English or Anglo

[hjcjones]

I think there is some confusion (which perhaps I share) over what "ITM" actually means. In the context in which it's mostly been used on this thread (although possibly not by the OP) as well as some other threads, it seems to be more than a convenient abbreviation for Irish traditional music. "ITM" seems to imply the "pure drop". Anything which is not in keeping with the true tradition may well be "Irish traditional music" but is not "ITM".

 

I think it is misleading to claim that "folk music" does not exist in Ireland. There are clearly a great many musicians, including some of the most artistically and commercially successful, who play traditional music in a way which would not meet this definition of "ITM". Whether or not it's called "folk" or takes place in "folk clubs" is immaterial. Discussions on The Session often seem to degenerate into a dispute between those upholding the purity of ITM against the corrupting influences of the folkies.

 

In English music we don't have this dichotomy. Perhaps it's because our "pure drop" traditional music is much rarer, or perhaps because it shows such diversity of styles that it is difficult to determine just what is the "authentic" style of playing. Perhaps it's because the EFDSS hasn't followed Comhaltas' road of propagating traditional styles through teaching and competitions. Perhaps we just aren't sufficiently protective of what we have. Whatever the reasons, it is quite possible for authentic traditional players to sit in sessions alongside players who seek to accurately emulate traditional styles, and other musicians whose interpretation of traditional tunes is open to wider influences.

 

Like the other English musicians who've commented, I don't recognise Shaun's description of English music, which is thriving.

[David Levine]

what "ITM" actually means...

 

Who knows? In general we define things from the center rather than from the boundaries. For me ITM includes The Pure Drop (most solo players, and such duos as Frank Brunel and Vincent Rosinach, Tim Collins and Brian McNamara, or Edel Fox and Ronan Flaherty) -- as well as groups like De Dannan, Guidewires and Lunasa. It does not include such "Celtic" groups as are put together by people like Enya, or for stage-Irish presentations like Riverdance.

 

I do not think of dilettantes as playing ITM. A dilettante is somebody who plays some Irish tunes in a mix of Old-Time American or bluegrass, some Hungarian tunes, a Morris tune and a Polish mazurka or two. I have no quarrel with these people. But they aren't playing ITM, at least not within any definition that works for me.

 

I seriously doubt that folkies pose a serious threat of dilution of the tradition as presented in pure drop playing. But again, they aren't playing ITM. U2 playing The Irish Washer Woman, with an electric guitar playing the melody, wouldn't be ITM.

 

This weekend I was in a session with an Englishman who played a few Kerry polkas on a GD anglo. Not at all as a Kerryman would play them. We all -- pure drop players -- joined in and enjoyed it. I don't know if it was ITM or not. And I don't care. Saying it isn't ITM is not the same thing as saying it isn't good music. It's being descriptive rather than normative.

[michael sam wild]

I grew up surrounded by Irish music in an immigrant community in Manchester and maintained the links and continuity like many others..

 

When I explored Britsih traditional music I found a great deal of crossover and a living tradition that was not a 'folk' revival.

 

Morris dancing still existed before the increase in its popularity.

 

 

I think Irish music got a big boost from British folk clubs at a time when it was under threat from both Show Bands and an academic gaelicism.

[Anglo-Irishman]

You are 100 percent correct. Anglos only came into Irish music because they were cheap, much cheaper than a fiddle and much much cheaper than an EC. At the time many prominent Irish musicians disapproved of them and deplored their use in ITM. In the 1850s an Anglo could be obtained for 2 shillings and 6 pence while an EC in Dublin still cost 3 guineas.

However there always were Irish players of the EC and being Irish they had as much right to play traditional tunes as anyone else.

 

Shaunw,

While you are correct in stating that the introduction of the Anglo into Irish music was a quirk of economical history, and that any Irishman can play what he likes on what instrument takes his fancy, I must point out that, when concertinas were first used in Ireland, ITM did not exist.

