I think you’re being a bit too protective. There are many serious practitioners of ITM who are just content to do the right thing, i.e. play the music as well as they can with all due respect to traditional values (inasmuch as we can access them - you’d think at times that the native Irish - some of them - would really rather not let us in…) and have fun. While that situation obtains the music will go on forever. It has a heart of (Irish!) oak. The Lunasas of this world and their bass guitar ilk get right on my tits to be honest, but I truly don’t think they’re in competition with “the tradition.” They may well cause the true keepers of the muse to look to their laurels every now and then, but that’s no bad thing. In the UK Classic FM, with its gormless ads, silly presenters and soundbite snatches of classical masterworks, has actually had the beneficial effect of making the BBC improve Radio 3 almost beyond recognition - and it wasn’t even a rival in my view!
Is that all? My little sister is bigger than that by half again. You puny wee fellers are always trying to impress to make up for your lack in stature. Have you tried knitting?
Happy to criticize for you. Please call again. 
djm
I’m thinking more in terms of a realistic view of the present situation that generating protection.
If there are clearer options outlined for them, people will be be able to choose more easily (ie. get what they want: celtic mood music, contemporary Irish style bands, enduring styles or regional music etc… there is a demand for all these)
The value of the stuff, any of it, is in its relevance to people, not in some subjective idea of ‘purity’ which is on just as shaky ground as ‘Ulster-Scots’ as far as I can see where music is concerned.
Popular perceptions of what conststutes ITM (in anywhere near its diversity) are not getting any better so you have people, subject to their lack of knowledge, regarding for e.g. some big dance show as ‘they way its going’. There are, of course, many other movements active and productive in what could be called the wider ITM ‘scene’. I should point out that I use the term ITM inclusively up to the point where the music etc. does not resemble ITM.
Regards,
Harry.
Far better than reviews are sound clips, which more and more on-line retailers are cluing into. Let the customer decide. If any effor is to be made in ITM I would want it to be spent on making old recordings available again; stuff that was issued in a batch of a few hundred and never seen or heard of again. Gael-Linn is especially bad for this. Then let people hear samples to determine if that’s what they want to buy.
djm
For sound-clips to be far better than reviews makes the assumption that people have their own opinions about what they like. My experience leads me to believe that alot of people listening to Irish music depend upon informed or just opinionated others to guide them, at least in their earlier stages of listening.
Irish traditional music does not give up its secrets lightly and it takes a while to figure out the sublime quality in the good stuff from the ‘not so good’. In this respect, good, fearless critics can guide people in separating the wheat from the chaff. And there’s plenty of chaff about, which is borne out by listening to most of the Irish music radio programmes on RTE or by an examination of the amount of dust on many of the recordings in your own collection.
I think you’ve just got to let go and trust people more and do a lot less steering. Where would Irish music be today without the Chieftains, Planxty and the Bothies of 30 years ago? Stuff that was pretty “impure” in most respects (as opposed to “pure drop” that is). Blimey - pipes with bouzoukis and mandos? What was the world coming to! But the upshot was that ignorami like me went and got all fired up by it all, and now that we’re “in” we can continue our education and find the true heart and soul of it all. The road to heaven was paved with bad intentions! 
Where is Irish music today, in your opinion?
Is somebody suggesting doing away with the likes of “the Chieftains, Planxty and the Bothies of 30 years ago?”
I don’t see how this relates to criticism in ITM? Criticism could not do away with such popular movements even if it tried… which it did not try as far as I am aware (quite the opposite in fact). On the other hand informed criticism could present it as what it is in its context within ITM.
Regards,
Harry.
I was responding to this:
I just don’t think you need to worry too much about categorising Irish music for people. To do so will not improve ITM education. That can only come from people seeking the good stuff out for themselves. Learning about summat is about grabbing knowledge for yourself, not having it poured over you. And apart from that how are you going to define your categories anyway?
