradition?
More of a living tradition.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Michael, in a nutshell it sounds like you enjoy hearing fusion versions of music, 7/8 rhythms, modern compositions, older dance tunes, world music ... maybe not in a nutshell, actually it's quite a large concept.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
....the point being the its a waste of time debating this, its like arguing over the definition of Art, or debating the morals and contradictions of vegetarianism. it just comes down to a personal preference.
i think it would be better to promote the use of the word "diddly" rather than use the word traditional. "Traditional" in this context is a loaded word and means different things to different people, thus it actually means nothing.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by rumpole
Re: Irish Traditional Music
or should that be hence
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by rumpole
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Are you Irish, Premier? Of course, you may well be - but I'd bet if your genes were examined, you'd find a fair smattering of English, Spanish and God knows what else in there. But who cares, you grew up here and learnt the nuances of being Irish.
Ditto for the music, it matters little where it came from - it's how it's interpreted by Irish musicians. We learn from those that have gone before and you should always remember to respect that.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by the wounded hussar
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Webster's says:
Definition of TRADITION
1a : an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) b : a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2: the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
3: cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4: characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
I think Mr Gill will like def 2!
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Irish Traditional Music
...and its etymology comes from 'Latin 'tradere' to hand over.
Words related to this are (curiously!) TREASON, & TRAITOR.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by yhaalhouse
Re: Irish Traditional Music
ok, I'll bite...ethical, for me, has a firm argument that I agree with. Incorporate what can be added without disrupting and distorting the form. I'll go out on a limb and say that there is a true form to this music that distinguishes it from other musical forms. When you try and blend it with a very forgein (musically forgien, I mean. it could be physically from Sligo and not change my basic argument here) and the music becomes something else. Something we all would say was not this music.
I say if you want to play jazz, play jazz. Don't mix modern jazz with a hornpipe. That doesn't mean we as individual players can't experiment. I'm just saying that we shouldn't expect other folks to just accept the result as diddly just because it was played with a concertina and pennywhistle. that's just using different instrumentation to play a different music.
well, all that said, I better get back out on the porch so I can turn the hose on those pesky kids walking across my lawn. That's one of the perks of getting old, you know
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Nate Ryan
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jeez, fifteen years after the RTÉ/BBC TV series 'A River of Sound' and the same arguments remain unburied. Premierflute, I'd strongly suggest that you hunt down a copy of 'Crosbhealach an Cheoil' ('The Crossroads Conference').
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
The dilution of or the enhancement of any traditional music from anywhere in the world by the addition of outside influence is purely a matter of personal taste. Can something be diluted by adding something? IMO, yes. Can some tradition be improved by interference? IMO, yes. That's only my opinion and quite frankly the only opinion that I'm interested in.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by strayaway
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I agree a lot with what Nate said. Even though this music remains open to influences, things that stretch too far outside the notions of acceptability don't last. Whatever works well, stays - what doesn't, falls away. The consensus is defined by those who play it.
This is true with the evolution of any type of music. All music evolves with each generation's expression of it.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
>> it matters little where it came from - it's how it's interpreted by Irish musicians
Wounded H: do you mean Irish as in people of Irish enthnicty or residence, or simply those who play Irish(-style) music? If the former, then presumably Irish music can encompass anything from classical to heavy metal so long as it is Made in Ireland; if the latter, then there is no hope for the rest of us!
>>the word "diddly" rather than use the word traditional. "Traditional" in this context is a loaded word and means different things to different people, thus it actually means nothing.
Rumpole: whatever the ambiguities, personally I prefer the word 'Traditional' to 'Folk' - do you? For my money, what we play has very little to do with the world of Peter, Paul and Mary, The Spinners, Pentangle, Dylan etc. or indeed the vast majority of mediocre singer/song-writerdom out there, who infest singers' nights at a multitude of folk clubs up and down the land - or indeed that which the media is currently calling nu-folk, such as Mumford & Sons.
'Diddly' might be useful, but you now risk turning it into a genre as defined by its sound or style rather than its geo-cultural origins, at which point we might as well rename it World Music. That would in some ways help all those of us who play the stuff without a drop of ethnic authenticity, but I am not sure it would help the music itself. It's hardly flattering either, though I did hear it used by an non-musical Irish neighbour the other day
Personally, I really can't decide *what* I think about some of the very exciting acts who are doing new things with the music, (some of which work better than others), but who are arguably diluting the purer form of the music, which I love best. I would lump a lot of 'new' tunes in there, too - for example a lot of Michael McGoldrick's tunes, amongst others, just don't work for me - they just don't feel right. But on the other hand, tradition has always evolved, and new tunes have always been written... so why should now be any different? Right now, the Scots seem to be making a much stronger hand of updating their tradition than the Irish, though at what historic cost, I don't know.
I do know that I feel some regret that the top end is increasingly becoming just a branch of commercialised light entertainment, with many of the trappings of pop music, rather than cultural/art music. It's getting *too* slick.
For me, a benefit of having joined this list has been a decrease in my over-preoccupation with the big band scene, and a growing appreciation of the more subtle attractions of the smaller acts and 'genuine' traditional musicians. I'm not sure how well that would have worked if they had been mixing it too much.
p.s. Interesting article in The Independent today, discussing the dliemma of increasing popularity for folk-type acts - the need for arena-sized gigs versus the negative impact such large venues have on the experience of the music and the type of performance.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Calling it an old or new tradition is relative, isn't it? To someone in China, for example, calling it old is probably a bit of a joke. To your average American, however, it's practically ancient.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: Irish Traditional Music
There has always been push and pull within the tradition. That's part of what keeps it alive. The tradition isn't a thing on a shelf, to be admired and preserved. It is us. The people. We're the tradition. We're the ones that learned it form those who came before us, and will pass it on to those who come after.
Technology has long been responsible for changes within the tradition. And people have long "pushed the envelope" of the (somewhat nebulous) boundaries of the tradition. They may be somewhat more noticeable these days, because of how fast they can spread, but they're nothing new.
Michael McGoldrick writing tunes in 7/8 is nothing new. Incorporating other styles or tunes into the tradition is nothing new. JNE's point is well taken. The tradition is pretty good at taking care of itself, rejecting the things that don't work, and incorporating the things that do. And remember that the tradition is us. So it is we that are doing the work. The nice thing about the push and pull is that it both provides some diversity in the music, and space in the middle - between the extremes - for us to all get along. The diversity allows for both regional styles, and personal styles. And we each get to make our own personal choices about how we respect the tradition, and where we fall on the spectrum between the trad police and the experimenters.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Reverend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I would call it evolution of music. It's bound to differ slightly as time goes on.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by eddieV3
Re: Irish Traditional Music
It is good to note that some rhythms (polka, mazurka, and waltz come to mind) spread from central Europe to the rest of the continent (and across the Atlantic) in the 19th century. But when they came to Ireland, they were altered by the Irish musicians who played them so that accents were different and melodic phrasing was still distinctly Irish. For example, old 6/8 marches were shifted into jig rhythms. I read on these forums (fora?) that some Scottish strathspeys were turned into Irish reels. So there's historically been a give and take, right? The problem I see with a lot of 'fusion' is that phrasing often gets abandoned and rhythms are typically taken wholesale without adjustment. So long as these are overlooked, there will be people who use the word "fusion" instead of classifying these experiments as ITM.
For example, I've heard West African polyrhythms played on djembe with Irish music. Doesn't sound quite right. It's not that the djembe is 100% unsuited to ITM, it's that the style played on them doesn't fit the rhythmic world of the music. It's more a musical collage than thoughtful incorporation, IMHO.
Speaking of musical collage, Bob Brozman recently did an Irish album (which was a surprise) with McSherry and O'Connor. One of the tunes was composed in the Lydian mode but has a [largely] Irish phraseology and it doesn't sound too out of place to my ears. So, I guess what I'm getting at is experiments are good, but for tunes or rhythms to be taken into the tradition they probably have to sound traditional, which means change is likely going to be more incremental than wholesale.
Maybe I'm wrong, I am a novice. I know many Irish musicians are apt to play tunes Breton An Dros and such on their albums, but how often do these album experiments make headway into sessions? I ask this honestly. Do you play Scottish, Breton, Galician, Norwegian, etc, tunes in sets with Irish ones at sessions? I have a feeling that people might be getting a little worked up about adventurous recorded material when the material most non-professionals play is less adventurous. Like Ian said, the top tier of the entertain has the trappings of pop music. There may be a disconnect between what that tier plays, how they play it, and what they play it with and what most players play, etc.
But yes, tradition has changed and will always change so long as it's alive. I love what Martin Hayes and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh do with dynamics, and that Ó Raghallaigh uses Hardanger and viola, for example. But these changes, while they veer a little bit away from the established tradition, I feel draw from it very strongly, too. Their focus is still very strongly on the tune itself.