 

I had always thought that Irish people had avoided the exclusive nastiness that sometimes ruins the English

folk music scene, I see now that they have not. ITM belongs to the Irish people not to small unrepresentative

groups who think they have the right to say what ITM is and what it is not.

 

As an Irishman, I beg to differ. ITM does not belong to the Irish people. It belongs to an international syndicate, largely Americans and people from Connaught. It is rightfully designated by an American-style acronym. It has nothing to do with my musical heritage, which has to do with songs, some Rebel, some Orange, some by Thomas Moore, some by Percy French, some regional from the Province of Ulster, where my parents and I were born, some adopted from the music-hall stage because they somehow ring true, some discovered in Bunting's transcripts of the great Belfast Feis, where the last of the harpers performed their own and Carolan's pieces. It is this largely vocal music that truly reflects the Irish way of thinking and feeling, and because it has to do with the language, it is inaccesible to all but a few foreigners. It is ours!

 

ITM does belong to "small unrepresentative groups who think they have the right to say what ITM is and what it is not".

Irish music is outside of their jurisdiction. Most Irish people do their darndest to avoid being pressed into a stereotype of themselves. Stereotypes are for outsiders.

 

Cheers,

John

[shaunw]

Like the other English musicians who've commented, I don't recognise Shaun's description of English music, which is thriving.

 

I am not criticising all of the English folk music scene, I know many wonderful open minded people who are part of

the English folk scene. However there are, others presumeably the self appointed guardians of the 'English Pure Drop',

who can be a real pain, especially as the 'Pure Drop' doesn't really exist in England although these people continue

to insist that it does.

 

Partly we are now misunderstanding each others terminology. I just take ITM to mean Traditional Irish tunes played in

a traditional way but I do not recognise the concept of the 'Pure Drop', and it doesn't exist in Irish music either so

we can only pity the people who think that it does. There never was a Pure Drop, people played whatever instruments

they could afford and played a stock of traditional tunes on them. Some of the musicians were amateurs, some were

professional buskers. Some were middle class devotees of Irish culture who could read music etc.

 

The problem here as far as I can see is that 'Pure drop' people can only ever slavishly imitate the past (or what

they think is the past). They are just pastiche musicians and far from preserving a tradition they will kill it.

In the meantime they adopt tinpot dictator attitudes and assume they have the right to say what instruments are

Irish and what instruments are not Irish. There are people just like this on the English scene but I had not

realised that similar people were trying to capture the ITM scene until now.

Now I would think that to Pure Drop people the guitar is not an acceptable instrument although on the English

scene no one would say that, in deference to Martin Carthy I suppose.

 

I shall continue to use ITM to mean Irish traditional tunes played in a recognisably traditional way. I shall

think of Pure Drop people as those who re-enact what they think are traditional sessions rather like the many

Civil War re-enactment societies in England who endlessly stage pastiches of civil war battles. I can also deal

with complex concepts such 'Irish influenced' music. The problem with some people is that they can't handle complex

concepts so they want a set of simple rules that will enable them to say who is in and who is out.

[m3838]

I shall continue to use ITM to mean Irish traditional tunes played in a recognisably traditional way. I shall

think of Pure Drop people as those who re-enact what they think are traditional sessions rather like the many

Civil War re-enactment societies in England who endlessly stage pastiches of civil war battles. I can also deal

with complex concepts such 'Irish influenced' music. The problem with some people is that they can't handle complex

concepts so they want a set of simple rules that will enable them to say who is in and who is out.

 

 

Sounds logical to me.

A label is a good way to put price stickers on things. No good for anything else, but often used unwisely. A cliche is here for a reason. The only problem is to recognize the reason and keep cliches where they belong.

[shaunw]

I grew up surrounded by Irish music in an immigrant community in Manchester and maintained the links and continuity like many others..

 

When I explored Britsih traditional music I found a great deal of crossover and a living tradition that was not a 'folk' revival.

 

Morris dancing still existed before the increase in its popularity.

