The Reel Stuff
http://www.twoh.com/index.cfm
by Jasper Wynn
Music has always had a strong hold on Ireland, perhaps because a
songline runs through the geography and the history of the
country. It would be possible to drive any circuitous route you
liked from the north of Donegal to the southernmost tip of Cork
and, as you traveled, sing songs and play tunes that named and
described every mile of the landscape passed. "The Eniskillen
Dragoons," "The Hackler of Cootehall," "The Kesh
Jig," "The
Mountains of Mourne," "The Fields of Athenry," "The
Limerick
Rake," "The Bantry Girls lament." Every parish, village,
market
town, hill, and lake has its own song.
So, for the traveler in Ireland, music is the key to
understanding and to feeling the spirit of the Irish. Tracking
down that music can take you to some of the remotest and least
known corners of the land, as well as into the thick
"sham-roguery" and leprechaun cliché.
The reward for this musical safari is being in the right place at
the right time to catch a "mighty session." I'm not talking
about
the Aran sweaters, guitars, and "Danny Boy" stuff, but the real
sessions, where musicians, fueled by alcohol, thick smoke and the
weather outside, lash into jigs and reels, lifting each other's
playing to ever greater heights, and carrying anyone listening
along with them.
It's the uncertainty, the randomness of the sessions that are
their attraction. Nobody plans the best ones. Or knows exactly
where one might start up.
The right musicians meet, a few more people gather around in
anticipation, and there's drink and talk to pass the hours until
the "right" moment. Then instrument cases are pulled down from
shelves and fished from under benches. A fiddle is taken out and
tuned. An air started. A concertina is unboxed, then a bouzouki.
More players join in. And suddenly the session's on. It's a kind
of alchemy that may or may not produce gold-you put the
ingredients together and see what happens.
Musicians need an audience, but traditional musicians need a
knowledgeable audience, and they'll travel to find one. Here's a
paradox: it costs good money to get some mediocre guitar-tickler
to sit in a faked-up Irish bar playing "The Rose of Tralee," for
guidebook-toting tourists. But the cream of Ireland's musicians,
household names with CDs selling across five continents, will
drive for hours to perch on rickety vinyl-covered stools in some
drafty crossroads pub. And they'll pay for their own drinks as
well-just for the opportunity to trade tunes with their peers and
play for people who know enough about music to know when it's
really good.
To know a little about sessions and Irish music is enough to take
any traveler in Ireland beyond the Blarney Stone and lakes of
Killarney and "medieval" banquets and into the heart of a living
tradition.
Sessions
A session is any informal gathering of musicians playing
together. Usually held in a pub, a session's defining
characteristic is the blurred divide between audience and
musicians. "Get up and give us a song!" somebody sipping a quiet
pint at the back of the room will be encouraged, while musicians
will randomly stop playing to talk with friends or roll
cigarettes or savor their drink. Nobody is paid to play and the
musicians are free to follow their muse as they will. Sessions
produce the kind of music you cannot buy.
Traditional Sessions
These are often dauntingly purist, based as they are on 6,000 or
so jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, and "slides," which form the
canon of Irish instrumental music. Finding a tune that all the
musicians are familiar with is part of the ritual of a
traditional session, and melding each player's variation into the
whole is part of the magic.
Ballad Sessions
These are song-based and relaxed-often guitar-driven and usually
with a core of regular musicians. They can also be more tolerant
of "incomers" of various abilities playing "foreign"
versions of
Irish standards. All these are, of course, ingredients that can
easily turn a ballad session into leprechaun karaoke. Equally, a
bar full of people singing the same song can bring a lump to the
throat.
Dance Music
In many ways at the heart of traditional music, "dance bands"
can
range from a lone man lilting "mouth music" to a
bells-and-whistles electric accordion, drums, and bass group
pumping out volume and rhythm with all the subtlety of a
bulldozer. Dances can be the place to "feel" Irish music-by the
time you've stepped and hopped your way through a few evenings,
the "changes" will be fixed in your mind forever. A night's
dancing might feature "sets" (the complex twirling and swapping
of partners among groups of four or eight dancers, and best
avoided by the complete beginner), line dances ("They're the ones
to start with," according to expert Willie Daly, "there's always
someone to pull you along with them and put you in the right
place"), and "close" dancing-waltzes, polkas, and other
excuses
to hold your partner tight.
The Music
Although a session will often feature solo pieces and
unaccompanied songs, the overall point is for musicians to play
together, even if they're meeting for the first time. For this
reason Irish traditional music is based on fixed music forms to
give a firm foundation for the airy edifices built up from them.
Jigs and reels are the staple. The former are in 6/8 time, giving
a skipping lift to the music, and the latter are in 4/4
time-straightforward rock-and-roll tempo. The convention is for
individual "tunes" to come in two different 8-bar parts, both
elements of which are repeated. Tunes are usually joined together
in pairs or threes, each running into the other. The choice of
which tunes to bundle together and the consequent melodic
gymnastics needed to get from one to the other are where
musicians prove their genius.
As well as jigs and reels, there are hornpipes, slip jigs,
polkas, Scottish tunes, and a growing number of oddities. De
Dannan's traditional version of "Hey Jude" opened the floodgates
for similar pop borrowings, and Andy Irvine's cross-fertilization
of Irish and Balkan music has encouraged many a less able
musician to attempt to play in complex Eastern time signatures.
Instruments
Arguments over what constitutes a traditional Irish instrument
have busied many a musician in defending his own chosen
noisemaker. Early Irish musicians probably had little more than a
simple harp, the Celtic horn, frame drum, and basic whistle to
draw on and the "traditional instruments" of modern Irish music
were all later imports.
The need to play fast, ornamented melody to strict time in an
ensemble setting has favored certain instrumentation, leading to
the predominance of fiddles, wooden flutes, uillean pipes, and
the bodhran, the Irish drum. The acceptance of new
instruments-and everything from saxophones to lutes has been
tried over the decades-in Irish music has always depended on the
skill and sensitivity of the player. For example, the odd jig or
reel played on didgeridoo by the brilliant Australian guitarist
Steve Cooney is a pleasing novelty because he knows his way
around the music, plays well, and doesn't do it very often. But
it's not something that's encouraged.
The Uillean Pipe A chanter bagpipe, blown by a bellows pumped
under the arm. Often seen as the quintessential Irish instrument.
Difficult to play well (or even acceptably), it's said to require
seven years learning, seven years practicing, and seven years
playing to become a piper. Its "bluesy" crying tone in slow
airs,
and keening yelps in fast pieces can lift a session high.
The Bodhran A large tambourine-shaped drum, usually played with a
single double-headed beater. The bodhran's apparent simplicity
and the consequent enthusiastic flailings on it by non-musicians
have led to its reputation as a session wrecker. "Ah, the Irish
Frisbee," declared one fiddler of my acquaintance, picking up a
tourist's bodhran and demonstrating his thesis by spinning it out
of an open window.
The Fiddle "The fiddle is a violin played by a man who doesn't
wear a bow tie," I was told once. It has become the session
instrument par excellence. Portable, capable of carrying the
emotion of slow airs and the rush of passion in jigs and reels,
the fiddle can be played quietly or loudly depending on ability
and confidence, and blends well with other instruments. Fiddlers
tend to be the keepers of the flame when it comes to the pure
tradition.
Whistles and Flutes. Like the fiddle, the wooden flute is another
"serious" instrument, as is the tin whistle if blown by a flute
player. Equally, the cheapness of the tin or "penny" whistle
tends to make it a bulk buy for tourists, along with tartan caps
and shamrock T-shirts, and so should never be pulled out at a
session by anybody who cannot really play the thing.
Boxes The collective noun for accordions (which have keys like a
piano) and concertinas (which have buttons). Accordions are too
loud and inflexible to be good session instruments, though they
can motor a ceili dance along (which is why their players are
referred to as "drivers"). On the other hand, the delicate sound
of the concertina makes it a wonderful tool for sessions.
