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Packie Russell Clips On You-tube


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yes, i remember being electrified when i first saw/heard the packie clip that has been on the 'tube for about ten-ish years now....i love his "long-bow" clare-fiddle-type phrasing....exploiting the 30 or 30+ button anglo's full note-choice capacity to choose to extend your "bow strokes" and phrases when you want to, the way the fiddlers choose, or the bandoneon players can choose........about 6 years ago i was in a workshop with a clare concertina player of the "play only THESE buttons" school, and when they disapprovingly noted this in my style, i began to explain how i was doing it by choice, and the individual cut me off literally about four words in, and said in this patronizing tone, "by choice? i don't THINK so....this is something you see done by people without musical training," blah, blah, blah. so i didn't bother explaining any more, and didn't bother noting that gearoid and tim collins had separately remarked on it in a surprised but approving way. i just continued to play the way i want it to sound. and i am not at all convinced that packie russell was doing it accidentally. he sounds very "clare fiddle." so did john joe casey's concertina playing, i love the phrasing of his as well....

Edited by ceemonster
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Early mornign random thoughts:

 

 

Fintan Vallely did a nice presentation on the history of the drum @ Willie a some years ago, there were some interesting insights there.

 

As for Clare drumming, you're all familiar with the recordings of Willie Clancy and Aggie Whyte accompanied bu Thady Casey's drumming?

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When I first went to Ireland in 1976 I sought out Packy Russell in the pub at Doolin. He saw my concertina and we started playing a tune together, but the pub was packed out with about 30 or 40 students from Dublin, every one of which had a bodhran. Whenever we started playing all the bodhrans started up too and it sounded like the annual wildebeest migration was going through the pub. After this had happened about 3 or 4 times Packie lent across to me at the end of our tunes and said "If there's a single bodhran in heaven, then I'm glad I'm going to Hell!"

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When I first went to Ireland in 1976 I sought out Packy Russell in the pub at Doolin. He saw my concertina and we started playing a tune together, but the pub was packed out with about 30 or 40 students from Dublin, every one of which had a bodhran. Whenever we started playing all the bodhrans started up too and it sounded like the annual wildebeest migration was going through the pub. After this had happened about 3 or 4 times Packie lent across to me at the end of our tunes and said "If there's a single bodhran in heaven, then I'm glad I'm going to Hell!"

 

I vividly recall the reaction from Packie when I was sitting next to him and innocently suggested that the bodhran player sitting on the other side of him was playing well. Of course he could not make a comment with out his neigbour hearing so he turned to me and pulled a face that would out do a gargoyle!

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  • 5 months later...
On 5/13/2008 at 5:14 PM, JimLucas said:

... it looks like Mr. Bones is playing both rib bones (the model for modern-day Irish bones players) and a jawbone, an instrument which one rarely encounters these days.

 

Well here's a rare encounter for you then Jim!

 

In this YouTube clip the (Civil War Re-enactors) 2nd South Carolina String Band perform Stephen Foster's immortal "Old Folks at Home" - aka "Suwannee River" - on authentic instruments that include a jawbone:

 

 

 

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Quote

lizzie crotty was a remarkable individual, and so was kitty hayes....the music was in them and it would out no matter what....

 

 

No doubt about that.

 

With the weather being what it is and the Concertina Cruinniu just behind us there are a few things/players  that come to mind:

 

I recently heard a few times about a player from the Kilfenaroa area, Bridget McGrath. Like so many women she was away from the concertina but got back into it with a vengeance. Her head full of music, she'd dream up tunes. She reputedly composed Mulqueeney's hornpipe (of Molloy/Peoples/Brady fame). She kept a pencil  tied to the bed with a piece of string, if she'd wake up in the night with a bit of a tune in her head she'd write the notes on the wallpaper for safe keeping. Several people told me the story the wall was covered in tunes after she died. John Killourhy was recorded saying she 'was a hundred times better player than Mrs Crotty'.

 

 

Maire O'Keeffe, speaking about women concertina players in Clare last friday mentioned Bridget Dinan, some of her playing is featured in the lovely Rte Documentary the Clare travelling shop, which is about Andy McNamara's shop, operating out of Tulla. Mary McNamara mentioned during the weekend she'd often go out with her father on deliveries. In fact the concertina Mrs Dinan is playing was one that was brought back from America for Mary but, as she said, she just had acquired a Wheatstone and had no use for it so she gave it to Mrs Dinan. Bridget Dinan played until her death, in her 106th year (if I remember correctly).

 

 

Edited by Peter Laban
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  • 2 months later...

I have read with interest the evolution of the bodhrán, that I have seen time ago. 

The instrument seems originally very similar to the pandeira, a big tambourine that it is still played in galician music, I put here a link in which you can see also thethumbhole for holding thtae instrument. 

The most used similir instrument in Galicia, the pandeireta, the small pandeira, that it is smaller and galician people play it in a different way than the rest of Spain, we move the tambourine against the hand, not the hand against the instrument as it is usually in percussion instruments. 

We use rolls with almost all the fingers of the hand, the thumb too. For doing it easier the pandeireta is prepared with wax from a candle. 

If it is insteresting for somebody I can put a link to a youtube explanation of it that has english translations of the technique. 

I don't know if it is used in the pandeira, as it is bigger the style of playing is different, instead of moving the instrument, the musician moves his/her hand. 

In galicia people says that some times were constructed with sieves. 

 

Félix Castro 

pandeira xaneco tubío.jpg

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On 9/29/2014 at 4:09 AM, Stephen Chambers said:

I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a local musician who knew Stevie McNamara, and he was able to tell me that it was Stevie who made both of the tambourines I was referring to - in fact the lady in Lisdoonvarna is Stevie's daughter-in-law.

 

The lady from Lisdoonvarna, Stevie McNamara's daughter-in-law that I referred to, is Mona Conlon (sister of Lisdoonvarna box player Johnny Conlon, and cousin of my late concertina (and C#/D accordion) playing friend Micilín Conlon), and a few days ago I was made aware of a Doolin Steeplechase video that includes her playing in a 1988 Doolin session. The music starts 5 minutes into it and you can clearly see her playing thumb rolls on her Stevie McNamara-made tambourine, in fact she plays a lot like Stevie did.

 

I also recognise Michel Bonamy on flute, with Micho Russell on tinwhistle and Eoin O'Neill on bouzouki.

 

https://www.rte.ie/archives/collections/news/21269656-doolin-steeplechase/?fbclid=IwAR1fPpfcFqqqsTROd9XspitPdDtIqwSbBw9eQXfnFwinVqLxy3fmitT_MMQ

Edited by Stephen Chambers
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