okay…i thought i was going to have a unique problem with this one…and i guess it’s still kind of unique
didgeridoo
with microphone
and repeat and distortion pedals
friend of mine plays the electric harp, tho…
on the uilleann board not to long back we were discussing the finer points of more old fashioned quiet chanters, and lamenting the fact that they seem to be giving way to these big honking wide bore D chanters. altho, i play a wide bore D chanter and it’s only about as loud as a fiddle, even with the drones.
the only time i didn’t need a mic for it was when i was playing in this marble bedecked cathedral. i actually had never heard it in such good acoustics before…so haunting…i almost wound up with an unintended pause as i was listening to it and forgot that i was the one doing the playing.
i do bring sheet music, altho use it mostly to make sure that the whole group is on the same “page” so to speak…we all seem to know different versions of the same tunes in different keys. The only sessions i play at are these real informal ones at quarterly Gaeilge immersion weekends where half the musicians are beginners and you don’t get to pick who participates (usually a guitar, fiddle, flute, whistle, maybe another guitar, and me, piping away. i still consider myself a beginner even though i play weddings and funerals…for them i put together a program (given the setting, mostly slow airs and practice it until the rest of the house is sick of listening.
Sporting Pitchfork, You’re right about FPA (Flute Player’s Anxiety) I’ve been playing flute for over 5 years and I just finally started really playing it out. Always just brought the fiddle 'cause everybody said it sounded good. You’re right about bad pipers, but when there’s a good one…oh yeah, Craic out the ying yang. Personally, there’s no guarantee I’ll EVER bring my pipes to a session, Terminal UPA, I’m sure you can figure that out.
Antaine, this is better suited to the UP forum, but I’ll note it here anyway since it goes with the topic. The honking chanter phenom seems to be inconsistant, Seems to depend a lot on the maker. My friend and session mate has a nice wideish bore Quinn set that blends right in well. I’ve been using a practice set that he lent me (I can’t remember who made it) that has a fairly wide bore, but in my cavernous apartment doesn’t offend. Well, that is if it’s not me playing it
Theremin! Now that could be neat…we have one here at my school…never thought of trying to drag it to a session…it would be fun to watch the horrified looks from the other people there…hmmm…
It’s an electronic instrument introduced in the 1920s…and is still, I believe, the only instrument you don’t actually touch in order to play. Touching it actually ends the sound. You can hear it in a lot of 1950-ish era sci-fi movies (that kinda weird eerie higher-pitched sound)…and it’s also in the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations.
A Theremin is one of those gadgets from the 50s that looks like a car antenna sticking up out of a box. Its sensitive to how close you come to it and interupt its magnetic field. Usually they use some sort of sine wave generator that hums at different notes depending on where you touch its field. A good example is that favourite sound effect from cheesy old horror flicks that went “ooooweeeooooo”. The Beach Boys used one at the end of “Good Vibrations”.
I agree it would be interesting on slow airs … for a while.
MACALLA were doing a rehersal in Flahertys in Dingle a number of years ago. (They were an all female band that included Mary Mac, Pearl O’ Shaughnessy, Roma Casey, Edel McWeeney and about 10 others ). A didgereedoo player walked in and made like to join them. Josephine Begley (a sister of Brendan and Seamus) asked him was he selling or laying the roll of lino.
All the band collapsed in laughter and our friend slunk back out the door.
There’s a facincation documentary</a](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108323/">documentary</a)> out about the inventor, Leon Theremin. He was Russian and moved to the US in the 20’s then was kidnapped by the Soviet government in the late 1930’s and put into a forced labor camp where he developed electronic listening devices. Most folks in the West assumed he had died, but was found alive in Russia by the makers of the documentary.
Robert Moog got his start building Theremin kits as a teenager then went on to invent the Moog synthesizer.
In Clare I witnessed something I consider remarkable. I was with two notable ITM players who wanted to start a session. They poked around in five or six pubs before finding one that didn’t already have a session going. The folks near the stools where they settled were absolutely delighted to see who would soon be playing beside them. The bouzouki player preferred the key of Eb and the whistle player had only a D whistle. The whistler went out on the street to purchase an Eb, and while he was gone a fellow came over with something large, covered in a home-made cloth cover. He scooped up the absent whistler’s seat and enthusiastically went about talking to the bouzouki player and exposing a Thai, cane, reeded, instrument - a Khan. It plays something like a giant harmonica, but the wind is directed by covering and uncovering holes in the canes, which forces air over the reeds. The bouzouki player was very polite, but there were a few cut-eyed glances thrown from his direction.
The fellow had the instrument made to concert pitch in Bangkok, and he had been playing for ten years. He knew all the Irish tunes and he played ornaments and the 'zouki player soon fell in with him. Upon his return, the look on the whistle player’s face was priceless, but he fell in as well. You couldn’t have pried the guy out of that seat with a crowbar, even though the music was played in Eb from that point on. It was unusual in that the Khan player knew all the etiquette, the lingo, the tunes, everything - but charged ahead.
One very interested listener asked the fellow about the instrument between tunes and then asked “Do you think I can play it?,” to which the Khan player responded, “Sure. . .if you get your own.”
Well said. Certainly I’ve known players of some of the “irksome” instruments people have mentioned that I’d beg to join our session. (Spoons and hurdy-gurdy come to mind.)
Are you serious about seeing a bassoon at a session? I’m shocked to learn there’s another person out there who sometimes plays trad on a bassoon. And he (or she) has played it at a session – makes me feel like a slacker!
British Saxophone virtuoso and all round great man,Lol Coxhill (a vastly under-rated talent and gloriously humourous bloke) one recorded a track with the Oldfieldish title of…‘TUBURCULAR BALLS’!!!
He scooped up the absent whistler’s seat and enthusiastically went about talking to the bouzouki player and exposing a Thai, cane, reeded, instrument - a Khan.
I saw that guy in Milltown in 1999. He came into the back room of Cleary’s and launched into the Silver Spear. Knocked everybody’s socks off. He’s a very nice player, even regardless of the instrument, which I remember thinking sounded like a box full of tiny flugelhorns.
ok… did anyone mention jawharps yet? actually I’ve no idea how they sound or played. Sort of like a kazzoo would? any sightings in a session?
Sporting Pitchfork
You should ask some of the students in a music uni in your area to bring in a Koto! I know it’s hideously massive (would take at least 5 seats) but still playable in the key of D when tuned so.
The bassoon player was Gordon Mooney’s wife. Gordon plays mostly Border pipes, Scottish smallpipes, and Northumbrian pipes and his wife plays flute and bassoon. Border pipes and bassoon sound remarkably good together.
Hmm…koto, huh? Might work. I’ve always thought that shamisen (Japanese 3-string fretless banjo) might sound delightfully twisted for Irish trad. Conversely, Junji Shirota [Japanese guitarist/banjo player extraordinaire; plays with Paddy Keenan sometimes] does great renditions of shamisen tunes on the regular banjo.
I’ve never met any Irish jawharp players, but Scottish piper Allan MacDonald, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, is an absolute monster on the jawharp.
There’s an international music festival here every summer. Once one of the bands consisted mainly of Chinese instruments. A Chinese woman was playing a pipa or something very much like it. She said she jammed with Irish musicians whenever possible and whipped into a few jigs. Very nice, too. I wish I could do triplets a cleanly as she did.