So I guess I'm in the middle ground. I don't know.
Also, how thread have there been on here now about what constitutes tradition? Either we're all stubborn or we're terrible rhetoricians. ;p
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Resodan
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Or both.
# Posted on October 5th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Without thinking it over or particularly wishing to do so, I feel when listening to De Dannan's playing of The Entry Of The Queen Of Sheba (by Handel) that I am listening to Irish music. The piece of course is neither Irish nor traditional in origin. But the instrumentation, playing style and speed/rhythm are very much in line with today's Irish traditional music. I feel similarly about their song Hard Times as sung by Mary Black - early c20 American, I think, but the tune at any rate might as easily have been composed for a ballad in Ireland if the cards had fallen differently. Both pieces have strong, exhilarating melodies, the Handel one being of course the more complicated and atypical of actual trad.
I suspect, then, that a great deal of the essence of trad lies in the environment of the tunes, rather than in the tunes alone: their instrumentation, playing style, speed, characteristic rhythms. And of course, instrumentation hasn't remained static. (Some) kids nowadays will later associate the sound of the bouzouki or new-style accordeons with earliest childhood in a way earlier generations didn't, because they weren't there.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Handed down from one generation to the next for me would be My Wild Irish Rose and Danny Boy, and other Irish-inspired music hall tunes! One man's tradition is another's "oh Lord, what drivel!"
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Paddy went up a mountain and God wrote down "the music" on tablets of stone which Paddy could not cart back down the hill because there was like thousands of them.
And that's the truth!
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by mcknowall
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Mcknowall, If you believe that The Music can be written down, even by Himself, you are obviously an apostate, and must be shunned!
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Who uses stone tablets anymore? Himself was certainly the 1st to get iPad when it was released.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Is there an app for that? Or in this case, should it be capitalized as App?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Irish Traditional Music
A stone tablet App, Al? God only knows, there is an App for everything.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Those who live in glass forums ...
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stone-tablet-calculator/id393719260?mt=8
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Premier - you and your mates own the music. You'll be doing
whatever you want with it after the old farts are dead.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Hup
Irish Tradition
Since when is death an obstacle in this tradition?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
A mention of Danny Boy made me think, How can one limit the over-familiarity factor in this and other tunes that are, in fact, great tunes?
One solution is - make them seasonal. And the traditions of Britain and Ireland, not to mention the various churches, have done precisely this with quite a lot of songs and tunes.
I just throw this in as a thought...I wonder if seasonality was a more significant factor in the choice and playing of trad tunes in the remote past before electric media made it that much easier to access them whenever. But it's a passing thought, not a suggestion that this was so.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"Paddy went up a mountain and God wrote down "the music" on tablets of stone which Paddy could not cart back down the hill because there was like thousands of them.
And that's the truth!"
Paddy? I thought it was Frank. And when he came back down the mountain, he found all his fellow Irishmen dancing the Foxtrot and he was so irate that he smashed the tablets of stone on the Chicago sidewalk. So he had to go back up the mountain and transcribe them all by hand, as God played them to him on his Stratocaster. But Frank could only manage 1001 tunes before he had to be back on duty at the police station.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Irish Traditional Music
...He went back for another 849 at some later date, but due to increasing crime rates in the Chicago area, he never managed to get enough time off to recover the entire repertory.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Hmmm ... you do know that the 1850 is a separate, and earlier, collection than the 1001 Gems?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/25699
Let's put ourselves to the test, then. The above link is to the discussion immediately posted before this one. Reactions to the piece of music being asked about have been fairly negative so far. Where does that particular piece of playing fit in to your "new tradition" ?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Kenny
Re: Irish Traditional Music
That one's easy, Kenny. It's not part of 'the tradition', new or old. It's coming from someone who doesn't understand the basics. Totally different from, say, mike McGoldrick, who fully undertstands where the music's coming from, even when he's creating something completely new with it - not always my particular cup of tea, mind you, but God, I wouldn't criticise him as a musician or for one moment question his place in 'the tradition'. Unlike the perpetrators of that other clip.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
When I go to the sessions here (the Glasgow area) I hear tunes from many different musical strands. Scottish, Irish, English, Breton, Spanish, Canadian, American and Jewish tunes are played and enjoyed.
There can be some argument as to whether a particular tune is Scottish/Irish/whatever, but unless the composer is definitively known, then there is no iron clad way of proving it one way or the other, and we get back to the important business of enjoying good tunes.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by BigDavy
Re: Irish Traditional Music
As was mentioned earlier the tradition looks after itself. The good "new tunes" get accepted into the tradition gradually if musicians like them enough. On another forum some became upset because I didn't consider Ed Reavey tunes to be trad tunes. I certainly don't consider Mike McGoldrick tunes to be trad tunes.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I'm upset now.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Aye well ethical blend, it's just me, don't bother about it. I'm sure others like to play them. I do play Hunter's house and Aughamore though
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
It's interesting to me that both of the innovations cited in the original posting tend to divorce "traditional music" from the dance tradition. There are no 7/8 dances in Irish dance that I know of, and the improvisatory character of jazz tends to upend the rhythms as played by the melody instrument, which fundamentally changes the relation of the tune to the dance.
For me, "Irish traditional music" is "music suited to Irish dance". This leaves out the airs, of course, but they are more related to the song tradition, which is a kettle of fish of a different color. Taken this way, "traditional" is certainly not something arbitrary, and it is not stagnant, but it only changes in tandem with another tradition. Both have changed over time and will continue to change, but the linkage makes for a more stable or a more conservative tradition overall.
The supposed equivalence of "traditional" with "the speaker's personal preference" seems to me a bit of a red herring. Most players prefer their trad music to be traditional, and what they prefer will tend to be within the tradition, but that does not by ay means imply that the tradition is defined by any one player's preferences, even for that player. Looking for a formal, static "definition" of a tradition is a further misconception. Traditions are defined by a community's preferences, not those of any one person - for this we need to go to Wittgenstein and his "family resemblances" rather than some idealized definition. Tunes are more like games or jokes or languages than they are like mathematical formulas. They are really what they are at any given moment, but what they really are at any given moment will not necessarily be what they will be ten years on, or what they were ten years before. This doesn't mean that what went before or what is to come is incorrect, it means that the tradition is a tradition.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Wittgenstein was a beery swine ...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I consider each of these to be traditional tunes. Most have a known composer. Some are dance tunes, though I would not say all of them are. At least one, "My Mind Will Never be Easy" has been played at different tempos & with different rhythms, basically alot of variation.
Are the tunes trad?
Any, all, or none?
"Sergeant Early's Dream"
"Derry Craig Wood"
"Over the Moor to Maggie"
"The New Broom"
"The Cat's Meow"
"The Didda"
"Eleanor Plunkett"
"Farewell to Whalley Range"
"My Mind Will Never be Easy"
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
For me, "Irish traditional music" is "music suited to Irish dance".
As a dancer, yes they can arguably be linked. But I can dance an "irish reel" to Johnny Cash's Fulsom Prison Blues... does that make the song "Irish" because I can dance a reel to it?
Okay, so my reponse to this thread is a bit silly, but the logic there just seemed off, though I "get" what was implied.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"Wittgenstein was a beery swine ..."
Not so much, as it turns out. More depressed than anything else, as far as I can see. Shows what them Australians know about philosophy...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Oh, and to put my two cents in on the tunes part, for what it's worth:
I think that "tradition" becomes what the "care takers" of that tradition make of it. But I think excluding new things that don't seem to "fit" is rather subjective. I think that "traditional" is a subgenre of a broader genre, which folks on here hate to use: Celtic in it's broadest sense. There are so many subgenres under that umbrella genre... so, while we might not consider some of the "big band stuff" traditional, they are usually influenced by traditional tunes and motifs.
What gets me is the implied tone to some responses that other, newer interpretations or uses of tunes is somehow inferior. I might hear a very "trad" player play a tune and it's good; but I might hear one of those "big band" do something interesting with it and like it better. It doesn't mean that one is worse than another; it's my personal taste for a given song, individual, or group.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Do dance along with "Waterman's"?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Ben - a friend just gave me a copy of Conal O'Grada's album Cnoc Bui. I notice that several of the tunes have a note like "The Rookery composed by Vincent Broderick. Both tunes trad arr. Conal O'Grada"
I think this is correct - the tunes were composed, and they are traditional.
The notion that a traditional tune is one which was never composed is self-evidently silly. More useful is the notion that a traditional tune is one which has been passed through the Folk Processor enough times that it has taken on the feel of a traditional tune. One frequent symptom of this is the loss of the author's name, but clearly there is no shortage of traditional tunes whose authors are known.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I'm confused, Random - why have you included three tunes that clearly are traditional, and have no known composer?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Personal taste is not separate from whatever community one is part of. Community is made up of individuals who will have different interpretations & styles of playing music (& dancing). It is how the community comes together to actually make music together which makes for tradition.
