Irish Concertina Players Of The 1800s

[Ken_Coles]

The great reviver of Cajun (Louisiana French) music, Dewey Balfa, said Traditional music/culture is like a tree. You have to water the roots to keep it alive, but it also has to grow new branches to survive. I have always found that an apt and beautiful summary.

 

Ken

[Dan Worrall]

Regarding the term 'misguided,' I would quibble a tiny bit about that wording. O'Neill lived when Ireland was under foreign occupation.

 

My use of it is coloured to an extend by today's version of nationalist notions where it comes to music. I understand O'Neill's background and what motivated him. But it was the same background and thinking that eventually told the people of Mullagh it was not OK to dance sets on social occasions and that they should dance a contrived and made up artificial notion of pure (ceili) dancing instead. The protectors of the purity more often than not bring their own oppression. And in that sense I feel their train of thought is misguided.

 

Even today the notion that the pinnacle of culture is 'an Irishman playing his native music on the pipes' (I have heard Noel Hill say that on more than one occasion) is very much alive in some circles. I believe strongly this music belongs to the players and that the players, collectively, will ultimately decide what belongs, what will be embraced and what will be left by the wayside. And in that sense the concertina has been the popular choice: easy to handle, originally cheap and very suitable to put music under the dancers feet (at least until louder accordeons arrived). The pipes may have been the choice of the self appointed guardians of the culture but let's face it, you should see musicians' reactions when a piper turns up where music is played.

Hi Peter,

I can see your point of view. But the issues you discuss in modern sessions, such as what subtle variations that session musicians might accept or reject in a current Irish traditional music session, are not nearly the scale of what O'Neill was up against. In his lifetime he saw whole regions of the country drop age-old, pervasive 'traditional' music for 'Will I Be an Angel, Daddy?' and 'Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight?' And they saw the pace of change as picking up speed, and figured it was five minutes to midnight. Today, things are, if not stabilized, at least slowed down. Traditional music types know we belong to an underground, even you good folks in the west of Ireland (twirl the dial of your local radio stations to see if that is not correct). We know that the first tsunami waves of global change have already occurred, but that we can be comfortable with what is left. Ken's comment about leaves of a tree is well put, but consider that the tree is now mostly Brittney Spears, ZZ Top and Puff Daddy....traditional music has now a few small branches to worry about. O'Neill remembered having nearly the whole tree in his youth, and wanted to somehow return to that in Ireland. In 20 20 hindsight we might see that as misguided, fair enough, but only because we know his fight was doomed. For something even remotely similar in our current terms, one might have to see something like a new nefarious trend in all the remaining quiet music pubs in Ireland, putting in TVs showing loud MTV 24/7. That might rattle even your cage enough to stand up and shout 'Irish music for the Irish!'

 

It is interesting to see the difference in the English experience at this same time (first decade 20th century). Cecil Sharp and his contemporaries were picking up the pieces after the tsunamis had already hit....trying to get urban folks there to show even the merest interest in the remnants of English traditional music, dance and rituals. He traveled around the country trying to see if any twigs were left on that tree at all (thankfully there were, in the countryside). One gets the feeling that O'Neill saw the global pop music tsunami just as it was bearing down.

 

Cheers,

Dan

Edited January 16, 2009 by Dan Worrall

[Guest Peter Laban]

I think we'll be heading outside the remit of this thread but the reality is that traditional music has always been a minority interest, even today when it has more active participants than ever before. Most pubs will have the wide screen tellie stuck on some satellite channel or the match of the day rather than have music in. I am not sure that's a bad thing. For the young people playing it's not a matter of the one or the other. I know plenty of young ones who will scream their head off for Westlife the one night and will go out to dance or play for a set the next. And it's good that way.

