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This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
As The Spear said here recently (to paraphrase) things on here are a bit quiet and need livening up.
I made the remark in the title to people at a session in Glasgow recently but they were polite enough not to take issue with it, for which thanks guys. I might get more mileage from you lot though.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Touché. To be fair you're probably right. At some of the fold music events I go to for young people, most of the kids are posh and at private schools, including me. I think that its just what became popular after the price of booze went up so much that only the middle class can afford to go to pubs. And middle class people have more oppertunities to learn instruments. :D Rant over? Ah well back to french lessons then, Au revoir!!!!
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I agree with the second bit, but not the first. And, thumb to kink about it, even the second bit's a bit dodgy ...
[by which I mean, if you're a 'professional' trad musician ... well, you might start off middle class, but you'll be poor as a church mouse pretty quickly]
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Right, so what's wrong with the first bit? Well, for a start, it implies that the music is rural. I just don't think it is. You can go back as far as you like in the known history of this music, and you'll always find that there's more of it in cities than out in the sticks. Dublin, Chicago, London, Limerick, Cork, Liverpool etc etc etc ... and all that was being talked about in the nienteenth century, too. Can I give references? Er ... no. It's from perceptions gleaned from all the various writings of people like O'Neil and his supporters, Roche, Henebry et Al (I've never known who this 'Al' was ... ?) that I've read over the years. In relation to the notion that it's rural, it's perhaps worth bearing in mind that, in the beginning part of the 19c, Ireland was much more populous than it is today.
I also think that the music has always been played by all sorts, including professionals (doctors, lawyers etc). Plenty of 19c literature seems to contain professional class people playing trad, including Irish trad. (Books by, for instance, Dickens and Stevenson. There must be more ...)
Nowadays, of course, there are special places, out in the sticks, reserved specifically as centres of trad for the emmetts to gravitate to - Lisdoonvarna and nearby Doolin, for instance.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
It still is peasant music.
Your use of the word is as the adjective, not the noun.
i.e., it pertains to, or is characteristic of peasants, their traditions, way of life, crafts, etc.
It doesn't matter who plays it. And of course, it is, never has, and never will be "owned" by anyone, any class, any nationality, or indeed any subculture.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ethical, I think you have your wires crossed terribly there. Irish music has always thrived in rural areas. Traditional music found in cities has always come from the influx of country people and was not a thing 'of the city'.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ethical .. The prof is correct. The "city" people who played this music were in fact originally rural or at least their parents were. There are always exceptions but the contrast is stark when you compare it to the important role this music played in the life of rural people. One of the exceptions might be that there might have been a bastion of uileann pipers in Dublin.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Who says it doesn't play an important roll in the lives of city people? .... I ask, as I plough through my list of things to do today and plant the seeds of ideas.
(ps, I was woken - and all my neighbors too - this morning at the crack of dawn by my three year old shouting "cockadoodledoo" at the top of his voice for over half an hour)
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
At ellisisland.org I was able to find the Port of New York ship’s manifest that listed my teenaged grandfather as a passenger. Under “Occupation” was written “Peasant.”
Despite the college ejimication and desk job, I don’t think the nut has fallen so far from the tree.
The 'middle class' is a fairly recent phenomenon. Soon to be but a memory if trends continue.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"middle class" is not a recent phenomenon, for centuries it was a well established and deliberate barrier to social mobility who's chief weapon, for the most part, was the cost of education. And though it's significance waned during the 20th century, it is sadly now making a vociferous come back.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I would like to add something about 'the piper's bastion of Dublin'. I talked fairly extensively about this to Tommy Reck and to a lesser extend to Mick O Connor (in connection to his history of the Piper's Club).
Tommy said traditional music was not acceptable in Dublin. If they went to places to play, they'd be kicked out. Musicians, country people moved to the city, first or second generation, met in private houses or clubs established specifically for the purpose like the old Piper's Club.
With regards to the pipes you will have to take into account there was a specific cultural movement to keep them alive, which explains to some extend the influx of city people. The Rowsomes, Recks, they came from Co Wexford before settling in Dublin, Mulligans from Leitrim, etc etc.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I was referring to the ubiquitous urban middle class in America, which only became a majority of the population in the 20th century. Wealthy, non-noble mercantile classes have been around for a very long time of course. It’s also possible ‘middle class’ may mean slightly different things in the UK and the US.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
The term peasant refers to small-acreage farmers producing only crops for their own family use. It is doubtful whether this type of employment has been common, at least since the Famine. I would suggest that this class has never even existed in America, so what class of people really produced our music?
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
The 'middle classes' have always been charmed by things that they perceived as relics from an innocent, bucolic past. They have always had the sensitivity (and luxury of being able) to appreciate the 'authenticity' of such things - same reason that many fine artefacts were/are made by labourers and acquired by professionals - 'twas thus ever since the Arts & Crafts movvement, if not before.
Then there is the class divide between the artist and the Critic. I would suggest that the work of people like Vaughan Williams and Grainger was also motivated by a middle-class desire to preserve the 'innocent' rural past.
What seems more significant today, to me, is the apparent correlation between interest in this music and high academic achievement. Without wanting to be elitist, I find it rather reassuring that a lot of educated people here seem to want cerebral nourishment from the(ir) music rather than just a glimpse of the singer's knickers.
I guess the middle classes simply have always had more access to the education that might encourage such an outlook.
Ian (second generation teacher, descended from Leicestershire coal miners and hosiery workers and Dorsetshire warehousemen...)
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Lisdoonvarna and Doolin are the stick?!! that perspective always throws me coming from this side of the world. I have not been to anywhere at all in Ireland that I am not very conscious of millions and millions of people not far away, or frighteningly, an hour or so by plane. Scary; and if you keep going west you end up in the States! Jeez, talk about getting caught between a rock and a hard place. What's Greenland like? Do they have any sticks?
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
When did I last see a peasant? When I stood in front of a mirror this morning and looked in the mirror.
"I often see this music played by people with no class at all..." Now that sounds like some of the musicians at the local sessions.
I wa born and raised in the city but my great-grandparents and grandparents were almost all born and raised on farms. Some of them moved to the city and some stayed on the farm.\
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
from my studies in English lit, I recall reading Edmund Spenser's diaries who was sent to Ireland to kick some ass for his Queen and her embattled colonist nobles.
He remarked on how (and this is mid 1500s) what struck him in Ireland was the people's musicality. He said the Irish were given over hugely to song and dance. His wife apparently was mad for the dance and had all kinds of musicians over, and apparently music and dance were one of the few ways in which irish and English were able to mix (many of the nobility at that time did nto speak English).
Spenser had spent time in France, Italy Flanders etc and remarked how much more musical the Irish-- all the Irish, from the chieftains to the peasants-- were than other peoples of Europe.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yes!
This is 'mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people'- GOOD, I'M GLAD! I don't won't to have to rub shoulders or, Heavens forbid! socially communicate with hoi polloi, oiks & the riff raff!
I see us (well most of us!) as gentlemen amateurs.
