ok...I wanted to know (its probably a really obvious question).
I know there's Irish style and English style for playing but is there certain songs for certain styles or can you play any song in either style?

I am an Anglo player, living in Ireland and playing a C/G concertina. What I say is based on this.
There are few tunes that appear in both repertoires. But they are there. And they are not played the same way or even in the same key.
As far as the Anglo concertina is concerned, and this is my own generalized take on it and not the word of God, an Irish player will play across the rows with minimal chordal accompaniment, concentrating on melody and ornamentation.
An English musicians will play up and down the rows with a lot of chordal accompaniment.
You can play any tune (songs have words) or song in either style, of course, but it might not sound right in translation. I feel the same way about an Irish tune played by a classical violinist: the tune is there but it will lack the life it had closer to its source.
You should get a copy of the 3-disc collection of concertina players from http://www.angloconcertina.co.uk. That will answer a lot of your questions.

there is no one english or irish style,there is much diversity of both
[imo]you should try both the different approaches,and play the way that appeals to you the most.
Try and develop your own style.
Ignore anyone who tries to tell you you are not playing in an authentic style,most of those people are so narrow minded,they sound like second rate carbon copies of someone else,in fact there is a phenomenona now among irish anglo concertina players,which I would call the Carthy copy cat sdyndrome[the famous guitarist who in the sixties seventies seventies,eighties,was unfortunate enough to have third rate clones in every folk club],but now its two or three irish anglo players whose every ornamentation is being faithfully/slavishly imitated.whatever happened to originality.

I agree, Dick. If we all played the instrument the same way, life would be boring. Who knows, by experimenting with the instrument, different aspects of playing might be discovered (which might then be copied by others! ).

Regards,
Peter.

A very simple analysis is that for English Style the tune is mostly played on the right hand and chords on the left for Irish Music the tunes are mostly played across the two rows right hand and left.
I will however be posting an Irish tune shortly that mainly involves the right hand and can easily be played by an English Style player ,but it is the only one I have found so far.
Al

You quoted my post so I assume you're talking to me.

there is no one english or irish style,there is much diversity of both --
Yes, of course there is diversity. But if you think there aren't two distinct styes then you should have your hearing checked. On the Anglo International CDs I suggested, compare Alan O'Day and Mary MacNamara- tracks 1&2 and 24-26. They're very different styles, as I said.

[imo]you should try both the different approaches,and play the way that appeals to you the most.
Both approaches? I thought you said there isn't one style of each? Sure, everybody should play the way they want to. But why would you slag anybody who hears a trad style and wants to play within the tradition?

Try and develop your own style.
Sure. I'd just rather develop my own style within a distinct tradition.

Ignore anyone who tries to tell you you are not playing in an authentic style,
Depends on whether you want to play in an "authentic" style or not - that's your word, not mine. If a great player tries to steer me in one directiobn is that a bad thing?

most of those people are so narrow minded, (who for instance is "so narrow minded"?) they sound like second rate carbon copies of someone else,in fact there is a phenomenona now among irish anglo concertina players,which I would call the Carthy copy cat sdyndrome[the famous guitarist who in the sixties seventies seventies,eighties,was unfortunate enough to have third rate clones in every folk club],but now its two or three irish anglo players whose every ornamentation is being faithfully/slavishly imitated.whatever happened to originality.

This is just a silly rant. Is there something wrong with taking lessons from an accomplished player and incorporating that in your playing? There are dozens of great concertina players now who are teaching within an "authentic" tradition. They aren't copying each other. If you listen you can hear the differences. If you're just a casual listener they all sound the same. Are all those fiddlers who learned from Michael Coleman only second rate carbon copies of someone else?

no, Iwasnt talking to you,sorryI should have deleted your quote

I was SO glad to see Peter and Dick's replies. In addition to Eng concertina...I also play bluegrass banjo and "Old Time" (god I hate that term) fiddle. Every once in awhile, especially in OT fiddle music, you run in to these folks who can't help pointing out "you're not playing that tune right."

