I play both English and Irish music at sessions / workshops / in dance bands - I used to prefer the Irish and while it can be much more exciting than English in a lively session, I am beginning to think that English is more playable. The English tunes are generally played at a more even pace and less likely to 'run away'; the tunes are also much easier to pick up and learn quickly. Does anyone agree.
nedding09
There aren't many situations where they're alternatives, are there?
My perception is that Irish music works better in small groups, smaller than most sessions - say 4 people at the most - and tends to get fuzzy, mistuned and mistimed beyond that. Whereas English music scales up to enormous heterogeneous folk orchestras, so long as somebody with a clue is keeping the beat.
I don't think English - or Irish - traditional music is that homogenous. I'd also say you can play in a group as big or as small as you like, someone has to be keeping the beat!
I only have a few English tune's - But I like the one's I play..
In English Tunes I find You need more Discipline over the melody etc,, also tone of the note's comes into it more..
There's some lovely English Tune's ...
In my experience, English dance music is one tune with many variations played many times. In Irish a few tunes are played a few times with varying degrees of variation.
English tunes, to me, seem simpler in written form, but have a complexity that make them attractive. Irish tunes are more visceral and compel a player to add complexity with variations and dynamics.
Sometimes I put them together, but mostly not.
One set that we play is:
Barbara Needham's (Irish)
Miller's Maggot (English)
The Coming Dawn (New England)
I must admit, despite playing at countless English festivals over the years I've been unable to get into the music there. Though a friend and playing partner from Newcastle recently stayed at mine and taught me some Willy Taylor tunes. Like many tunes they looked rubbish on paper but he brought them to life.
Might get slated for saying this, but I think there are fewer really good players in England playing these tunes than Scots and Irish in their respective traditions (at the moment), and maybe it's not till you hear one that you can really appreciate the tunes.
English music is more likely to be played on the fore-beat, which I think *does* make it easier to keep the rhythm. Well, for me as a melodeon player, anyway.
(Playing on the back-beat, as and when appropriate, gives Irish music its springiness and lilt.)
Thank-you for this link - That being's a whole new and mystical image to English Traditional Music .. And the harmonies are just divine ,,, Lovely !
The only thing worries me in this whole video is, That wee Lasses Weight -- Or lack of it : (
Not being born into the tradition, I had to find it for myself. When I was in my teens, I never liked any of the music in the charts or anything that my mates at school were into.
I gradually came to realise that the music I liked fitted under the "folk" umbrella. Further exposure told me that it was he older "traditional" stuff I liked best and this was even further refined when I realised that 90% of the "good" stuff amongst that was of Irish origin.
I'm not saying I hate English music, far from it, but it deos seem like a poor relation to me.
At least I evolved my own taste rather than allowing anyone else to tell me what I liked. It all comes down to personal preference in the end.
Kerfuffle are dynamic ! Saw them at Whitby this summer, and other festivals previous years.
I play lots of different stuff, there's no need to go partisan about it. The only thing wrong is to try and turn it all into one big mash, you have to recognize the different approaches to the different areas of music.
David50
Yeah she looks Well and Healthy in this Vid --
She will now likely give me a large kick up the A*se for that last
comment -- Oh ! Dear - : )
jim,,,
Ormepipes, your comment above could be custom-made for me too. In my case it was a book of Thomas Hardy's tunes that did it - and again I soon found out that most of them had Scottish or Irish origins.
I think that whoMever made the earlier comment about S/ITM being better in smaller groups had a very valid point. Round here we have some fairly large sessions and my accumulating experience is suggesting that the English tunes sit better with 20-30 players.
I do two music things outside of school - the Comhaltas and a local (Very English) Youth Folk Ensemble. I much prefer the former, to be honest. I don't know what it is - English folk just bores me, no matter how much cheering, whooping and grinning the musicians throw into it.
And Jesus, I can't be doing with Morris Dancing, all seems very odd to me.
That said, the Urban Folk Quartet are a great traditional band, but they're slightly Spanish too. And Show of Hands are a fantastic duo.
Morris is one of those things like the Monarchy or ceremonial do's - the whole formality / costume / frankly, sometimes, pompous aspect of it can have an allure for some and be something that others simply can't stand, for reasons that needn't have much to do with the actual dancing and music, which - well done - can be something very strong: then, it is by no means a case of costumes and buffoonery padding out a weak core.
"The English tunes are generally played at a more even pace"
I recall the late Danny Kyle having a good moan and groan about an English "Ceilidh" band that the Arran Folk Festival had booked in 93 or 94. Over 600 in a marquee and no-one dancing. "Regimented", he said.
