Frankie Kennedy and Matt Molloy playing styles.

Irish Flute
21

AFAIK Altan plays in concert pitch and doesn’t tune up to Eb like some other bands do (e.g. Dervish and DeDannan). But a lot of those Donegal tunes are in A, and some may even be in Bb. That’s one of the things that makes them not so flute-friendly.

Unfortunately I think all the Altan recordings from Frankie’s era were when the band was on Green Linnet, so given that label’s current troubles they may be hard to find now. But they’re well worth seeking out by whatever means are available. (I know I for one don’t feel the least twinge of guilt bootlegging Green Linnet products…)

22

It took me a few tries playing a coupleof their tunes to figure out that Frankie plays an A flute on a lot of them. That (and a few Chris Norman tunes) is why I have an A on order.

23

I don’t think that’s true – if it were a high A flute (tiny, like a little fife) it wouldn’t sound like a flute, and if it were a low A flute (bigger than a big Bb) you’d be able to tell instantly by the tone.

I think he was just playing a D flute in the key of A. And a lot of those tunes are in fact quite tricky on the D flute…once you start trying to play them you realize how accomplished he was. There was one air followed by a reel, "Dobbins Flowery Vale, on one of the Altan albums, that he played on a Bb flute; everything else as far as I know was played on a D flute.

24

There’s a set of mazurkas (I think one of them is shoe the donkey); the second one is in A, and he sure seems to be playing down to the low B. If he’s not, I’d be interested in what he’s doing – it could be that he plays an E when the fiddle’s playing a B and they blend so well that I can’t tell what he’s playing.

25

It’s probably the “aural illusion” that happens when a flute and fiddle are playing together – when the fiddle drops below D, if the flute player plays the same note quietly an octave above, you could swear that the flute is playing below D as well. It’s very convincing; I think there’s some sort of blending of the overtones between fiddle and flute that creates this illusion. You can hear it in a few places on Kevin Crawford’s In Good Company album as well, particularly in The Long Drop (second reel on the first track if I remember right) where a number of people have been tricked into thinking he was playing a flat-pitched flute or one with a B foot.

26

Hello all,

That is a lovely slow air, and is popular with the muscians in Glenavy. Frankie had relations that lived there and he picked up that tune from a local guy called Robert Cinnamon which is mentioned on one of the sleeve notes on that particular cd. I stuck it down one time myself for the crack being from the village on all that. Frankie’s playing of that tune is one of my favourite bits of flute playing, I think his playing of it is one of the best slow airs you could listen to.

SLAN

27

I’d always assumed he played a D flute in A; it just has that “D” tonal quality (except for Dobbin’s, which screamed Bb flute to me – again, it’s a timbre thing).

Lesl, you’re dead right as far as John’s general playing style (at least as far as I perceive/understand it). He can play the more flowing, ornamented style no problem (oh yes, the chops are there), but anymore he generally seems to prefer the deceptively simple route. He’s told me he used to play differently but the longer he’s been at it the more interested he is in stripping things down.

He always says it’s no sin to keep stuff plain, as long as it’s got lift and is all about the tune, not the playing … so I guess that’s why Frankie’s playing appeals to me, too; i.e, it’s the philosophy I’ve been living with the last 3 years and now completely buy into.

So no, no argument here! (sorry! :laughing:) … while I think I’ve always tended to prefer the unfussy, rhythmic, “It’s got a good beat and I can dance to it, Dick!” style of playing, after a few years of lessons with Himself I’m pretty much a hard-core believer. (in fact, Larry’s and my running joke is 'WWJSD"?)

Now if I could only play that way. But somehow it seems like ‘simple’ gets harder every day! :boggle:

28

BTW, thank you John Moran and johnkerr and brendan, too! The stories really do bring him to life for those of us who missed him the first go-round.

Bless the man.

BTW, there’s a fair amount of Altan stuff on iTunes … don’t know if there’s any on other sites, but if you’re in a hurry or want to cherry-pick tunes that might be a way to go.

Thanks again, y’all!

29

Indeed this “aural illusion” is why tunes that spend a lot of time hanging out below the low D, such as Maudabawn Chapel to name just one, can sound so nice in a fiddle/flute duet whereas on flute alone…not so much.

30

I combined stuff I’ve read, biographies online, and material from this thread into a Wikipedia entry for Frankie Kennedy; I’d appreciate it if folks in the know count fact check it and mention (or add yourself!) anything I’ve left out.