Haven't the chattering classes always had a slightly romantic interest in the notion of the proles and their country side pursuits (Marie Antoinette poncing about in mock cottages on her estate). Similar to Victorian toffs in top hats slumming it in Whitechaple with the whores and opium dens.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I asked this very question last summer. I was volunteering at the local music festival, listening to yet another middle-aged white guy playin' da blues to an audience of middle-aged white people. We all communed in our downtrodden, oppressed pain, sharing a moment of solidarity while resenting The Man. All of us had been left, at some point, by Our Baby. But then most of us just went out shopping, and felt better, in spite of having Been Done Wrong.
Our local session has a pronounced scarcity of blue-collar persons. The diddley music seems to be our drug of choice because none of us watch TV. Could this be the key?
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
In many societies around the world, musicians seem to occupy a class of their own, whether above or below that of most other people. I'm not going to add anything to this statement, as I'm not articulate enough. But I'd be interested to see whether anyone agrees with this, or whether I am imagining it.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yes CMO, I think you are onto something there, though it may not be quite as revolutionary as Michelle suspects. Musicians and artists in general seem to be driven by different imperatives from the more mainstream population. I suspect it may be to do with looking inward for fulfilment rather than outward. Consequently they may be less concerned with the hierarchical gradations that others construct with which to define themselves.
I am quite curious about how many people here eschew many of the more mainstream activities/interests. For example, I have almost no interest in mainstream sport, nor celebrity lives, and I am not the first person on here recently to mention that they rarely watch T.V.
Perhaps we have chosen to define ourselves by our own aesthetic motivations - which just so happen to find expression through a rather obscure genre of music?
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I agree with zippydw's observation. Seems the fortunes of plenty of Trad musicians ( and most anyone else) in the US, are sinking fast. "Middle classness" is on its way to being a fond memory, hereabouts. CMO, In response to your observation: back when it was alive and vigorous, the US middle class took a dim view of musical persuits -- or the arts in general. Only a relative handfull of musicians enjoy anything like prestige or livable earnings here. The rest make up a sub-species of human, actually. I understand, that in some countries, musicians are valued members of their communities. Must be sweet.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Mix has a point. I think the aristocracy and the gentry have been players (not necessarily literally) in keeping traditional music going, for a long time.
The house dances banned in de Valera's Ireland - had they been, some of them, in the "Big Houses"? I would have thought so, though may be mistaken.
There were the "gentlemen pipers", though I don't know how many, if any, were literally gentry.
Gigs with the gentry may have been agreeable ones for the musicians, with a decent fee and good food and drink. And maybe the chance of running off with a wild child countess or something, a la Raggle-Taggle Gypsies. Today's nexus between aristocracy and rock-ocracy was surely parallelled in the past by a similar one between aristos and trad musicians, in some times and places anyway.
Northumberland gentry have supported players of the Northumbrian smallpipes, during and since the time of Jimmy Allen who was too hot to handle and lost his patronage because he was nicking stuff.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Of course there were gentry helping the music and there still is..Garech De Brún. The house dances were in cottages and were popular among the ordinary people who never saw a big house. Fecking priests put a stop to them!
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
How do you define middle class to be able to claim it is on the way out? Not saying I disagree with you - just want to know your criteria.
Where I teach, east of London, most people apparently define themselves as resolutely middle class, but from what I can see, this is purely in terms of income - in cultural terms they have moved on relatively little from their less mobile relatives who still reside, in many cases, in the East End or eastern suburbs.
Given the prevalence and ascendancy of their value system, they are patently not 'on the way out' - but in what I consider to be 'real' middle class, cultural terms, they aren't even yet on the way IN...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Well, my viewpoint of the middle class is from somewhere down beneath them... A simple definition of ones' class standing would be earning-saving ability; buying power; housing; education opportunity; etc. All have been seriously eroded. If I get your question right, yes, attitudes and values count a great deal too. These don't change so quickly; as compared to the abrupt way ones' economic circumstances can be changed.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
All music is class - less these days. We all have the internet and can all listen to and play what we like.
And regarding middle class, its a myth. A myth put about by certain professions. If you have to work for a living, your working class, end of.
Rudyard Kipling had it about right for my money............
I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way,
Or male and female devilkins to lead my feet astray.
If these are added, I rejoice -- if not, I shall not mind,
So long as I have leave and choice to meet my fellow-kind.
For as we come and as we go (and deadly-soon go we!)
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
Thus I will honour pious men whose virtue shines so bright
(Though none are more amazed than I when I by chance do right),
And I will pity foolish men for woe their sins have bred
(Though ninety-nine per cent. of mine I brought on my own head).
And, Amorite or Eremite, or General Averagee,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
And when they bore me overmuch, I will not shake mine ears,
Recalling many thousand such whom I have bored to tears.
And when they labour to impress, I will not doubt nor scoff;
Since I myself have done no less and -- sometimes pulled it off.
Yea, as we are and we are not, and we pretend to be,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
And when they work me random wrong, as oftentimes hath been,
I will not cherish hate too long (my hands are none too clean).
And when they do me random good I will not feign surprise.
No more than those whom I have cheered with wayside charities.
But, as we give and as we take -- whate'er our takings be --
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
But when I meet with frantic folk who sinfully declare
There is no pardon for their sin, the same I will not spare
Till I have proved that Heaven and Hell which in our hearts we have
Show nothing irredeemable on either side of the grave.
For as we live and as we die -- if utter Death there be --
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
Deliver me from every pride -- the Middle, High, and Low --
That bars me from a brother's side, whatever pride he show.
And purge me from all heresies of thought and speech and pen
That bid me judge him otherwise than I am judged. Amen!
That I may sing of Crowd or King or road-borne company,
That I may labour in my day, vocation and degree,
To prove the same in deed and name, and hold unshakenly
(Where'er I go, whate'er I know, whoe'er my neighbor be)
This single faith in Life and Death and to Eternity:
"The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!"
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I think in England there have been middle classes preoccupied with getting on - importantly including getting, and staying, out of poverty - and middle classes preoccupied with lifestyle, finding their individual vocation or thing and doing it. This is a hasty generalisation, not a value-judgement.
In trad, members of the former group are quite likely to make a decent living out of making instruments and studios.
Members of the latter group are more likely to spend their time avoiding their round and day-dreaming of being locked in a lift with the Celtic Women.
I am in the latter group, though I only wrote that last line for effect.
When it comes down to it, no other class would have me.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Indigenous music and dance might have been scarce in the ballrooms of the big houses. I'm not so sure about that; else, what prompted planxties like "Loftus Jones?" I don't know. Were there no musical evenings down in the kitchens of the big houses?
