The Danny Boy Festival and Competition of Bunting Music will take place in Limavady, County Derry between Saturday 6th August and Sunday 7th August 2005.
The Competition of Bunting Music will take place in The Radisson Hotel, Limavady, County Derry at 7pm on Sunday 7th August 2005.
The Aim of this competition is to have the old, old traditional tunes played. These are generally termed: “the Ancient Music of Ireland”. Seven of the best groups in Ireland will be competing.
The Adjudicators for the Competition are:
• Tommy Peoples
• Frankie Gavin
• Tomás Ó Canainn
Street Seisiúns will be held between 2pm to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Pub Seisiúns will take place in:
Frank Owen’s Bar
The Roebuck Inn
The Corner Bar
The Pub, Limavady
The competition sounds great. The festival as a whole sounds interesting--trad music, motorcycle stunts, and a country & western variety show among other events.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Yeah, there are certainly some "interesting" side show activities. The thing that interests myself personally most is the "Competition of Bunting Music". Larsheen, come along and you will see who thay are.
Hopefully the following article will shed a bit more light on the competition:
Limavady to host the Edward Bunting Competition
The Danny Boy Festival will be celebrated on the weekend of August 5th 6th and 7th . in Limavady. As a finale on Sunday night, a new competition will take place. Prizes of £3000, £2000 and £1000 will be given to the winners. Each group will perform 3 pieces from the Ancient Music of Ireland collected by Edward Bunting in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the best musicians from here and Scotland have already submitted entries.
Many may ask why choose Edward Bunting and what has he got to do with a festival in Limavady? This article is intended to answer the question.
Historical and social setting
With the massive social changes of the latter half of the 18th century - Tom Paine’s Rights of Man - the American War of Independence - the French Revolution, most of the enlightened political thinkers of the western world were reviewing their attitudes to society and how it could be run to the betterment of the individual.
Just like America, France and Holland, Ireland also felt the wind of change. Many Ulster families had relations sending letters back from America about their part in the war. Some had family members being educated in European Universities. France declared war on Britain in1778. The government, fearing Irish disaffection, relaxed its anti Catholic stance in a number of hurried measures, and built a series of Martello towers to resist Bonaparte’s expected invasion using Ireland as the backdoor. The Bastille was stormed and the ‘sans cullottes’ swept to the guillotine their feudal lords. The Belfast News Letter was full of news from France and there was a great buzz in Belfast, which, at that time, was the most Irish of all the cities, being mentally farthest from the grip of Dublin.
As sweeping changes in the fundamental beliefs of a society are proposed, so too is created a danger of losing what is precious from the past. Other European countries had already seen the danger to their culture and had set about recording for preservation what they held dear. Russia focused on collecting her music and so in Ireland some decided to do the same.
In the fashionable and refined cities of Europe concert halls were being built. Concertos were the ‘in’ music. The pianoforte was finding its way into many of the big houses in Ireland. This new pop music swept Europe. The harpers in Ireland had to follow the fashion and play pop or be out of work. This alarmed many traditionalists, and so they acted to preserve the old music.
The Granard Harp Balls of 1781, 82 and 85 had been great successes .The McCracken family and Dr. Drennan had been collecting music in Ballinascreen and so, along with Dr.James MacDonnell and Thomas Russell, they set up a committee to organise the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792. Their aim was ‘to save the music for people not yet born’and ‘to attempt to revive and perpetuate the ancient music of Ireland’.
The nineteen year old Edward Bunting was a lodger with the McCrackens. He got the job of writing down the music played. The oldest of the harpers and the only one who played the harp in the old style of plucking with the fingernails greatly impressed Bunting. He was Denis Hempson from Magilligan and, unlike all the other competitors, he played only the old Irish airs composed free from the new European influences .
Limavady connection
This was what the festival organisers were after and so Bunting came to this area to write down what he termed ‘The Ancient Music of Ireland’. He got many airs from him including ‘The Young Man’s Dream or Collad an Oigfir’. Both names appear in the music he noted down from the Belfast festival( Ms.29, page46 ).He published his first collection in 1796 where on page 10, tune number 17 is found ‘Aislean an oigfear The Young Man’s Dream’.
