Peter Laban

That is a fragment from Ciaran MacMathuna's 'Job of Journeywork' for RTE. I have that on tape and had completely forgotten it had Stack Ryan in it. I recall the whole series was available commercially at some point. I have not come across any copies of the Stack Ryan recordings floating around. I do have a good stretch of Kathleen Harrington in duet with Lizzie Crotty and have even managed to find a copy of the recordings Ciaran Mac made here of Paddy Killoran during his visits here. Which is probably most notable, in a concertina sense, for the appearance of Mrs Crotty in duet with Josie Hayes. RTE, according to reports, has lost their original copy of that one. Mick Tubridy found a copy of that track, on acetate disc, in the home of Lizzie Crotty after her death but lost it.

And it is red too : here

My son started off learning with Edel (who was fifteen herself at the time). After a few years doing that, he went to Noel Hill every second week for another two years. It depends a bit on what stage your playing is at but I'd say each will offer you a good learning opportunity.

In fairness, it's 'Musician of the year'

Just one thing I noticed about the Speedshifter whe n I tried it yesterday : at some sample rates it seemed to flatten the pitch by a semi tone. Which was easily compensated for BUT you may want to check the correct pitch before you start so you're certain you aren't learning a tune in an unnecessarily difficult key. I am impressed with the sound quality the software maintains at slow speed, compared to other slow downers I have tried.

This was posted elsewhere: ABRSM Speedshifter From the body that runs the UK music exams. Shifts both speed and/or pitch. It's free. Added: I just tried one track and the quality of sound, even at maximum slow down rate, is very nice.

File>open

Earlier this week the postman delivered a little package from Ken Lynam. The DVD of the documentary. I would expect it to be in the shops shortly.

I attach a copy of a photograph from Harry Franken's book. Plenty of reeds in it, but you won't find a concertina. (if anyone is keen there's a first edition copy of it for sale here for a measly €12 and it's worth it, if you're into that sort of thing). I had a few thoughts about Terschelling having a 'rich' musical tradition but that is probably beyond the scope of the forum.

Dan, there aren't many collections of music from the Netherlands. Jaap Kunst's 'Terschellinger Volksleven' has a lot of songs but a few tunes that were taken down from accordeon and fiddle players. In the same vein there's Elsche H.E. Korf-Schroeder's 'Terschelling Danst' which contains mostly descriptions of the dances of the island but with a basic outline of the tunes given. There's also a collection 'Terschelling zingt!' but that obviously only contains songs. There's a photograph of accordeon player Jan Bakker on the cover though. Some manuscript collections from Friesland and Achterhoek as well as Brabant have been published but basically there just wasn't a lot in the way of instrumental music. Maybe the names of a few of these will come to me, can't think of them straight away. I do remember a study of two manuscript collections from Frieland by Joan Rimmer, the musicians who compiled the manuscripts were fiddle players and their repertoires were eclectic and international. Most Dutch revival groups lean all too heavily on older collections like 'Oude en Nieuwe Hollantse Boerenlieties and Contredansen' and stuff collected in Flanders. They used to anyway, I have not heard anything recent. Harrie Franken's 'Liederen and Dansen uit de Kempen' is probably worth mentioning too but again the number of instrumental tunes in it is limited. Worth a look though for the woodcuts and photographs (of accordeon players mostly) used to illustrate it alone.

I think we can safely assume that

Yes, some of the stuff on there is really amazing. I was astounded to find a clip, silent unfortunately, of James Ennis, Seamus' father, playing for dancers in 1928: Dancers Rehearse And many other wonderful things beside. But, for me, that one took the cake.

Concertina Factory

Pat Mitchell, in his article 'Rhythm and Structure in Irish Dance music' uses a quote from Daniel Corkery that describes this quite well:

Reminds me of the comment Paddy Cronin made when asked his opinion about a certain musician :'he has all the notes!'

It comes up on e-bay, sometimes. I have it. There's also a bit of them on one of the German Folk Festival Tour albums. They had Barry Moore/Luka Bloom as guitarist playing with them.

I thought you'd like that one

Noel Hill gets the musician of the year award Padraig Keane, son of Tommy Keane and Jacqueline McCarthy is this year's young musician edit : sorry about the typos in the header.

That's an argument that's made a lot, on the internet, and while it's essentially true it's probably worth remembering what Garrett Barry, 19th century piper, said to that: 'I play for the soul, not for the feet'. Barry's music informed much of Willie Clancy's, also a piper but by all accounts handy enough on the concertina. Not one whose playing was was much associated with the sets, but one worth listening to we can agree, I think. I realised earlier the phrasing argument with 'Martin Gibson' contained a bit of a deja vu. I have seen elements of that one a few times, both in the argument made and in the idiosyncratic use of interpunction. I have seen it when the poster was wearing his true identity as well as a few of his many false ones. It's best left at that.

I would think so. As it happens I have come upon the interpretation of phrasing as a by-product of the type of concertina played in recent times on various discussion forums. Notably from one who plays Irish music without any phrasing, as it is conventionally understood in Irish music, at all as it happens.

Hi Paul, long time.. I heard John sr quite a bit during the eighties and we get John Jr and his family around here a good bit. Aoife below is carrying the concertina for that side of the family although she learned the concertina from Mick O Connor's daughter rather than her grandfather. My son had some lessons from her years ago. (I don't have a pic of Leah on-line that I can easily link too) You may not be aware they have been organising a small John Kelly weekend in Kilbaha, usually featuring as many Kellys for a concert as they can bring together, along with friends and people connected to JK's music. I am not sure now but I think it's usually around the May or June bankholiday weekend. How's that for thread drift?

One Tom Keane they give on thesession here is pretty much a straightforward lower version of the Monaghan Twig. The version I have in mind is the one that John Kelly played, which is on his Topic recording, track 4. That's the one I would come across most. Another version on the session seems to me based on misplaced barlines or a misunderstanding of the tune (i.e. |: edcA ABcd | edcA AFG2 |edcA ... instead of ed|cAAB cded|cAAF G and it's the Monaghan Twig again there) and the third Tom Keane they have is just a straightforward Scotch Mary, which is another distant cousin, twice removed. Likely there are other variants that elude me early on the Sunday morning.

Just as a comment on the Tom Keane tune: the tune is usually played with a different second part, from the playing of John Kelly. As coincidence would have it the tune came up last Saturdaynight during a lovely night of music with Tommy Keane (not the one of the tune name) Jaqui McCarthy who dropped into my local unexpectedly. dggf dedc Bcde =f3 e dggf dedc BGAF G2

They're completely different players. When they were in their teens Mary Ellen was getting around a lot, playing at dances and she had a much better concertina than Kitty had too. Reading between the lines of what Kitty told me I think Mary Ellen was among the reasons Kitty gave up eventually, a button went wrong on her concertina and ME had the nicer one, I think that discouraged her a lot at the time. They stayed in contact though. I remember her telling me Mary Ellen phoned to say her children had given her a concertina for her eightiest so she could do what Kitty had done, get back on the horse. They played for eachother over the phone at times but Kitty said, and I think there was a little satisfaction in it, that Mary Ellen couldn't make a fist of it. But that was only at the very start, they met occasionally and played the few tunes they shared (Kitty still in C and Mary Ellen in concert pitch). They played together at the grave of another concertinaplayer, Joe McCaw. They all went back to the days of the housedances and he had asked them to play him out. Joe was a nice old player too. In Kitty's playing I always hear strong echoes of people like Mary Haren, the same poweful rhythm. I don't know Mary Ellen well enough to know where her music came from.