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Define middle class? Well, there have been 50-odd posts already, the sign of a healthy discussion, and people have freely shared their viewpoints without bothering too much to define middle class
Don't sociologists have all these complex groupings of people ranging from 1-5 with several sub-categories? Let's just say social classes 2 and 3, I'm not really that bothered. Ian stock says he's a teacher, I'm a research technician (just scraping into band 3 I imagine), there are a couple of PhD's on here, others I know personally are a few teachers, a company chief exec, personnel manager, accountant, software consultant, graphic designer, and so on. But to be honest, it would be easier to define middle class against peasant, or agricultural worker. Not many of them left in rural Ireland, even less in Scotland, or England and Wales. I can't speak for anywhere else. It's probably a generational thing. 150-200 years ago most of these people described above would have been farm workers as well. The Creadur probably made a very relevant point but I think that applies more to musicians nowadays, many of whom are not driven by status, whereas previously they would have had to work as hard as other "peasants" to make ends meet and feed their family, I imagine. But thanks for the lively thread, folks.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I'm not sure my wires are all *that* crossed, Peter. I've just been reminding myself of some of the great names. Plenty came from country areas and moved to the city - John Kelly and Bobby Casey, for instance, and plenty of others were born in the city - Seamus Ennis And Sean O Riada, for instance. Two examples of each, although all four of those ended up in cities (I think). Or ended up spending a fair amount of time in cities ...
But I have of course just picked them to make a point. I probably overstated it earlier, but I don't much go for a romaticised notion of the music as being entirely rural and somehow more 'real', more 'valid' as a result. Plenty of parts of the music wouldn't have come into the tradition at all if it weren't for becoming popular in cities - polkas for sure, and, arguably, reels - that's if you accept that a large part of the reel tradition was brought in originally by Scottish immigrants and visitors, who I'm guessing would be likely to have been found more in cities than elsewhere (seems a fair bet).
And perhaps plenty of the tradition wouldn't have survived without being carried on undisturbed in rural areas.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Aye, fifty-odd posts and no real effort to define middle class (except by me, with my beer umbrellas). I've just spotted another criteria - hardly any of us here mispell words and our grammer is perfect so I reckon we're all middle class here. Or, as we say, middle clarse...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Actually, ethical and Prof, I personally am not that bothered with the city versus rural locality question. I could have said *working class* vis a vis middle class, but that would have implied an urban factory-based proletariat, and Ireland is, or was, a mostly rural society; hence I initially said peasant.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Beer umbrellas! It's not that far in its ridiculousness, from the sorts of fru-fru the new ridership wants on its public transport in my county. Economic circumstances have caused more and more San Jose folks to leave their cars at home. Now, money has been found for providing our county busses with tray tables, cup holders, internet plugs! Got to have those! I'd have been content with a few more buses, or dare I even dream it -- new shock absorbers on the existing buses.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Bet you guys had a public transit system once. Bet it was put out of business by the car. Bet you reinstate it before much longer. Bet the bourgies won't ride until their levels of comfort are satisfactorily met, even though the price of fuel is high. Maybe that is the definition of middle class: expectations of comfort.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Perhaps one of the defining characteristics of the middle class (at least in the USofA) is that we are willing to pay for things that used to be free: Bottled water; a gym membership so that you can regularly mimic physical labor (but you *must* drive to the gym in your car. No cheating and riding a bike or walking.); Little League; cable TV; employing a 'cleaning lady'; arranged play dates for kids. I suppose the it is in the tradition of Mr. Veblen's conspicuous consumption.
So it follows (?) that we can curate and interest in a tradition that is not strictly traditional for a people raised with no particular tradition. Or something.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ethical. We ca nargue marginal issues: Séamus Ennis was born in Jamestown Lodge, at the time a completely rural location in North Co Dublin. His father was a senior civil servant though.
I have no romantic notions of rural music being more real or more valid.
I have taken a nice picture of the late Denis Doody having a drink, umbrella and cherry and all. We got those, on special nights.
Steve, count your blessings. Petrol has gone over €1.50 p/l here.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
People keep on going on about what we had as middle-classers but we're all about to lose, oh yeah we all spent too much and now we're all in debt and it's pay-back time. It doesn't have to be like that. You all just gonna roll over and let the bankers sh!t on you?
I posted this on another thread but I don't care I'll post it everywhere it's worth airing again and again.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw&feature=player_detailpage
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Or even worse: really screw up and use 'criterium' when you meant 'criterion'. And everybody would just think you were talking about a bike race. Which is another middle class thing.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Middle Class" - come on Danny, what's this excrement?
It depends if you recognise the class system really. Personally I tend to treat everyone the same, unless someone is obviously a gobsh*te. Traditional music is great at breaking down these invented and nonsensical boundaries; I recall playing in a session once where there was an unemployed building labourer, myself - working in science, a mechanic, and also a prof of physics. Everyone was treated as an equal - as it should be in life as a whole.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
No need to argue, Peter. I always have, in the back of my mind, the sort of people I'd love to share a tune with. Have we had a tiune or two? Anyway, If I've overstated, or even if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter. Not really. And I know that you're not the type to have those sort of romantic notions. But folks do, ya know ...
Back to Rudall: the sentiments are fine. I'm always just a tad suspicious about Mr Moore, mind ... I tend to think he's more interested in sensationalism than in the 'causes' he appears to espouse. "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." (Much as Peter would no doubt accuse me of. )
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ron - I actually agree with you. It is a load of baallox. In my other interest (though I have to say I'm too old to be even half-useless nowadays) middle to long distance running at club level, I've seen the same as you described, many times over. Brickies, chippies, labourers, van delivery men, unemployed lads, out for a club run with lawyers, professors, doctors, vets and so on. But it is how these occupations are perceived by society at large, is what I'm on about. I personally couldn't give a toss what someone did the rest of the time....well, I would, out of personal interest, but I wouldn't judge them by it.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
You probably know, Rudall, that I'd be on the side of the positions Michael Moore *appears* to favour. Having seen the film he made about 9/11 though, I just don't trust his motives. There was too much that was either shoe-horned in or plain made up. I've always been of the school that says, about political stuff, that it is better to acknowledge facts and opinions that might be uncomfortable given one's own viewpoint, than to blot them out as if they didn't exist. I don't think Michael Moore would subscriube to that view.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yes absolutely correct. Same thing happened to punk rock but in a much shorter time frame. It went from a working class kids thing to an art school suburban thing. There shouldn't be any argument as to the truth of the OP- I think it's obvious- the question is what impact this change has had on the music. Softened it up, made it more user friendly....these might be good things but I dunno...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
In the US the term middle class is used to signify, by politicians left or right, anyone 'harmed' by the opposite political view point. Suck it up dopes! And keep kiliin' them A-rabs!
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Maybe this has already been said or implied somewhere in this thread.... Prof., as early as the mid 1800s (thanks to the flood of Irish fleeing the famine), Irish music was a largely urban happening here in the States. A different experience than in Ireland, but still relevant, especially as the music came back to Ireland in the 1920s on those early recordings.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"There are maybe two pubs in the whole of Dublin for a decent session. It would be rare to hear a tune at a social occasion in the cities."
That comment had passed me by, but is worth picking up on.
It's not true. I can think of 5 pub sessions (well, much more than that, but loads of sessions in 5 pubs) off the top of my head, and I don't know Dublin very well. I only get there two or three times a year.
I've also been involved in social occasions where there's been plenty of tunes - private house sessions, birthday parties, and I missed playing at a wedding party because I was asked to play somewhere else (turned out to be a miked up session for some do in a pub) and I couldn't do both.
Now, if I, with almost no connections in Dublin, can experience this, what else is there if you actually know/spend time in the place?