Collad an Oigfir is thought by some to have been composed by Rory Dall O’Cahan, though the evidence for this is unsubstantiated. A blind harper famous in Ireland and Scotland, he owned extensive lands in this area and composed many famous pieces in the ‘ancient style’. Hempson was taught by Brighid O’Cahan, who was taught by Rose O’Cahan, who was taught by Rory Dall O’Cahan, according to accepted lore. He was born towards the end of the sixteenth century and died circa 1650.
Bunting was the mentor for George Petrie, who came here, working for the Ordinance Survey Memoirs of 1833-5. He was employed by John O’Donovan to collect the music. The survey’s 8 mile base line was on Magilligan strand where the remains of Drummond’s light towers are still to be seen.
Petrie’s collecting started in Magilligan also. In Limavady he enlisted the help of Jane Ross and he acknowledged that she gave him many melodies amongst which was a piece which soon became named The Londonderry Air. Petrie published it in 1855 without a title or rather ‘Name Unknown’. Jane, according to accepted local tradition, got her version from a fiddler called James McCurry. Her ‘very old’ air differs in some respects from what Bunting recorded.
This version found its way to Margaret Weatherly in the goldfields of Ouray, Colorado. It is claimed that she sent the air to Frederick Weatherly in London. He was a renowned song writer. With some modifications, the air fitted an already written set of lyrics of his called Danny Boy.
Danny Boy was published first in 1913 by Boosey (of Boosey and Hawkes fame) and has since become the most recorded piece of music ever. It is known and identified with Ireland throughout the world and is virtually our national anthem.
Edward Bunting must be credited with starting the idea of collecting traditional material and folklore ‘now rather than later’. He entered history just as the old bardic systems were expiring and saved for us the last vestiges of a noble tradition. He published 3 volumes of collected tunes. By far the most important of these were what he termed ‘The Ancient Music of Ireland’. He started a century of collecting that amassed a body of native music that is unequalled by any other nation and, most important of all, he caught on paper some of the ‘ancient’ airs. Hopefully this competition will perpetuate and honour his memory.
The competition is by invitation. It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting, targeting the lesser known but beautiful airs composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler. Groups, of whatever number, will be expected to perform a set that contains 3 pieces from Bunting’s collections. Performances will last no more than 12 minutes. Prior to the competition the groups will submit to the organisers a list of the tunes they intend to play.
There are 3 prizes of £3000, £2000 and £1000
Hopefully a Video and CD will be made of the competition with a view to publication.
The adjudication should also be great with Tommy Peoples, Frankie Gavin and Tomás Ó Canainn at the helm.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
KFG, the fiddle reference is because it was originally supposed to be a fiddle festival; nothing to do with the Euro influences part. I suspect yuo're just being a tad pedantic.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Hi Kerry, I "think" that they are making a video and CD of the festival, and I will certainly let you know if they can be ordered on-line. I suppose they will have to do the editing, mastering and all that lovely fun work before it will be ready for the P&P process.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
"I suspect yuo're just being a tad pedantic."
While there is a certain point buried in my post, what I'm chiefly doing is being amused over it and having a laugh.
I'm sorry, but it really is quite funny that a competition whose stated goal, and *I* did not state that goal, is the promotion of pre Euro influenced Irish music should *require* one of the chief elements of that influence in the contest.
And it serves to illustrate just how strong that influence is that they cannot actually bring themselves to abandon it.
Substitue trombone or Theremin for fiddle and the joke remains the same.
Or a piano festival sponsoring a pre modern influence baroque music contest, but requiring each group to include a piano, because it's a piano festival.
Ya ever notice that we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Don't you just love that, the old joke that the little girl refused to play Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier because she wasn't playing on a Clavier.
It's just cause the world can't exist without fiddles, we're so important. ; )
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Hi KFC,
My best advice to you is to actually READ the written material in its entirety and not to quote out of context. The full paraphrase reads:
"It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting, targeting the lesser known but beautiful airs composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler."
Read it back to yourself and try and work it out, or shall I repeat it? Maybe there were too many words for you to take in all at once? Here it is broken down for you:
"It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting... Thus each group must have a fiddler."
Are you still in the dark??? If so here's a good site for you:
At first I thought you trying to be funny, but there are clear undertones of antagonism here, for God only knows what reason?