As for where Irish music is today - heheh, what a question! It’s still here in all its manifestations and seems to be going strong to me, but who am I… 
The big thing these days is that it’s all instantly available in recordings and there’s no going back on that. Will that wreck regional styles? I dunno because I don’t live in any of the regions. One thing’s for sure - it’s never been more popular than it is today, and whether you regard that as a sorry result of selling its soul to the devil of commercialism or merely a sign that the muse is robust and in good shape, we still have it, it’ll carry on changing and we’ll probably all carry on whingeing about it. A bit like England’s cricket team!
I was thinking not so much in terms of hard and fast categories, but in the differences in form and content that become apparent when you compare different aesthetic movements within a genre to each other as a good critic would. This could only improve ITM education if done well. It hasn’t been done well recently: the only language we have is vague and subjective i.e. ‘pure drop’ which is entirely relative to your own ideas of stylistic ‘purity’ (whatever that is) and the only other field is basically ‘everything else’ i.e. not ‘pure drop’.
Good criticism is not simply trashing something because you don’t like it and it offends you personally, it is reasoned and insightful and can accept opposing views and indeed include them as further insight.
A good critical grounding would not inhibit people from finding what they like, if anything it would help as it does in other genres.
Regards,
Harry.
I don’t disagree with Harry in that critics and academics could try to come up with some sort of method to classify or categorize ITM into different subgenres, and then bicker amongst themselves about minutae forever. I suppose it would be helpful to someone as an introduction to ITM to have some expert fill in the broad strokes to give them some grounding.
But personally, I would rather get a chance to hear a sampling of the many recordings without having to pay for them all. I just can’t afford it, and I suspect there’s a lot of people in the same position as I am.
My own tastes have developed and grown over time, and my interests have changed and expanded as well as I came to understand what I was listening to. There’s no sense pointing people to “the best” or to the “most traditional” until they are ready to digest such. When I first started listening to ITM over 30 years ago, I only wanted to hear the singing, and all the instrumentals were just extra stuffing. Now I have little interest in the singing and only want to hear instrumentals, and I don’t care to listen to groups that try to modernize the music. But these are just my personal tastes.
If there is someplace to go where I can access the sounds I will decide what I am interested in, thx very much. I’m with Steve on this. Don’t put a straightjacket on what is available or on what should be listened to. Let me judge for myself.
djm
I agree with your sentiments entirely. That is a very refreshing analysis of the “pure drop vs. the rest” mentality that is too often seen. I also agree that a good critical grounding adds a good deal of respectability to a music genre and I’m not disputing that it would be a good thing. The only problem is that this would hardly appeal to (hard to say without sounding snobby…) the “casual” listener who may be used to seeing the word “celtic” or whatever, or hearing a fiddle in a Levellers or Corrs CD and thinking “OK, I’ll give that a bash…” Providing a depth of scholarship can do nothing but good in enhancing the knowledge and appreciation of those who have already latched on, but is scarcely a recruiting tool. But maybe that’s not what we’re talking about anyway…
I myself wasn’t thinking in terms of recruitment, rather in terms of improving the quality of the information available. There is already a lot of info there and it is growing all the time, what harm in adding some more (preferably good stuff).
DJM, re-read the post. Not only would it be futile to try and make people listen to something, it would probably prove counterproductive: I know of no respected music critic (in the wider music world) who treats his or her readers like children or idiots.
Regards,
Harry.
Sorry, Harry, I’m probably failing to explain myself well. I’m not concerned with someone trying to force me into should/shouldn’t listen too according to some set of prescribed rules of ITM listenability. I’m concerned about being forced into what I am allowed to listen to simply by availability, which is the situation right now as I perceive it. Is that clearer?
Thx,
djm
I think history’s going your way what with sample sound clips from the internet available more and more.
To have complete availability to ALL available Irish music everywhere would take some sort of collectivism of Irish music… and while capitalism is the prefered modus operandi I don’t see that happening, comrade.
Its a dog-eat-leprechaun world out there.
Regards,
Harry.