Perhaps new *traditions* are always forming, though it is impossible to know which of these will become part of tradition or even what it means to be part of tradition. It all goes back to community. Without community tradition is merely something being observed rather than something being lived.
Your community is your tradition.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"Okay, so my reponse to this thread is a bit silly, but the logic there just seemed off, though I "get" what was implied"
Yes, it is a bit silly. The linkage to dance was intended to highlight why the tradition is conservative without being arbitrary - you can't have traditional Irish music without traditional Irish dance at least hovering over you, if not present in the room. This was addressing the original posting, which cited as potentially "traditional" tunes in odd meters.
It doesn't follow that anything that has a 4/4 meter is traditional music, so the fact that you could dance a reel while a Johnny Cash record - not "to" the record! - is playing doesn't seem like much of a problem.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Once again I should be off to work. 1st off ... Fiddlechick, I'd love to see a dance along with a tune in 7/8.
Jon, regarding known vs. unknown composer there is alot to talk about there. Wish I had more time. In a nutshell I was going to ask Steamwilkes if he considered "Over the Moor to Maggie" a traditional tune. Problem with tunes is they never travel alone. Before I could post the question with just one tune these others sprang up in my head & they still won't stop. Those pesky tunes.
ethical, I don't know of a composer for "My Mind Will Never be Easy" & I'm just guessing that someone can place a composer with "Sergeant Early's" (either him or someone who knew him), but it's merely a guess on my part. The other tunes have known composers.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Who wrote Over the Moor to Maggie? I could have sworn it was an old, old tune, but maybe I got that wrong ... I'd be amazed if Sergeant Early actually wrote Sgt Early's Dream, just as I'd be amazed if he wrote Boil the Breakfast Early, named in his honour. I think they were just old tunes that O'Neill and his cronies didn't have names for.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Well, Over the Moor to Maggie is in O'Neill's ...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
We never give up trying to eff the ineffable.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jon, I suppose my main concern about how traditional is or isn't a tune is its' resilience. If a tune is too iconic it always gets played according to the most iconic interpretation, which may be its' association with a composer or a recording artist. In a sense the tune becomes frozen & no one plays with the tune. That is not a living tradition. This doesn't mean that if you want to play "Morning Thrush" like Seamus Ennis that you're killing the tradition. Nor does it mean if you know exactly who composed the tune it is not a traditional tune. It simply means that tradition is continuous between the past, present, & future & yet is happening right now.
I have no idea if that makes sense. I'm off to work.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Fair play, Ben! I don't know where I got the idea "Over the Moor to Maggie" was one of Martin Crehan's tunes. Thanks for straightening that out. I was thinking of his tunes & I plan on reading this article later;
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/crehan.htm
I tried to find more info about James Early but don't have much for now. Any of you pipers know anything? Somewhere there are recordings & perhaps manuscripts.
Where's that 7/8 dance? Any Balkan dancers on here?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I have some recordings of him somewhere ...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Minor contribution, merely because I don't like being incorrectly characterized, and since I was the person who steamwilkes was referring to. For the record, I was not upset, I was chastising steamwilkes for a rude comment and then mocking him for his unfortunate opinions about what is and isn't traditional.
Thankfully he is not the arbiter of what is and isn't traditional. Plenty of fine, traditional, musicians disagree with him regarding his opinion of Reavey's compositions.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
>>Perhaps new *traditions* are always forming, though it is impossible to know which of these will become part of tradition or even what it means to be part of tradition. It all goes back to community. Without community tradition is merely something being observed rather than something being lived.
Your community is your tradition.
Random - you hit exactly what sometimes bugs me right on the head there, and what I was wittering about yesterday.
For those of us who are not part of the Irish community, there can be no real part in 'The Tradition'. What we are doing is contributing to the absorption of Irish-origin music into the wider world community.
Maybe that is a tradition of its own in the making - but does it risk devaluing the 'real thing' in the process? In other words, the music as many of us make it may be traditional, but it is no longer the sole preserve of the Irish, and therefore may not really be eligible to be described as ITM. In which case, what do we call it instead?
I was conducting a sixth-form lesson (i.e. 17 year-olds) today, on the benefits and drawbacks of globalisation, during which the caretaker with superb timing came in with a parcel containing my new Hedwitschack bodhran just in from Germany. The students were, of course, dead curious - so we had a three-minute discussion on the role of Irish music played by an Englishman on a German instrument in the process of globalisation. Isn't this really what we are talking about here, for better or worse?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Big subject this one folks. I can only tell you what I think - and what works for me. Lets look at each word in turn for a start.
Irish - obviously the music must come from, ie be "composed" in Ireland. From anywhere else, it may be nice, but it is'nt Irish. This does'nt mean that "foreign" music should'nt be played, simply that it should'nt be passed of as Irish when its not. A bit like Parma Ham.
Traditional - passed through the generations. Anything written in the last 25 years therefore is'nt traditional. It may, in the fullness of time, become part of "the tradition" but for the moment, its not. You can apply the same timescale to the instuments used as well. At some point however, you may want to define the number of generations involved here. The logic being that it probably does'nt count as traditional if you have to plug it in to make it work.
Music - well, any sort of noise you like ! - but it must, of course, be both Irish and traditional as defined above.
Just put the 3 together and you have it. Having said that, its possible to play other music in a traditional Irish style (the use of the word traditional is important here - U2 anyone?). Playing "foreign" music in an Irish traditional style does'nt make it Irsh though.
At the end of the day, we all play what we want, what we as individuals like to hear. But that does'nt make it Irish, traditional or, in extreme case music !
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Oh, and one bit I forgot. The musicians don't have to be either Irish or traditional. They just have to play in an Irish traditional style - on the instruments that I defined earlier.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Sorry ormepipes, but I can't agree with your first two points at all. There are many many tunes that were composed outside of Ireland and/or not by an Ireland-born person that are considered traditional.
Furthermore, why 25? Why not 50? Or 75? With your logic, a tune written 26 years ago is traditional. Furthermore, electric and electronic instruments have been around for well over 25 years, probably more than 50 or 75 even at this point.
The only logical definition for me is that it is a style of music that is defined by consensus of the community. And you know it when you hear it. (That's for thesilverspear!) Of course, then you can simply say someone or something isn't part of the community if you wish to exclude it...
From where I'm sitting, it's obvious that there is a significant north american contribution to the community.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
wow, I would tend to disagree pretty firmly with some of your definitions there, ormepipes.
First off, I tend to view the "Irish" part of it as referring to the Tradition, not the music specifically. And the tradition DID come from Ireland, but it thrives in places all over the world that aren't in Ireland.
Secondly there's something like 6 times the number of people that claim Irish heritage in the U.S. than there are in Ireland. Not all of them honor the traditions of their ancestry, but neither do many of the people in Ireland.
So I think that the Irish Tradition of music has grown beyond Ireland, and the tradition is alive and well, even if it contains tunes that weren't "composed" in Ireland. They were composed within the Tradition.
But it's been a while since we had a good old "you have to be Irish to play this music" kind of argument. So carry on...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Reverend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Well Nico, I did say it worked for me.
"There are many many tunes that were composed outside of Ireland and/or not by an Ireland-born person that are considered traditional." - thats fine - I agree - but they can't be Irish.
"Furthermore, why 25? Why not 50? Or 75? With your logic, a tune written 26 years ago is traditional. Furthermore, electric and electronic instruments have been around for well over 25 years, probably more than 50 or 75 even at this point." - I think 25 years is the standard timespan accepted to be a "generation" - and you should have read it all - "At some point however, you may want to define the number of generations involved here. The logic being that it probably does'nt count as traditional if you have to plug it in to make it work."
"From where I'm sitting, it's obvious that there is a significant north american contribution to the community." - I agree - but they are'nt Irish - That does'nt mean they are no good!
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Reverend,
Up front - I'm not Irish - not a drop of Irish blood in me - no axe to grind here - HONEST. Like I said, it just works for me. And just because what I define as Irish Traditional Music is played all over the planet does not devalue in any way what "foreign" players do for "the cause". Its just a matter of definition.
I agree 110% about "foreign" tunes being composed "in the tradition" - I did'nt say they were sub-standard.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Ormepipes, I'm afraid I'm in complete disagreement with you as well. Modern tunes like Dusty WIndowsills, Road to Errogie, etc are played in sessions all around the globe. The community has embraced them, therefore they are within the tradition. Furthermore, many of what we now call Irish reels are reworked/renamed Scottish reels for example. Shall we cast off Lads of Laois from the tradition because it was once possibly called Lads of Leith in Scotland? Gosh I hope not. This stuff flows like water, and seeps into the areas of willing acceptance.
What reaaly defines the tradition is the flowing tradition itself. It polices itself. It embraces what works and discards what doesn't.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Yeah, I disagree too. I'm just late to the party.
