Snippet that seems interesting from Vic Smith on a Mudcat thread (which is otherwise floundering a bit):
- begin quote -
I have heard Dr. Reg Hall expound some very interesting views on this subject - and I would regard him as one of the leading living experts on this.
He stated to me that - allowing for individual differences which are always going to exist - that there is (or was) a stylistic 'arc' that extended from East Anglia, through Sussex, Dorset, Devon to Cork, Kerry and Clare where the style of playing old functional dance tunes - and to a large extent also the repertoire - held great similarities.
He thought that the style in the Irish part of the 'arc' has been largely modified during the twentieth century by both the activities of Conradh na Gaeilge, the Gaelic League, and by the strong influence of the widespread American/Irish recordings of Gillespie, Gorman et al.
I was rather sceptical of the Irish part of Reg's theory until I was at Johnny O'Leary's wonderful session at Knocknagree in the Cork/Kerry border area. Johnny called on a very old man (late '80s or 90s?) to play something and he got out his one-row melodeon and played a couple of tunes. I was astonished! If he had been sitting down with Oscar Woods or Percy Brown they would have found it easy to play together having repertoire and style in common. Johnny noticed my reaction. At the end of his set, Johnny turned to me and said, "All the old men around here used to play like that when I was learning; he's the very last one left".
- end quote -
Comments? Are there many surviving recordings of that "old style" in Ireland?
As far as I'm aware, the parts of Southern England mentioned in Jack Campin's post were (maybe still are) exceptionally insular rural hideaways where old-fashioned musical and other ways may have persisted (or still persist) after being superseded or outlawed elsewhere.
They are England's answer to Appalachia. Jocular anecdotes about them abound.
I don't know about single-row melodeon playing in East Anglia, but as a part-time resident and a very occasional attendant of sessions there (around Dunwich, Eastbridge, Southwold in Suffolk) I wouldn't be at all surprised. East Anglia has a very proud tradition and makes unique contribution to English music (as does Cork/Kerry to Irish music). They have their own trad music society: http://www.eatmt.org.uk/
There was a cracking box player from East Anglia playing in a session with Brendan Begley and Peadar O'Riada at Sidmouth this summer, mostly polkas and reels. She played a set of savage tunes from East Anglia.
Re: Dragut's "cracking box player from East Anglia" - I guess this might have been Katie Howson, who is indeed an excellent player. Her husband John runs Veteran Records. Each was awarded the English Folk Dance and Song Society's gold badge earlier this year. Katie has a wide repertoire, not just local.
And if it wasn't Katie, it might have been Jeannie Harris, another excellent one-row player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl37_mJcLGE, now that is the best one row playing I have heard, his touch is light.
one or two of the players from East Anglia, sound like they are trying to break a nut with a sledgehammer.
Parts of East Anglia, up to the late 1970s, perhaps! Hardly true of Sussex, Dorset and Devon, though, surely? (DavyR)
I was winding them up.
These places have in common the fact I have barely set foot in them. This makes them places of wonder, sanctuaries of fabulous beasts and cynosures of urban myth.
Sussex, though near London, consists of trackless ancient forest and the Copper Family of singers. It was never Christianised.
East Anglia is like West Virginia apart from being dead flat and below sea level. If people appear to have webbed feet, it is probably because they have webbed feet.
Dorset is a place steeped in gloom and superstition, where horrible, horrible things happen to people. So, at any rate, it would appear from the novels of Thomas Hardy, who lived there. After his death he was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, but he had wished his heart to be buried in Dorset. So it was taken out, and when nobody was paying attention a cat ran off with it and ate it or so I've heard. That's Dorset all over.
Devon is a rather splendid place. The people go "Oh-ARRRRR!", but you mustn't laugh. The scenery's lovely. But what makes it tick, really tick, is the CIDER. And this goes for bits at least of the other areas mentioned. And now I am getting to my point:
The melodeon traditions of East Anglia and Devon, at least, are unmistakeably derived from the sound of queen wasps and hornets and killer bees and stuff buzzing and bombinating round the fermenting apples in a cider butt, as they begin their transformation into disconcertingly powerful agents of intoxication.