The fact that a fiddle is being used is irrelevant in this context, due to the fact that and I quote "It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry". The primary goal of the competition is the preservation of the Ancient Music of Ireland and to perpetuate and honour the memory of Edward Bunting and to give credit to him for "starting the idea of collecting traditional material and folklore ‘now rather than later’."
As Conan rightfully said, which again you chose to selectively ignore: "KFG, the fiddle reference is because it was originally supposed to be a fiddle festival".
In my humble opinion, a competition like this is completely ground-breaking... having a man who did so much for collecting this vast catalogue of tunes, which would otherwise have been lost now, and having him remembered and honoured in the locality where the tunes originated from. To me this seems like this may be the beginning of a resurrection of the great tunes that he collected, and I am honestly baffled as to why you apparently feel the need to belittle this momentous occasion, by trying to poke fun, when it is blatantly obvious that you simply misread something, quoted out of context and simply cannot back down. The fact to why fiddles must be used has already been clearly established... So why dig a whole deeper for yourself? I don't understand why people bother trying to find in fault in something, especially when they are only embarrassing themselves in the process. Is it boredom?
Lol, u just couldn't let it lie, could you? Well sorry, the people who have been organising this event have put too much work into it under very hard circumstances to have it belittled by you.
Try a bit more positivity next time, and possibly a pair of glasses?
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Probably, most people would. It's not like you were being antagonistic toward the festival, just amused at the phrasing, as I was. No reason for anyone to get their knickers tied in a knot.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
"KFG, I find the sting from Murrough's rejoinders wears off after about two days."
What sting? I did not write the mission statement nor the rules for this contest.
And really, the joke is that the girl actually was playing a clavier, just as a fiddle player is most likely (although not necessarily) playing a violin.
Had she been a bit more sophisticated she would have refused to play because her piano, being equal tempered, could not play the music as scored.
My next keyboard instrument will have a button on it to allow it to do so. I look forward to it.
In the meantime I'm perfectly happy playing Bach on 5 string banjo, but would, nonetheless, find a Bluegrass festival sponsoring a pre Bluegrass influence baroque music contest, *requiring* the inclusion of banjo, humorous.
And in another thread I've already admited to taking great joy in "fiddling" baroque music.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Will be up myself to see what it's about Good luck with it!!
One thing:
"It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting, targeting the lesser known but beautiful airs composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler."
If I can make a small comment - a lot of the music Bunting collected had very strong European influences, and others think that this extends to much earlier pieces. But that's by the by, and a small point. (BTW Bunting did collect from at least one fiddler for those giving out about the instrument).
The collections (all three) were recently (last few years) re-published by Waltons. Expensive enough though. The big one (1840) might still be available in a cheap enough Dover edition. The other 2 are not available separately AFAIK. Another option to get them would be to splash out on Fleischmann's Sources of Irish Music, but you lose the notes etc. then, and last time I checked the price for copies had rocketed (at least £150 I think).
And finally, KFG - there's a serious misunderstanding about the WTC in your comment about the piano being equal-tempered. That was the whole point of the WTC - that it took advantage of the new type of (equal/well tempered) tuning. I'm tempted to say 'Duh!' but that's mean.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
No, I'm afraid that's not the case. Well temeperament is a compromise temperament, as is equal, but it is irregular, giving a different tuning in each key, a fact which Bach took specific artistic advantage of in writing his pieces. There isn't even *a* well temperament, as there is *a* equal temperament.
An equal tempered instrument is not capable of playing them as Bach intended them to sound, the very reason why modern digital keyboards allow the option of well temperament.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
I was serious about my thanks, here I'm a piano major and I didn't know about the differences. . .so I wasn't being, entirely, sarcastic.
Though I do believe that digital instruments are of the devil, could just be an acoustic instrumentalists prejudices. Also, realize that Bach was an innovator of sound. He was criticized for using harmonies other than the perfect fourth and fifth, so I doubt that he would mind much at the way the piano sounds now.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
KFG, I just thought it was a wise-craic and let it go. Sniggering down my sleeve. Now that you've apologized, can I ROTLF.?
I guess the shoe fit Murrough, maybe a bit tight.