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I suppose one could argue that the term "peasant" itself is a construction of the elite, landholding classes, used to pejoratively describe agricultural worker classes in a feudal society.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
And people are still confusing the noun with the adjective. They are very different. Peasant music (the adjective) is music pertaining to, or is characteristic of peasants. It does not mean music played by peasants.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I'm supposed to be one of those people who rose from the slums (true) to become middle class (a teacher, so true again). People like me are the worst b*astards on the planet apart from the Royal Family.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
But to royal families, bastards are very important, they are actively, but tacitly, encouraged. Horrific genetic bottle necks become unavoidable without them.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I've not looked into the etymology of the word but since at least the nineteenth century it's been used pejoratively and patronizingly by the upper class to ascribe certain characteristics to lower classes.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Other countries seem to have a word and concept that get translated as peasant that are not used pejoratively and patronizingly. A friend who is a smallholder with a part time job drove to eastern europe (can't remember where) on holiday and one of the locals asked him what about the peasants in England. He explained that we didn't have peasants here any more. The conversation moved on to what he did for a living and whereupon he discovered that he was, in fact, a peasant so far as the people there were concerned.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Cé leis aon rud sa lá atá inniu ann? Go hairíthe leis an idirlín agus na meán cumarsáide idirnaisiúnta. Tá achan duine ábalta a bheith ina turasóir i gcultúr ar bith thart an domhain.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
And Jimmy Power's famous instruction at the end of The Favourite's session (Sundays, 12-2pm) was "Now go home to your dinners!", firmly placing him, and all those present, in the working class category.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I was born less than two miles from where black pudding was invented. A fried breakfast without black pudding is, frankly, not a fried breakfast. Even though I now live in Cornwall, I can get Bury black pudding from Morrisons in Bude.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Aren't we all peasants ?
Hands up the person with an independent income who doesn't have to go to work !
My parents were both, technically, artisans, as they had served apprenticeships and were thus qualified workers. Much good it did them financially. Certainly we were poor - they didn't get a tv set till after I left home !
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
What, you were enough to keep them amused Pete, so they didn't need a telly?
I'm still an artisan, inasmuch as much of the work I do is with my hands. Still in the Union. But I don't breed whippets or pigeons.
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I like black and white pud. Herself can't tolerate it.
But I am Polish and was raised with Kiszka. I actually prefer the black and white now. Besides, not many places sell good Kiszka any more. B/w has a nicer texture.
But in Chicago, the white pud Winston's (the major Irish butcher who still makes the b/w) is really mild. When we have been in Ireland, particularly the southwest it had more character. One thing I noticed. We were in Donegal and there seemed very little interest in b/w pudding.
The lady we stayed with said she stopped making it because when she did, most of it was thrown away.
I made it as 'finger food' a few times at Christmas for a crowd and it disappeared. Go figure.
This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
As The Spear said here recently (to paraphrase) things on here are a bit quiet and need livening up.
I made the remark in the title to people at a session in Glasgow recently but they were polite enough not to take issue with it, for which thanks guys. I might get more mileage from you lot though.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
So is most music, if you think about it, or it at least originates from it!
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Surly Boy
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
When did you last see a peasent?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by somersetlee
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Touché. To be fair you're probably right. At some of the fold music events I go to for young people, most of the kids are posh and at private schools, including me. I think that its just what became popular after the price of booze went up so much that only the middle class can afford to go to pubs. And middle class people have more oppertunities to learn instruments. :D Rant over? Ah well back to french lessons then, Au revoir!!!!
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by mandolinist
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
What's a peasent?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
It's like a pheasent however a lots less feathered...
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by mandolinist
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
And if you want to put everyone in a class box does that make RnB the folk music of today?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by somersetlee
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I agree with the second bit, but not the first. And, thumb to kink about it, even the second bit's a bit dodgy ...
[by which I mean, if you're a 'professional' trad musician ... well, you might start off middle class, but you'll be poor as a church mouse pretty quickly]
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Right, so what's wrong with the first bit? Well, for a start, it implies that the music is rural. I just don't think it is. You can go back as far as you like in the known history of this music, and you'll always find that there's more of it in cities than out in the sticks. Dublin, Chicago, London, Limerick, Cork, Liverpool etc etc etc ... and all that was being talked about in the nienteenth century, too. Can I give references? Er ... no. It's from perceptions gleaned from all the various writings of people like O'Neil and his supporters, Roche, Henebry et Al (I've never known who this 'Al' was ... ?) that I've read over the years. In relation to the notion that it's rural, it's perhaps worth bearing in mind that, in the beginning part of the 19c, Ireland was much more populous than it is today.
I also think that the music has always been played by all sorts, including professionals (doctors, lawyers etc). Plenty of 19c literature seems to contain professional class people playing trad, including Irish trad. (Books by, for instance, Dickens and Stevenson. There must be more ...)
Nowadays, of course, there are special places, out in the sticks, reserved specifically as centres of trad for the emmetts to gravitate to - Lisdoonvarna and nearby Doolin, for instance.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
< played nowadays by mainly middle class people >
If its ITM you mean, this dose not apply to me, anyway ; )
jim,,,
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Middle class? I often see this music played by people with no class at all...
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"fold music"
Jeez, not another bloody dots thread!
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
It still is peasant music.
Your use of the word is as the adjective, not the noun.
i.e., it pertains to, or is characteristic of peasants, their traditions, way of life, crafts, etc.
It doesn't matter who plays it. And of course, it is, never has, and never will be "owned" by anyone, any class, any nationality, or indeed any subculture.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Do you mind us playing your music, Rudall?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Dr. Dow
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ethical, I think you have your wires crossed terribly there. Irish music has always thrived in rural areas. Traditional music found in cities has always come from the influx of country people and was not a thing 'of the city'.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
It has certainly always been very pleasant music but the classes can be located anywhere, even in the middle sometimes.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Cian Mhic Cáinte
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
The peasants have abandoned it to the chattering classes. But I wish they wouldn't chatter so much and just get on with playing it.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by RichardB
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ethical .. The prof is correct. The "city" people who played this music were in fact originally rural or at least their parents were. There are always exceptions but the contrast is stark when you compare it to the important role this music played in the life of rural people. One of the exceptions might be that there might have been a bastion of uileann pipers in Dublin.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by big_tab
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Who says it doesn't play an important roll in the lives of city people? .... I ask, as I plough through my list of things to do today and plant the seeds of ideas.
(ps, I was woken - and all my neighbors too - this morning at the crack of dawn by my three year old shouting "cockadoodledoo" at the top of his voice for over half an hour)
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
At ellisisland.org I was able to find the Port of New York ship’s manifest that listed my teenaged grandfather as a passenger. Under “Occupation” was written “Peasant.”
Despite the college ejimication and desk job, I don’t think the nut has fallen so far from the tree.