"How can I amplify this pleasing noise?", will have asked some primordial inhabitant of these places, stupefying himself with intermittent swigs of scrumpy and every so often throwing another dead rat in - and answer his lineal descendants will have had none, till the ONE-ROW MELODEON (!) arrived.
And the primal sound of several beehives being kicked round an echo-chamber was unleashed, and remains the quintessence of Southern English trad.
Nicholas - for someone who claims to have barely set foot in Devon, you appear to have a surprisingly accurate view of scrumpy and its method of production.
Except it's supposed to be a dead dog, not a dead rat.
It's a dog if it's done on purpose, apparently rats were always 'accidentally' getting into the press. Oh, and any cracks in the press must be repaired with lead solder.
WRT to the OP, some 25 years ago I played at a social at a sports club in Palmers Green, north London. I played a few jigs and polka on melodeon, mostly English tunes, and a young woman came up and said how much they reminded her of the tunes and way her father had played back in Galway. She was about my age so her father had probably learned his tunes in the 1940's or 50's. I have since come across other old musicians who play ceilidh dance tunes that would fit in very well at English dances and sessions although they are well up on the more modern repertoire.
Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Snippet that seems interesting from Vic Smith on a Mudcat thread (which is otherwise floundering a bit):
- begin quote -
I have heard Dr. Reg Hall expound some very interesting views on this subject - and I would regard him as one of the leading living experts on this.
He stated to me that - allowing for individual differences which are always going to exist - that there is (or was) a stylistic 'arc' that extended from East Anglia, through Sussex, Dorset, Devon to Cork, Kerry and Clare where the style of playing old functional dance tunes - and to a large extent also the repertoire - held great similarities.
He thought that the style in the Irish part of the 'arc' has been largely modified during the twentieth century by both the activities of Conradh na Gaeilge, the Gaelic League, and by the strong influence of the widespread American/Irish recordings of Gillespie, Gorman et al.
I was rather sceptical of the Irish part of Reg's theory until I was at Johnny O'Leary's wonderful session at Knocknagree in the Cork/Kerry border area. Johnny called on a very old man (late '80s or 90s?) to play something and he got out his one-row melodeon and played a couple of tunes. I was astonished! If he had been sitting down with Oscar Woods or Percy Brown they would have found it easy to play together having repertoire and style in common. Johnny noticed my reaction. At the end of his set, Johnny turned to me and said, "All the old men around here used to play like that when I was learning; he's the very last one left".
- end quote -
Comments? Are there many surviving recordings of that "old style" in Ireland?
The Mudcat thread is here:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=141445
# Posted on November 14th 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
As far as I'm aware, the parts of Southern England mentioned in Jack Campin's post were (maybe still are) exceptionally insular rural hideaways where old-fashioned musical and other ways may have persisted (or still persist) after being superseded or outlawed elsewhere.
They are England's answer to Appalachia. Jocular anecdotes about them abound.
# Posted on November 14th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
I don't know about single-row melodeon playing in East Anglia, but as a part-time resident and a very occasional attendant of sessions there (around Dunwich, Eastbridge, Southwold in Suffolk) I wouldn't be at all surprised. East Anglia has a very proud tradition and makes unique contribution to English music (as does Cork/Kerry to Irish music). They have their own trad music society: http://www.eatmt.org.uk/
# Posted on November 14th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
There was a cracking box player from East Anglia playing in a session with Brendan Begley and Peadar O'Riada at Sidmouth this summer, mostly polkas and reels. She played a set of savage tunes from East Anglia.
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by Dragut Reis
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
"exceptionally insular rural hideaways"?
Parts of East Anglia, up to the late 1970s, perhaps! Hardly true of Sussex, Dorset and Devon, though, surely?
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by DavyR
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Re: Dragut's "cracking box player from East Anglia" - I guess this might have been Katie Howson, who is indeed an excellent player. Her husband John runs Veteran Records. Each was awarded the English Folk Dance and Song Society's gold badge earlier this year. Katie has a wide repertoire, not just local.