Yet the Old Blind Dogs had them fighting for space on the floor from the first to last notes.
I think ormepipes' experience rang true for me as well at one time. However, since moving to Mid Wales (from London), I have found much less opportunity to play Irish music - ironically, English tunes are the staple of most sessions in this area (you have to look a bit harder to find Welsh tunes). It so happens that there is a handful of very good players of English tunes here, with whom it is my pleasure to play, so I have learned much of their common repertoire. On the other hand, with one or two exceptions, if somebody starts an Irish tune, I find it intensely frustrating as it doesn't sound like what I know as 'Irish music'.
Admittedly, I'm not a great fan of the huge melodeon, tuba and drum orchestras often found in English festival sessions. But, as with any kind of music, if you can get 'inside' the tune, you can find a lot more in there than is immediately obvious. For many people with a background in Irish music, one of the perceived problems with English tunes, I think, is the relative lack of notes (not true of all English tunes, but perhaps true of most of the common session repertoire). But the thing to bear in mind is that, for, say, every 3 notes of a typical Irish tune, an English tune may have one note, plus three notes worth of space to play around with. Now, if you're up against 20 melodeons, that space quickly fills up with white noise, but if you're playing with 3 or 4 other musicians - say concertina, fiddle and plucked strings - it's a different cafetière of piranhas.
I guess I am not the only one who let youtube lead me through a stream of Kerfuffle clips yesterday. The 'playing together as a band since the age of 12 or 13' bit in that interview is something for next time the 10,000 hours to be an expert discussion comes around.
I suspect the 10,000 hours business started off somewhere in the classical music world, and I'm inclined to think it was an off the cuff remark, anyway.
To put it in perspective, here's a quote 3 days ago on the violinist.com forum (http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=18879) from a recently retired symphony professional violinist (so he knows what he's talking about): "I've come across people who can get pretty good on 2500 hours." That is a far more realistic and achievable target. In the final analysis the time taken to become an "expert" (whatever that means) depends equally on the quality of work put into it.
I guess I was just meaning it puts a perspective on the time, work and experience, it takes to become good. Also that a lot of people who are doing well at their chosen career in their early twenties did start working at it 10 years earlier, even if it was 'just' putting in the time at school.
When English food was dull, bland and lumpy, so was (a lot of) English trad.
Then English food began to aspire. It continued, till it matured to the monstrous unbridled culinary hell that it is today. Every conceivable ingredient now roils in the cauldron along with its own weight in chilli powder, to be in due course doused in some strident fluorescent unspeakable slick to draw attention from the fact that the essential Industrial Revolution core of sugar, salt and fat hasn't budged, and has been put there to kill you.
English trad has tracked this development astonishingly closely.
Everything is being flung in and mixed up and every gimmick tried out. Actually, I'm not knocking this per se - there's a great deal of interest and experimentation going on, is the up-beat way of looking at it. But a lot of the results are best tried once, if that. However, at least some of it comes out well, or better. *Some* of it has to!
I hadn't heard Sam and Hannah before. They're good.
English or Irish music?
English or Irish music?
I play both English and Irish music at sessions / workshops / in dance bands - I used to prefer the Irish and while it can be much more exciting than English in a lively session, I am beginning to think that English is more playable. The English tunes are generally played at a more even pace and less likely to 'run away'; the tunes are also much easier to pick up and learn quickly. Does anyone agree.
nedding09
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by nednog
Re: English or Irish music?
apples & oranges?
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: English or Irish music?
There aren't many situations where they're alternatives, are there?
My perception is that Irish music works better in small groups, smaller than most sessions - say 4 people at the most - and tends to get fuzzy, mistuned and mistimed beyond that. Whereas English music scales up to enormous heterogeneous folk orchestras, so long as somebody with a clue is keeping the beat.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Jack Campin
Re: English or Irish music?
This is the karma which comes from thinking music is geographic. i.e. ~ placing music 'of the british isles' in a single basket.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: English or Irish music?
I don't think English - or Irish - traditional music is that homogenous. I'd also say you can play in a group as big or as small as you like, someone has to be keeping the beat!
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Red Menace
Re: English or Irish music?
I only have a few English tune's - But I like the one's I play..
In English Tunes I find You need more Discipline over the melody etc,, also tone of the note's comes into it more..
There's some lovely English Tune's ...
jim,,,
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: English or Irish music?
In my experience, English dance music is one tune with many variations played many times. In Irish a few tunes are played a few times with varying degrees of variation.