The 'middle class' is a fairly recent phenomenon. Soon to be but a memory if trends continue.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by fidkid
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I do. There are maybe two pubs in the whole of Dublin for a decent session. It would be rare to hear a tune at a social occasion in the cities.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by big_tab
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Sorry, cross post. That was to the Magi from Edinburgh.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by big_tab
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Suspend a cork on a bit of thread over his perch just above head height, llig. That'll stop him.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by gam
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"middle class" is not a recent phenomenon, for centuries it was a well established and deliberate barrier to social mobility who's chief weapon, for the most part, was the cost of education. And though it's significance waned during the 20th century, it is sadly now making a vociferous come back.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I would like to add something about 'the piper's bastion of Dublin'. I talked fairly extensively about this to Tommy Reck and to a lesser extend to Mick O Connor (in connection to his history of the Piper's Club).
Tommy said traditional music was not acceptable in Dublin. If they went to places to play, they'd be kicked out. Musicians, country people moved to the city, first or second generation, met in private houses or clubs established specifically for the purpose like the old Piper's Club.
With regards to the pipes you will have to take into account there was a specific cultural movement to keep them alive, which explains to some extend the influx of city people. The Rowsomes, Recks, they came from Co Wexford before settling in Dublin, Mulligans from Leitrim, etc etc.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I was referring to the ubiquitous urban middle class in America, which only became a majority of the population in the 20th century. Wealthy, non-noble mercantile classes have been around for a very long time of course. It’s also possible ‘middle class’ may mean slightly different things in the UK and the US.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by fidkid
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
You can always tell a middle class session. The pints of Guinness on the table all have little umbrellas sticking out of the top of 'em.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Laughing out loud.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by fidkid
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
The term peasant refers to small-acreage farmers producing only crops for their own family use. It is doubtful whether this type of employment has been common, at least since the Famine. I would suggest that this class has never even existed in America, so what class of people really produced our music?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Ebor_fiddler
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
The 'middle classes' have always been charmed by things that they perceived as relics from an innocent, bucolic past. They have always had the sensitivity (and luxury of being able) to appreciate the 'authenticity' of such things - same reason that many fine artefacts were/are made by labourers and acquired by professionals - 'twas thus ever since the Arts & Crafts movvement, if not before.
Then there is the class divide between the artist and the Critic. I would suggest that the work of people like Vaughan Williams and Grainger was also motivated by a middle-class desire to preserve the 'innocent' rural past.
What seems more significant today, to me, is the apparent correlation between interest in this music and high academic achievement. Without wanting to be elitist, I find it rather reassuring that a lot of educated people here seem to want cerebral nourishment from the(ir) music rather than just a glimpse of the singer's knickers.
I guess the middle classes simply have always had more access to the education that might encourage such an outlook.
Ian (second generation teacher, descended from Leicestershire coal miners and hosiery workers and Dorsetshire warehousemen...)
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ian stock
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Lisdoonvarna and Doolin are the stick?!! that perspective always throws me coming from this side of the world. I have not been to anywhere at all in Ireland that I am not very conscious of millions and millions of people not far away, or frighteningly, an hour or so by plane. Scary; and if you keep going west you end up in the States! Jeez, talk about getting caught between a rock and a hard place. What's Greenland like? Do they have any sticks?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
When did I last see a peasant? When I stood in front of a mirror this morning and looked in the mirror.
"I often see this music played by people with no class at all..." Now that sounds like some of the musicians at the local sessions.
I wa born and raised in the city but my great-grandparents and grandparents were almost all born and raised on farms. Some of them moved to the city and some stayed on the farm.\
Laurence
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by fauxcelt
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Well, with instruments so high priced, it has no choice but to be for the middle class.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by pipersgrip
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Is there still a middle class?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by pipersgrip
Re: This is mainly pleasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
...Praise or put-down? Over to you, folks!
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by nicholas
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
from my studies in English lit, I recall reading Edmund Spenser's diaries who was sent to Ireland to kick some ass for his Queen and her embattled colonist nobles.
He remarked on how (and this is mid 1500s) what struck him in Ireland was the people's musicality. He said the Irish were given over hugely to song and dance. His wife apparently was mad for the dance and had all kinds of musicians over, and apparently music and dance were one of the few ways in which irish and English were able to mix (many of the nobility at that time did nto speak English).
Spenser had spent time in France, Italy Flanders etc and remarked how much more musical the Irish-- all the Irish, from the chieftains to the peasants-- were than other peoples of Europe.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by chris stolz
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yes!
This is 'mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people'- GOOD, I'M GLAD! I don't won't to have to rub shoulders or, Heavens forbid! socially communicate with hoi polloi, oiks & the riff raff!
I see us (well most of us!) as gentlemen amateurs.
Haven't the chattering classes always had a slightly romantic interest in the notion of the proles and their country side pursuits (Marie Antoinette poncing about in mock cottages on her estate). Similar to Victorian toffs in top hats slumming it in Whitechaple with the whores and opium dens.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I have no class, or so I've been told.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
You don't need a class to do a PhD.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ian stock
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
or is it because you're American? The land of equal opportunity for all?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ian stock
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I asked this very question last summer. I was volunteering at the local music festival, listening to yet another middle-aged white guy playin' da blues to an audience of middle-aged white people. We all communed in our downtrodden, oppressed pain, sharing a moment of solidarity while resenting The Man. All of us had been left, at some point, by Our Baby. But then most of us just went out shopping, and felt better, in spite of having Been Done Wrong.
Our local session has a pronounced scarcity of blue-collar persons. The diddley music seems to be our drug of choice because none of us watch TV. Could this be the key?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
In many societies around the world, musicians seem to occupy a class of their own, whether above or below that of most other people. I'm not going to add anything to this statement, as I'm not articulate enough. But I'd be interested to see whether anyone agrees with this, or whether I am imagining it.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I live in the US
Not much middle class left.
And a couple of political factions working hard to get rid of what's left hoping for the return of feudal aristocracy....
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by zippydw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I think that you are on to something there, CMO. People who have to play music have to play music.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
What do you mean MIDDLE class?
... some of us might be UPPER class! ...
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Maybe the peasants got on, got out and became middle class?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by minijackpot
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yes CMO, I think you are onto something there, though it may not be quite as revolutionary as Michelle suspects. Musicians and artists in general seem to be driven by different imperatives from the more mainstream population. I suspect it may be to do with looking inward for fulfilment rather than outward. Consequently they may be less concerned with the hierarchical gradations that others construct with which to define themselves.
I am quite curious about how many people here eschew many of the more mainstream activities/interests. For example, I have almost no interest in mainstream sport, nor celebrity lives, and I am not the first person on here recently to mention that they rarely watch T.V.
Perhaps we have chosen to define ourselves by our own aesthetic motivations - which just so happen to find expression through a rather obscure genre of music?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ian stock
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Its not musicians that dont watch tv .Its session.orgers.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by big_tab
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
If a woman raises her home-stitched floor-length skirt to reveal sturdy peasant ankles, she can and should play this stuff with pride.
If a man seems not just to tend pigs but to hold out well beyond the customary pig-tender’s weekly scrub, he can play with no compunctions.