Guitars, Bouzoukis, Mandolins, and Banjos The ability of fretted
instruments to play chords and drive a piece along rhythmically
has done much to change the range of sound in Irish music over
the past 30 years. Guitars fueled the ballad sessions made
popular in the 1960s and 1970s by groups like The Clancys and The
Dubliners, but they only made it as proper traditional
instruments when they were reconfigured by players such as Arty
McGlyn and Paul Brady. Banjos and mandolins are better suited
than guitars to carry a tune. A foreign instrument that was
elevated into the inner circle (mainly due to the skills of Andy
Irvine and Donal Lunny) was the flat-backed bouzouki. It
developed into a genuinely innovative Irish instrument, in many
ways filling a gap the harp might have occupied in former times.
Odd Instruments There are good spoons players (two spoons held
loosely in one hand and rapped against the other hand or knee to
give a castanet-like clattering), harmonica suckers, and bongo
batterers, among others, who are welcome at sessions, and on the
CDs of some of Ireland's best musicians. However, to conclude
that any of these is seen as an asset in traditional Irish music
would be a mistake.
Voice There are as many singing styles as singers in Ireland, but
it is possible to make a distinction between "sean-nos" (old
style), which is formalized, usually found in unaccompanied songs
in the Irish language, and "folk singing," which can cover
everything from Irish ballads and contemporary American country
songs to English music hall numbers and locally written humorous
skits.
Session Etiquette
Tolerance at sessions is legendary. Drunken tourists, ballad book
in hand, mumbling their way through "Galway Bay," teenage
guitarists attempting "Stairway to Heaven," and home-grown
eccentrics with 37 verses of self-penned observation on the
history of a field. All have been endured, but that doesn't mean
they're welcomed. However, abiding by a few simple rules can make
the "incomer" into that rarest of all things-a good listener,
and
perhaps, too, a good performer.
Don't take the musicians' seats. A corner or a particular table
in a bar will be reserved for them even if they don't come.
That's the way it is.
Clapping isn't a great feature of sessions. The knowledgeable are
more likely to mutter a low "Good man yourself" in response to
an
inventive and stunning solo. Listeners who find themselves truly
moved have one way of showing true appreciation-buy a round for
the musicians (check out how many there are before you commit
yourself). No fanfare, a word with the barman, pass over the
money and nod when the musicians catch your eye.
If you're looking to play at a session yourself, know what you're
getting into. Non-traditional musicians, however brilliant, have
no place in a pure traditional session, where they interrupt the
flow and stop other people playing together. As a beginner it can
be acceptable to sit on the edge of a session with a fiddle or
flute and silently finger out new tunes along with the
players-this is how the repertoire is passed on. But there is
little tolerance for guitarists, bodhran players, or other
instrumentalists doing the same-they either come as ready-formed
virtuosi, or leave their instruments at home. In looser sessions,
it's more acceptable to try out new songs-a non-Irish and
entertaining tune is better than a mediocre, clichéd ballad. A
good song will always make friends. During a rush of music in
Dingle one evening, as we laid down our instruments for a sup and
a breather, a piper (invariably the philosophers among musicians)
leant across the table to give me his view on sessions: "There's
only three things you need when you go out for the night-money
for drink, a way of getting home, and a song . and if the song is
good and you put your heart into singing it, you probably
wouldn't need the other two at all."
Geography of Music
A session can happen anywhere in Ireland, but you can shorten the
odds of finding good music by hunting it down in its natural
habitat.
The Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry has numerous pubs and
home-grown musicians. Dingle town is a good place to start, with
more bars on the roads out to Dunquin to investigate. Don't miss
ceilis featuring Seamus Begley and Steve Cooney-they're the dance
musicians.
The villages of West Clare are a hotbed of music-Ennistymon,
Lahinch, and Lisdoonvarna have sessions all through the summer,
and doubly so during the month-long September matchmaking
festival.
Cork has a reputation for good musicians. Rewarding bars in the
city include "The Lobby," and "Se-E." Out in the
county,
Clonakilty, Baltimore, and Leap form a circuit for rambling
players. The "Jolly Roger" on Sherkin Island, a ferry
ride from Baltimore, has produced some good nights.
Galway is a traditional music center. During the annual July Arts
Festival it becomes a home-away-from-home to many of the
country's best musicians.