I think the “style” section needs to be fleshed out more, but it’s hard to do that in objective, non-opinionated terms.

Thanks!

31

I came across that last night too - in one of the barndances. Fingering it, you could tell you’d jump up to the higher B but I really had to plaster my ear to the speaker before I could hear that higher B.

Funny to have no argument from Cat on this re style :laughing: - I havent heard JS live since a few years now, so assumed she’d set us straight here.. however I guess his point of repetition has truly burnt the sound of his flute into my mind!

John K thank you also for your heart-rending story which included the Good Dr. Claudy’s involvement .. I also read last night some of the accounts on the web which came out around the time of the obit and it is just so gut wrenching.

And again thanks to all so far, this is really enlightening.

Interesting point of Craig’s about fleshing out the style some more. Aaron said:

Frankie’s playing doesn’t sound ornamented but it is. They are more articulations than ornamentations.

Yes, anyone for continuing on from there? I’ll be trying to hit the slowdown button tonight myself.

32

I don’t mean to be monopolizing the responses here, but anyway my 2 cents on his style is that the apparent simplicity you’re hearing is mainly due to the fact that he was matching his flute style to Mairead’s Donegal-style fiddling. When on the other hand he played tunes like Ambrose Moloney’s in the clip I posted, you can hear that he was quite capable of using more ornamentation…I sure felt like there were traces of Molloy in his playing there, especially in the mini-crans on the second-octave D and his heavier use of rolls in the turn.

33

That’s a fine point but a good one – I suppose we shouldn’t generalize things like “his playing” when Frankie’s playing was probably whatever the tune demanded (to me, that’s the mark of a truly great player). The playing of his that I know is with Mairead, but like you say, and as evidenced in your clip, there were probably multiple shades of Frankie.

FWIW anent ornamentation, his cranns on ‘King of the Pipers’ are in my Top 5 favorite cranns of all time. … Yep, that’s how nerdy this girl is!

However … articulation, breath pulse, etc. ARE forms of ornamentation, aren’t they?

(oh wait, that’s probably another thread) :wink:

34

Let me co-monopolize then, to take some heat off Brad. The Donegal repertoire doesn’t really lend itself to a lot of the usual flute ornamentation, which might be another reason Frankie played differently with the band than he did by himself. Although Donegal fiddlers do play rolls, their main ornament is the bowed triplet - an ornament that doesn’t exactly transfer cleanly over to the flute. Also, it occurs to me now that even though there are many well-known Ulster flute players, the ones I can think of other than Frankie are mainly associated with Belfast rather than Donegal. I’m thinking here of players like Harry Bradley, Gary Hastings, Tara Diamond (she’s from Belfast, right?), etc. Frankie of course was from Belfast as well, but he picked up the Donegal connection from Mairead.

35

An interesting example of exactly what I think we’re talking about, and sort of what I’m trying to talk about, is Frankie’s track on WFO1, Disk 2. ‘The Cat That Ate The Candle/Over The Water To Bessie’ are full of letter-perfect rolls and flips and turns and triplets, but they don’t really call attention to themselves as such – they serve only enhance the tune and the phrasing, never getting in the way of the pulse or the melody. In each case, I think you can hear the man doing exactly what’s right for the tune – that’s the case I was trying to make, anyway.

FWIW, his approach to those two tunes is quite different from his approach to ‘New Ships A Sailing’ (wonderful drive and lift aside, of course).

HOWEVER, a couple of considerations/questions … 1) solo playing vs. ensemble playing and how different they are by necessity; and 2) what about his own progress as a flute player? Did he get more ornamented as he played longer? Or, did he start simply, get more ornamented, then strip things back down?

Or was he indeed a player of fabulous taste as well as great ability (as I aver)?

I wouldn’t be surprised with him mirroring Mairead’s fiddling style – fiddles are it in Donegal as I understand. I can’t think of any Donegal flute players off the top of my head …

Plus, when the main person you play with has a certain style, how can you not be influenced by it? From personal experience … in my first flute lesson John told me I needed to learn to play more like a flute player and less like a fiddle player (my fella is a fiddler).

(Let me tell you, THAT’S been a journey.)

As for any other border/Northern players … Marcas O Murchu is from Belfast, Turlach Boylan is from around Derry, and then of course there are the border guys like my beloved John McKenna from Leitrim.

Sorry for the dog’s breakfast of thoughts – it’s all your fault, Lesl! :laughing:

xoxoxo,
cat.