Of course, if the melody doesn't even SOUND like the tune...they're justified...but variation on a tune is as old as the tune itself. So, what IS right?

It's a comfort to this Yank who plays to know that our friends across the sea aren't so very hung up on all of us sounding exactly like the next guy.

now ,that you realise my post was not aimed at you,perhaps you would study what I said more carefully.what I am objecting to and advising against is the slavish copying of one player.
here in Ireland I see this problem quite alot[on assorted instruments],a method of teaching where the teacher,slows down the playing on a tape recorder,[including ornamentation].
result=lots of copies of the teachers style,what the teacher should be doing,is teaching techniques,and illustating different styles or at least exposing the pupil to different ways of doing it.
to some extent it is difficult for a teacher,What i try and do is say well at this point you can do this here or another way is to do that.
a classic example is fiddle bowing,it is a good idea to show a pupil,two or three different bowings,lets take Drowsy maggie,there is a bowing in ONEILLS 1001,There is a bowing in Cranitch,and a different bowing in munster fiddle bowing[lyth]
now I do not see why these principles cant be applied to any instrument[including the anglo].
if the beginner,does not have ateacher[not abad idea],then listen to lots of different players,lots of different styles,be prepared to learn right hand melody style,be prepared to learn different cross rowing,this is where books like mick bramitch[Irish Concertina] are very good because they show you lots of different ways of cross rowing,so youcan develop your own style.
if we all played in the same way,it would be very boring.

Oh, Nicely said! One of the great treats is hearing someone with a new style that still gives the music room for full expression. After all, the people being slavishly copied these days are copied because listening to them is fun. There is a lot to be said from a good background in how those who have gone before us have approached the instrument, because many of them have a good grounding in the music itself as handed down and developed over the centuries. Their approach hopefully carries with it the important features of the Music itself irrespective of what it is played on.

My own experience ( as a cross row anglo player )is that one of the major differences between English and Irish music is rhythmic. Both countries have long dance traditions, but they are not the same, neither are their singing traditions. The rhythms have a large influence on the playing styles even extremely locally ( in the recent past anyway ) in Ireland This shows up a lot in concertina players, and there is a lot of room for different ways of playing that all have their own ways of dealing with the rhythm. The Anglo is well suited to expressing rhythm and fits Irish music extremely well. It certainly isn't limited to that though.

In the end I think "style" is best left to how the nature of the music itself influences each players search for a technique that expresses it as best they hear it. I remember Noel Hill talking about the need to keep grace notes below the level of the melody so they didn't dominate it and I feel the same way about playing styles The best ones leave the music intact and help to breathe life into it. The worst bury the music under the domination of the features of the style of playing itself, sometimes tending to showcase the player not the music.
Dana

Those who attempt to replicate a supposedly 'authentic' style of music (or musician) are surely missing out on all the fun of freedom of self expression, exploration, creativity, improvisation etc. etc.

So is there any rule in say..erm..for example that you can't play the chords on the right and the tunes on the left?

Well your answer is already there in lots of previous posts; if it sounds good, do it, don't NOT do it because no one else is at the moment.

Switching the tune to the bass and putting in a light treble chord accompaniment is a good device for varying things to keep up the interest when you're playing a tune over and over.

I just have a tendancy to play instruments left handed. lol! Plus I think it sounds nicer.

I'd also say, those who don't attempt to reproduce an 'authentic' style miss all sort of fun, too. I take great pleasure in playing with those who are trying to share a common language, there's things there you can't find on the other side of the pond.

I think the first rule of Anglo playing is that there are no rules. However, there are "usual" ways of doing things.

Are you left-handed?

Melody on the left and chords/counter-melody on the right certainly goes against the "norm", but would overcome certain problems which plague all concertina players.

Full "low" chords overpower a "high" melody line, which is one reason why many of us advise against playing full chords. However, if you put the chord above the melody line, the problem will almost certainly vanish. I remember having a similar debate in Dave Townsend's workshop at Witney 2006. We were discussing it with reference to the English keyboard, but it should apply equally to Anglos and Duets.

