Paddy O'Brien's Wisdom & Tune Collection

Whistle
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Here is a post I found on http://www.thesession.org. I thought it was worth repeating here.

Paddy O’Brien’s words of wisdom

I had the amazing good fortune of seeing Chulrua in concert this weekend (there’s now a link to their page in the links section) and, even better, playing with them/listening to them at a couple of house parties. These guys are not only fabulous musicians but also very generous with their time. Paddy O’Brien, of button accordion wonder, took time out to record for a couple of us a bunch of tunes, at a learning tempo and then at the speed he plays them – which is not a mile a minute. And the crown of the evening was listening to him talk about how he plays music, and ghost stories and fairy stories of Ireland, and anecdotes about playing with some of the other greats.

He had a couple of nuggets of wisdom about the music that I thought I’d pass along, anyway. They’re things that you’ve all been saying anyway, but it doesn’t hurt to hear them again, I think. 1) Don’t play a tune faster than you know it (he thinks most sessions play too fast, these days). Take a tune and get to know it really, really well. Know each note, and where it leads, and what you’re trying to say with each note. It’s the melody that’s important. 2) You won’t learn much at a session; they’re social occasions. The real (reel?) learning happens at home, when you’re playing a tune over and over again. 3) Listen, listen, listen, and cherish the tradition you are inheriting.

Posted on March 10th 2002 by elia

Here is the link to Culhrua: http://www.chulrua.com

In the '90s, Paddy O’Brien recorded a Tune Collection of 400 reels and 100 jigs on 12 one-hour cassettes. Apparently that is only a small part of the 3,000+ tunes Paddy has in his head, which makes what he says about know the tune and each note in it really well even more impressive. There is no music to go with the recordings, just a few liner notes. The collection costs $100 and information about it can be found here: http://www.chulrua.com/tunehome.html

Does anyone have it? Is anybody using it to learn The Music? Reviews? (Paddy, btw, regularly teaches at the Willie Week in Milton Malbay, Co. Clare.)

Note: Don’t confuse this Paddy O’Brien with the late and legendary accordian player from Tipperary of the same name.

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Hi Bloomfield,
Yes, I have it. It is an excellent collection for anyone wanting to learn to play Traditional Irish Tunes. Paddy is a walking encyclopedia of Irish tunes. In this collection, he plays everything at a moderate speed with variations. Of course he is playing button accordian so the ornamentation is not the same as flute & whistle, but to learn traditional tunes, it is a good resource. There is no written notation, only audio tapes and a book of tune names with a bit of a story about each one, so students have to learn the traditional way, by ear.
Sue

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I attended a workshop with Paddy last weekend and he said that a CD version (instead of tapes) of his tune collection is in the works too. He’s a great guy, and gave us about 8 tunes to work on. I’m learning and transcribing them on whistle, and then working them out on button accordion.

Paddy stressed getting a good feeling for a tune (knowing it inside and out) and not worrying so much about speed. He said many people play too fast these days.

Two years ago Chulrua also did workshops here and I attended one with Tim Britton (whistle, flute, pipes). He’s also a really neat guy and a good whistle teacher.

-Brett

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Very interesting about the CD version. I would much prefer that over cassettes, esp. it allows you to use slow-down software on your computer.

Thanks.