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What Key Is This Played In? Na Ceanabháin Bhána-Kitty Hayes


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Thanks, I will try to transpose it.

Uhm, none of my business, of course (!), but why transpose it? I would guess to play with others in a session. That is perfectly okay, of course, but it sounds lovely in C, and is played by an old master player in C (singly, and strictly along the C row), and C is the classic pitch for the old time Irish concertina. You can easily transpose it by dropping it down to the G row - no problems there - but listen to how screechy and tinny it sounds when you do that. Just a gentle suggestion, but why not shake up your sessioners and play it in C? Some of these simple old C tunes were written in C on concertinas and accordions, and they sound just great that way, with a bit of growl. You stretch all the time to play in D for the fiddlers, let them stretch a bit and play in C every now and then!

Never mind me :rolleyes: ...have fun whatever you do.

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i'm not sure what the problem is with transposing tunes from lovely but lesser-used keys so you can play them in D-pitch seshes. i got a bunch of west clare-ish repertoire from the kitty hayes and kitty-and-peter recordings and learned them as-recorded as well as in D-sesh paradigm. i sometimes practice just about all the jig sets from the "live" recording in a big long string in flat pitch and then strung together in higher-pitch....

Edited by ceemonster
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Take it as a rule of thumb we played most of our tunes one tone flat of 'standard' pitch. Although we had a few tunes that didn't quite fit that profile in one way or another.

 

Kitty played a standard run of the mill rosewood ended Lachenal C/g so you have all the notes. If you feel inclined to have a go at her version.

 

At one point a visiting concertina player came up to Kitty's in order to record her playing his own concertina so he'd have her playing in all the 'right' keys. It didn't quite pan out the way he hoped I think although we had a great afternoon of tunes.

Edited by Peter Laban
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The first tune is in F. The second tune is in C (but with both B naturals and B flats in the melody).

Oops...of course you are right,David. She plays it all on the C row,so I didn't engage enough brain cells!

 

Still, it is nice in this low a pitch, and to change it too much into a different pitch would perhaps change her nice old phrasing.

 

I was at a session in eastern Ireland recently, one that had some younger players. One was a concertina player, and I was close enough to hear that that young person was promising. (I was just listening, and had no concertina with me). It wasn't long before someone started the Bellharbour Reel, and I looked forward to hearing what that young person had learned. It was a bit disappointing ( to me), because that concertinist played it with 'new style' fingering. To me, and I am admittedly a stick in the mud, that is always Chris Droney's signature tune, and Chris nailed it in his along the row, driving style. To hear it played in a more fluid, cross row way with lots of embellishments - the modern way, I know - turned it into mush. Too bad that so many concertina instructors are teaching a purely virtuosic style, and not teaching so much the value of the older styles, too. Don't want to be too broad brush about it, because that is not the way with everyone, but old styles are disappearing fast with the demands of playing in fast sessions in the fanciest new ways.

 

I shall now duck and run!

Edited by Dan Worrall
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I know what you mean Dan and I hear what you are saying about old styles (and agree) but clarity and lift are maybe more a feature of the player than of the style. Playing a lot in big sessions takes it toll too.

 

[On a side note - Dan, you may be interested in this book for a view of local history and it's bit on housedances etc)

Edited by Peter Laban
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I know what you mean Dan and I hear what you are saying about old styles (and agree) but clarity and lift are maybe more a feature of the player than of the style. Playing a lot in big sessions takes it toll too.

 

[On a side note - you may be interested in this book for a view of local history and it's bit on housedances etc)

Peter,

 

Many thanks for the book recommendation; I never would have seen that one, and have just ordered it. I've heard some old tapes of Willie Clancy playing tunes of the mixed house dance repertoire (ie, reels etc but also flings, waltzes and polkas) and have heard that he played whistle as a kid in his family's house dances, before he became a piper. Since Talty was a big friend of his, I'm hoping this book may shed more light on that.

Barry Taylor's new book on a history of dancing in west Clare should be out soon, and that too should be well worth seeking out when it does.

 

On the other note, of course the quality of the player himself/herself always is the most important thing. Nonetheless, there is a certain sameness happening to modern playing styles, says the curmudgeon! That would include perhaps a bit much attention on the 'best' way, and perhaps not quite enough on the diversity of older ways. I'm getting too far off thread, so will bow out... :)

 

Cheers,

Dan

Edited by Dan Worrall
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The first tune is in F...