[Dan Worrall]

the reality is that traditional music has always been a minority interest

 

Sorry, but that is not correct, Peter. What is reality in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is not the reality of the 1800s (this thread), or earlier. Traditional music was the 'majority' music of the countryside, pure and simple....not only O'Neill, whose words we were discussing, but scores of other writers and historians of those early periods make that abundantly clear. What we now call traditional dance music...the bulk of it, that is, jigs and reels, were composed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and built upon yet earlier influences. Back then, outside of the big cities, 'reels and jigs' was what there was, in terms of music and dance, and it was most definitely NOT a minority interest. Try this one quote (I could give dozens, as could any Irish historian), from English geographer Arthur Young, visiting Ireland in 1780: "...dancing is very general among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabin to cabin...Weddings are always celebrated with much dancing." They weren't dancing to Bo Diddley! It is with good reason that O'Neill and others saw it (along with songs and such) as the 'national music,' even though it absorbed many new influences over time from 'the continent', like polkas and waltzes. It is only in the late nineteenth and then the twentieth centuries that it became a 'minority interest', when it couldn't overcome and/or absorb the tidal wave of modernity that came with the industrial revolution and, more importantly, global trade....minstrels, music hall, ragtime, jazz, rock, and commercial radio and TV.

 

It is one of history's little ironies, of course, that the new imported instruments that came as byproducts of the industrial revolution....concertina, accordian, banjo, factory-made tin whistles.....were one of the main forces that saved the last vestiges of the old music from extinction. O'Neill once claimed, rightly or wrongly, that there weren't a dozen good pipers left in the west of Ireland by the turn of the 20th century...they had emigrated. How ironic for him that it was the ability of the rural poor to afford these cheap factory instruments...the ones he didn't like... that ultimately did much to keep the music going.

[Guest Peter Laban]

I don't know Dan, I know Youngs quote, and John Carr wrote in 1805 that 'A Sunday with the peasantry in Ireland is not unlike the same day in France. After the hours of devotion, a spirit of gaiety shines upon every hour, the bagpipe is heard and every foot is in motion' but all the quotes I am aware of point to the same: The rural poor liked to dance and were catered for by dancing masters and (blind and professional) musicians. We can (but won't) quibble whether or not the rural poor were or weren't a minority but I think you'll agree with me that large parts of society had no interest in traditional music.

 

On a number of occasions I have heard people establish that traditional music was indeed an interest of the rural poor, strongly associated with the outer edges of the island where the land was poor and only barely suitable for subsistence farming. The centre of the country with richer land supporting, if at all, only a poor musical tradition. But maybe you're right I have my time lines wrong.

Edited January 16, 2009 by Peter Laban

[michael sam wild]

Records often reflect where people like to collect or record or report

 

An analogy, when I coordinated an urban ecological survey in Inner Sheffield we found lots of rare plants and animals that had been overlooked or ignored because naturalists like going to 'nice' places to put dots on mapsand locals had other preoccupations! We were making a case for urban conservation

 

Is or was Clare more musical than elsewhere?

 

Maybe early music observers had a romantic view of the peasantry that led them West. As Dan has shown, more objective records appear from other observers in newspapers who were interedsted in contemporary social phenomena.

 

In Britain the early collectors tended to go for' genuine peasants' in asearch for a National Heritage. That was going on in Europe generally

 

Mike

[Ptarmigan]

O'Neill did omit a few instruments but I don't think there's any hard evidence he thought them 'too modern'. There was a discussion about this fairly recently, elsewhere. Paul de Grae put forward a few points in that discussion:

 

He certainly played the whistle and the flute himself.

 

in the chapter about the flute (and it's patrons) in IMM he wrote:

 

No instrument was in such common use among the Irish peasantry as the flute. From the "penny whistle" to the keyed instrument in sections it was always deservedly popular, for unlike the fiddle and the bagpipe it involved no expense beyond the purchase price. Complete in itself, the flute needed but a wetting to be always in tune, and disjointed or whole could be carried about without display or inconvenience. Besides, if not broken by accident or design it would outlive its owner. Soft or shrill, its carrying power was remarkable. Who that has heard the mellow music of either whistle or flute a mile away on a fine evening, will ever forget the experience?