If you can "mix and match" between the left and right hands playing melody, with the chords going in the opposite direction, then I think it will take the Anglo into seldom-charted waters (at least in recent years!).

So; LDT, a good question.

Regards,
Peter.

no I write right handed, but I eat left handed, sew left handed and, tend to play instruments left handed. Weird huh?


Thanks for the info. Wish I could get good enough to mix n match. I'm surprised no ones tried it before.


thanks.

Reading through this lot, I think only Dana has really picked on what, for me, is the key point. The reason that there are different styles of playing is because the underlying musical traditions are different. After all, by the time the concertina (indeed all the free reed aerophones) came on the scene the national, regional and local styles were long established. People who chose to play the instrument were faced with the challenge of finding techniques that worked with the music.

I think it not surprising that there were many diverse styles of playing devised to meet the challenge. It's rather sad that we only know of three historical English styles of anglo playing: the left hand chording of William Kimber, the parallel octaves of Scan Tester and the full-on chromatic playing of Fred Kilroy. Even here the disparity of approach makes it difficult to indulge in generalisations, but what they all had in common was that they made the music work and the dancers dance (another of my perennial themes is that traditional music is largely dance music, and you ignore this at your peril. Kimber, Tester and Kilroy were all dance musicians).

I guess what I'm saying is that you don't choose a style in isolation. You decide what music you want to play and work out the best way to play it. You may do that by learning the style of musicians you respect, or you may strike out in a new direction, or some combination of the two. But it's the music that drives the choices, not the other way round.

Chris

Edited to add PS: reading this again, I realise I am taking it for granted we are talking about traditional music. If we're not, then stylistically all bets are off. But I stand by my last sentence even then.

I like all the traditional stuff...but I also like modern music (well modernish...popular stuff like the beatles etc.) which people around me would know better than the trad stuff and I would love to try and play some of that. But I'm not sure how to.

Hmm, I would qualify this by saying that really you should try and play music in your own tradition. It's about the culture and traditions of that in which you were brought up and/or now live in. So, if you are Russian or live in Russia, well play Russian folk ... USA, try American folk ... etc. etc. That gives you a sense of rootedness and adds additional meaning to your music making. It also conserves cultural differences and stops us all becoming some big mish mash of McDonald's.

Of course, by all means .. delve into the music of other styles but your primary music should that which is local - 'think global, act local' etc.

my advice is learn both styles.
probably if youwish to play modern music,a chordal style might suit you.eventually ,it might be a good idea to eventually learn to play in many different keys,this will improve your knowledge of the finger board.
as well as working on tunes it might be agood idea to work on chords.
the late Paul Davis successfully managed to play two different styles[irish and fred kilroy type]there is nological reason to limit yourself to one style, unless you prefer one style exclusively.

Interesting advice and a principle I apply to myself, but as it happens the rest of the world largely doesn't. Across the US and Europe many play mostly Irish traditional music as the preferred tradition. Indeed in Germany and Austria it has almost totally displaced the indigenous music (which has been rejected because of its Nazi associations. Sad but true).

I know in England there is a good sized contingent of people obsessed with pipes and gurdies and French music. There are Swedish morris dancers and an English music session in Stockholm I've been meaning to get to for ages. We have a German friend who loves English music and spends as much time as she is able in England playing superb English fiddle in sessions. It would seem that, at least so far as the West is concerned, the traditional music you play is a matter of choice, not birth.

Chris

good points Chris,but becauseI live in ireland,I rarely play English tunes[I do still sing english songs] but Irish tunes,because I get paid for doing it,now that doesnt mean I dont like them,Iactually like both,But being a professional musician, demand, determines what I play.

I'm English but I have Irish, Dutch and Spanish gypsy ancestory (apparently) somewhere in the distant past.
So does that count to?

Also a good point.