36

Don’t know how I forgot to mention Marcas O Murchu as a Northern player, especially since I spent a great week in class with him at Augusta in 2000. Interestingly, though, even though he has his own unique style Marcas has really latched onto the playing of the classic Galway/Roscommon/Leitrim flute players such as Vincent Broderick, Josie McDermott and John McKenna, all of whom he emphasizes greatly in his teaching.

37

Bradhurley,

I’m very interested in the lovely mp3 clip you provided. How did you come by it? Were you at that concert yourself? Do you know what the year and venue was?

TIA!

38

No, I wasn’t at the concert; it’s from a tape that a friend gave to me years ago. He’s an old friend of Daithi Sproule’s so he may have gotten it from Daithi, or he may have made the tape himself. I don’t know the exact date or venue but I’d say it was in the mid 1980s (probably 84 or 85), as Frankie refers to their album during the concert and refers to it in a way that suggests it was the only album they had done at that point, meaning it was between Ceol Aduaidh and the subsequent “Altan” album. Indeed I’m not even sure it was recorded in Minneapolis; that was my recollection but it might be because Frankie was talking about having been at Daithi’s house the evening before, and Daithi was living in Minneapolis at the time (and is back living there again now, as it happens.) Sorry I don’t have more details.

39

I haven’t been able to get “Harvest Storm” away from Bill’s car yet (just goes to show eh..) but I listened on slodown to the Cat-Candle set and also several specific things - Ambrose Moloney’s, and Father O’Grady’s Visit to Bockagh (from the middle of the Three Scones of Boxty set, called there McDermott’s), and the slow and faster reels coming before the Gravel Walks, and also the Gravel on slowdown (now that was interesting!).

Wish I could be more articulate about what I heard. Its brilliant to listen to. So far I think even in the duo tunes and full band, from what I could hear, he was mostly playing the same way as when solo. You hear little things all over, breath articulations and those d crans, triplets, cuts and rolls, etc. It is true that he was note for note with Mairead but also always flutey while doing that. At the same time none of it is over-ornamented. Everything I heard served the tunes themselves and in fact as the music slowly went by I was surprised how nothing “stood out” to me - ie it was the tune that stood out, not some pyrotechnic. On the Gravel Walks, I noticed more of a Bothyband type of thing where the flute became more ornamented, weaved in and around the melody with rolls and variations, at times there were rolls that lasted 2 1/2 bars long!

In slowdown I was sometimes reminded of the slow-down sound of Catherine McEvoy, also of Conal O’Grada sometimes. Anyone feel free to differ (and please do - this is only my first listen!). Not that these players are actually similar, but the more Northern styles stand out to me since they are so different to the Galway/Clare sound. Places where I would normally expect to hear a finger cut, I heard breaths and glottals as the alternative. That sort of thing. I was particularly reminded of Catherine McEvoy in the phrasing. (having dissected her playing of Dan Breen’s not too long ago, as well as the ny workshop tracks) Anyway, also I heard some bent notes matching same from the fiddle - I would think he learned a lot of the tunes from either Mairead or her same source, but the style still sounded very flutey.

I wonder from whom he learned the flute when he was starting out and ramping up to what we can now hear. On page 2 Brendan mentioned in Glenavy he picked up a tune from Robert Cinnamon - a flute player? Interesting - reading the wiki entry now - doing the math, at the time of Ceol Aduaigh, Frankie had been playing flute maybe only 10 years if that.

edited to add: I guess this thread ought to now be just called Frankie Kennedy playing style..

40

Thanks for the illumination, John!

Interesting – I didn’t realize that three of my No. 1 Favorite Living Players (Marcas O Murchu, Tom Doorley, & John Skelton) all strongly appreciate Vincent Broderick (Doorley studied with him too, I believe) – aha, it’s all coming clear! :slight_smile:

And then there’s Patsy Hanly from Roscommon … And finally, one of my all-time favorite unsung heroes … Liam Kelly. That man is a monster!

Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out all this style stuff for a long time, and it still evades me … but from this and other things I’ve read, it seems to be the Sligo/Leitrim/Roscommon & “northward” playing that I’m most strongly latching onto.

P.S. Two other Belfast players: Davy McGuire and Frances McPeake (tho’ I think he’s primarily a piper, I wouldn’t mind being able to play like him!). Also, Hammy Hamilton was originally from Belfast as I recall.

Again, thanks! This is a fun thread.