 

He also said :

 

As most Irish fluters were amateurs, or rather non-professionals, few are the imprints which their footsteps have left on the sands of time.

 

 

 

Personally I think it would rather be an issue of status, pipes at the top closely followed by the fiddle, at some distance from that the flute and all others below that again and probably just played by amateurs, gaining little attention and leave few imprints in the sands of time.

 

Just a wee aside .....

 

Can I take it that O'Neill never mentioned the Bodhran?

 

No of course not, silly me, he was talking about musical instruments after all & anyway, from what I've read, the Bodhran wasn't normally played along with Irish music until much, much later.

 

Interesting Peter, to see that you think he would have considered the Pipes to be top dog.

If his views were common amongst trad musicians back then, it seems odd, considering the Pipes were allowed to almost became extinct!

 

I know this is probably a topic for another forum, but do you reckon the loss of interest in the Pipes, was due to musicians becoming increasingly more interested in these more modern instruments, like the Concertina, Accordion, Melodeon & Banjo?

 

Cheers

Dick

[Ptarmigan]

.... but let's face it, you should see musicians' reactions when a piper turns up where music is played.

 

I'm curious Peter.

 

What did you actually mean by that comment?

 

N.B. I ask, as someone who is absolutely delighted, when a Piper turns up at our session.

 

Cheers

Dick

[Guest Peter Laban]

I ask, as someone who is absolutely delighted, when a Piper turns up at our session.

 

Not a common occurrence that, not in Clare anyway where musicians in general try avoid pipers and most pipers socialise carrying a flute, a whistle or anything but their pipes.

[Ptarmigan]

I ask, as someone who is absolutely delighted, when a Piper turns up at our session.

 

Not a common occurrence that, not in Clare anyway where musicians in general try avoid pipers and most pipers socialise carrying a flute, a whistle or anything but their pipes.

 

Now I am sorry to hear that Peter.

As a Fiddle player, I am always delighted to adjust my D tuning or tune down to C#, or C, or Bb to accommodate a visiting Uilleann Piper, or even down to F for a Northumbrian Piper. I am also, of course, quite happy to play away in A if they bring Border or Scottish Smallpipes with them.

 

I mention all these different Pipes because we actually do have them all at our sessions up here, at some stage through the year.

 

As a Concertina player of course, I wouldn't be able to play along quite so easily, but as I just love the sound of pipes I'd be quite happy to sit & listen.

Let's face it, there are a lot of musicians out there who should really be doing a lot more real listening at sessions.

 

Cheers

Dick

[Greg in London]

not in Clare anyway where musicians in general try avoid pipers

 

Everyone is entitled to their personal hates (too many guitarists hammering chords at once, or tambourines...) but when I was at the Willy Clancy festival (2007) and sat in on a session started by a couple of uillean pipers there was no shortage of others joining in. Maybe a few others just walked by and I didn't notice ? Either way they were well received, and so was I when I did a couple of sets on the war pipes. That just added variety, though, as we'd been playing for hours by then.

 

I'd guess that there was a period when instruments that could not be re-tuned began to dominate, especially the piano, and any instrument not in tune with those would perhaps have been frowned upon by other musicians. Modern uillean pipes can maybe be maintained rather more closely to concert pitch and in my experience I have not heard musicians objecting to u. pipes per se.

 

On the other hand, highland/war pipers have a reputation for marching in, playing without introduction (bad manners) and walking out. If you get past this, they are usually very well received, except there is definitely a minority of musicians who can't stand them.

[Ptarmigan]

On the other hand, highland/war pipers have a reputation for marching in, playing without introduction (bad manners) and walking out. If you get past this, they are usually very well received, except there is definitely a minority of musicians who can't stand them.

 

Fortunately Greg, at least in this part of the World, Border Pipes & Scottish Smallpipes are becoming a little more common & they certainly are much more session friendly than their larger cousins!

 

Cheers

Dick

[Ptarmigan]

Lawrence, there is a school of thought that reckons the Salvation Army may well have introduced most parts of Ireland to the Tambourine & so to the notion of playing Bodhran along with Irish Traditional Music.