Don't feel bad, musicfan. I was well out of school and had partially reinvented the temperament wheel. I was discussing the concept with a music teacher, his eyes lit up and then he told me what the words are. The Early music pros are conversant with temperament issues and will cheerfully discuss it to some length.
All this reminds me of a conversation between the stars of Chinatown. Mr Nicholson said "Hi, Faye" and Ms Dunaway replied ............
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
My music history texts are upstairs, but it's fairly common knowledge among the music majors and pianists here at school. I was first told about it as a beginning pianist. Before him, the majority of music, particularly that used in church was all harmonized with fourths and fifths after Bach, triadic harmonies became more common. I'll search for the exact quotes and stuff and let you know.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Oh, well I haven't started my music history classes yet. I start that this fall, then I'll know all this stuff. . .I just don't tend to read textbooks for fun, ergo I haven't read it all yet. . .back to Bach being criticised. It's not modern day musicians, it was those of his day. Most composers had it fairly hard because they were all trying something new, if they didn't then they wouldn't have anything to compose. You can only compose the same stuff some many times. Very few were actually recognised when they were composing. It is thanks to Bach, and his contemporaries, that we have triad based harmonies. For further reading pleasure pick up a tonal theory book or a music history book.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
"Now that you've apologized, can I ROTLF.?"
S'all right by me, but are you aware of what I apologised for and that it was a sarcastic joke?
"I just don't tend to read textbooks for fun. . ."
I do. I like to learn.
"I doubt that he would mind much at the way the piano sounds now."
Quite possibly so, the point, however, is that he would have composed differently for it.
I don't own an electric instrument, let alone a digital one. I prefer pure acoustic sounds, even to the point of prefering to play venues where I don't need amplification. I don't consider digital instruments as the work of the devil though, and for piano going that route has certain advantages not really needed by other instruments.
I'm already on record here as considering the piano itself to be the work of the devil I'm afraid. Familiartiy breeds contempt, especially when it is justified. Doesn't stop me from loving ragtime and stride though and I've just got back from an evening of listening to a singer/songwriter/piano player.
Ok, I admit it. My primary interest is in the player, not the piano. I'd have been there if she'd been playing tin cans with a rock. So sue me.
And I wish I could attend this competition. I'm sure the music will be effing fantastic.
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
I really didn't read a lot of sarcasm, I just saw a wisecrack highlighting the irony of the situation. But still funny, with immaculate delivery.
I mean in no way to disparage the event, which I also wish I could attend. I am all for Heritage recognition and any attempts to maintain the ties to tradition.
The fact that this is going on at a fiddle event explains everything. Maybe the sponsors just wanted hear fiddles play something apart from warp-speed reels?
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Drat!!!
Now you have blown my cover Murrough, I'll have to think of another rare bird as my 'handle' - any suggestions?
Wonder if Corncrake is taken yet?
& no Walter, I don't like the idea of the 'Bald Eagle'!!
Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
The Danny Boy Festival and Competition of Bunting Music will take place in Limavady, County Derry between Saturday 6th August and Sunday 7th August 2005.
The Competition of Bunting Music will take place in The Radisson Hotel, Limavady, County Derry at 7pm on Sunday 7th August 2005.
The Aim of this competition is to have the old, old traditional tunes played. These are generally termed: “the Ancient Music of Ireland”. Seven of the best groups in Ireland will be competing.
The Adjudicators for the Competition are:
• Tommy Peoples
• Frankie Gavin
• Tomás Ó Canainn
Street Seisiúns will be held between 2pm to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. Pub Seisiúns will take place in:
Frank Owen’s Bar
The Roebuck Inn
The Corner Bar
The Pub, Limavady
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
http://www.dannyboyfestival.com/
The competition sounds great. The festival as a whole sounds interesting--trad music, motorcycle stunts, and a country & western variety show among other events.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by tedium
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Yeah, there are certainly some "interesting" side show activities. The thing that interests myself personally most is the "Competition of Bunting Music". Larsheen, come along and you will see who thay are.
Hopefully the following article will shed a bit more light on the competition:
Limavady to host the Edward Bunting Competition
The Danny Boy Festival will be celebrated on the weekend of August 5th 6th and 7th . in Limavady. As a finale on Sunday night, a new competition will take place. Prizes of £3000, £2000 and £1000 will be given to the winners. Each group will perform 3 pieces from the Ancient Music of Ireland collected by Edward Bunting in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the best musicians from here and Scotland have already submitted entries.