 

 

I think Irish music got a big boost from British folk clubs at a time when it was under threat from both Show Bands and an academic gaelicism.

 

I am very unsure that there is any living tradition in England that is not part of a Cecil Sharp or 1950s folk revival. The problem

is that rural depopulation and a move to the cities happened so quickly in England that we know longer know what is traditional and

what is not. Even before the industrial revolution, commercial song writers from Covent Garden had spread their ballads far and

wide, even writing songs to order for naval and army recruiters. I think that the only sure sign of a genuine English folk song

is that it has to have at least 20 verses, a really boring tune and uninteresting words (maybe that's just a joke).

 

Now of course Morris dancing existed way back before the 16th century but the trouble is that we don't know how it was danced.

Morris dancing is not like Irish dancing i.e. part of an unbroken tradition. Morris dancing as we know it today is a made up

thing, invented by folk revivalists. It is very entertaining, it is very enjoyable and it is thriving but it is not part of

any English tradition.

 

To me another interesting strand of the English folk story is how it was taken over by communists such as Ewan MacColl in the

1950's, they wanted to present folk as the real music of the real people. Unfortunately the real people wanted rock and roll

and the Beatles were their real folk musicians. However it now a fact that many people think that Ewan McColl songs are old

English folk songs. I have since heard Beatles songs sung at sessions at Cecil Shape house so maybe the Beatles are well on

their way to becoming part of English folk.

 

My wife who is from New Zealand is a musician who is mainly influenced by English folk. She writes English folk songs.

Now that is a strange idea, isn't it? Can you write an English folk song? Can an Irish musician write an ITM tune?

I suspect that for the pure drop people the answer is always no. For them music can only ever be a slavish copy of what has

already been done a long time ago (although for them long ago seems to mean the 19th century and they have no idea of what

was happening in the 18th century).

 

I never felt that ITM was under threat from show bands and I find it interesting that you also identify the Gaelic revival as

a threat. There is a thread in Irish music that is much older than the ordinary traditional music and it is a thread that belongs

to the Gaelic speakers, the so called Celtic wail (not something that you will ever hear played on an Anglo concertina). It is the

part of Irish music that appeals to many of my Indian friends because they recognise in it a connection to the common ancestry of

Indo-European music. So I didn't see the Gaelic revival as a threat to ITM and I wonder how the word academic became a term of

abuse, perhaps James Joyce would have been able to explain that.

[Boney]

I shall continue to use ITM to mean Irish traditional tunes played in a recognisably traditional way. I shall think of Pure Drop people as those who re-enact what they think are traditional sessions rather like the many Civil War re-enactment societies in England who endlessly stage pastiches of civil war battles.

I don't think most people use the term "pure drop" the way you are. I think of it as referring to playing in a traditional style, without overt jazz, rock, or other more "pop" influences. That doesn't mean the music can't be creative and innovative. And I'd say many people into the "hard-core" traditional style (whatever you want to call it) use their ears a lot more than you're implying. They will accept music played on many non-standard instruments -- even if they seem crotchety and skeptical, they love to be proven wrong as well. Sure, there are all kinds out there, but I've found the most experienced and knowledgeable are usually that way.

 

The problem with some people is that they can't handle complex concepts so they want a set of simple rules that will enable them to say who is in and who is out.

Is it possible you're simplifying things a bit yourself?

[shaunw]

what "ITM" actually means...

 

Who knows? In general we define things from the center rather than from the boundaries. For me ITM includes The Pure Drop (most solo players, and such duos as Frank Brunel and Vincent Rosinach, Tim Collins and Brian McNamara, or Edel Fox and Ronan Flaherty) -- as well as groups like De Dannan, Guidewires and Lunasa. It does not include such "Celtic" groups as are put together by people like Enya, or for stage-Irish presentations like Riverdance.

 

I do not think of dilettantes as playing ITM. A dilettante is somebody who plays some Irish tunes in a mix of Old-Time American or bluegrass, some Hungarian tunes, a Morris tune and a Polish mazurka or two. I have no quarrel with these people. But they aren't playing ITM, at least not within any definition that works for me.