Taking a backward, rather than a forward, look, you'll find people like O'Neill, Henebry, Rohe et al agonising over what can be defined as 'Irish'. The concluding consensus back then was that it was whatever was accepted in the tradition, because those guys already recognised that the music had come from all over the place - not just "these islands" but further afield as well.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
So I take it Irish traditional music is both tunes generated within Ireland (and Irish communities elsewhere?) *and* tunes generated quite outside these, but which players in Ireland take up and keep playing with consistency.
This leads to intriguing questions - e.g., is Cape Breton music Scottish? Sort of, absolutely: literally, no. But fortunately this is only likely ever to generate animated discussion among afficionados and not real problems.
Classical music has lived with this on a large scale for a very long time. Modern-era Britain imported most of its Classical music and compositional styles from the Continent, notably from Italy and above all Germany. But a piece composed by a Briton which could have fitted well into Italian or German music would be described as being "in the Italian / German style" - not as Italian or German music.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I'm just wondering if we use the term 'Irish' as a convenient shorthand?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Nicholas, I completely agree with you there. And the matter is further complicated for those of us who don't actually play traditional instruments either.
E.B., with some regret, I think you are right - it has just become a generic term for a specific type of music - which isn't to deny its own inherent merit. As soon as it leaves its homeland and diaspora, it can be nothing else. But I am also puzzled why Scottish doesn't get an equal look-in on here...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ian stock
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I like that "with some regret". A neatly encapsulated idea.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jusa and Ethical,
I don't think we disagree that much to be honest. I don't say we should stop playing anything, just acknowledge it for what it is. Not a poor relation, just a different source. Its just a minor detail in getting the "sleeve notes" to be accurate.
"Shall we cast off Lads of Laois from the tradition because it was once possibly called Lads of Leith in Scotland?" - absolutely not - just put that on the sleeve notes. Above all else, play it because you enjoy it.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Sorry ornepipes, you're still a little confused about your own argument I think. Define "Irish" please. Many people not born in Ireland call themselves Irish by dint of heritage and ancestry. There can be no doubt that Andy McGann was an "Irish traditional musician".
I also disagree with your statement that "25 years is the standard timespan accepted to be a "generation" and its applicability to this discussion. I've heard people say that 50 years is the cut-off point for a tune to be traditional. But it doesn't matter what number and unit you give it (25 years, 1 generation, 1/2 century, etc) it's still nonsense and easily disproven. After all, you only need one counterexample.
I agree that the term Irish Traditional Music is a shorthand term... aka a label! After all, you have to call it something.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Good last sentence.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Confused - I may be - but were getting closer !
What binds us together is what we have in common, and that seems to be defined by the title "Irish Traditional Music".
I would still love it if it was called Martian Spontaneus Noise - and I bet you would as well.
My definintion still works for me - If you have your own, and it works for you - thats fine. I can still enjoy lots of stuff that won't fit my definintion. In my experience, most musicians have enough trouble remembering the names of tunes, let alone their origins!
What is interesting is that, no matter what we call it, we all seem to understand pretty much what it is we are talking about. Perhaps the music is its own language, and we are all pretty fluent in that?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Forgive me for asking this then, but it seems like you are saying that you don't think tunes that were composed by non-Irish people or outside of Ireland, or less than 25 years ago can be referred to by the title Irish Traditional Music (or the alternative Martian Spontaneus Noise).
So please, tell me, is this what you are saying? Or are you trying to say that they can be called that, but at the same time can't be called *just* Irish?
Because, again, the tune Lads of Laois is a good example of a tune that is accepted as being Irish Traditional Music, yet was not composed by an Irish person. O'Farrell's Welcome to Limerick was most likely composed while O'Farrell was in London. Most of Ed Reavy's compositions were composed in America. I can't think of a tune I know that was composed within the last 25 years and is considered traditional, but perhaps the Twelve Pins is an example that you'll consider. These are all accepted as being Irish Traditional Music, yet fall outside of your definition.
Therefor your definition is not useful as it is incorrect.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Gentlemen - thanks to all of you - we're having a delightful, yet polite disagreement on the Mustardboard without a hint of nastiness so far. Perhaps there is hope for us afterall.
Ormepipes - I guess my question is, you seem to suggest that because a tune is from a source outside of Ireland, it is not technically within the tradition - isn't that what you said initially? If so, I think many of us disagree emphatically. Furthermore, many of the true sources have been lost in the mists of time - so how are we to know really? That brings me full circle to my first post - the tradition defines itself as it moves through time, and the consensus of the players act as gatekeepers.
A tune like Brenda Stubberts or an Ed Reavy tune - in. That tune I wrote last night that combines elements of an old Rush tune - probably out...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Nico,
"you are saying that you don't think tunes that were composed by non-Irish people or outside of Ireland, or less than 25 years ago can be referred to by the title Irish Traditional Music" - Yes, thats what I'm saying. But you could say that they were in the style of Traditional Irish Music. And, at the end of the day - YOU can call them whatever you like - thats fine.
"I can't think of a tune I know that was composed within the last 25 years and is considered traditional" - QED
BUT - I'll bet that if we were in a session together we would play them all AND enjoy everything !
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"Gentlemen - thanks to all of you - we're having a delightful, yet polite disagreement on the Mustardboard without a hint of nastiness so far. Perhaps there is hope for us afterall."
Bodhráns! Feck! Gobsh*te! Performance! *rse! These islands! Y'se 'r all a bunch of nazis!!!
There. That's got that out of the way. I agree with you Jusa. Cracking thread this. Gotta leave for my bed now, but I'll be looking forward to more of it by morning.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Really slow news day.......
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by zippydw
Re: Irish Traditional Music
For young people, 25 years seems a hell of a long time.
For older people, it seems a snip.
This might explain the differing time-lengths seen to be needed to make a tune traditional!
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Irish Traditional Music
LOL - Ethical Blend...
Ormepipes - sorry but we'll have to agree to disagree. With your definition, all of Andy McGann's tunes are out. I can't buy into the notion that "Drag her 'round the Road" is not an Irish tune because it was composed in New York...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Maybe we should convene an international council to officially rename it "diddley". Rock and roll has spread happily all over the world without arguments about its Americanness or its boundaries. Is that because it was never labeled as indigenous American music?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Bob NO! Please don't open up the Diddly/Diddley can of worms...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
""I can't think of a tune I know that was composed within the last 25 years and is considered traditional" - QED"
Um... no. Wow, I really can't believe that you think this at all. No, no, no.
I can't think of a specific tune, but I know they exist. I also offered one that I can't be sure was written in the last 25 years, but I know isn't that old.
So, no, no QED at all. As I said, it only takes one to disprove your theory, and I've already blown holes through the rest of it, so...
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Does anyone know when Dusty WIndowsill was written by Chicagoan John Harling? (1970s?) It probably misses the 25 years arbitrary cut-off date, but the tune has been recorded by a great many artists over the past 25 years.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Nico,
Fine - you stick with your definintion - I don't mind one bit - HONEST.
But like I said - because we don't agree it would'nt stop us enjoying the tunes together - if they fit my definiton or not. That is because I love loads of stuff that won't fit my definition.
It is a good discussion this one - I've have (and am) enjoying it greatly. Like I say, the music binds us, it does'nt divide us.
Interesting debate with like-minded souls - great way to spend an evening !
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I really am not concerned with whether you mind my definition or not... I just don't want anyone else to go down the wrong path of thinking your definition is anything other than fallacious...
I agree about it not stopping us from enjoying tunes together.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jusa,
Sorry - missed that bit :-
"Ormepipes - I guess my question is, you seem to suggest that because a tune is from a source outside of Ireland, it is not technically within the tradition - isn't that what you said initially? If so, I think many of us disagree emphatically. Furthermore, many of the true sources have been lost in the mists of time - so how are we to know really? That brings me full circle to my first post - the tradition defines itself as it moves through time, and the consensus of the players act as gatekeepers. "
I guess my question is, you seem to suggest that because a tune is from a source outside of Ireland, it is not technically within the tradition - YES - thats what I'm saying - buts what is wrong with something being in "The style of ITM" ? - It's not meant to imply that it is a child of a lesser God.
I could pretend to be Irish, but I don't. Not because there is anything wrong with being Irish but because I would be being dishonest if I did.
And, to my mind, the thing that makes a tune a traditional Irish tune is that it has stood the test of remaining popular through several generations. We simply don't know if the "new" stuff will pass that test - its not been around long enough. "Pop" music is popular now, but will anyone be doing covers of any of it in 100 years time ? - back to U2 again - how did I know we would end up back with them ? - I think we actually agree on the "tradition" bit completely.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I suspect that some "new" tunes are so rapidly assimilated by traditional musicians that any arbitrary time span (25 years?) for such assimilation is meaningless.