Many may ask why choose Edward Bunting and what has he got to do with a festival in Limavady? This article is intended to answer the question.
Historical and social setting
With the massive social changes of the latter half of the 18th century - Tom Paine’s Rights of Man - the American War of Independence - the French Revolution, most of the enlightened political thinkers of the western world were reviewing their attitudes to society and how it could be run to the betterment of the individual.
Just like America, France and Holland, Ireland also felt the wind of change. Many Ulster families had relations sending letters back from America about their part in the war. Some had family members being educated in European Universities. France declared war on Britain in1778. The government, fearing Irish disaffection, relaxed its anti Catholic stance in a number of hurried measures, and built a series of Martello towers to resist Bonaparte’s expected invasion using Ireland as the backdoor. The Bastille was stormed and the ‘sans cullottes’ swept to the guillotine their feudal lords. The Belfast News Letter was full of news from France and there was a great buzz in Belfast, which, at that time, was the most Irish of all the cities, being mentally farthest from the grip of Dublin.
As sweeping changes in the fundamental beliefs of a society are proposed, so too is created a danger of losing what is precious from the past. Other European countries had already seen the danger to their culture and had set about recording for preservation what they held dear. Russia focused on collecting her music and so in Ireland some decided to do the same.
In the fashionable and refined cities of Europe concert halls were being built. Concertos were the ‘in’ music. The pianoforte was finding its way into many of the big houses in Ireland. This new pop music swept Europe. The harpers in Ireland had to follow the fashion and play pop or be out of work. This alarmed many traditionalists, and so they acted to preserve the old music.
The Granard Harp Balls of 1781, 82 and 85 had been great successes .The McCracken family and Dr. Drennan had been collecting music in Ballinascreen and so, along with Dr.James MacDonnell and Thomas Russell, they set up a committee to organise the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792. Their aim was ‘to save the music for people not yet born’and ‘to attempt to revive and perpetuate the ancient music of Ireland’.
The nineteen year old Edward Bunting was a lodger with the McCrackens. He got the job of writing down the music played. The oldest of the harpers and the only one who played the harp in the old style of plucking with the fingernails greatly impressed Bunting. He was Denis Hempson from Magilligan and, unlike all the other competitors, he played only the old Irish airs composed free from the new European influences .
Limavady connection
This was what the festival organisers were after and so Bunting came to this area to write down what he termed ‘The Ancient Music of Ireland’. He got many airs from him including ‘The Young Man’s Dream or Collad an Oigfir’. Both names appear in the music he noted down from the Belfast festival( Ms.29, page46 ).He published his first collection in 1796 where on page 10, tune number 17 is found ‘Aislean an oigfear The Young Man’s Dream’.
Collad an Oigfir is thought by some to have been composed by Rory Dall O’Cahan, though the evidence for this is unsubstantiated. A blind harper famous in Ireland and Scotland, he owned extensive lands in this area and composed many famous pieces in the ‘ancient style’. Hempson was taught by Brighid O’Cahan, who was taught by Rose O’Cahan, who was taught by Rory Dall O’Cahan, according to accepted lore. He was born towards the end of the sixteenth century and died circa 1650.
Bunting was the mentor for George Petrie, who came here, working for the Ordinance Survey Memoirs of 1833-5. He was employed by John O’Donovan to collect the music. The survey’s 8 mile base line was on Magilligan strand where the remains of Drummond’s light towers are still to be seen.
Petrie’s collecting started in Magilligan also. In Limavady he enlisted the help of Jane Ross and he acknowledged that she gave him many melodies amongst which was a piece which soon became named The Londonderry Air. Petrie published it in 1855 without a title or rather ‘Name Unknown’. Jane, according to accepted local tradition, got her version from a fiddler called James McCurry. Her ‘very old’ air differs in some respects from what Bunting recorded.
This version found its way to Margaret Weatherly in the goldfields of Ouray, Colorado. It is claimed that she sent the air to Frederick Weatherly in London. He was a renowned song writer. With some modifications, the air fitted an already written set of lyrics of his called Danny Boy.