 

I seriously doubt that folkies pose a serious threat of dilution of the tradition as presented in pure drop playing. But again, they aren't playing ITM. U2 playing The Irish Washer Woman, with an electric guitar playing the melody, wouldn't be ITM.

 

This weekend I was in a session with an Englishman who played a few Kerry polkas on a GD anglo. Not at all as a Kerryman would play them. We all -- pure drop players -- joined in and enjoyed it. I don't know if it was ITM or not. And I don't care. Saying it isn't ITM is not the same thing as saying it isn't good music. It's being descriptive rather than normative.

 

I find your posts the most bizarre of all. Who are these dilettantes? The dictionary definition of a dilettante is rather different

from yours. I know groups of musicians who play a mixture of American country and Irish tunes. They are well aware that when they

are playing Irish tunes they are playing ITM and when they are playing C and W that that has nothing to do with ITM. They aren't

confused about the difference.

 

Now you talk about playing with an Anglo player who played a few Kerry polkas on a GD anglo but not at all as a Kerryman would

play them. Now that is really interesting so perhaps I can ask you a few questions about that. Do all Kerry musicians play in the

same way?. How long has the polka been a part of ITM or Pure Drop Irish music? I thought polkas were a 19th century Hungarian

thing. Was Turlough O'Carolyn a part of ITM, after all he never heard a polka played on an Anglo concertina.

 

Now when did Pure Drop playing start in Ireland, was it on the 1st of July 1840 or was it on 2nd June 1850. Maybe for authentic

Pure drop playing we should go back to the 18th century (Oh no, that would exclude the Anglo concertina as a Pure Drop instrument).

 

I think the problem is that you are unable to deal with complex concepts such as 'Irish influenced music' (Enya and U2 playing The

Irish washerwoman) and you have also failed to deal with boring pastiches of Irish music such as Riverdance. Pure Drop doesn't

present the tradition, it just presents an endless pastiche of the tradition as it was in the early 19th century. I don't think of

the Anglo concertina as being a traditional Irish instrument any more than the EC is but both of them can be used to play

traditional Irish music although many of the Anglo players give it an unnatural bounce (perhaps the less skilled ones).

Edited July 13, 2010 by shaunw

[TomB-R]

Interesting structure to your posts Shaun, a repeating pattern of an unsubstantiated half truth leading to a mildly offensive generalisation.

 

 

[David Levine]

I don't know what the point is at this point. In any case, I'd rather play than read this crap.

[michael sam wild]

Me too, over and out!

[Boney]

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Check out this interview with Caleb Clauder, who plays very traditional old-time fiddle tunes with Foghorn Stringband and who also has an old-fashioned country band, and Joel Savoy, who is a big name in traditional Cajun music. They each talk about their influences, how many different kinds of music they like, and how they think of music as a living tradition, not something they're "preserving." They obviously aren't excluding folks or trying to create a "slavish copy of what has already been done."

 

There's a bit of Caleb's country band here, then the part of the interview I'm talking about:

http://www.kexp.org//streamarchive/archive_time.asp?fldDate=7/7/2010&fldHour=7&fldMinute=37&fldAmPm=pm

 

Here's a bit of what Joel said:

Well, I don’t, I mean, where I come from the whole culture, it’s, a lot of people are afraid it’s going to die out and stuff, but to me, it’s like, it’s a living tradition. People are worried about preserving, y’know, maybe people want to play this one style or something but what we do, is just live day to day, and just, y’know, we’re influenced by so many different things, like I’m hugely influenced by Caleb’s band. And so all of these different influences, being so close to Texas and stuff, come in and, y’know, they create what the culture is going to be. People are going to be looking back in fifty years from now, and being like, “this is the authentic Cajun sound,” y’know. It’s just this thing that’s always growing, always changing, always moving forward.