I also suspect that some new tunes have been inserted into the tradition by people who claimed they were "old traditional" tunes, and no one batted an eye.
And what if a tune is penned by James Kelly while living in Miami? Does that make it not Irish?
Meh.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Well, the biggest problem for me, ormepipes, is that there is a very strong tradition in the US, with probably nearly as many, if not more, musicians than Ireland. By taking the boat over, did they suddenly not become part of the tradition? No, that's patently ridiculous.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
As Martin Hayes has pointed out, this music's extremely portable.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Irish Traditional Music
By taking the boat over, they became part of a parallel universe of Irish music; no longer Irish, but not exactly American either. We're in limbo. That's my take on it, anyway. I like the notion of "Boil The Breakfast" Early. Boil The Breakfast, Early! is also good.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I still think that for a thing to be traditional, it has to have been passed down the generations. Is'nt the stuff that has'nt been around long enough better termed as "folk" music?
The English have this "early music" thing going in their tradition that gives tunes age related provenance.
To me, by calling it all "traditional" - without a further explination of the origins of each individual tune, it just makes it impossible to distinguish between the "real" old stuff and the modern additions.
Regarding the "Irish" bit, perhaps the other stuff (not written in Ireland) should carry a prefix. It is not be born out of the same community as the Irish Irish stuff. Not all of the "local" factors were present at its "birth". Like Parma Ham thats not from Parma.
Ultimately, we all sit in the same sessions and play the same tunes. Does it actually matter that much where the stuff comes from? - If your a historian it does, but otherwise no.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
If fat old bald guys play it in a pub on acoustic instruments, it is traditional. How is that for a definition?
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by AlBrown
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Possibly Al, but is it Irish ?
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
orempipes, a lot of what you might consider the old tunes (from generations ago) first got into the tradition by being played, without worry much about where the tunes came from, or how old they were, or whether they were "traditional" or not. All those Scottish reels and highlands, for example.
So if the past generations absorbed tunes in ways that you're not willing to accept, yet you base your sense of "traditional" on those same generations' choices, you're talking in circles.
And your analogy to Parma ham doesn't hold. "Irish traditional" isn't a marketing ploy or trademark.
I like to know a lot about the tunes I play, their stories and histories, who kept them alive during hard times, etc. But where a tune comes from or how old it is doesn't matter if it's a good or great tune, eh?
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Will,
We agree on something - I must be wrong !
Your closing statement and my "Ultimately, we all sit in the same sessions and play the same tunes. Does it actually matter that much where the stuff comes from? - If your a historian it does, but otherwise no."
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Just belatedly (again) read through this whole thread and really enjoyed the debate
"this music's extremely portable" - I misread that initially as potable
Problem with making too many rules is that there always seems to be exceptions. We all have our perceptions but the music is bigger than any of us and will go on growing .
My only rule is just "play some tunes" except that I have to go off to the dentist now and I hate that big time!
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Donough
Re: Irish Traditional Music
LOL, ormepipes, I like your tenacity in looking for the happy agreement instead of focusing on where we diverge. We may not be in the same boat, but we're bobbing around in the same water, eh?
Donough, maybe I'm misquoting Martin. Maybe "potable" is what he really said.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"If fat old bald guys play it in a pub on acoustic instruments, it is traditional. How is that for a definition?" Al Brown.
Close Al, but what if it's fat old bald ladies down the pub?
Ed Reavey tunes are just that, Ed Reavey tunes - nothing wrong with fat old bald guys and gals playing them down the pub though is there
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I think the thing that keeps getting missed is that I quote Ed Reavy tunes only because they're what I'm most familiar with in regards to a composer who composed tunes outside of Ireland that are also considered to be traditional. (There really is no arguing with that, it's simply a fact that you'll have to deal with.)
At any rate, there are plenty of others, as well, I'm just not as familiar with them, and haven't studied them.
A friend once mentioned that a lot of the tunes that Peter Horan plays were composed in his lifetime. I guess he's not traditional either!
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Any more info on Sergeant James Early of Chicago?
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
http://billhaneman.ie/IMM/IMM-XXII.html
Enjoy!
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"These days pipe music falls on calloused ears." Not quoted from the Sergt. Early bio, but from the bit about John Cummings. Thanks for the link, Nico.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Cheers, Nico. Anyone interested here is another link I found yesterday while looking for info about Junior Crehan;
http://homepage.eircom.net/~cbps/martinjuniorcrehan1.htm
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Coming to the party late, I know. Have been Stateside hanging out with friends and family and not sitting around on the internet.
I pretty much agree with everything Nick and Jusa have said. I want to add that coming up with a strict definition of Irish Traditional Music is a somewhat meaningless exercise, since we all know what we mean by community consensus (as Nick said) but it is a fluid, dynamic category. As soon as you come up with rigid rules, like it must be composed in Ireland, you can easily point to a zillion examples which problematize or flat-out disprove your arbitrary rule.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Evening all,
IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC
You may not like what the words mean, but you can't change their meaning just because you don't like it!
You just have to use different and more appropriate words to convey what it is that your trying to say.
How can something be Irish if its not from Ireland?
How can something be traditional without the passage of time being involved?
I would still favour the global title to be something along the lines of "Accoustic Folk music played in a Traditional Irish Style".
Is there any agreement that this actually defines what we are all talking about better ? - OK, mabye not perfectly - just better.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"I think the thing that keeps getting missed is that I quote Ed Reavy tunes only because they're what I'm most familiar with in regards to a composer who composed tunes outside of Ireland that are also considered to be traditional. " Nico.
I beg to differ regarding Ed Reavey's material. To me they don't sound traditional, some are in odd keys, odd sharps and flats thrown in, something not quite right with them to my ears. Prehaps it's because I play the pipes and flute that Reavey's stuff sounds like flashy contrived fiddle material. Especially compared say to Junior Crehan's tunes or other "newly composed material". Junior's tunes feel how shall I say, just natural.
This has nothing to do with Ed's tunes being composed outside Ireland, that doesn't matter. However many people like Reavey's tunes and they are played which is fine by me. I don't mind as long as I don't have to play them. There are so many better traditional tunes, or tunes written in the traditional idiom out there. So let's just agree to disagree Nico. You think Reavey's tunes are traditional, I know they are not. They are just Ed Reavey tunes. Welcome back Emily
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Hehe, sorry steamwilkes, the problem is that I'm not saying it's just my opinion, I'm saying that they are regarded as traditional. By many traditional musicians, particularly ones of much more authority than you. Now, I can clarify that and say that it may only be many of his tunes, but it doesn't really matter. I only need one to disprove ormepipes theories.
You may "know they are not" but what you don't realize is that you know wrong. We can agree to disagree all you want, it still doesn't change the fact that they are traditional.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Holy Guacamole - what is it with you pipers on this thread? Silver Spear will you talk some sense into your fellow instrumentalists por favor?
So if I am following these concepts correctly, since Eric Clapton wasn't born a black child in Mississippi in 1910, he isn't playing Blues music, he is playing "in the style of the Blues."
Anyone composing a waltz outside of the patronage of an Austrian king isn't playing a waltz they are playing in the "style of Austrian dance music."
Keith Urban was born in Australia and records in Nashville but he isn't writing country & western music, he is "writing in the style of country western music"
I could go on with obvious examples. The point is, it seems you, Ormepipes and steamwilkes, are arguing from the viewpoint of needless semantics and self-serving definitions, not the other way around.
Reavy's tunes are in. McGann's tunes are in. Paddy Killoran's Maids of Mt Cisco - IN, and all composed & recorded outside your defination.
You may call your rebuttal witnesses, counselor.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I think you're making a crucial mistake there yourself Nico.
Traditional musicians are not all that interested in considering whether or not tunes are traditional or not..
They're interested in considering whether or not tunes are good tunes.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I think that IS the point Nico has been making Professor E - Good tunes are absorbed into the tradition, and crap ones are not. Reavy wrote some beauties and they have been absorbed as good tunes into the tradition. Their origins are irrelevant.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
You know, Prof. you're right as usual.
I guess I was leaping a step ahead of that to argue that because traditional musicians (my authorities referenced above) choose to play Ed Reavy tunes they must think they are good tunes. Because they play them, and other people learn these tunes from them, and so on and so forth, I see that they have become part of the tradition.
Also, I was just trying to point out the loose thinking and reasoning going on behind some of the definitions described above (and elsewhere).
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Prof,
First and foremost - 90% agree - but those of us interested in history like to know what we are looking at - original or re-pro.
Jusa,
Hi again,
"Blues music" is just that - no nationality in the title, a waltz doesnt have to be Austrian no more than a Jig has to be Irish. "country and Western" - again, no nationality in the title.
Nico,
Do you not accept at all that in order to be "traditional" it must have stood "the test of time" ?
Steamwilkes,
Thanks - I thought I was on my own !
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Hi Ormepipes.