Danny Boy was published first in 1913 by Boosey (of Boosey and Hawkes fame) and has since become the most recorded piece of music ever. It is known and identified with Ireland throughout the world and is virtually our national anthem.
Edward Bunting must be credited with starting the idea of collecting traditional material and folklore ‘now rather than later’. He entered history just as the old bardic systems were expiring and saved for us the last vestiges of a noble tradition. He published 3 volumes of collected tunes. By far the most important of these were what he termed ‘The Ancient Music of Ireland’. He started a century of collecting that amassed a body of native music that is unequalled by any other nation and, most important of all, he caught on paper some of the ‘ancient’ airs. Hopefully this competition will perpetuate and honour his memory.
The competition is by invitation. It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting, targeting the lesser known but beautiful airs composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler. Groups, of whatever number, will be expected to perform a set that contains 3 pieces from Bunting’s collections. Performances will last no more than 12 minutes. Prior to the competition the groups will submit to the organisers a list of the tunes they intend to play.
There are 3 prizes of £3000, £2000 and £1000
Hopefully a Video and CD will be made of the competition with a view to publication.
The adjudication should also be great with Tommy Peoples, Frankie Gavin and Tomás Ó Canainn at the helm.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
". . .composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler."
I'm having a certain amount of trouble parsing this logically.
KFG
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
lol, I'm trying to figure out if you're deliberately trying to be antagonistic or having a laugh KFG? :P
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
The collections sound great, murrough. Can they be ordered online? (Can't make it to the festival, sadly).
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
KFG, the fiddle reference is because it was originally supposed to be a fiddle festival; nothing to do with the Euro influences part. I suspect yuo're just being a tad pedantic.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Espeshally sinse I kan't spel "yuu"
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Kevin?! A pedant?! Shock! Horror!
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Hi Kerry, I "think" that they are making a video and CD of the festival, and I will certainly let you know if they can be ordered on-line. I suppose they will have to do the editing, mastering and all that lovely fun work before it will be ready for the P&P process.
What's the craic with your man BFG? :S lol
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
I think he's just saying fiddles *are* European influence.
The CD is bound to be brilliant. I hope you'll post if you hear any news about that.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Kerri Brown
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
"I suspect yuo're just being a tad pedantic."
While there is a certain point buried in my post, what I'm chiefly doing is being amused over it and having a laugh.
I'm sorry, but it really is quite funny that a competition whose stated goal, and *I* did not state that goal, is the promotion of pre Euro influenced Irish music should *require* one of the chief elements of that influence in the contest.
And it serves to illustrate just how strong that influence is that they cannot actually bring themselves to abandon it.
Substitue trombone or Theremin for fiddle and the joke remains the same.
Or a piano festival sponsoring a pre modern influence baroque music contest, but requiring each group to include a piano, because it's a piano festival.
Ya ever notice that we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
KFG
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Don't you just love that, the old joke that the little girl refused to play Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier because she wasn't playing on a Clavier.
It's just cause the world can't exist without fiddles, we're so important. ; )
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Hi KFC,
My best advice to you is to actually READ the written material in its entirety and not to quote out of context. The full paraphrase reads:
"It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting, targeting the lesser known but beautiful airs composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler."
Read it back to yourself and try and work it out, or shall I repeat it? Maybe there were too many words for you to take in all at once? Here it is broken down for you:
"It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting... Thus each group must have a fiddler."
Are you still in the dark??? If so here's a good site for you:
http://www.cal.org/caela
At first I thought you trying to be funny, but there are clear undertones of antagonism here, for God only knows what reason?
The fact that a fiddle is being used is irrelevant in this context, due to the fact that and I quote "It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry". The primary goal of the competition is the preservation of the Ancient Music of Ireland and to perpetuate and honour the memory of Edward Bunting and to give credit to him for "starting the idea of collecting traditional material and folklore ‘now rather than later’."
As Conan rightfully said, which again you chose to selectively ignore: "KFG, the fiddle reference is because it was originally supposed to be a fiddle festival".