[shaunw]

I shall continue to use ITM to mean Irish traditional tunes played in a recognisably traditional way. I shall think of Pure Drop people as those who re-enact what they think are traditional sessions rather like the many Civil War re-enactment societies in England who endlessly stage pastiches of civil war battles.

I don't think most people use the term "pure drop" the way you are. I think of it as referring to playing in a traditional style, without overt jazz, rock, or other more "pop" influences. That doesn't mean the music can't be creative and innovative. And I'd say many people into the "hard-core" traditional style (whatever you want to call it) use their ears a lot more than you're implying. They will accept music played on many non-standard instruments -- even if they seem crotchety and skeptical, they love to be proven wrong as well. Sure, there are all kinds out there, but I've found the most experienced and knowledgeable are usually that way.

 

The problem with some people is that they can't handle complex concepts so they want a set of simple rules that will enable them to say who is in and who is out.

Is it possible you're simplifying things a bit yourself?

 

I'm not so sure that I am simplifying things or that 'pure drop' is as innocent as you make it sound. If 'pure drop' was just an

absence of pop, jazz or rock influences why do some ITM festivals now ban acoustic guitars, why do we have posters in this thread

insisting that ITM can only be played on an Anglo concertina and not on an EC or a duet.

[shaunw]

Interesting structure to your posts Shaun, a repeating pattern of an unsubstantiated half truth leading to a mildly offensive generalisation.

 

Maybe, but an interesting structure to your posts also, i.e. failing to say what you are talking about. Where do you stand

in this thread. Is it possible for an EC player to play ITM? Please tell us and give reasons rather than hiding behind vague

general criticisms about the style of my posts.

[shaunw]

You are 100 percent correct. Anglos only came into Irish music because they were cheap, much cheaper than a fiddle and much much cheaper than an EC. At the time many prominent Irish musicians disapproved of them and deplored their use in ITM. In the 1850s an Anglo could be obtained for 2 shillings and 6 pence while an EC in Dublin still cost 3 guineas.

However there always were Irish players of the EC and being Irish they had as much right to play traditional tunes as anyone else.

 

Shaunw,

While you are correct in stating that the introduction of the Anglo into Irish music was a quirk of economical history, and that any Irishman can play what he likes on what instrument takes his fancy, I must point out that, when concertinas were first used in Ireland, ITM did not exist.

 

I had always thought that Irish people had avoided the exclusive nastiness that sometimes ruins the English

folk music scene, I see now that they have not. ITM belongs to the Irish people not to small unrepresentative

groups who think they have the right to say what ITM is and what it is not.

 

As an Irishman, I beg to differ. ITM does not belong to the Irish people. It belongs to an international syndicate, largely Americans and people from Connaught. It is rightfully designated by an American-style acronym. It has nothing to do with my musical heritage, which has to do with songs, some Rebel, some Orange, some by Thomas Moore, some by Percy French, some regional from the Province of Ulster, where my parents and I were born, some adopted from the music-hall stage because they somehow ring true, some discovered in Bunting's transcripts of the great Belfast Feis, where the last of the harpers performed their own and Carolan's pieces. It is this largely vocal music that truly reflects the Irish way of thinking and feeling, and because it has to do with the language, it is inaccesible to all but a few foreigners. It is ours!

 

ITM does belong to "small unrepresentative groups who think they have the right to say what ITM is and what it is not".

Irish music is outside of their jurisdiction. Most Irish people do their darndest to avoid being pressed into a stereotype of themselves. Stereotypes are for outsiders.

 

Cheers,

John

 

I thought that ITM was an innocent abbreviation for 'Irish Traditional Music' I now know that it isn't. I prefer your idea of the

real Irish tradition.

 

Shaun

[shaunw]

I don't know what the point is at this point. In any case, I'd rather play than read this crap.

 

Well just play then but don't exclude EC and Duet players from the music that they may love just

as much as you do.

[Hyp]

this has really gone out of hand, 10 pages...