So is it not possible that travelling bands like these may have introduced the folk of the West of Ireland to the Concertina?

 

However, I note that the earliest band photo only dates back to the 1920s.

 

Do we know if Sally Army bands used Concertinas before then?

 

If so, is there any evidence that they also toured rural Ireland?

 

Cheers

Dick

[michael sam wild]

Tambourine with tingles was common in England before Sally Army so I assume Wren boys etc used it in Ireland. The name bodrhan and tambor have some commonality ( as do craic and crack!)

[Greg in London]

Fortunately Greg, at least in this part of the World, Border Pipes & Scottish Smallpipes are becoming a little more common & they certainly are much more session friendly than their larger cousins!

 

Cheers

Dick

 

 

Well more bagpipes can only be a good thing - and maybe as a small step to going the whole hog and a future upgrade ....

 

Putting that to one side, most pipes have a chanter which is tuned to harmonise with the drones. Many reproduction pipes do not do this very well (or are not well tuned) and so do not sound good to pipers. To play with other instruments, it is quite common to kill the drones, especially with uillean pipers, so as not to conflict with instruments with a wider register.

How are players coping with this in your area - do the drones fit in well ? Do other players play single notes rather than than chords ? Is it all just close enough to enjoy in a pub ?

 

Just wondering.

[gzeg]

Fortunately Greg, at least in this part of the World, Border Pipes & Scottish Smallpipes are becoming a little more common & they certainly are much more session friendly than their larger cousins!

 

Cheers

Dick

 

 

Well more bagpipes can only be a good thing - and maybe as a small step to going the whole hog and a future upgrade ....

 

Putting that to one side, most pipes have a chanter which is tuned to harmonise with the drones. Many reproduction pipes do not do this very well (or are not well tuned) and so do not sound good to pipers. To play with other instruments, it is quite common to kill the drones, especially with uillean pipers, so as not to conflict with instruments with a wider register.

How are players coping with this in your area - do the drones fit in well ? Do other players play single notes rather than than chords ? Is it all just close enough to enjoy in a pub ?

 

Just wondering.

 

I played for many years with a man who plays Scottish small pipes, both in a group and in sessions. Generally the drones are quiet enough that they don't really get in the way. One of the reasons this works is because he's very disciplined about his own tuning, and always helpful to others with tuning issues.

 

There are some tunes where the small pipe version is in a key that conflicts with what people are expecting, but that's easy enough to fix. One problem he had is that because it's so dry here, occasionally the end of a drone would fall off during a tune. Once in a while the whole drone would pop out of the stock, leading to explosive decompression! Which gives the rest of the group an opportunity to have a laugh at the piper's expense, and occasions like that are rarer than we'd like. ;-)

 

If there's a problem it's that there's usually not much overlap between the pipe band repertoire that most Scottish players here know, and the average Irish music session repertoire. You can only play Scotland the Brave two or three times before people start to notice.

[Greg in London]

Oh I don't know, surely there's:

 

• Cock O'the North (first tune in my concertina tutor)
  
• Mari's Wedding
  
• Atholl Highlanders
  
• um .. Merrily Kiss the Quaker's Wife
  
• er .... .......Amazing Grace
  

 

I suppose I've a bit of an advantage as the circle of pipers I play with include many with a wide Irish repertoire (ie the London Irish Rifles TA band).

 

For many years my 'main session' was an Irish bar which could become quite loud. The pipes were a definite advantage. It always seems a bit of a shame if the drones aren't loud enough to richen the tone of the chanter - you may as well tune it to equal temperament and forget about them and then where's the point ?

 

[To be honest - the drone issue is not so great with quieter pipes; the conical bore chanter cound sound quite harsh if the drones are not there to soften them. You wouldn't want to hear them solo without them, but with other instruments it should be fine. If it sounded ok with the concertina, that was what I wondered.]

Edited January 24, 2009 by Greg in London