The Blues, Jazz, Country and Western, and Rock and Roll are all American music styles. Just because the Nationality isn't included in the title does not mean it isn't well accepted. Under that concept, if we simply call it "diddly" as others have suggested, then would McGann and Reavy's music be in?
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
You just don't get it do you Nico & Jusa? Some of Reavey's tunes have been accepted and played by some traditional musicians in the "tradition" that's all well and good, but I don't consider them to be trad tunes, ok. They may well be considered good tunes by some but that still doesn't make them trad tunes to my ears.
Paddy Killoran's Maids of Mt Cisco, now there's a good tune that sounds traditional
Eric Clapton is a rock and blues guitar player, doesn't matter where he was born or where he lives
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Or let me put it this way; if it was called Traditional American Blues music, and a young lad from Ballyfeckit, Ireland fell in love with it, learned to play it, and composed tunes that were later embraced by other who played Trad American Blues, under your definition, they still wouldn't be traditional would they.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Steamwilkes, I get it. Reavy tunes don't sound trad to you.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jusa,
No - they would'nt - but that does'nt reflect an opinion with regard to their quality. Just their origin and provenance.
Back to my point about "ITM" being the wrong words to use if we are actually trying to define what it is that we all love so much.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"Do you not accept at all that in order to be "traditional" it must have stood "the test of time" ?"
The point I'm quibbling with is the ability to assign a distinct time period (in your case 25 years or 1 generation. I've heard 50 years from other people). The problem is that a tune could very well have "stood the test of time" in far less. The reason why your definition fails is that you can't nail down a specific time. It is impossible. You'll always find an exception or arrive at a definition that is useless. I know there are tunes less than 25 years old that have been accepted in the tradition. At the same time, I know of older ones that have not. So to put any distinct time frame on it is useless.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Okie-dokie. It sounds like pointless semantics to me, but no, it wouldn't stop us from enjoying a few tunes & pints together.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I haven't followed this thread and don't want to get into the debate either.
The test of time? I have been playing a lot of Peadar ORiada tunes recently, tunes composed by Paddy O Donoghue and others by people who I have met, some I know well. They're new. They're fine.
If you look back a generation, or two. During the eightiesand nineties I visited Martin Rochford a lot. At some point I was goign through a tape I made during one of these visits. I realised Martin's favourite tunes included an remarkable large proportion of recent compositions. A few each by Sean Ryan, Paddy Fahey, Larry Redican, Ed Reavey, Breandan McGlinchey, Junior Crehan, Paddy Canny, Bobby Casey, Tommy Coen, Eddie Kelly, Frank McCollum and others. And on top of that a quite few (like the Caoilte Mountain) I have found no composer for. Most of these are compositions by his contemporaries and a few from younger generations as well. He was also very keen to hear more, he got me to write several tunes on different occasions, I remember him particularly hounding me for a John Brosnan reel. When talking about Rochford's hunger for tunes Bill Ochs told me how Martin pursued him to get the Killarney Boys of Pleasure (which Bill got off a Boys of the Lough lp), a tune that through Martin has become one of the stalwarts of the East Clare repertoire.
How does that rate in your book? Should the trad police have had a quiet word? Or does it show that time isn't much of a factor? I know what I think.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Nico,
"At the same time, I know of older ones that have not."
That is because they have not stood the "test of time" that defines a tradition.
The actual time frame that defines a "tradition" is open to debate. But for something to have been handed on, it must have passed from at least one generation to the next. Passed around in the same generation does'nt count.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Cross-post. Actually Steamwilkes, I do get it. I got it a long time ago. You don't think they are traditional, because you don't think they sound traditional. For the last part of that sentence: fine, that's your opinion. For the first part: sorry, you're wrong. Again, maybe not all, but many have been fully accepted in the tradition, by being played, recorded, taught, shared, sessioned with, etc.
Honestly, I think you're just being sloppy with your thinking and your writing. I totally understand not liking tunes. There are traditional tunes (and styles!) that I don't care for. I think your explanations as to why you think Reavy tunes don't sound traditional fall a little flat, because there are many other composer's tunes and also tunes that I don't know the composer to, that sound similar, are related, or just have a similar feel, and are also accepted in the tradition. I pointed out this flaw in your reasoning by offering examples in the past, and can again if you'd like to have a meaningful discussion about it.
But you really have to stop making the blanket statement that "Reavy tunes aren't traditional". It's just not true.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Cross-post one last time: ormepipes, I believe the Prof. just explained better than I could why I don't agree that "Passed around in the same generation does'nt count."
Honestly, if we go down that route, than almost all of irish traditional music isn't traditional. It really is just semantics, in the end!
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Well said Professor E and Nico. Right. Sorted. Now let's all go meet down at the pub, have a few jars, get pie-eyed and play Hunter's House shall we? Then we can all decide if it's trad enough...
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
One dark winter night in Coore things were slow and we went into some more unusual tuens. Jackie Daly played a few of his own and we kept at it until we all had them.
He then told me that he had taught the same tune to his father who remarked 'isn't it great to have a tune handed UP to you every now and then'.
Did the time space continuum implode into a black hole at that moment?
Ehh, no actually it didn't.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Prof,
Stuff from the 80's, that is still played (and therefore has been "handed"), would pass my "tradition" test of being older than 1 generation.
From what you say, it looks like the stuff is good for a few generations more yet - so it should therefore become trad.
traditional strongly implies having an element of age - as opposed to contemporary.
It's only about what we call it and accurate labelling - nothing to do with our own personal likes and dislikes.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jusa,
Who's buying ? - mines a stout.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
What actually impinges first, on someone who has never heard Irish music before but hears it on the radio or across a crowded bar / town centre, is the pulse, speed, rhythm and characteristic sounds of the usual instruments. Distinguishing tunes is likely to come a bit later.
I think I've pinpointed four factors that, in play, define at once Irish trad to a hearer - once of course, he's been told it *is* Irish, of course! They separate it out from anything else, except (for those not familiar with these musics) for some Scottish or other Anglosphere music when played in a similar style.
But it cannot be confused with various other musics that each have this characteristic of instant 'genre' identifiability, and are each alike impossible to mistake for anything else. Things like:
'Latin' music,
'Gypsy' music (i.e., the Hungarian type),
Paris accordion music,
Greek bouzouki music,
Inca / Andean music,
Calypso,
- and so on.
This may seem rather depressing. It may look as if the key to a tradition's identity and survivability is its effectiveness in lobbing a telling soundbite. But I'd say rather - the key to a tradition's identity and survivability is the players getting on with it, and letting the telling soundbites look after themselves. Irish music has a *very* distinctive one, it's got nothing at all to worry about on that score.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I think you're confusing a few things. I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic. The sense of what fits, or belongs, and what doesn't. That is what gives the whole things it's continuity.
Do you really feel Martin Rochford in the old house near Bodyke sat in the kitchen contemporary music? ( One time I asked Martin how long he had been there 'Ah, two hundred years' he replied. I stopped to look at the house last week, and maybe take a few photographs. The roof had partly fallen. )
You'll probably argue compositions may have been contemporary, but I'll tell you, the music certainly wasn't.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic."
Oh, I like that!
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Prof,
"I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic." - That would be the "style" I talk about. It would be, of course, a "traditional style" because the "style" itself passes through the generations.
The word "contemporary" relates to the present time whilst the word "traditional" relates to something passed from one generation to another. "contemporary style" means, of course, something altogether different.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Sorry Ormey old boy - but I still can't get past your 25 years requirement. I think aesthetic is a nice word to describe what we're on about - and in this internet age, a cracker tune with the exact "aesthic" as described can be composed and quickly spread around the globe. Furthermore, because it possesses the aesthic or signature sound as Nicholas mentioned above, it could be passed from musician to musician very quickly - evenyually with all knowledge that it is a modern tune, written by a contemporary. If I heard Will Harmon's Bang your Frog on the Sofa in a session without knowing who had composed it, and somebody told me it was an old Irish tune - I would accept it as completely within the tradition. Wouldn't you? How do we know then. It is or it isn't right - based upon the sound or "aesthetic" of the tune. Isn't that all there is to it?
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Sorry - that should read - without ANY knowledge that it is a modern tune...
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Sorry ormepipes, but at this point I think it's clear you don't really know what you're arguing with or against or what you're trying to say at all.
Prof. hit it right on the head, what makes a tune traditional is the fact that it's played in a traditional style as part of a traditional community, because the aesthetic has been passed on.
All along, all I've been doing is easily poking holes in your definition. After all, one hole is all that's need to show that it is an incorrect definition.
Now that you know your definition is wrong, we can move on to a much more interesting question: why is it wrong? Refine your thoughts and then you can get back to the business of talking about tradition and what defines it.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Jusa,
Original Vs Repro
Original = Traditional
Repro = "In the style of"
We can all be fooled into thinking a "repro" is an "original"
By God Sir - this is even more fun tonight than it was last night !