English tunes, to me, seem simpler in written form, but have a complexity that make them attractive. Irish tunes are more visceral and compel a player to add complexity with variations and dynamics.
Sometimes I put them together, but mostly not.
One set that we play is:
Barbara Needham's (Irish)
Miller's Maggot (English)
The Coming Dawn (New England)
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Toppish
Re: English or Irish music?
Here's some great English:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lh9X8I0iTs
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Gran Cassa
Re: English or Irish music?
Which English music? There are many.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Dr. Dow
Re: English or Irish music?
I must admit, despite playing at countless English festivals over the years I've been unable to get into the music there. Though a friend and playing partner from Newcastle recently stayed at mine and taught me some Willy Taylor tunes. Like many tunes they looked rubbish on paper but he brought them to life.
Might get slated for saying this, but I think there are fewer really good players in England playing these tunes than Scots and Irish in their respective traditions (at the moment), and maybe it's not till you hear one that you can really appreciate the tunes.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by bogman
Re: English or Irish music?
English music is more likely to be played on the fore-beat, which I think *does* make it easier to keep the rhythm. Well, for me as a melodeon player, anyway.
(Playing on the back-beat, as and when appropriate, gives Irish music its springiness and lilt.)
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by nicholas
Re: English or Irish music?
Thank-you for this link - That being's a whole new and mystical image to English Traditional Music .. And the harmonies are just divine ,,, Lovely !
The only thing worries me in this whole video is, That wee Lasses Weight -- Or lack of it : (
jim,,,
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: English or Irish music?
She doesn't look weak or feeble when clog dancing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT7piWgR374
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by David50
Re: English or Irish music?
Crickey, wouldn't fancy a kick in the ass off off her!
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by bogman
Re: English or Irish music?
Not being born into the tradition, I had to find it for myself. When I was in my teens, I never liked any of the music in the charts or anything that my mates at school were into.
I gradually came to realise that the music I liked fitted under the "folk" umbrella. Further exposure told me that it was he older "traditional" stuff I liked best and this was even further refined when I realised that 90% of the "good" stuff amongst that was of Irish origin.
I'm not saying I hate English music, far from it, but it deos seem like a poor relation to me.
At least I evolved my own taste rather than allowing anyone else to tell me what I liked. It all comes down to personal preference in the end.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by ormepipes
Re: English or Irish music?
Kerfuffle are dynamic ! Saw them at Whitby this summer, and other festivals previous years.
I play lots of different stuff, there's no need to go partisan about it. The only thing wrong is to try and turn it all into one big mash, you have to recognize the different approaches to the different areas of music.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: English or Irish music?
David50
Yeah she looks Well and Healthy in this Vid --
She will now likely give me a large kick up the A*se for that last
comment -- Oh ! Dear - : )
jim,,,
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: English or Irish music?
Ormepipes, your comment above could be custom-made for me too. In my case it was a book of Thomas Hardy's tunes that did it - and again I soon found out that most of them had Scottish or Irish origins.
I think that whoMever made the earlier comment about S/ITM being better in smaller groups had a very valid point. Round here we have some fairly large sessions and my accumulating experience is suggesting that the English tunes sit better with 20-30 players.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by ian stock
Re: English or Irish music?
Kerfuffle with a set of 3/2 hornpipes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35ITaZq3Mw8&feature=related
This is definitely stuff where you play a tune many times... getting more elaborate as you go on.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by spindizzy
Re: English or Irish music?
fcol, it's all music
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Oeidipus
Re: English or Irish music?
Couldn't agree more with ormpipes.
I do two music things outside of school - the Comhaltas and a local (Very English) Youth Folk Ensemble. I much prefer the former, to be honest. I don't know what it is - English folk just bores me, no matter how much cheering, whooping and grinning the musicians throw into it.
And Jesus, I can't be doing with Morris Dancing, all seems very odd to me.
That said, the Urban Folk Quartet are a great traditional band, but they're slightly Spanish too. And Show of Hands are a fantastic duo.
# Posted on November 25th 2010 by Tom.M
Re: English or Irish music?
Morris is one of those things like the Monarchy or ceremonial do's - the whole formality / costume / frankly, sometimes, pompous aspect of it can have an allure for some and be something that others simply can't stand, for reasons that needn't have much to do with the actual dancing and music, which - well done - can be something very strong: then, it is by no means a case of costumes and buffoonery padding out a weak core.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by nicholas
Re: English or Irish music?
"The English tunes are generally played at a more even pace"
I recall the late Danny Kyle having a good moan and groan about an English "Ceilidh" band that the Arran Folk Festival had booked in 93 or 94. Over 600 in a marquee and no-one dancing. "Regimented", he said.