Here’s the standard—fall short of it and I regret to say you’re simply a poseur:
http://www.boschbruegel.com/images/dance.jpg
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I agree with zippydw's observation. Seems the fortunes of plenty of Trad musicians ( and most anyone else) in the US, are sinking fast. "Middle classness" is on its way to being a fond memory, hereabouts. CMO, In response to your observation: back when it was alive and vigorous, the US middle class took a dim view of musical persuits -- or the arts in general. Only a relative handfull of musicians enjoy anything like prestige or livable earnings here. The rest make up a sub-species of human, actually. I understand, that in some countries, musicians are valued members of their communities. Must be sweet.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Mix has a point. I think the aristocracy and the gentry have been players (not necessarily literally) in keeping traditional music going, for a long time.
The house dances banned in de Valera's Ireland - had they been, some of them, in the "Big Houses"? I would have thought so, though may be mistaken.
There were the "gentlemen pipers", though I don't know how many, if any, were literally gentry.
Gigs with the gentry may have been agreeable ones for the musicians, with a decent fee and good food and drink. And maybe the chance of running off with a wild child countess or something, a la Raggle-Taggle Gypsies. Today's nexus between aristocracy and rock-ocracy was surely parallelled in the past by a similar one between aristos and trad musicians, in some times and places anyway.
Northumberland gentry have supported players of the Northumbrian smallpipes, during and since the time of Jimmy Allen who was too hot to handle and lost his patronage because he was nicking stuff.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by nicholas
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Of course there were gentry helping the music and there still is..Garech De Brún. The house dances were in cottages and were popular among the ordinary people who never saw a big house. Fecking priests put a stop to them!
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by big_tab
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
How do you define middle class to be able to claim it is on the way out? Not saying I disagree with you - just want to know your criteria.
Where I teach, east of London, most people apparently define themselves as resolutely middle class, but from what I can see, this is purely in terms of income - in cultural terms they have moved on relatively little from their less mobile relatives who still reside, in many cases, in the East End or eastern suburbs.
Given the prevalence and ascendancy of their value system, they are patently not 'on the way out' - but in what I consider to be 'real' middle class, cultural terms, they aren't even yet on the way IN...
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ian stock
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
No, no Ian, they are middle clas because all the working class are in China or a sweatshop somewhere overseas. Just read the labels on things.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by David50
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Well, my viewpoint of the middle class is from somewhere down beneath them... A simple definition of ones' class standing would be earning-saving ability; buying power; housing; education opportunity; etc. All have been seriously eroded. If I get your question right, yes, attitudes and values count a great deal too. These don't change so quickly; as compared to the abrupt way ones' economic circumstances can be changed.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
All music is class - less these days. We all have the internet and can all listen to and play what we like.
And regarding middle class, its a myth. A myth put about by certain professions. If you have to work for a living, your working class, end of.
Rudyard Kipling had it about right for my money............
I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way,
Or male and female devilkins to lead my feet astray.
If these are added, I rejoice -- if not, I shall not mind,
So long as I have leave and choice to meet my fellow-kind.
For as we come and as we go (and deadly-soon go we!)
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
Thus I will honour pious men whose virtue shines so bright
(Though none are more amazed than I when I by chance do right),
And I will pity foolish men for woe their sins have bred
(Though ninety-nine per cent. of mine I brought on my own head).
And, Amorite or Eremite, or General Averagee,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
And when they bore me overmuch, I will not shake mine ears,
Recalling many thousand such whom I have bored to tears.
And when they labour to impress, I will not doubt nor scoff;
Since I myself have done no less and -- sometimes pulled it off.
Yea, as we are and we are not, and we pretend to be,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
And when they work me random wrong, as oftentimes hath been,
I will not cherish hate too long (my hands are none too clean).
And when they do me random good I will not feign surprise.
No more than those whom I have cheered with wayside charities.
But, as we give and as we take -- whate'er our takings be --
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
But when I meet with frantic folk who sinfully declare
There is no pardon for their sin, the same I will not spare
Till I have proved that Heaven and Hell which in our hearts we have
Show nothing irredeemable on either side of the grave.
For as we live and as we die -- if utter Death there be --
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
Deliver me from every pride -- the Middle, High, and Low --
That bars me from a brother's side, whatever pride he show.
And purge me from all heresies of thought and speech and pen
That bid me judge him otherwise than I am judged. Amen!
That I may sing of Crowd or King or road-borne company,
That I may labour in my day, vocation and degree,
To prove the same in deed and name, and hold unshakenly
(Where'er I go, whate'er I know, whoe'er my neighbor be)
This single faith in Life and Death and to Eternity:
"The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!"
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ormepipes
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I think in England there have been middle classes preoccupied with getting on - importantly including getting, and staying, out of poverty - and middle classes preoccupied with lifestyle, finding their individual vocation or thing and doing it. This is a hasty generalisation, not a value-judgement.
In trad, members of the former group are quite likely to make a decent living out of making instruments and studios.
Members of the latter group are more likely to spend their time avoiding their round and day-dreaming of being locked in a lift with the Celtic Women.
I am in the latter group, though I only wrote that last line for effect.
When it comes down to it, no other class would have me.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by nicholas
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Indigenous music and dance might have been scarce in the ballrooms of the big houses. I'm not so sure about that; else, what prompted planxties like "Loftus Jones?" I don't know. Were there no musical evenings down in the kitchens of the big houses?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Diversion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DUsGSMwZY
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Resodan
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Define middle class? Well, there have been 50-odd posts already, the sign of a healthy discussion, and people have freely shared their viewpoints without bothering too much to define middle class
Don't sociologists have all these complex groupings of people ranging from 1-5 with several sub-categories? Let's just say social classes 2 and 3, I'm not really that bothered. Ian stock says he's a teacher, I'm a research technician (just scraping into band 3 I imagine), there are a couple of PhD's on here, others I know personally are a few teachers, a company chief exec, personnel manager, accountant, software consultant, graphic designer, and so on. But to be honest, it would be easier to define middle class against peasant, or agricultural worker. Not many of them left in rural Ireland, even less in Scotland, or England and Wales. I can't speak for anywhere else. It's probably a generational thing. 150-200 years ago most of these people described above would have been farm workers as well. The Creadur probably made a very relevant point but I think that applies more to musicians nowadays, many of whom are not driven by status, whereas previously they would have had to work as hard as other "peasants" to make ends meet and feed their family, I imagine. But thanks for the lively thread, folks.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I'm not sure my wires are all *that* crossed, Peter. I've just been reminding myself of some of the great names. Plenty came from country areas and moved to the city - John Kelly and Bobby Casey, for instance, and plenty of others were born in the city - Seamus Ennis And Sean O Riada, for instance. Two examples of each, although all four of those ended up in cities (I think). Or ended up spending a fair amount of time in cities ...
But I have of course just picked them to make a point. I probably overstated it earlier, but I don't much go for a romaticised notion of the music as being entirely rural and somehow more 'real', more 'valid' as a result. Plenty of parts of the music wouldn't have come into the tradition at all if it weren't for becoming popular in cities - polkas for sure, and, arguably, reels - that's if you accept that a large part of the reel tradition was brought in originally by Scottish immigrants and visitors, who I'm guessing would be likely to have been found more in cities than elsewhere (seems a fair bet).
And perhaps plenty of the tradition wouldn't have survived without being carried on undisturbed in rural areas.
