Concertinas At Royal Hotel, Dungworth

[geoffwright]

Just a reminder that we meet for pies and concertinas at the Royal Hotel, Dungworth nr Sheffield tonight 23rd.

See you there.

[lildogturpy]

Can't make it tonight for sure but does this mean the next meeting is in two weeks?

[geoffwright]

Can't make it tonight for sure but does this mean the next meeting is in two weeks?

Yes, I think so - I will make sure we post a bit sooner.

Edited May 24, 2006 by geoffwright

[Mark Davies]

The next Royal Concertinas Session will take place on Tuesday 6th June at 8.00pm.Arrive before this if you want to sample the superb pies.Everyone welcome whatever the system or the level of skill you are at.We will play some of the tunes we've been playing at the last few sessions.Don't worry if you do not read the dots as we will take you through the tunes to learn by ear.We may have a look at some of the tunes in Miller & Perron's "Irish Traditional Fiddle Music"which has recently arrived from the USA.It received a very good review in the Musical Traditions website and I have not stopped playing tunes from it since it arrived.However we play tunes from anywhere in the world that take our fancy.At our last session we played music from Ireland,Newfoundland,Labrador,Northumberland and England.Remember a good tune is a good tune wherever it comes from and that purists who claim to play only English music are probably playing tunes that originated in Scotland,Wales or Ireland!For directions or further information contact me.

[Mark Davies]

Don't forget tonight.See you there.

[Brian Peters]

Remember a good tune is a good tune wherever it comes from and that purists who claim to play only English music are probably playing tunes that originated in Scotland,Wales or Ireland!

I'm happy to acknowledge that possibility, Mark, providing that the purists from Scotland, Wales and Ireland are equally prepared to admit that some of their tunes come from England!

 

I'm not a million miles from Dungworth (used to attend the carolling pretty regularly) but can't make it tonight, sorry.

[JimLucas]

...have there been any good tunes collected in patagonia,...

Patagonian parrots, aside from living in holes in the ground, are reputed to have a fine tradition of tunes, and can imitate sounds of both fiddle and bandonion. It's a pity that more people don't know about these musical traditions from the world's toenail.

[Brian Peters]

unfortunately due to england becoming industrialised before scotland and ireland,when people got round to collecting these tunes the instrumental tradition was much weaker in england than scotland and ireland ,well and what about the welsh have there been any good tunes collected in patagonia,iknow they have afine close harmony tradition, but in my opinion there instrumental tradition is the weakest of the four .

I agree with a lot of that, Dick, although Mick Tems and others might take exception to the last bit. Looking at what the English used to play pre-industrialisation (e.g. in late 18th-century manuscripts), there are plenty of examples of tunes now thought of as Scots, Irish or Welsh, but who is to say exactly where some of them originated? Northern English MSS, unsurprisingly, contain many tunes also known North of the Border. Several tunes claimed by the Welsh turn up in old English collections too, for instance there's a version of "Ap Shenkin" (or "Siencyn") in the Joseph Kershaw MS under the title "Hit or Miss", and I recently discovered that "The Parson in Boots" in the Great North Tune Book is pretty much what I learned years ago as "Mopsi Don" from the Welsh accordionist Taff Brissenden. And on the excellent squeezebox CD "Megin" there's a Welsh version of the 3:2 hornpipe known in Northumbria as "Go to Berwick, Johnny".

 

I take an interest in this stuff because I've always resented the suggestion by purveyors of that shaky marketing concept, "Celtic Music", that the English were somehow not part of the musical traditions of these islands. Just because they fell out of the habit of playing the stuff doesn't mean it wasn't there. But, like any other oppressed or culturally threatened peoples (see also the Cajuns, the Quebecois), the Scots and Irish have made their own traditional music a part of their cultural identity, and good for them. As for the Welsh, I blame the chapels.

Brian