Lets have another beer.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I'm terribly sorry for everyone involved with this discussion! I've just realized the problem: Ormepipes (and to an extent Steamwilkes) are prescribers, rather than describers.
This whole time I've been referring to "What Is", but they've been refuting from a stand-point of "What Should Be".
It is of course a fundamental idealogical difference that renders such discussions impossible.
Sorry again.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I think you're confusing a few things. I think the most important thing that's handed down is the aesthetic. The sense of what fits, or belongs, and what doesn't. That is what gives the whole things it's continuity. quote
subjective opinion, its my subjective opinion that SeamusEnnis was a great player,and that aesthetically his playing is beautiful but that Paddy Moloneys is not.
that which is aesthetically pleasing is subjective.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Dick Miles
Re: Irish Traditional Music
ormepipes, you asked:
)
"How can something be Irish if its not from Ireland?
How can something be traditional without the passage of time being involved?"
And I already tried to answer that before, but I'll try to state it more succinctly:
What is "Irish" is the Tradition of playing and passing on these kinds of tunes. It has it's roots in Ireland, so we call it Irish, and it has a long history of being done this way (more or less) for many generations, so it can be considered a "Tradition".
Therefore, tunes that are "composed within the tradition" CAN be considered "traditional". Even if a *specific* tune hasn't been around "long enough" (whatever that means), it is still part of the long tradition of playing and passing on these kinds of tunes. So the moniker "traditional", in my mind, means that it is part of the Tradition, not that any specific tune has been around long enough to be considered a tradition in its own right. (One might make a distinction between a "Traditional Irish Tune", and a "tune that is part of the Irish Tradition", but that would be a bit like arguing semantics, which never gets us much of anywhere...
The nice thing about defining it this way is that there are no arbitrary numbers placed on it to decide how long it has to be before a tune can be considered a tradition, and it has no boundaries placed on when or where tunes were added to the tradition. Where it does get a little fuzzy is around the edges, in deciding whether a specific tune was really "composed within the tradition". And we each get to make those choices for ourselves. There is no governing authority of the tradition (no matter how much Comhaltas would like to be just that...), and the Tradition is made up of the people who learn, play, and pass on the music. So yes, there are grey areas, as evidenced by disagreement about where to draw the lines on things like Ed Reavy tunes...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Reverend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Yeah, what music reader said.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Reverend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Thanks Reverend for summarizing succinctly what some of us have been rambling on about for several posts now.
Music reader said "that which is aesthetically pleasing is subjective"
True - The tunes that are aesthetically pleasing are welcomed into the tradition (in some cases quite rapidly) where crap is tossed aside. The participants within the tradition make that decision. How long will a pop tune stay on the charts? It's up to the bubble-gum popping listeners. How long will a tune stay in the tradition of Irish music? As long as we continue to play it.
Ormepipes - I'm a Guinness man meself - it's your turn to get the next round mate - slante!
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Thanks to the Prof there for interesting ,well put together thoughts on the music,which sort of makes the rest of the thread slightly redundant. Thats great to hear that The Killarney Boys of Pleasure came off a Boys of the lough recording and through Martin Rochford became such a renowned traditional East Clare tune. It amazed me.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by big_tab
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Looks like a thread with a happy ending after all then.
Thanks for the ride.
Jusa,
Looks like they've called "time". I'll get the last ones in - and tell the box player in the corner I'll give him a lift home.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
What!?!? Last call already? We didn't even get to play The Bucks yet!
All right. see you all next time...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"But you really have to stop making the blanket statement that "Reavy tunes aren't traditional". It's just not true." Nico.
It is true Nico, and you've obviously succumbed to the "Emporer's new clothes" syndrome if you believe otherwise. You shouldn't believe everything you hear.
No matter, it's been an interesting discussion gentlemen and women and I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this subject
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Steamwilkes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Receiving e-mails where Dick Miles tries to get a personal dig in is rapidly becoming a new type of Godwin's Law of traditional music forums.
There's a bad smell here, I am out of here.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Irish Traditional Music
There were 149 contributions to this discussion, and I hadn't even put my oar in yet.......
Let's not forget that traditional musicians of old not only played traditional music, but also popular music of the time, little bits of classical and art music too.
Where, tell me where, can you draw the line, sometimes ?
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Irish Traditional Music
That just doesn't even make any sense, Steamwilkes. Your reply, for something so short, is amazingly condescending and wonderfully designed to try to make any reply impossible. "You are wrong and it's obviously because you just believe anything you hear."
Sorry, but I think you need to stop with your prescriptive nonsense and start paying attention to what's actually going on in the community of traditional musicians. You seem to have missed the point that something is traditional if it is accepted into the community of traditional musicians who make up the tradition. That's the only definition that is workable, in my view. Your definition seems to be "Something is traditional because I say it is, and none of Ed Reavy's tunes are."
Well, all I need is one Reavy tune that is considered traditional to disprove your theory that none of his tunes are traditional. You play two... yet you don't consider them traditional?
Fine.
Red Tom of the Hills: recorded by Paddy Carty and the Kane sisters, played in sessions around the world, played by traditional musicians in their kitchens.
Never Was Piping So Gay: recorded by a large number of people, played in sessions around the world, played by traditional musicians in their kitchens, it's even been discussed here, and Paddy Fahey has a version of it too.
Leddy From Cavan: recorded by Claire Keville and the Kane sisters (and five others on here), played in sessions around the world, played by traditional musicians in their kitchens and elsewhere.
The Ceilier, Ireland We Knew, and many others are similarly quite popular and played all over.
And I haven't even touched on Maudebawn Chapel or Love at the Endings.
QED
The interesting thing is that you admit above that they are accepted by traditional musicians, yet continue to maintain that because they don't fit *your* ears, they aren't traditional. Do you really consider yourself to be the final arbiter of what is and isn't traditional?
I'm sure all this will just fall on deaf ears, but I'd be interested to know how far your ignorance goes. Are none of Paddy Fahey's tunes traditional? What about Sean Ryan's? Or Paddy Kelly's? Or Eddie Kelly's? What about Finbarr Dwyer's? See, the reason I ask is that they all share similarities with many of Ed Reavy's tunes, so your only criteria (that "some are in odd keys, odd sharps and flats thrown in, something not quite right with them to my ears") applies equally to these other composer's tunes... and in fact to many of the styles of playing found in Galway and East Clare.
Like I said previously, maybe you should accept that they are traditional, and then ask yourself why.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Nico
Re: Irish Traditional Music
This discussion reminds me of a gag by street performers The Chipolatas concerning Street Entertainment. Firstly, they would say, it doesn't necessarily have to happen in the street. Secondly, it doesn't necessarily have to be entertaining!
For me it's the same with Irish Traditional Music. It's a label for a certain genre of music. To me it makes no sense to try and pick that phrase apart it terms of what is 'Irish' and what is 'traditional'. The genre encompasses the musicians, the tunes that they play and the way that they play those tunes. Again, for me it is pointless to consider one of these factors in isolation from the others.
As with any labelling there will be disagreement about the boundaries, but in the great majority of cases there will be a broad consensus that a certain musical performance is ITM or it isn't. By way of illustration, my votes go as follows:
Irish session musicians playing an Ed Reavy tune - ITM, no contest.
Sally Gardens from the album The Very Best of Celtic Chillout (yes, it really does exist) - emphatically not ITM.
McGoldrick's band playing a 7/8 tune - borderline for me. I'd probably label that as an ITM-Balkan crossover.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by johndsamuels
Re: Irish Traditional Music
You'd hope this is the case, though I doubt it is always true, "Traditional musicians are not all that interested in considering whether or not tunes are traditional or not..
They're interested in considering whether or not tunes are good tunes."
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Nico - you're wasting your breath. Steamy has his heals dug in. It reminds me of the movie "Amadeus" where the king, lacking any real substancial argument critisizes Mozart's music by saying "em, too many notes."
I am looking forward to Steamy's other essays on subjects like:
"Chairman Mao - not really that much of a communist compared to Stalin"
"Michael Jackson - not really as black as his brother Tito"
"Melanie B - Not really a Spice Girl compared to Posh"
It should make for some entertaining reading...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Irish Traditional Music
"something is traditional if it is accepted into the community of traditional musicians who make up the tradition"
The only definition that has any practical effect or meaning, IMO.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
The funny thing is, the only time anyone ever disagrees about what's traditional in any serious way is when someone tries to define the word.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Music
... because that is attempting to denote the meaning but misses the larger connotations ...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Yep. Let it be, is my advice. So, who's up for a tune?
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Where's the whipper snapper flute player who began this set?
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
What's the traditional meaning of the word?
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Which word?
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Any of them. Except the words that can be ascribed to a particular person who made them up.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Before there was ever (Irish) Tradition(al) (Music) people probably pointed, grunted, & slapped their thigh. Tradition has come a long ways since then. Now we have the internet ...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Oops
sorry! I made that up.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
What? They only had one thigh?