Yet the Old Blind Dogs had them fighting for space on the floor from the first to last notes.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by bigdee
Re: English or Irish music?
Irish for sure...
... but there are a lot of really good english groups out there and I can never render an english tune like Spiers and Boden etc etc.
I can't see you-tube at work, but reading about the weight-challenged clog dancer and discussion on Kerfuffle I know what I'm missing
btw Kerfuffle are plarying at Priddy village hall real soon if anyone is in the area
http://www.priddyfolk.org/modx/
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by stripthewillow
Re: English or Irish music?
I think ormepipes' experience rang true for me as well at one time. However, since moving to Mid Wales (from London), I have found much less opportunity to play Irish music - ironically, English tunes are the staple of most sessions in this area (you have to look a bit harder to find Welsh tunes). It so happens that there is a handful of very good players of English tunes here, with whom it is my pleasure to play, so I have learned much of their common repertoire. On the other hand, with one or two exceptions, if somebody starts an Irish tune, I find it intensely frustrating as it doesn't sound like what I know as 'Irish music'.
Admittedly, I'm not a great fan of the huge melodeon, tuba and drum orchestras often found in English festival sessions. But, as with any kind of music, if you can get 'inside' the tune, you can find a lot more in there than is immediately obvious. For many people with a background in Irish music, one of the perceived problems with English tunes, I think, is the relative lack of notes (not true of all English tunes, but perhaps true of most of the common session repertoire). But the thing to bear in mind is that, for, say, every 3 notes of a typical Irish tune, an English tune may have one note, plus three notes worth of space to play around with. Now, if you're up against 20 melodeons, that space quickly fills up with white noise, but if you're playing with 3 or 4 other musicians - say concertina, fiddle and plucked strings - it's a different cafetière of piranhas.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: English or Irish music?
Here is an equally good (if not better, imo) video from Sam and Hannah (see http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/26072#comment551120), this time with an interview in the second half. Great ensemble of fiddle and PA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF2AV1FrNyo&feature=related
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: English or Irish music?
>> Over 600 in a marquee and no-one dancing. ..Yet the Old Blind Dogs had them fighting for space on the floor from the first to last notes.
And there, in that small clip is all anyone really needs to say...
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by ian stock
Re: English or Irish music?
I guess I am not the only one who let youtube lead me through a stream of Kerfuffle clips yesterday. The 'playing together as a band since the age of 12 or 13' bit in that interview is something for next time the 10,000 hours to be an expert discussion comes around.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by David50
Re: English or Irish music?
I suspect the 10,000 hours business started off somewhere in the classical music world, and I'm inclined to think it was an off the cuff remark, anyway.
To put it in perspective, here's a quote 3 days ago on the violinist.com forum (http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=18879) from a recently retired symphony professional violinist (so he knows what he's talking about): "I've come across people who can get pretty good on 2500 hours." That is a far more realistic and achievable target. In the final analysis the time taken to become an "expert" (whatever that means) depends equally on the quality of work put into it.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: English or Irish music?
I guess I was just meaning it puts a perspective on the time, work and experience, it takes to become good. Also that a lot of people who are doing well at their chosen career in their early twenties did start working at it 10 years earlier, even if it was 'just' putting in the time at school.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by David50
Re: English or Irish music?
English Trad is an extension of English food.
When English food was dull, bland and lumpy, so was (a lot of) English trad.
Then English food began to aspire. It continued, till it matured to the monstrous unbridled culinary hell that it is today. Every conceivable ingredient now roils in the cauldron along with its own weight in chilli powder, to be in due course doused in some strident fluorescent unspeakable slick to draw attention from the fact that the essential Industrial Revolution core of sugar, salt and fat hasn't budged, and has been put there to kill you.
English trad has tracked this development astonishingly closely.
Everything is being flung in and mixed up and every gimmick tried out. Actually, I'm not knocking this per se - there's a great deal of interest and experimentation going on, is the up-beat way of looking at it. But a lot of the results are best tried once, if that. However, at least some of it comes out well, or better. *Some* of it has to!
I hadn't heard Sam and Hannah before. They're good.
# Posted on November 26th 2010 by nicholas
Re: English or Irish music?
Play English if you like it, English trad could use you.
# Posted on November 28th 2010 by Marklar
Re: English or Irish music?
I think English traditional music is in safe hands with the likes of Sam and Hannah taking care of it.
# Posted on November 28th 2010 by Trevor Jennings