Chris

I dunno - I'd guess you have to decide that for yourself. But surely music is a community thing - so you live in England and presumably there are other people playing English folk not too far away. So you choose to play in that style and learn that repetoire because that's part of what makes you English. On a practical level, you have people to play and socialise with. OTOH, if you have Irish connections and live in or near an Irish community, maybe Irish trad. is a good choice. What I can't quite figure is why people in the Appalachian Mtns or some city in Japan choose to immerse themselves in music from distant parts of the world when they have a ready made local culture of music making. I suppose because they like it but does it not lack a certain relevance? I live in Ireland and enjoy playing Irish trad. - in it's own small way, it's part of the fabric from which society is woven - I couldn't imagine myself wanting to play Chinese folk, though I enjoyed several of the featured pieces in the Beijing coverage.

I spent a little time in West Virginia this summer and was encouraged to see a whole lot of hot young musicians playing the old fiddle/banjo tunes of that locality - in fact you'd be much more likely to find English people playing Appalachian music than the other way round! As for Japan, I once met a Japanese box player at Chippenham Folk Festival, who explained that some of the tunes on one of my CDs were played regularly in his local music session back home. Bizarre to think of 200-year-old dance music from Lancashire getting a new lease of life in 21st-century Tokyo.

Personally I think it's good to be grounded in the musical culture of the place where you live, but good musicians generally possess sufficient curiosity and relish for a challenge that they experiment with other kinds of music, too. Concertina players are particularly up for this kind of thing, as you can hear from the wonderful and occasionally bizarre range of things played at concertina weekends (anyone for ragtime and blues? see you at Witney!). It can be fun to adapt a 'foreign' kind of music both to the limitations of your instrument, and to your own playing style.

On the specific Irish / English issue that LDT was asking about, David Levine was right to mention that there are tunes that feature in in both English and Irish (also Scots and Welsh) traditional repertoire - in fact there's more common ground than many people realise - but it's in the playing style that the difference lies. It's perfectly possible to play many tunes from Irish repertoire on Anglo in the 'English' style (i.e. with chordal accompaniment), but they come out sounding very different. Sometimes the chords slow you down or get in the way of the melody, particularly in the case of an Irish reel. Equally, to play Walter Bulwer's No. 2 very fast and with loads of ornaments would be to miss out on the chunky swing of that kind of tune. Dick is quite right to point out that there isn't just one style in either England or Ireland, but certain broad generalisations apply. It boils down to how important the concept of 'authenticity' is to you. The specific tricks of regional styles may be worth learning, even if you don't intend to become a slavish adherent of that style. It would be a sad day if English and Irish styles became so diluted that you couldn't tell the difference between them, but that's a long way from happening.

Amen to that!

Chris

PS on the subject of English music being played in Tokyo, check out Koizumi Maki's page on Myspace here for some very nice playing of English music on melodeon and concertina from the land of the rising sun.

The Japanese seem to have a special affinity for bluegrass, lately. It always strikes me as a bit odd to see a group of Japanese kids performing the "high, lonesome sound."

One benefit of a music becoming ubiquitous is that it makes the instruments more widely avaiable: good-sounding, well-made, made-in-Aisa bluegrass instruments are readily available.

Another factor in the whole "playing music from one's own culture" (or not) thing is the embarrassment felt by a lot of older folkies in the UK about the policy that Ewan MacColl was said to have enforced at The Ballads & Blues Club in the 60s. The full story is here if you're interested:

http://www.folkmusic.net/htmfiles/edtxt39.htm

I suppose fashion comes into it as well - when I was going to regular roots music sessions in the early 90s, French, Italian and Galician tunes were the ones to play. Eastern European stuff later came into vogue. Playing anything Irish (or English) at that time was guaranteed to provoke theatrical yawns from the assembled company.

thank god Jim Carroll is not amember of c net,and as for peggy seegers attitude,how ridiculous to state that just because PatrickSpens has been unaccompanied for centuries,it has to remain so.
and the so called cockney was LongJohnBaldry,and he wasnt a cockney but was from Edgware,and didnt have a cockney accent.but she probably wouldnt know a cockney from a cock sparrow,.[the singers club what a bunch of pompous prats].
music is international,who is to say how soldiers joy should be played,when it has been found in nearly every country in the world.

this whole area is a minefield
.some of the irish reels are in fact Scottish in origin,many of the hornpipes are English in origin.
Irish highlands are a corruption of scottish strathspeys
Polkas are of central european origin.
should a hornpipe written by james hill,only be played by people from dundee,and not by northumbrians or anyone else.
play the way youwant,the music you want,and do your own thing.
but to be able to play in more than one style well, is a step towards mastering your instrument.