She plays it all on the C row...

So here I was, thinking "If she's in F, how can she play it all on the C row?" when I listened again and realized that the tune doesn't have any Bb in it.

Right. Note that William Mullaly played many G tunes on the D row...the same relative transition. Some of his G tunes didn't need the flattened note, and on the others (where the tune required it) Mullaly didn't care and left it sharpened...hence his eerie modal-ish sound at times (read Jackie Small's liner notes on this, where it is spelled out in great detail). Old time players made do with what they had, and the results often give us a refreshingly different phrasing and an often modal sound. Today, we would study such a tune to death bringing in the 'correct' fingering and the required sharp or flat from the top row, so that it would sound 'correct' (meaning, just like the fiddle or pipe version written down in ONeills or Breathnach)...and another old time concertina version bites the dust. Says the curmudgeon.

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Hey Dan, should we ask Martin Hayes to go back and learn how to play more like his father? I love studying the old style, but I live in a very different world than those who grew up in the old Ireland. Whereas my great great Aunt Bee played in small, quiet cottages on an old 20 button German concertina using one row at a time, I play in loud pubs and on stage thousands of miles away in Chicago on a 30 button Carroll. To play like her would dishonest to my own roots and background. I study the old styles of course, but try as I might I can only sound like myself.

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Some of his G tunes didn't need the flattened note, and on the others (where the tune required it) Mullaly didn't care and left it sharpened...hence his eerie modal-ish sound at times...

Yes, I know a pipe-and-taborer who plays Morris Dance tunes the same way, refusing to half-hole the C natural. Drives me nuts.

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Hey Dan, should we ask Martin Hayes to go back and learn how to play more like his father? I love studying the old style, but I live in a very different world than those who grew up in the old Ireland. Whereas my great great Aunt Bee played in small, quiet cottages on an old 20 button German concertina using one row at a time, I play in loud pubs and on stage thousands of miles away in Chicago on a 30 button Carroll. To play like her would dishonest to my own roots and background. I study the old styles of course, but try as I might I can only sound like myself.

 

Ah, well, David, vive la difference! It all depends upon whether you like ‘Irish traditional music’ or traditional Irish music. You are a city person who likes being around, as you say, loud pubs and playing on big stages with mikes and speakers and such. Good for you! That is the world of modern ‘ITM’ around the world, and you are swimming happily with the current. No problem with that.

 

Me, I live in the country (in Texas), to a different rhythm. I go out of my way to avoid big ITM scenes, beer-drenched pub venues, and just about all green-swathed St. Patricks day crowds. No thanks! I was fortunate enough to first get to Ireland in the late 1970s, toward what now seems like the end of an era. Visiting family relations of mine and my wife’s out in the west of Clare and Mayo….gentle old country people of very modest means living in tiny little cottages with turf fires smoldering in old ranges. Horizontal rain tapping on the windows, and somebody brought out a bottle of poteen and a tin whistle or a battered concertina. I would trade the bulk of modern frenetic concertina players (I won’t name names) for just one more player like your old Aunt Bee on her 20 button German concertina. I quietly rejoiced last year when a friend in Clare sent me recordings of Martin Howley playing Bothar na Sop on an old German concertina. He was a humble and modest man, living in a remote area of west Clare, and I doubt he played in a lot of big ‘ITM’ pub sessions. He never cut a CD in his life, never went to a class in how to play the concertina in the best way for ITM sessions, and his sense of musicality suits me perfectly.

 

No, Martin Hayes is a superb musician and can play what he wants. I freely admit to being an army of nearly one, but will continue to gently point out to those interested in a less frenetic world that 'traditional Irish music' on the concertina can be great for inner peace, if you dig under the modern surface.

 

Have fun, whether metaphorically in the city or the country!

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Very nicely put Dan. I think there is room for the two streams of thought, although I find myself gravitating in the same direction as you. It's fun to play in this style on my inherited Henry Harley (26 button Anglicized German concertina)- it feels like a bit of an historical reenactment. And as someone who has started his musical journey late in life, I doubt I'll ever do a musically convincing Noel Hill impression. I have been seeking out old recordings, but often I will hear a piece by a contemporary ITM player (Edel Fox for example) that I especially like, and upon reflection find that it has an element of "old-school" playing.

 

Of course even those who aspire to the old styles will make their changes no matter how hard they try to preserve the original. As a friend puts it, we all put our music through "the whirring blades of the folk music process"!

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