Peter Laban

They'll be doing a CD launch on May 19 during the Tulla Trad festival at Cnoc na Ghaoite

It still says 5 days when I look at the page. They usually leave programs up for at least a month after broadcast, pretty good going I think. They also have a habit of repeating these regularly so this one will be around again. It's possible to download the stream, using a suitable app/browser extension, if you want to keep it for future reference.

Yes, looking forward to that. Mind you, the next generation isn't half bad either, Eimear Coughlan (Paddy Canny's grandaughter) is quite the musician.

While on the topic of West Clare concertinaplayers (and this one may well deserve a thread of its own): later next month a CD will be launched with a recording made during the late 1970s by Séamus MacMahúna of Paddy Murphy, Paddy Canny, Peter O'Loughlin with Geraldine Cotter on the piano. The launch will be at a concert with Geraldine joined by family members of the original players. One to watch out for, if you're into that sort of thing.

Thanks for that John. I had a look at it a few months ago, plenty of familiar faces and situations. I remember turning up for the reunion of the surviving members of the Laictin Naofa, ( it was actually a talk, it was a bit of a surprise they all turned up and played too boot) and realising I hadn't brought a camera. Tom did, fortunately. But that said, Tom was a man of many talents but photography was perhaps not one of them. He was in the right places and with the right people though and that makes the collection a valuable one. There were a few occasions too where I did bring the camera so I could turn the tables and get a few snaps of Tom, here he is conducting a public interview with another of the great West Clare characters, Marty Malley:

Didn't remember I had posted about it the first time around I had more or less forgotten about it. I did watch the whistle/flute episode a few weeks ago but missed the concertina one. Until someone send amessage saying That brought back the memory of it again.

The Mná an Cheoil series is a repeat, it was originally broadcast a few years ago. I think it was discussed here at the time and while there was some chatter on other forums about the repeat run (the pipes and whistle/flute episodes, notably) so far no mention of it here, until now.

No it isn't. Don't believe everything you read on the session.org, especially mishearings of misnamed tunes.. Usually it's referred to as 'the Connemara version of Páidín Ó Raifeartaigh' All three tunes played in the video have words sung to them.

The subject was touched on (see Geoff Wooff's posts, among others) in a previous thread: I live in an environment that is both damp and inundated with salt air (a few miles from the Atlantic in Co Clare) and I can tell you from experience it's an environment where just about everything is affected by it, from leaves scorching off the trees after a day's strong wind from the west to everything that can rust, rusting and decaying at an astonishing pace.

More than a few of us present on the occasion were wondering if we'd see the concertina explode before the end of the tune. It was a bit much.

I use the Lowepro Flipside as a camera bag and should perhaps add it is a very comfortable bag, the weight distribution is such that you barely feel the weight, even on long hikes.

Microphone up close picks up the sound of keys and pads

When I saw the thread title I was expecting something long these lines:

I think you'll find these have sold out and are no longer available as CD, unless you track down a second hand copy and hope it isn't priced like the ones on Amazon.co.uk

As an aside, you have to wonder though, what''s the correct key? Junior Crehan, who composed the tune, used to play it in both Gdor and Ador and Paddy Glackin played it quite nicely in Edor in a documentary on Junior's life and music recently (still up on the TG4 player)

It really depends, as it always does, on what you want. Last summer I was playing with a few pipers, in C. A young woman came a long with a C/g concertina. We asked if she had a Bflat/f but as she hadn't she said 'I'll try it on this one' and transposed on the fly, didn't miss a tune either in the five hours we played. She obviously didn't need the Bflat/f. Mileages vary though.

Perhaps a more seasonal view. Have a good one, all.

It's a bit more grey and dark today but this is what I found when out on a recent more clear day.

This year with a website: https://concertinacruinniu.ie/ Always a pleasant weekend during the quiet, dark months of the year.

Hornpipes are widely used for certain figures of the sets around here, not just for solo dancing. And as such they're widely and commonly danced.

In the context of the music I play, Irish music, I feel that generally speaking hornpipes are different in structure from reels and they don't loose that structure when you try make them sound like reels. Surely, there are grey areas and there are tunes that have a structure that makes them more malleable, there are quite a few tunes floating about that were initially flings that have transmogrified into both reel and hornpipe for example and the odd one, like the Scholar, has made a widely accepted switch to another form but in general, I don't see tunes working both as a reel and hornpipe by modifying their rhythms and speed a bit.

That quite the statement. I suppose it depends where you look. I see people dance to these tunes in a social context regularly. I never understand people who say that. The two forms are different. Surely you can impose a 'hornpipe rhythm' on a reel or speed up and flatten the rhythmic shape of a hornpipe and ignore the internal rhythms built into the melody but the form of the tune is such that it more often than not sounds forced and just plain wrong.

I have a recording made when the above snap of Cormac Begley was taken. I don't remember the concertina as particularly harsh. I'll dig it out later today.

I have this of Cormac Begley playing one, unfortunately for the whole series the focus is on the player, not particularly the instrument. This one shows the instrument best: