How old were you when you started playing this (irish traditional) music? Is it necessary to start as a child to become a really good player, or do you think it doesn’t matter at all?
I started around age 38. Certainly it’s easier to become good at it when you’re younger (in most cases), but what the heck? And don’t mind the snooty ones who say that you must have been playing ITM since age 3, and preferably in Ireland, to be worth your salt. An advantage, true, but not absolutely essential.
Best,
N
Forty-four (44,) I’m fifty six now.
We have people in our group who are starting in their sixties, who have never played a musical intstrument in their life. Age isn’t and shouldn’t be a barrier or criteria to learn anything is this world.
MarkB
PS: I started the flute two years ago.
Forty Two(42). Although I’d listened to some Irish Trad. and groups like the Dubliners and The Pogues earlier,and played a little whistle(mainly ‘song tunes’).I really started to listen to,and attempt to play Irish trad. dance music and slow airs from that age,my interest stimulated by the discovery of this site.Lets hear it for the over 40’s! 
Forty-nine gasp - a little over a year ago. I certainly wish I’d discovered ITM years and years ago, but I didn’t and there’s not a thing I can do about it now. I believe it may take me longer to learn a tune than the younger folks I play with, and I can’t play them as fast, so I always feel I’m behind when playing with the local musicians, but I love the music, enjoy the company, and am working hard at getting it right. If I live to be 90, and keep it together for that long, I’ll have 40 years of playing in!
Susan
- That was 33 years ago, and it wasn’t too late. I blame the intervening children for the mediocrity of my present-day playing, but that’s just a handy excuse.
I’m 52 and I started playing whistle and IrTrad one year ago. I have played guitar, I started that when I was 21. I am taking whistle lessons and my wife says she is amazed at my progress. I’m pretty happy, too and although getting better is slower at 52 than at 21 I am definitely progressing.
Mike
29, although I have been listening to Irish music for the past 10 years. I just keep telling myself that by the time I reach 50 I’ll be competent. I hope to start my son in about a month and he is only three weeks old.
Mark
There you go, Mark!
I failed to mention that I’m going on 48 myself, or as I like to say, “My walker’s in the mail”. 
N
This is an interesting thread. I think it would be a great advantage to grow up listening to ITM (especially if it’s being played live in your home/neighborhood), but it’s not essential.
I’ve been listening to the Chieftans and anyone else who’s stuff was played on The Thistle & Shamrock Show since I was about 18, started going to pubs & bars to hear live ITM at about 22, and I messed around with whistles, a bodhran and a Hall crystal flute from about 22 through my 36th birthday (I truly messed around, played tunes from books about once every few months, etc…). It wasn’t until last fall when I decided to make a flute that I really became serious about playing ITM. The flute making has now fallen by the wayside, but I’m still puffing away on my flute daily and I’ve progessed steadily since I really dug in. That said, I’m years away from considering myself good at this.
Like Mark, I’m indoctrinating the next generation. My 4 year old son toots on his whistle when I practice and beats a demented anti-rhythm on the bodhran, too (sometimes both whistle and drum at the same time). He was so far off rhythm this weekend that when I was tearing through a reel my mind went totally blank. I had no clue what I was playing, and when he asked why I stopped I didn’t have the heart to say it was because he had driven from my mind all the musical knowledge it ever held, instead I said it was because I was enjoying listening to him play. The most surprising thing is that I was enjoying listening to him. He loves music, we all have to start somewhere, and I love that he wants to play along side me!
Eric
I was somewhere in my 40s before I ever learned much about tradidional music of any sort. I previously played 60’s type folk music though, both on banjo and guitar and had also had an interest in jazz and played clarinet and saxophone. I think age does matter and that learning is easier when you’re young. A lot of people will say it’s all a matter of attitude and motivation but I don’t believe it. That doesn’t mean you can’t learn when you’re older. skh framed the question in a binary fashion. Either it’s necessary to learn when you’re a child or it does’t matter at all. I think that early leaning is preferable but doesn’t totally determine whether you will be able to learn as an adult.
Steve
To a certain extent, a part of the tradition was in me from a young age. Mom would drag us out to hear highland pipers at any opportunity, and it stuck. I always wanted to get into the music, but what finally got me going was “Riverdance”. I told myself that someone has to strike a blow against that sort of thing.
Speaking of getting one’s child indoctrinated with the music, does anyone have any suggestions of how to brainwash effectively. I have high hopes that my son will be winning the all-ireland championships in three different instruments rather than jamming to Limp Bisket or whoever else will be popular when he gets older.
That’s “Bizkit”, you duffer.
I think the key to indoctrinating kids is twofold:
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Play often in front of them from an early age.
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Have them watch SpongeBob SquarePants where they will hear a large assortment of hornpipes throughout the show.
Best of luck,
Eric
Indoctrinate the kids…hm…sounds possible - until they hit their teens!!!
Both my sons have grown up listening to Irish Trad. music. My oldest (now 22 picked up a whistle at age 8 and asked me to teach him a tune. Within half an hour he was playing Rakes of Mallow, but after showing everyone he could do it, he never played again. My 16 year old has natural rhythm and can pick up a bodhran once every few months and play well enough to be accepted at an advanced session (if he gets paid to do it) But that is about the extent of it. Around here there are not many young musicians playing Irish Trad. - you can count them on one hand! So neither of my boys wants to listen to or be involved in something they see as what the “old ex-hippy” parents and their friends do.
We were in Ireland last summer and it was great to see so many young people playing well. So my best advice is - don’t just indoctrinate your own kids - teach & mentor as many of their friends as you can. The more kids their own age that are doing it, the more chance they will continue.
Sue
Sue - Don’t blame yourself about teens. My graduate school advisor, a licensed psychologist, offered this technical opinion about teenagers:
“Don’t even try to diagnose a teenager - they’re all nuts.”
Eric
I was 18. I wish I’d learned I liked this stuff when I was younger, though, because I think people who start playing as children have an easier time of it. Of course, being in high school at the time, I’d never admitted what kind of music I listened to and, after I started playing, I made sure no one knew about it. 
I knew a lot of kids who listened to their “ex-hippie parents’” music on the sly. You never know.
edited to save my soul from grammar purgatory
You said it. My son was a good guitar player by the time he was 12. I took him to places like the Augusta workshop in West Virgina and stuff like that. But when the hormones started to flow he went where the goodies were. Norman Blake style flatpicking did not make that big an impression on the young ladies but electirc guitars and rock did. It’s pretty hard to indoctrinate someone so thoroughly that they’ll be immune to that.
Steve
Let’s not forget that the primary purpose of the music that we love was once opon a time to enable the bucks of X to impress the maids of Y.
Go with the flow, hormonal or otherwise.
If you really want the kids to end up where we are, try the indirect approach (Clausewitz? Napoleon? General Giap?) and encourage them to listen to some other kinds of music like blues, Indian, whatever). I was reared on Italian Grand Opera, and my mother never till her dying day even accepted that ITM is worthy of the name of music.