i know this sort of topic has come up… but wife out of town and watching planxty reunion dvd… (i am not erring here AGAIN, so be merciful)..
just noticed for the very first time that it SEEMS that just about all if not all of his upper hand cuts are C#'s… sort of jarring sonically on this particular recording. I do not recall this on his earlier records that I have essentially memorized over too many years of analysis.
Am i imagining this? I know that i personally (lambaste away Kieran et. al.) in my naive playing try to cut with the closest note to the tone note… sometimes relying on back d… but was flogged off using C# by many… too many scars on back to ever get me to do that again routinely.
am i seeing something not inevidence to anyone else?
In solo piping, I like the sound of c# and back d cuts used judiciously for accent. In ensembles, especially when several instruments are playing in unison, the pipes often disappear into the mix with only the cuts standing out. Sometimes they just sound like exterraneous “pips” having little to do with the music. I could see trying to minimize the effect by using the closest note approach in those circumstances. That’s just my inauthoritative personal taste.
Some pipers regard back d cuts as ‘vulgar’. I hope they never read this site as it oft can be little else!
I am personally suspicious of anyone (however highly regarded) trying to define a narrow ‘correct’ piping style over others. Surely it is the different styles in players which makes the Uilleann pipes so wonderful.
That’s interesting. I was just about to opine in the other direction, that in ensembles your gracing disappears so you might want harsher cuts. But you’re quite right, they do stand out and become a bit monotonous. However, I do find them jarring in solo performance. The moral may be to only play with one other instrument for best results
Which makes me wonder, when did Irish musicians first start playing in gangs anyway?? Ceili bands?
That seems to be the way of it - ceildhí bands in the 1920s or so in response to laws ending house and street parties. Sessions seem to have started with ex-pats in England in the 1940s-50s, and then spread back home. There was no need for ceildhí bands in the US, but “orchestras” were started up there, as well, in the early 20th century.
I don’t use back-d cuts much, but I like c# cuts. Perhaps people would not find them so jarrng if they were played a bit faster.
Read the liner notes of the various Topic CD’s put together by Reg Hall - the Michael Gorman, Irish Dance Music, Past Masters of Irish Dance Music, Past Masters of Irish fiddling. He does a good deal of looking into when the ceili bands and sessions began.
John Ennis, a piper and contributor to O’Neill’s books and father of Young Tom Ennis, wrote a poem describing a musical get-together in New York in the 1920s. He only wrote of the musicians taking solos. O’Neill also wrote of a session slowly taking form at one house party - and made it seem like a complete novelty.
Patsy Touhey played in a group called the Ivy Leaf Quartet at some point, though. There may have been small ensembles here and there before the 20s, but the early recordings are pretty much all solos and duets.
Nope. Pipes, flute, fiddle, piano? I doubt Touhey would go near any sort of box.
You’re confusing John Ennis, father of Tom, with James Ennis, father of Seamus and member of the Fingal Trio.
John Ennis was said to despise concert pitch pipes, also.
I bought mine from an Irish on-line source as it was slow to get here, but now it is available at the usual places. Start with Ossian USA. I know they now have it. www.ossianusa.com
