I am new to the instrument playing business, just picked up a pennywhistle and am in love with it, despite only being able to play yankee doodle for now, and not well at that. I love Irish music as well, but I dont know a lot of names and want to learn more.
Here is my absolute very favorite song… Planxty Burke by Turlough O’Carolan. I heard this song 15 years ago, lost track of it except in my dreams, and found it again a few years ago.
Is there more music in this style? I went through some other music that O’Carolan wrote and nothing really wow’s me. Not looking for anything vocal really unless it is in Gaelic, but preferably no lyrics, just instruments, and with this type of vibe…
Thank you all for your help… i continue to remain willingly fooled that this is a super board to interact with.
yep, i have already found the o’ carolan stuff, but planxty burke is about the only thing i dig of his, that really has me dancing under the moon. do you know of any other artists, albums, cd’s or sites with a similar type of style?
Maybe it wasn’t so much the tune that grabbed you as the style of the particular performer. Do you know who the performer was on the recording of Planxty Burke that you liked? We could perhaps give you some tips on similar sounding performers.
jd
Heya, thats a good one… so the Planxty Burke I heard was on the album:
Celtic Treasure: The Legacy of Turlough O’Carolan. Fantastic stuff, but only that first song really took me up. It was performed by an artist called: Shelly Philipps
It means “oldfashioned haircut.” They’ve all gone out of fashion hundreds of years ago, like shoes with long pointed tips that curl up. But there was a time when everyone had to a have a hairdo wilder than the next guy. If you had a particularly whacky one (and had money and houses and land, that sort of thing), you could get a haircut named after you: Planxty Burke, Planxty Fanny Power, Planxty George Brabazon and so forth.
There is a Planxty Dale Wisely, named after the founder of this webpage and board, but it’s a joke really, because he’s, like… bald.
Planxty/Plancstaí means a toast or tribute to someone. It is not a regular Irish word, and many people suspect that O’Carolan made it up, but it may have had its root in an older, local word that has been lost over time.
That’s the only O’Carolan tune you like? Have you heard Blind Mary? There’s a tune called Loftus Jones I just heard on Joanie Madden’s Song of the Irish Whistle cd that is great.–There’s a fingerstyle guitar book of Irish tunes by Glen Weiser called Celtic Guitar. It comes with a cd and the tunes are in tab as well as standard notation. It has some good O’Carolan tunes.-Actually there’s a version of Blind Mary in this book that’s the best I’ve heard. -mike