I think that of the current players, John Kirkpatrick gets closest to this. On Anglo International, my ears tell me that the late Andrew Blakeney-Edwards probably played in this style, and who knows what he might have achieved ...... quite possibly he would have been the best Anglo player of all time.

Yes I basically too, start my tunes with the left hand. The right hand octave is too high.
Sounds sweeter and I can sing along.
But then I mix and match too. Left hand. Right hand.
You're doing nothing wrong. Enjoy.

Chas

Hi, LTD,

I think you and Chris between you have got to the heart of the matter.

I see it like Chris: the music's there, and then the instrument comes along, and adopts you, and you have to work out how to use the instrument to let the music out. There are things you'd like to do, but the instrument can't. There are things that the instrument would like to do, and you've got to find them.

This is both historically true - the English, Irish and other traditional musics were there before the concertina came along - and personally true - there was a lot of music in my head before I was big enough to play a concetina.

And when you, LDT, write about "modern music (well modernish...popular stuff like the beatles etc.) which people around me would know better than the trad stuff" - well what is traditional music if it's not the music that the people around you know well?

When we mention "traditional music" we often think of the music that the people around the Appalachians, or West Clare, or Devon, or the Hebrides knew well - back in the early 20th century, when there was no way of hearing music other than the music that your older neighbours played. That's certainly NOT the music that the people around me made when I was growing up. My "tradition" is nursery rhymes, then Gospel songs, then Moore's Irish ballads, then Comeallyes, 1960s urban folk, and a lot more. That's what's in me, and that's what has to come out when I pick up an instrument. I'm not a hillbilly or a Co.Clare peasant. I'm me, and there are a lot of people like me - if there hadn't been, I wouldn't be like I am.

Some have said you should play the traditional music of your country. They meant "Irish music" or "American Old Time Music" (which they'd probably abbreviate to ITM and OTM )
But these are nowadays not traditions - they're genres with rules, like Baroque music or Blues. I don't find MY music in ITM, although I'm Irish. ITM is one small corner of Irish music. (Like a picturesque village preserved for our American cousins to admire )

Of course everyone is free to play any musical genre they fancy. But we're also free not to do so. It's when we play the songs we know in the way that we find appropriate that listeners will know where we really come from.

Sorry, this was a bit of a rant - hope there's something usable in it:)

Cheers,
John

You know, this topic is driving me a bit crazy. What is the traditional music of an area like where and when I grew up? The polkas we listened to while we milked that the country station out of Saginaw broadcast in the evenings? The bluegrass and oldtime music that the neighbors who had moved north to work in the auto plants would play? The conjunta that same Saginaw station played Sunday Mornings (yes, more polkas, just in spanish, not german or polish)? The Motown from just south in Detroit, not to mention blues? The country my folks listened to the rest of the time or the rock my peers were listening to? What about the old lumbering songs and the songs off the Lakes? Or all the old folk songs that we taught out of our music books in public school? And that doesn't even take into account ethnic heritage. The folks spent the weekends dancing to local German polka bands, but I never heard Norwegian or Native music until I moved away. And yes their is some English and French heritage as well.

I like to listen to Irish music, but it doesn't speak to me as something I want to play, even with a strong North American Irish community nearby, though I try to support the folks who play it locally or bring in outside bands. I haven't been doing any bluegrass sessions in a while (dobro mostly) though that community is strong here, especially with Appalachia only a county away. And face it the concertina just isn't a bluegrass instrument.

