Bryan (scooter) is a great guy: good looking, sexy, smart… and he really is a terrific flute player. But you know what? This internet app stuff doesn’t matter. Not one little bit. It’s all about the music, not the names of the tunes, or who is more authentic or who has the “better” version. It’s all about the social evening and sharing the music and the chat. The same is true of Eskin’s great application that makes it easy to play the concertina on your iPhone while waiting for the lab results.
I cannot imagine sitting in with the old guys and when they ask “what’s the name of the second tune?” stopping the ongoing flow of music and chat to start dialing up tunepal to get the name. Which (the name) doesn’t matter a whole hell of a lot, does it? And you’re not going to tell me that thesession.org or henrik’s site has the “right” setting for the tune, are you? So while it may be fun and another use for a modern gizmo, in the long run (which is what traditional music is all about, right? Rather than this week’s Top-40?) it probably takes you away from the music rather than towards the music.
The app for pipes or concertina might be a kick but can you imagine going into a session and playing your iPhone? It’s just a temporary giggle. Temporary giggles are fun, but they are only temporary. Devaney’s Goat, however, played on a real instrument (and no matter you call the tune) will outlast any iPhone app. As well as living longer than any player and most instruments.
I am glad that Bryan got his doctorate and happy for Eskin that his app is in such demand. But I don’t think these things will make anybody play his music any better than if the time were spent with instrument (a real instrument) in hand.
Are these apps indispensable? I think not.
A “senior moment”? 
Hear, hear. Especially if you don’t have (and are not likely to acquire) an i-gadget.
I’m bad at tune-names and I do like knowing them (and variants), but I can’t imagine suspending a session or my participation in it very often to look one up. I can imagine doing so under certain specific situations, but not very frequently. I might find Bryan’s thing slightly more useful at a sesh to remind me of the incipit of a tune I wanted to play but couldn’t think of the first few notes (a common thing for me!), but not enough-so to impel me towards buying a gadget I don’t see much use for personally, and certainly not at current costs. I do like the availability of what is certainly a good tool at home on the main 'puter, though.
Eskin’s i-stuff was initially intriguing conceptually, but he’s gone way OTT IMO, and I wouldn’t actually have wanted it.
After one year of playing this music, I participate in every bit of the chit-chat and camaraderie at session but If I want to play along I’m going to have to learn the tunes. I could take a tape recorder but this is easier and faster and gives me the stave notation as well. At 51 years of age, I don’t have the luxury of finding a “sensei” and sleeping on his cold hard floor, bringing him his tea and doing his chores for 10 years while he trains me in the traditional arts of Feadóg Mhór. A wise old art teacher of mine once told me to “Use every resource available to you.” Just because these tools weren’t available 40 years ago doesn’t mean they can’t be useful now.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Cheers,
Kirk
Don’t get me wrong - if someone gave me an i-phone I’d install Bryan’s app and doubtless use it occasionally to good effect, but I don’t actually want the gadget itself - most of the things it does/is aimed at don’t interest me, and certainly not until it is about 1/3 of current price. I’d rather my mobile phone with a good camera and adequate internet access (where there’s a signal…).
I’m off to my local sesh. 
Again, put yourself in the beginner’s shoes for a moment. First off, nobody is suspending the session. I’m sitting there not playing the tune because I don’t know it, and I need to have some point of reference like… oh say the name of the tune 
to be able to go learn it. So I push a button and take a quick recording. I don’t see an issue here.
What about knowing the tune and it’s history? I cannot believe the incongruity that I have seen in a tune and it’s setting.
Marching thru Georgia is a great tune isn’t it? So is John Brown’s Body. Knew a northern priest that had some problems with choir singing a song to that tune with a southern parishioner.
I might be wrong, but the Irish might have one or two tunes that are not used in mixed company. I’d rather not be disgusted by my ignorance, embarrassed, or worse a jerk without intending to be one.
After forty years playing this music…
That’s two times my age.
I just wanted to say, most of us didn’t play for that long, some are complete beginners. Asking the name of a tune (after the set is ended!) will permit you to search it on the web and learn it. On thesession.org you will find out on which albums the tune has been recorded, therefore you can listen various version of it, see which one is more common, learn variations. And when you learn a lot of tunes, you might completely forget about some. I’m keeping my list of tunes updated, every time I add the name of the tune I learned. I’m a bit over 300 now, not so much, but I already forget about some tunes that I didn’t play for a while, so i check the list, find the name, and play it again after so much time. It’s very useful. So many tunes would be lost if it wasn’t for the list with all the names…
two times yer & half o’his 
sorry
he’s weak, he is 
Y’re right: Bryan is a great guy and a terrific fluter. I reckon his Tunepal has also done a great thing. I haven’t got an iPhone, but his App nearly tempted me to buy one.