It's certainly not a black and white issue.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Aye, fifty-odd posts and no real effort to define middle class (except by me, with my beer umbrellas). I've just spotted another criteria
- hardly any of us here mispell words 
and our grammer is perfect 
so I reckon we're all middle class here. Or, as we say, middle clarse...
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Actually, ethical and Prof, I personally am not that bothered with the city versus rural locality question. I could have said *working class* vis a vis middle class, but that would have implied an urban factory-based proletariat, and Ireland is, or was, a mostly rural society; hence I initially said peasant.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Beer umbrellas! It's not that far in its ridiculousness, from the sorts of fru-fru the new ridership wants on its public transport in my county. Economic circumstances have caused more and more San Jose folks to leave their cars at home. Now, money has been found for providing our county busses with tray tables, cup holders, internet plugs! Got to have those! I'd have been content with a few more buses, or dare I even dream it -- new shock absorbers on the existing buses.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
There are no existing buses in Cornwall and petrol's 132 pee per litre. You gotta be at least middle clarse to drive round here.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Bet you guys had a public transit system once. Bet it was put out of business by the car. Bet you reinstate it before much longer. Bet the bourgies won't ride until their levels of comfort are satisfactorily met, even though the price of fuel is high. Maybe that is the definition of middle class: expectations of comfort.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Perhaps one of the defining characteristics of the middle class (at least in the USofA) is that we are willing to pay for things that used to be free: Bottled water; a gym membership so that you can regularly mimic physical labor (but you *must* drive to the gym in your car. No cheating and riding a bike or walking.); Little League; cable TV; employing a 'cleaning lady'; arranged play dates for kids. I suppose the it is in the tradition of Mr. Veblen's conspicuous consumption.
So it follows (?) that we can curate and interest in a tradition that is not strictly traditional for a people raised with no particular tradition. Or something.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Xpost, Mr. Quigley. But yes, it is the expectation of comfort. My children will have no such expectation, if current trends continue.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Nuh-uh! You said "criteria" as if it was a singular word. You are a pro-ole, you are a pro-ole!
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ethical. We ca nargue marginal issues: Séamus Ennis was born in Jamestown Lodge, at the time a completely rural location in North Co Dublin. His father was a senior civil servant though.
I have no romantic notions of rural music being more real or more valid.
I have taken a nice picture of the late Denis Doody having a drink, umbrella and cherry and all. We got those, on special nights.
Steve, count your blessings. Petrol has gone over €1.50 p/l here.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
People keep on going on about what we had as middle-classers but we're all about to lose, oh yeah we all spent too much and now we're all in debt and it's pay-back time. It doesn't have to be like that. You all just gonna roll over and let the bankers sh!t on you?
I posted this on another thread but I don't care I'll post it everywhere it's worth airing again and again....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw&feature=player_detailpage
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Or even worse: really screw up and use 'criterium' when you meant 'criterion'. And everybody would just think you were talking about a bike race. Which is another middle class thing.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Mispell"? "Grammer"?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Jerry O'Donnell
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Middle Class" - come on Danny, what's this excrement?
It depends if you recognise the class system really. Personally I tend to treat everyone the same, unless someone is obviously a gobsh*te. Traditional music is great at breaking down these invented and nonsensical boundaries; I recall playing in a session once where there was an unemployed building labourer, myself - working in science, a mechanic, and also a prof of physics. Everyone was treated as an equal - as it should be in life as a whole.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by On Sabbatical
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
No need to argue, Peter. I always have, in the back of my mind, the sort of people I'd love to share a tune with. Have we had a tiune or two? Anyway, If I've overstated, or even if I'm wrong, it doesn't matter. Not really. And I know that you're not the type to have those sort of romantic notions.
But folks do, ya know ...
)
Back to Rudall: the sentiments are fine. I'm always just a tad suspicious about Mr Moore, mind ... I tend to think he's more interested in sensationalism than in the 'causes' he appears to espouse. "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." (Much as Peter would no doubt accuse me of.
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I would just like to confirm that I am not or ever have been middle class. I'm one of the Fermanagh UPPER CLASS
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by strayaway
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
<<"Mispell"? "Grammer"?
# Posted on March 8th 2011 by Jerry O'Donnell>>
Come on Jerry, it's the US that our humour isn't supposed to be able to reach!
Definition of middle clarse: Being taken to the session by a chauffeur.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Steve, count your blessings. Petrol has gone over €1.50 p/l here."
Yeah, Peter, but we have to run bloody Ferraris here, you know!
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ron - I actually agree with you. It is a load of baallox. In my other interest (though I have to say I'm too old to be even half-useless nowadays) middle to long distance running at club level, I've seen the same as you described, many times over. Brickies, chippies, labourers, van delivery men, unemployed lads, out for a club run with lawyers, professors, doctors, vets and so on. But it is how these occupations are perceived by society at large, is what I'm on about. I personally couldn't give a toss what someone did the rest of the time....well, I would, out of personal interest, but I wouldn't judge them by it.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
ethical - the good folks in Madison WI seemed thankful Michael Moore turned up!
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
You probably know, Rudall, that I'd be on the side of the positions Michael Moore *appears* to favour. Having seen the film he made about 9/11 though, I just don't trust his motives. There was too much that was either shoe-horned in or plain made up. I've always been of the school that says, about political stuff, that it is better to acknowledge facts and opinions that might be uncomfortable given one's own viewpoint, than to blot them out as if they didn't exist. I don't think Michael Moore would subscriube to that view.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Ach, why am I beating about the bush? (Pardon the pun, when talking about Moore.) It's because I think he does what he does solely for the money.
[He's litigious, too, so ... you en't sin me, righ'?]
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yup, he's something of a propagandist. He not at all fair and balanced, like his opposite number(s) over on the Right.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Yes absolutely correct. Same thing happened to punk rock but in a much shorter time frame. It went from a working class kids thing to an art school suburban thing. There shouldn't be any argument as to the truth of the OP- I think it's obvious- the question is what impact this change has had on the music. Softened it up, made it more user friendly....these might be good things but I dunno...
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by shanty
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
In the US, the term 'middle class' is used by politicians to butter up voters who wouldn't like it if they were called 'lumpenproletariat.'
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
In the US the term middle class is used to signify, by politicians left or right, anyone 'harmed' by the opposite political view point. Suck it up dopes! And keep kiliin' them A-rabs!
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by shanty
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
peasant? at least don't say p*ssant.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by dogmageek
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
p issant
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by dogmageek
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"There are maybe two pubs in the whole of Dublin for a decent session."
Please share, big_tab. Where oh where?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by mulcreevy
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Maybe this has already been said or implied somewhere in this thread.... Prof., as early as the mid 1800s (thanks to the flood of Irish fleeing the famine), Irish music was a largely urban happening here in the States. A different experience than in Ireland, but still relevant, especially as the music came back to Ireland in the 1920s on those early recordings.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"There are maybe two pubs in the whole of Dublin for a decent session. It would be rare to hear a tune at a social occasion in the cities."
That comment had passed me by, but is worth picking up on.
It's not true. I can think of 5 pub sessions (well, much more than that, but loads of sessions in 5 pubs) off the top of my head, and I don't know Dublin very well. I only get there two or three times a year.
