I’m not unsympathetic to this position but in selfish terms here I sit in suburban DC and ITM is relatively rare and scarce. We’re not poor but money and time for spending months in Ireland at the foot of the masters is also scarce.
This is a true story I often use in class: When the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC was being planned, in the 1870s, there was very little classical art in the US. So the museums directors sent skilled artisans to Europe to make plaster casts of classical statuary. These were each as perfect a reproduction as possible to make at the time, and they put them on exhibit. Immediately came the criticism: these are not just a bad idea, they are actively evil because they are imitations of the real thing. The response would be "isn’t a good thing that an ordinary working class person can go to the museum ad see great art? And the answer was “They are not seeing great art, they are seeing a copy. If the plumber wants to see great art, he should save his money and make the sacrifices necessary to go to Italy and Greece. Nobody ever said art was easy.” They took the casts down and stored them. A lot of them are now in place on the campus where I work.
I’m sympathetic to both positions, really. There are so many examples of songs available and many of them even I with my relatively untutored ear hear as terrible. And it often find more “obscure” (to me( version of tunes that I like better.
Your man Francis O’Neill starts the homogenization, I think, and then it’s augmented by the Sligo Fiddle records and McKenna. My dream is to find communities of people playing music because they like the music, rather than because it’s desperately important to play it like somebody else. Yes there’s a degree of contradiction there.
As I’ve said I feel that there are two opposing forces, the homogenising which is a natural and probably inevitable result of group playing, and the influence of the individual instrument upon the settings one tends to play. Of course there are also the factors of personal style (though that itself almost certainly has elements stemming from the instrument one plays- I don’t think it’s possible to play in an absolutely pure fiddle style on any other instrument).
Bringing this thread back for the latest lockdown earworm: TG4 has been running a little ad that has a nice little version of the Morning dew/Hare in the heather and after seeing it on the tellie all week it has been severely earworming me. What can you do but embrace it.
The one I was thinking of is a new one, it’s been running for a week or two now. I read it as a lockdown easing one, image of a public house in the country, Fagan’s (possibly in Moynalvea, Co Meath, at a guess), a fiddle staring tentatively, people with instrument cases arriving and going in and the tune picking up, fiddle, banjo and whistle, for a once over. Haven’t found it online yet.
It’s a catchy little version, very simple, but catchy.
Mr.G - your tune was recorded by Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh and Mick O’Brien on Deadly Buzz
Thanks for that, always good to have a provenance more credible than an ad on the tellie.
Shows you how well I listened to that one Seriously though, isn’t it often the way that when you start playing a new tune you find, with hindsight, you have heard it on all sorts of occasions without noticing or paying attention but having it quietly soak into your brain anyway and have it sit there, waiting for a trigger to bring it out.
Michael Stribling, in the Piping in the Parlour series, plays a tune he calls Joe Cooley’s Morning Dew which is very similar to the tune in question. A young piper from Co.Down plays the Lass of Carrowcastle in the same series which is the first tune on track 6 of Deadly Buzz. Connections everywhere.
Agreed, I’ve found the same thing - I’ve often learned a brand new tune that I just heard for the first time, only to find out it’s on more than one recording I’ve listened to a ton.
I believe I’ve heard a recording of Joe Cooley playing that tune as well, but come to think of it, I think there’s a video of COR and MOB on youtube playing it with that title (but it’s the same set from the album).
I’d say that people had accommodation booked and it was too expensive to cancel (1600 euro for a house in West Park for the week I believe). Typical Clare summer though; muggy and wet.
It’s lashing down at the moment and fog on the hills, it’s well and truly summer now. Holiday homes filling up with Dublin people bringing their viruses (that was tongue in cheek, just to be clear). I was out and about for a while just now, it’s miserable.
While I am here, I retrieved Deadly Buzz last night, from the bottom of the pile and quite enjoyed it. I think I like the tune better circular, like they play it, rather than resolving BdAF BEE like the one on the tellie did. Went through the Cooley files but didn’t find him playing it but then, it may be listed under another, or no, name.
Agreed, I’ve found the same thing - I’ve often learned a brand new tune that I just heard for the first time, only to find out it’s on more than one recording I’ve listened to a ton.
Was just listening to the replay of the 2019 Willie week concertina recital and Cormac Begley was playing that version. Not sure i heard him do that originally, we arrived when he was on, were stuck getting the dinner in town. Anyway, the tune clearly has been doing the rounds, just under the surface.
Seriously though, isn’t it often the way that when you start playing a new tune you find, with hindsight, you have heard it on all sorts of occasions without noticing or paying attention but having it quietly soak into your brain anyway and have it sit there, waiting for a trigger to bring it out.