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
...and yet they call it a 'dance' tradition. Hopping more likely.
Dancing with one thigh indeed. Harrumph.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by SWFL Fiddler
Oh yeah
we've come a long ways, with more to go.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Well, SWFL, hop jigs are, after all, supposed to be remnants of a very old dance form.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
... as told in the old leg end ...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
groan...
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Reverend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Ed Reavey -- peace be upon him -- took the boat over, began a new life in an Irish music parallel universe, and composed his tunes accordingly. There's something about those tunes of his that would prevent them from staying put. They even went back over the boundary! It's not that the universes stopped being parallel; it's because the membrane between the two is so thin and flimsy in places. Fwitw, Mr. Reavey had/has his detractors on his side of the membrane too.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Irish Traditional Music
yup reverend makes a good point up at the top
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by premier
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Oh no I hear you groan - he's back!
Just give me a moment.
The rev makes a very compelling point - and reasons it well. The majority of you seem to agree that what we call it (ITM), in its literal sense, does'nt seem to define it very well. The tunes don't have to be Irish and they don't have to be old. It's more about a style of playing and compositon.
I note that a number of you seem Iand I don't mean this in a bad way) fixated by dance music. There may not be room for Mr Reavey in my definition. But in yours, is there room for Carolan? - and what about Percy French ?
Going back to style of play. I believe that there are some who would sit The Chieftains outside the tradition - because of their more arranged and perhaps orchestral style. Where do they fit?
Like some fellow said earlier - "I know what I think"
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Traditional Irish Music = a particular musical style passed down through generations.
There are subcategories:
*old tunes
*established tunes
*newly composed tunes
*popular tunes
*obscure tunes
All of these subcategories are still traditional based on their style. The challenge would be to define in text what Irish Traditional Music sounds like and what defines the style... I'm not about to attempt that. The answer is in listening to the best exponents of traditional music and figuring it out for yourself.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Phantom Button
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Ah yes, Percy French. Abdul Abulbul Amir. What a great traditional Irish song that is.
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Where do The Chieftains fit? Wherever Paddy Moloney thinks the mazumah is!
Sorry, that's not meant to be cynical - Paddy's probably done more to raise the profile of Ireland's music than anybody else living today. However, there's no doubting that he's a businessman first and a musician second and a canny operator to boot. A friend who once acted as the band's roadie/sound manager on a US tour recalls that when the rest of the group were still sleeping off the excesses of the previous night Paddy would almost certainly have shot off early to undertake an interview promoting the next night's gig on a local radio station's breakfast show (and he would do this at every stage of the tour). In other words, Paddy's a pro through and through and, I'd also add, one of the most amenable people I've ever interviewed.
Yes, The Chieftains have often sounded, but by Ó Riada-inspired intention, 'orchestrated' and arranged', but any band that includes Matt Molloy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtSjM3YU7Qw) or Seán Keane (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnm7cAYs8I0) should never be positioned outside the tradition. Oh, and just, for Steamwilkes, there's a little bit of Reavy there too (plus Roger Daltrey nodding his head in appreciation).
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
The problem comes when Musicians say one thing is traditional and right and another is non traditional and wrong based on their own opinions and often excluding good music and people
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by premier
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Michael, in the OP are you saying Irish traditional music is moving away from earlier styles & moving toward a musical fusion?
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by Ben Steen
Tune Pal Alternative
Re: Tune Purity Screening Device
June 21st 2004 by Dr. Dow
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/3855/comments#comment78333
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Hey, that looks good, Random! Do you know if they're still making them?
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by ethical blend
TPSD
It's safe to say you won't find one in the Apple® Store.
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Thats not what I'm saying in the OP,
I'm saying Irish Traditional Dance music as we know it is a relativley new tradition and has been brought in over the last few hundred years from abroad and has quickly evolved into the music we know today , what I didn't make too clear is that I think peple should be a little bit more open minded to people who help it to evolve such as Mike McGoldrick.
Ceili Bands are a thing of the 20th centuary, Sean O'Riada put Irish music onto stages in the 1950's, Solo Step Dancing really took of arguably in 1994.
My repetioire would be largley made up of tunes typically found in O'Neils book or newer composition maybe of Paddy O'Brien in the latter 20th centuary and now I can learn from the thousands of tunes from the past and the new compositions of today.... personally Mike McGoldrick in my opinion is the modern day Ed Reevy or Paddy O'Brien and his music will be played for years to come - by me and others.
I once dismissed this so called contempory trad as not being traditional because it's new and different but I've changed my mind seeing that Irish Trad has always been a living and growing tradition.
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by premier
Re: Irish Traditional Music
The question about a fusion style was asked because of the reference to jazz & 7/8 rhythms. For lack of a better way to describe those elements each is very much a tradition in their own right. The term jazz is even more unwieldy than Irish traditional dance music (several styles & a variety of subgenres if not genres). 7/8 rhythms, that is bit more specific. My guess is when Irish style players compose (or play) a 7/8 it is because they have listened to traditional Balkan music.
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I think a definition came close when Jon brought up how well music fits with the established dance tradition. Of course, there are nits to be picked there, namely what Premier says, that new dances have come in over time.
For me, what makes something sound Irish is the nature of the melody. There's peculiar phrasing. Intervals between one note and the next tend to be smaller than in, say, Scottish trad, a recognizably related genre. Something that Peadar Ó Riada has said is that a good tune has a circular logic to it-- the end fits back up with the beginning.
But there are some other qualities, too, like tonality, rhythmic accents, ornamentation. When I listen to Denis Murphy play "Turkey in the Straw," it sounds Irish. If I listen to Doc Watson play it, it sounds Bluegrass. So to a certain degree, it's about HOW you play a tune.
Not only is it portable, it's history show's it's porous and open to new influences. Then again, an Irish folk musician composing and/or playing a 7/8 tune does it necessarily make it a trad tune. Perhaps the fact that no one can agree on a definition is a sign that it's not a clearly defined genre. Or that genre labels don't do justice to the music. Sorry as it may be, perhaps all we can do is make a relativistic US Supreme Court kinda ruling; we know Irish music when we hear it. ;p
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by Resodan
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Resodan,
"I think a definition came close when Jon brought up how well music fits with the established dance tradition."
Sorry, can't agree at all. If you only consider dance music you are selling what I mean by ITM way short.
Perhaps it's the dance music that concerns session musicians the most, and perhaps many sassion musicians don't take an interest in the other forms od music that are "in the tradition". The Ballads - frequently played as airs. I sincerely hope were not trying to write them out of the definition of ITM.
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Sorry, that should have read "of music" - it's the typists night off.
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
One of the great things about this music is that all, every last single one, of the the really great proponents of it have always had such a beautiful and cavalier attitude to "tradition".
And another great thing about this music is the reams and reams of the run-of-the-mill are enormously protective of tradition.
Square that contradiction in your own psyche and you will be well on your way to understanding the beauty of this music
# Posted on October 9th 2010 by ...
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Just thinking about this musical tradition humbles me everytime. Now if I could only play the tunes with their due justice.
# Posted on October 10th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Ormepipes, I agree actually with you.
I thought that it was a suggestion that started to get somewhere, but falls apart when you try and apply it. Sean nos singing and air playing are surely integral (if often overlooked) parts of the tradition.
# Posted on October 10th 2010 by Resodan
Re: Irish Traditional Music
Resodan,
Thanks,
Perhaps it just needs more work. I've not given up! The sad part is that my theory must contain "the core"- if not The Corrs!
And I strongly agree about the rest of the material that does'nt happen to be dance music. It is a fundamental part of the same tradition.
But its been an interesting journey and there seem to be spin-off threads all over the place. Its a subject that's made lots of people think and its all been good-natured stuff - which is how it should be.
# Posted on October 10th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: Irish Traditional Music
I dont think its even worth arguing over, everyones going to have different opinions. In my view, it has never really been 'Irish', but more 'Celtic', a lot of the old tunes we play came from Scotland and parts of Celtic England.
Its impossible to define what we play - Irish, Celtic, World, Folk, diddly-dee (a term that by the way makes my blood boil).
When a group of friends are sitting around playing music, its impossible to know what might happen next - me and a guitar player in Derry used to play Swamp Thing by The Grid, just for the craic!!!!
Someone said earlier that 'Irish' music can mean anything. It can mean the Dubliners, Christy Moore, The Fureys, or Lunasa, Altan, The Bothy Band, or the Wolfe Tones, Eire Og, or other Irish rebel bands, or it could be U2, the cranberries, Snow PAtrol, Boomtown Rats, the Thrills, The Script, even Derry techno band the Japanese Popstars could be Irish music, and dare I say it - B*witched!!!!!
# Posted on October 12th 2010 by banjo'd