I've also been involved in social occasions where there's been plenty of tunes - private house sessions, birthday parties, and I missed playing at a wedding party because I was asked to play somewhere else (turned out to be a miked up session for some do in a pub) and I couldn't do both.
Now, if I, with almost no connections in Dublin, can experience this, what else is there if you actually know/spend time in the place?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
More than relevant, Will. Crucial.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Can I take this opportunity to spread some of Jon Kiparsky's "aggressive apathy" towards the subject of this thread?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
I Know My Place!
Class distinctions? All is explained here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DUsGSMwZY
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
yes, comedy genius. My favorite line is when Ronnie C say's,
"Had I the inclination, I'd look down on them ... but I don't."
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
feck, where did that apostrophy in "say's" come from? Am I exposing my working class education there, ha ha.
Don't you love it when people are "proud" to be working class. They're such snobs. (and there's quite a lot of that in this thread.)
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I think the OP is probably true (with possible caveats as to what 'peasant' and 'middle class' mean). But so what?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by harmonic miner
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I suppose one could argue that the term "peasant" itself is a construction of the elite, landholding classes, used to pejoratively describe agricultural worker classes in a feudal society.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
exactly ... bring on some more aggressive apathy
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
And people are still confusing the noun with the adjective. They are very different. Peasant music (the adjective) is music pertaining to, or is characteristic of peasants. It does not mean music played by peasants.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Well I went to school with peasants and I found them alright. Wouldn't like my daughter to marry one of them however.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Free Reed
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I'm supposed to be one of those people who rose from the slums (true) to become middle class (a teacher, so true again). People like me are the worst b*astards on the planet apart from the Royal Family.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
If you say so Steve.
Doesn't peasant just mean someone from the countryside, from Middle French paisant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
..and I meant to say, only the modern usage is pejorative. I don't think it was originally a construct of the elite.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
But to royal families, bastards are very important, they are actively, but tacitly, encouraged. Horrific genetic bottle necks become unavoidable without them.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38672000/jpg/_38672861_hewitt300.jpg
http://cdn.buzznet.com/media-cdn/jj1/headlines/2008/07/prince-harry-lesotho.jpg
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
so if peasant comes from paysant , the best word in Irish/English to describe that would be Culchie.. you're turn..
"There a hole in the bucket dear Liza"
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Theirlandais
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Minion (to King): "Your Majesty, the peasants are revolting!"
King: "Yes, I find them quite disgusting, too!"
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I've not looked into the etymology of the word but since at least the nineteenth century it's been used pejoratively and patronizingly by the upper class to ascribe certain characteristics to lower classes.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Horrific genetic bottle neck" there was a lad at school had that. How we laughed.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by gam
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Someone at our school had a real brass neck, nerves of steel, iron constitution and a heart of gold. He is now worth $6,000,000.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Other countries seem to have a word and concept that get translated as peasant that are not used pejoratively and patronizingly. A friend who is a smallholder with a part time job drove to eastern europe (can't remember where) on holiday and one of the locals asked him what about the peasants in England. He explained that we didn't have peasants here any more. The conversation moved on to what he did for a living and whereupon he discovered that he was, in fact, a peasant so far as the people there were concerned.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by David50
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
sorry about the typos, trying to work as well.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by David50
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Cé leis aon rud sa lá atá inniu ann? Go hairíthe leis an idirlín agus na meán cumarsáide idirnaisiúnta. Tá achan duine ábalta a bheith ina turasóir i gcultúr ar bith thart an domhain.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Mac Donn
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
talk about the chattering classes
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by millionyears_bc
Rwanda's Laptop Revolution
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129259179
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
At the end of the night in my local boozer the barman shouts,
"Have ye no crofts go to?"
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ...
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
And Jimmy Power's famous instruction at the end of The Favourite's session (Sundays, 12-2pm) was "Now go home to your dinners!", firmly placing him, and all those present, in the working class category.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"What's for tea, us mam?"
There! I'm bloody working class after all! I can be a snob again!
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Nowt, yet, ower Steve, so nip dahn grocer's and ger us two answers 'v potted meat 'nd four cobs.'
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"talk about the chattering classes"
I'd rather not, they're a tedious lot.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Either that, Geoff, or a drippin' butty. Yum!
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Don't tell me you eat black pudding as well Steve.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
That said, a haggis supper (haggis and chips from chip shops) is a fine Scottish delicacy.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Aye, Steve, give me a slab of bread and dripping over a sugar sandwich any day.
As for black pudding, the white variety is often far tastier.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
With deep-fried Mars bar to follow?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
"Drippin' butty" - you had butter as well ? Bread and dripping mate.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by David50
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Sorry, crossed with MacCruskeen.
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by David50
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
The deep fried Mars Bar is indeed a reality, not a myth:
http://www.ilike.org.uk/2007/10/what_does_a_deep_fried_mars_ba.html
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Oh, I know it's real, right enough. Isn't it what passes for a balanced diet in some quarters?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Not so much balanced as ballast, I suspect....
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Joking aside, was this music traditionally played by folks who's hearts give up early ?
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by David50
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
(ahem) Luxury! My father would wake us at dawn, murder us in cold blood and we'd walk naked in the snow!
And we were glad to have it!
# Posted on March 9th 2011 by Farr
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I was born less than two miles from where black pudding was invented. A fried breakfast without black pudding is, frankly, not a fried breakfast. Even though I now live in Cornwall, I can get Bury black pudding from Morrisons in Bude.
# Posted on March 10th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
a big greasy breakfast
BGB
so we're squeezing the middle class
ok
# Posted on March 10th 2011 by dogmageek
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Aren't we all peasants ?
Hands up the person with an independent income who doesn't have to go to work !
My parents were both, technically, artisans, as they had served apprenticeships and were thus qualified workers. Much good it did them financially. Certainly we were poor - they didn't get a tv set till after I left home !
# Posted on March 10th 2011 by Guernsey Pete
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Luxury! Course, we 'ad it tough...
# Posted on March 11th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
What, you were enough to keep them amused Pete, so they didn't need a telly?
I'm still an artisan, inasmuch as much of the work I do is with my hands. Still in the Union. But I don't breed whippets or pigeons.
# Posted on March 11th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
Funnily enough, yes, I think I kept them amused.
Whippet or pigeon-breeding has never been compulsary. But it helps.
# Posted on March 11th 2011 by Guernsey Pete
Re: This is mainly peasant music played nowadays by mainly middle class people
I like black and white pud. Herself can't tolerate it.
But I am Polish and was raised with Kiszka. I actually prefer the black and white now. Besides, not many places sell good Kiszka any more. B/w has a nicer texture.
But in Chicago, the white pud Winston's (the major Irish butcher who still makes the b/w) is really mild. When we have been in Ireland, particularly the southwest it had more character. One thing I noticed. We were in Donegal and there seemed very little interest in b/w pudding.
The lady we stayed with said she stopped making it because when she did, most of it was thrown away.
I made it as 'finger food' a few times at Christmas for a crowd and it disappeared. Go figure.
# Posted on March 11th 2011 by zippydw