In my humble opinion, a competition like this is completely ground-breaking... having a man who did so much for collecting this vast catalogue of tunes, which would otherwise have been lost now, and having him remembered and honoured in the locality where the tunes originated from. To me this seems like this may be the beginning of a resurrection of the great tunes that he collected, and I am honestly baffled as to why you apparently feel the need to belittle this momentous occasion, by trying to poke fun, when it is blatantly obvious that you simply misread something, quoted out of context and simply cannot back down. The fact to why fiddles must be used has already been clearly established... So why dig a whole deeper for yourself? I don't understand why people bother trying to find in fault in something, especially when they are only embarrassing themselves in the process. Is it boredom?
Lol, u just couldn't let it lie, could you? Well sorry, the people who have been organising this event have put too much work into it under very hard circumstances to have it belittled by you.
Try a bit more positivity next time, and possibly a pair of glasses?
Tóg go bog é
Murrough
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Murrough, of course you're absolutely correct.
KFG, I find the sting from Murrough's rejoinders wears off after about two days. I recommend a couple of pints and a few tunes and you'll be alright.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by grego
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
The fact of the matter is that I have long been a strong and vocal advocate of these old airs, adore hearing them played on fiddle and do so myself.
The instrument is well suited to them, as is the modern, wire strung guitar.
I have no antagonism against the word "driveway" either, nor the people who coined it.
But it is, nonetheless, funny.
I have absolutely no doubt that Bunting would find it so as well.
KFG
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Probably, most people would. It's not like you were being antagonistic toward the festival, just amused at the phrasing, as I was. No reason for anyone to get their knickers tied in a knot.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
"KFG, I find the sting from Murrough's rejoinders wears off after about two days."
What sting? I did not write the mission statement nor the rules for this contest.
And really, the joke is that the girl actually was playing a clavier, just as a fiddle player is most likely (although not necessarily) playing a violin.
Had she been a bit more sophisticated she would have refused to play because her piano, being equal tempered, could not play the music as scored.
My next keyboard instrument will have a button on it to allow it to do so. I look forward to it.
In the meantime I'm perfectly happy playing Bach on 5 string banjo, but would, nonetheless, find a Bluegrass festival sponsoring a pre Bluegrass influence baroque music contest, *requiring* the inclusion of banjo, humorous.
And in another thread I've already admited to taking great joy in "fiddling" baroque music.
KFG
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
ah, thanks for enlightening me. . .
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
I apologize.
KFG
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Will be up myself to see what it's about
Good luck with it!!
One thing:
"It was originally proposed as a fiddle festival to honour James McCurry, then changed to a festival attempting to fulfil the intentions of Bunting, targeting the lesser known but beautiful airs composed before the European influences got a foothold. Thus each group must have a fiddler."
If I can make a small comment - a lot of the music Bunting collected had very strong European influences, and others think that this extends to much earlier pieces. But that's by the by, and a small point. (BTW Bunting did collect from at least one fiddler for those giving out about the instrument).
The collections (all three) were recently (last few years) re-published by Waltons. Expensive enough though. The big one (1840) might still be available in a cheap enough Dover edition. The other 2 are not available separately AFAIK. Another option to get them would be to splash out on Fleischmann's Sources of Irish Music, but you lose the notes etc. then, and last time I checked the price for copies had rocketed (at least £150 I think).
And finally, KFG - there's a serious misunderstanding about the WTC in your comment about the piano being equal-tempered. That was the whole point of the WTC - that it took advantage of the new type of (equal/well tempered) tuning. I'm tempted to say 'Duh!' but that's mean.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by continuo
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Apology accepted KFG,
I don't really know how the post went all pear shaped.
I love the fiddle myself,
Look at 2 of the adjudicators for the festival... arguably 2 of the best fiddle players (in my opinion) who play Irish traditional music.
If I said anything out of order I apologise too.
Hope you enjoy it continuo!
Murrough
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
No, I'm afraid that's not the case. Well temeperament is a compromise temperament, as is equal, but it is irregular, giving a different tuning in each key, a fact which Bach took specific artistic advantage of in writing his pieces. There isn't even *a* well temperament, as there is *a* equal temperament.
An equal tempered instrument is not capable of playing them as Bach intended them to sound, the very reason why modern digital keyboards allow the option of well temperament.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/w/we/well_temperament.htm
KFG
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
I was serious about my thanks, here I'm a piano major and I didn't know about the differences. . .so I wasn't being, entirely, sarcastic.