And if it wasn't Katie, it might have been Jeannie Harris, another excellent one-row player.
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by Jim Younger
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl37_mJcLGE, now that is the best one row playing I have heard, his touch is light.
one or two of the players from East Anglia, sound like they are trying to break a nut with a sledgehammer.
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by Joseph Tailyour
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Bobby Gardner ...EVEN BETTER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHOVnFLOV4&feature=fvwp&NR=1
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by Joseph Tailyour
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR9HuR4MX9g, Stephen here is some lovely English music
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by Nicholas Jelinek
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Liam says " close to where I grew up in the 1820's
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by Joseph Tailyour
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
"exceptionally insular rural hideaways"?
or so I've heard. That's Dorset all over.
Parts of East Anglia, up to the late 1970s, perhaps! Hardly true of Sussex, Dorset and Devon, though, surely? (DavyR)
I was winding them up.
These places have in common the fact I have barely set foot in them. This makes them places of wonder, sanctuaries of fabulous beasts and cynosures of urban myth.
Sussex, though near London, consists of trackless ancient forest and the Copper Family of singers. It was never Christianised.
East Anglia is like West Virginia apart from being dead flat and below sea level. If people appear to have webbed feet, it is probably because they have webbed feet.
Dorset is a place steeped in gloom and superstition, where horrible, horrible things happen to people. So, at any rate, it would appear from the novels of Thomas Hardy, who lived there. After his death he was to be buried in Westminster Abbey, but he had wished his heart to be buried in Dorset. So it was taken out, and when nobody was paying attention a cat ran off with it and ate it
Devon is a rather splendid place. The people go "Oh-ARRRRR!", but you mustn't laugh. The scenery's lovely. But what makes it tick, really tick, is the CIDER. And this goes for bits at least of the other areas mentioned. And now I am getting to my point:
The melodeon traditions of East Anglia and Devon, at least, are unmistakeably derived from the sound of queen wasps and hornets and killer bees and stuff buzzing and bombinating round the fermenting apples in a cider butt, as they begin their transformation into disconcertingly powerful agents of intoxication.
"How can I amplify this pleasing noise?", will have asked some primordial inhabitant of these places, stupefying himself with intermittent swigs of scrumpy and every so often throwing another dead rat in - and answer his lineal descendants will have had none, till the ONE-ROW MELODEON (!) arrived.
And the primal sound of several beehives being kicked round an echo-chamber was unleashed, and remains the quintessence of Southern English trad.
That was another wind-up
from the department of wind-ups
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
'ere, some of us live in East Anglia! Are you suggesting that we haven't reached the heights of cultural achievement? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_0qKPqSKIk
# Posted on November 15th 2011 by RichardB
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Aye, that is by far the height of cultural achievement. And the internet is awesome for bringing that to the world.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
It's true about Thomas Hardy, though. They had to bury the cat instead.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by Paul_draper
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Oh, it is true ! I nearly complimented nicholas on inventing a suitably Hardyesque twist of fate.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by David50
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Nicholas - for someone who claims to have barely set foot in Devon, you appear to have a surprisingly accurate view of scrumpy and its method of production.
Except it's supposed to be a dead dog, not a dead rat.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by c.g.
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
It's a dog if it's done on purpose, apparently rats were always 'accidentally' getting into the press. Oh, and any cracks in the press must be repaired with lead solder.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by Paul_draper
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
doubtless that's where the expressions rat-arsed came from (will that be altered by the auto-censor?)
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by RichardB
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
Apparently, a leg of mutton or pork, or a side of beef was used by some makers.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
or so they said . . .
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by c.g.
Re: Irish/East-Anglian melodeon style
WRT to the OP, some 25 years ago I played at a social at a sports club in Palmers Green, north London. I played a few jigs and polka on melodeon, mostly English tunes, and a young woman came up and said how much they reminded her of the tunes and way her father had played back in Galway. She was about my age so her father had probably learned his tunes in the 1940's or 50's. I have since come across other old musicians who play ceilidh dance tunes that would fit in very well at English dances and sessions although they are well up on the more modern repertoire.
# Posted on November 16th 2011 by Paul_draper