Ultimately, I like playing the concertina. I like older music, and occasionally I hear it played. So I play old songs, some oldtime, some cowboy, some off the Lakes and from the lumber camps. And mostly I play by myself. I guess mostly what I play would be called the english style, a melody on my right hand, and I keep trying to add some accompaniment on the left (trying being the operative word here). I'm hoping another trip to New England will help me find some folks to help me with that.

So I sit here in my 19th century schoolhouse or outside under a tree next to the cemetery, and play what I like. A tradition and style of one, knowing that it is likely someone else may have sat nearby playing a concertina doing old german songs or irish songs or whatever was popular at the end of the nineteenth century playing on an old concertina or maybe a mandolin or a banjo, doing the same.

Alan

Being a Michigander myself, I used to listen to "WLBS" (heavy soul, brother) from Mt. Clemens...but that's surely not part of my culture .

I think one value of traditional music (and one of the most important to me) is the process of the perspective of time, and the "vetting" of music. Yes, a new tune can be written in a traditional style, and people may like it and respond to it as if it were older, but will it stand the test of time? Will it become subtly altered? What speeds, settings, and style work well with it? What we like initially is often later forgotten, the appeal having been more in novelty, where and when you heard it, current fads, or any number of reasons. Merging my own tastes and likes with the wisdom and experiments of centuries is a very fruitful but difficult task. I feel to ignore the perspective of decades and centuries as well as the style and achievements of past masters is to throw away a huge gift. What this gift is replaced with is often indulgent, formulaic, flashy, commercial, shallow, or attention-seeking.

At the same time, you cannot distill a "tradition" into a set of rules, slavishly follow it, and consider yourself "authentic." If it does not resonate with you, if you do not bring some of your genuine self into it, it is just monkey-see-monkey-do.

Perhaps because there is something in the "music from distant parts" which evokes an emotional response, so much so, that one wants to reproduce and interpret that music themself. There must be something basic in ITM (and other many other styles of music) that universally resonates. Instead of being perplexed by this, celebrate the fact that ITM is appreciated in many cultures quite different than Irish. I grew up in a Polish-Hungarian-American factory worker's household. Heard lots of live and recorded music from Poland and Hungary as I grew up. Like it, still, but don't feel any desire to explore it musically. My heart and interest have for a long time been in Irish music. Its what I appreciate. Its what resonates with me and that is what gives it relevance for me.

I'm sure I can't relate to ITM in the same way as someone who grew up in the culture, but that doesn't mean that the way I do appreciate it is wrong. Someone from County Clare, may have little appreciation for the song "Who stole the kishka?" It brings back fond memories from many Polish weddings and parties I attended in the midwest, but I don't have any desire to play it or other more traditional Polish polkas. So I guess I disagree with you. Why should I have to immerse myself in the "ready made local culture of music making" when its another tradition that calls me? I think that is a very narrow view of how music tradition should propagate.

Traditional music, in my opinion, harks back to a time when communities were a horse ride away from each other and styles were localised. Tunes would be played at celebrations and would be known tunes within a particular community or group of communities. At weddings and other celebrations, dances would be a form of community bonding. Knowing the steps would be a form of cohesion, of belonging. New dances and styles would be slowly absorbed from the periphery, variations from the next village etc. Occasionally a newcomer would bring something new – a new instrument, a new dance a, new tempo, a new variation. This would be absorbed into the culture and molded into the repertoire. The industrial revolution started to distort traditional music, through mass migration, and the opening up of even the most isolated communities to the world. At the same time collectors with wonderful foresight started to gather tunes from areas, preserving in aspic many of the old traditional tunes, before they were lost. Mass communications, firstly radio, then TV, allowed music traditions to be both preserved, and diluted and distorted and marketed. New tunes in the tradition, so to speak, were composed in their thousands.
Lastly, the Internet has allowed musicians to communicate directly with each other, and express their own views on the traditional music, they can hear tunes from around the world. On the one hand all these modern innovations (from transport, through mass communications to the internet) have diluted traditional music and spread it to the four winds to be played by any musician with a whim to play it. Here in Scotland I can happily collect Appalachian music, Northumbrian music or Japanese music and add them to my repertoire of local tunes. Some I meet will only play local tunes, others have their specialities, cajun, bluegrass, shanties etc etc etc.