Though I do believe that digital instruments are of the devil, could just be an acoustic instrumentalists prejudices. Also, realize that Bach was an innovator of sound. He was criticized for using harmonies other than the perfect fourth and fifth, so I doubt that he would mind much at the way the piano sounds now.
# Posted on August 5th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
KFG, I just thought it was a wise-craic and let it go. Sniggering down my sleeve. Now that you've apologized, can I ROTLF.?
I guess the shoe fit Murrough, maybe a bit tight.
Don't feel bad, musicfan. I was well out of school and had partially reinvented the temperament wheel. I was discussing the concept with a music teacher, his eyes lit up and then he told me what the words are. The Early music pros are conversant with temperament issues and will cheerfully discuss it to some length.
All this reminds me of a conversation between the stars of Chinatown. Mr Nicholson said "Hi, Faye" and Ms Dunaway replied ............
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
My music history texts are upstairs, but it's fairly common knowledge among the music majors and pianists here at school. I was first told about it as a beginning pianist. Before him, the majority of music, particularly that used in church was all harmonized with fourths and fifths after Bach, triadic harmonies became more common. I'll search for the exact quotes and stuff and let you know.
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Oh, well I haven't started my music history classes yet. I start that this fall, then I'll know all this stuff. . .I just don't tend to read textbooks for fun, ergo I haven't read it all yet. . .back to Bach being criticised. It's not modern day musicians, it was those of his day. Most composers had it fairly hard because they were all trying something new, if they didn't then they wouldn't have anything to compose. You can only compose the same stuff some many times. Very few were actually recognised when they were composing. It is thanks to Bach, and his contemporaries, that we have triad based harmonies. For further reading pleasure pick up a tonal theory book or a music history book.
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by musicfan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
"Now that you've apologized, can I ROTLF.?"
S'all right by me, but are you aware of what I apologised for and that it was a sarcastic joke?
"I just don't tend to read textbooks for fun. . ."
I do. I like to learn.
"I doubt that he would mind much at the way the piano sounds now."
Quite possibly so, the point, however, is that he would have composed differently for it.
I don't own an electric instrument, let alone a digital one. I prefer pure acoustic sounds, even to the point of prefering to play venues where I don't need amplification. I don't consider digital instruments as the work of the devil though, and for piano going that route has certain advantages not really needed by other instruments.
I'm already on record here as considering the piano itself to be the work of the devil I'm afraid. Familiartiy breeds contempt, especially when it is justified. Doesn't stop me from loving ragtime and stride though and I've just got back from an evening of listening to a singer/songwriter/piano player.
Ok, I admit it. My primary interest is in the player, not the piano. I'd have been there if she'd been playing tin cans with a rock. So sue me.
And I wish I could attend this competition. I'm sure the music will be effing fantastic.
KFG
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
I really didn't read a lot of sarcasm, I just saw a wisecrack highlighting the irony of the situation. But still funny, with immaculate delivery.
I mean in no way to disparage the event, which I also wish I could attend. I am all for Heritage recognition and any attempts to maintain the ties to tradition.
The fact that this is going on at a fiddle event explains everything. Maybe the sponsors just wanted hear fiddles play something apart from warp-speed reels?
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by Owell Mabee
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Dang, so many words. I'm too tired to read them all. KFG I've kept an eye on you and you seem like a crafty fellow ;)
# Posted on August 6th 2005 by celticsteve18
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Contined on:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/7370
Report by Dick Glasgow.
# Posted on August 8th 2005 by Murrough
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Drat!!!
Now you have blown my cover Murrough, I'll have to think of another rare bird as my 'handle' - any suggestions?
Wonder if Corncrake is taken yet?
& no Walter, I don't like the idea of the 'Bald Eagle'!!
# Posted on August 9th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Blue Footed Boobie?
KFG
# Posted on August 9th 2005 by KFG
Re: Danny Boy Festival - Competition of Bunting Music
Ah KFG, makes me think of Galapagos!!
Now there's a rare handle!
Wonder if there are any instruments with that name!
i.e.
The Galapagos Triangle!
or
The Blue Footed Boobie Banjo!
....I need food!........................
# Posted on August 12th 2005 by Ptarmigan