The Fleadh Cheoil ("an orgy of music") is an August Bank Holiday
event in a different venue each year. The Fleadh (pronounced,
near enough, "Flar") can be one of the few sure ways of tracking
down the best of Irish music in an informal (and how) setting.
Horse fairs can be good bets for drink-fueled craic. Ballinasloe
Great Fair in County Galway (first and second weekend of October)
brings in some of the great traveler musicians, as does Puck Fair
in Kilorglin, County Kerry (August).
Books
Rough Guide to Ireland The best guide for getting around the
country, and good on Ireland's history, culture and festivals.
The old paradox applies. If a music bar is flagged in the
guidebook as being a little-known gem, it'll be full of
guide-book carrying tourists by the time you get there.
Last Night's Fun: A Book About Music, Food, and Time by Ciaran
Carson (Pimlico, 1997). A wonderful evocation of the driving
force behind sessions and Irish music by a poet and a flute
player. Highly recommended.
The Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems by Francis O'Neill. This is
one for musicians-a source for the music of the most popular
instrumental pieces played in sessions and a Bible for those
feeling their way into playing sessions.
Ballad books None is particularly recommended, but they are a
good source for the songs that pop up over and over again at
sessions.
Listening
To understand traditional music, you need to go to sessions. But
you can prepare by listening to recorded music. There's no such
thing as a definitive list, but there are some names to look out
for-naturally, the old rule about avoiding any musical offering
with the words "shamrock" or "Irish fireside" in the
title
applies.
Sharon Shannon Box and fiddle player, with a perfect marrying of
new and old style traditional music.
Moving Hearts Ireland's lamentably disbanded super-group,
featuring Davy Spillane on uillean pipes among other virtuoso
players.
Patrick Street Tunes and songs featuring some of the best of
contemporary traditional playing. Highlights are Andy Irvine's
songs and bouzouki playing, and Jacky Daly's box work.
De Danann Built around the nucleus of Frankie Gavin and Alec
Finn, the band launched three now-famous-in-their own-right
singers along the way (Mary Black, Dolores Keane, and Maura
O'Connell).
Willy Clancy Find the LP, "The Minstrel from Clare," and hear
the
magic of a master piper, fiddler and songster.
Christy Moore Almost any album by Christy Moore yields
interesting songs, but track down "Prosperous," note the
musicians who are playing with him, then look out for records
from any of them. Moore's genius is for songwriting and for
attracting the best of Irish musicians into his company.
Bringing It All Back Home The soundtrack to the popular TV
documentary showing the range and influence of Irish music.
Workshops
Ballymaloe Music Holidays runs weekend and week-long holidays
based around Irish music. Workshops cover all instruments and
introduce players to sessions. Guests will also track down some
of the best sessions in County Cork, as well as attend private
concerts in country houses. Details are available from Rory
Allen, Ballymaloe Hotel, Ballymaloe, Middleton, County Cork.
Sadly, a shadow has passed across these glittering
achievements-their mother, Jean Corr, died suddenly last
November, an event that has torn at the heart of this close-knit
family. A spokesman for the band asked fans and media to allow
the family "time and space to grieve in private. This is
obviously a very difficult time for Gerry, Andrea, Caroline,
Sharon, and Jim.''
Spring 2000 sees The Corrs holed up in the studio, working on
their third album, the one that might finally topple the last
resistance of the mighty U.S. Whether or not they follow U2 and
The Cranberries into the hearts of Americans hardly matters, The
Corrs have already succeeded beyond many Irish people's wildest
expectations. They've become role models for a new generation of
Irish youth, unshackled as they are by the post-colonial
inferiority complex that has prevented previous generations from
reaching their full potential.
The face of young Ireland is changing-hip, urban twentysomethings
are speaking Gaelic again, turning away from excessive drinking
and drug-taking, following more healthful lifestyles, and
rekindling traditional values of friendship, loyalty, and hard
work. They're not emigrating-they're traveling around the world,
expanding their horizons, and discovering a sense of their own
identity along the way. The Corrs embody the mix of traditional
and modern that pulses through Irish life-they are of Ireland,
but the world is their oyster.
==== IRELAND Mailing List ====
Visit the Ireland List Homepage:
|
|