The important thing to me is that these tools have also allowed people who care about the traditional music of a locality to study and preserve it too. There will always be people who believe that the music should be preserved at all costs while others are open to any and all influences. One day, with the passing of oil, and mankind being thrown back onto the resources of the local community, the time may come again when a style of music and dance will identify us with a particular locality. Meantime we live in a time of unbounded richness of music, and I for one will play anything if it is a good tune and stirs some emotion in me and those who will listen to me.

Well said, sir. Although my background and love affair is with English traditional music (thank God no one has ever started saying ETM) I agree with every word you say. Furthermore, when I meet poeple from othr countries who equally like English dance music (like Anne the German fiddler or Maki the Japanese anglo player) their enthusiasm is so infectious it is an unqualified delight. How can you disapprove of such people? This love affair with music is not entirely rational, nor should it be.

Personally speaking, if I let myself I'm pretty sure I could get almost as obsessed with French dance music as with English!

Chris

If were talking local traditions.....I'd say a song like 'Baggy Trousers' by Madness (You play that song and every member of my extended family in the vicinity will join in dancing) represents my community more than the Trad songs. Does that make it a new tradition?

Incidentally Anne (the English concertina player) and I are off on the ferry to the island of Fanø tomorrow, just off the coast of Denmark, for the folk festival this weekend. The music of Fanø is rather remarkable in that at some time in the past there has been a lot of coming and going between Fanø and England. The result is that Fanø dance music is uncannily like English dance music in its rhythms, style and frequently even melodies. It's a lot like English music with an overlay of Scandinavian fiddle style. I'm very much looking forward to the chance to sit down with some Fanøese musicians and exchange tunes.

That somehow seems very relevant to the current drift of this conversation. Why is that? I know, because interaction between musicians of different traditions, it seems to me, is almost always enrichening to all concerned. You don't lose, you don't water down your own tradition, but you do widen your horizons.

Chris

Sounds fun, Chris. Make sure you bring us back some good ones.

Regards,
Peter.

I strongly suggest you take that question to Mudcat, where people waste many a happy hour shouting at each other about what is and is not traditional.

Personally I've learnt my lesson and will not be drawn by questions like that any more. Life's too short. And don't get me started on horse music!

Chris

Edited to add PS: I'll try to, Peter. If you can, get hold of the CD Jae' Sweevers. Some nice tunes there. The very first tune sounds just like the B music of Not For Joe. Scary.

That's grand and you are surely part of the wider Irish traditional music community but those Polish songs still mean something special to you as they link you back to your community. I only speak from a personal perspective - I happen to be Irish, I live in a rural area, I like playing a bit of music and sharing it with other musicians. If I wanted I'm sure I could play blues, jazz, church music, classical, rock and sometimes I do play bits and pieces of these that stick in the head - I could go out and find like minded people within a reasonable distance if I tried, but I feel no great love or connection to them. These genres do not speak to me in the same way as the various dance music and melodies that make up ITM - they don't feel as genuine in the same way. I have no doubt that if I had been born and brought up in Poland or England, I'd be playing Polish or English folk music if the opportunity was there - if I went to live in Russia tomorrow, I would take an interest in the music played there. I think it's important to value your heritage and carry it on as a link in the chain.

horses play music?
lol

From the uk.music.folk FAQ:-



I warned you ...

Chris

I didn't get close enough to hear what this one was singing. In a field, in the English countryside ...... must have been folk!

They are always using that quote on TAW.


I wasn't going to ask what is folk music...wouldn't dare.

this thread has kinda gone off on a tangent.

I only asked my original question coz I find chords really hard..I wondered if by playing in a different 'style' would limit my choice of tunes.