While we’re into criticising people, I don’t like posts that are only written in order to rubbish other peoples’ work. Feels wrong. And goodness knows what the length of time someone’s been playing has got to do with it. What - are we ranking ourselves with some sort of seniority?
Go get 'em, Brian. See you in Drumshanbo, I hope.
I suspect the day when a session is comprised of i pads and i phones is right around the corner. I still plan to show up with my flute and banjo in tow. What can I say? I find change challenging!
Arbo
Arbo, if you don’t like change then you should move to Pittsburgh. Nothing has changed around here in years. It’s like stepping back in time. lol
I didn’t say I don’t like change, I said I find it challenging…as it should be. I prefer to wrap my hands around something where I can feel the life energy pulsating through it.
Arbo
I was at a little kids’ indoor soccer game a while back and their Mom had an iPhone. I told her about the ocarina app and she downloaded it. Luckily, I had earphones on me because a person couldn’t hear a thing in that room while the game was being played. Me and everyone in arm’s reach of me played the ocarina app until the battery ran out.
Try that with a real ocarina. How many people do you think are going to try an ocarina for the first time in a crowd of people? How many people are even going to try an ocarina?
There is definitely a place for apps too. My wife would like our home to be one of those places. The sound of an ocarina pierces her skull.
You know Co… Mr. Delaney
You seem rather bitter.
Of course its all about the music.
It’s not a great leap of insight to point it out.
Get real.
Times change and so does technology and society… the music and why we play and what it gets played on will evolve.
I’m quite happy to play on a vintage instrument but it will change.
Eventually our instruments will rot away and newly made ones will deviate from the originals.
You can’t stop it.
Go study Objective C if it bothers you so much.
@ Kirk – your best tool is still your ear. The music is in the air and not on the paper (or the screen).
@ Anvil – I am far from bitter. Your bad-tempered post is shallow and you seem to have missed the point, which, judging from the other responses, is not obvious to everybody. If you prefer Objective C, I will use small words in our exchange.
@Ben – If you were referring to me, I wasn’t rubbishing anybody’s work. Just commenting on the over-importance some people place on today’s technology. Bryan is a friend, and the work he did is very impressive. I thought my respect for him was obvious. I do like having so many tunes available on the net, and I do use the slow-downer. I obviously spend some time on the net. But as my pal Junior wrote to me, I bought the app and like it, but it’s only an amusement. Not the heart of the music or culture by any means. It’s not going to improve my playing or my cultural understanding.
Electronic gimcrackery is lame.
Rob
He posted on the internet.
Yo, I got your gimcrackery right here.
Kirk
IMHO the developers of these apps got it bass-ackwards. Who needs to know the name of the tune someone else pulls out at a session? If you like it and want to learn it, record it. There are even iPhone apps that will do that for you. Really, what does the name tell you about a tune anyway? It’s just a label, nothing else. The iPhone app is just going to tell you what labels lots of other folks have stuck on a tune that this guy right in front of you is playing. Doesn’t tell you anything about the tune or help you in any way to learn it. If you must have a label for it, why not ask yer man what label he puts on it? After all, it’s his version that caught your ear and made you want to learn it, right? Why not use his label, and then when you’ve learned it off well enough that your playing of it catches someone else’s ear, you can give credit to your source? No iPhone app will preserve that continuity, which is the whole point of the music in the first place.
OTOH, an app that’s the reverse of this would be quite handy. How many times have you sat in a session and said “Jesus, how does tune X go anyway?” Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to speak that tune name into your iPhone and have, say, the classic Paddy O’Brien recording of it spew out? How great would that be? Of course, it would have to be a quite an expensive app, unless you got the Green Linnet version where they don’t pay the musicians the royalties they’re due.
And as for the app that turns your iPhone into a concertina, who needs that? Instead, give me a concertina that can text and surf the web. Then I can use my iPhone for important stuff like recording that nice tune the fella next to me is playing so I can go home and learn it.
feature creep
he’s on about release 3 when 1 is barely outta beta