Well, I don’t mean to come across as harsh. Part of what I am saying is that “pure drop” and “great music” are not synomymous. There is a lot of great great music out there that isn’t pure drop, isn’t at the core of the tradition. Look at the first posts in this thread: The argument there goes: Martin Hayes must be pure drop because he’s great. And if he isn’t pure drop, then we should change the tradition so that he becomes pure drop. Sounds like a need for validation to me.
Anyway, I think it’s easier to just let the Tradition take care of itself and to listen to and play whatever music one enjoys. There are no brownie points for being more traditional than the next guy. The only time it helps to know what truly is the core of the tradition is when you are talking to a beginner who wants to develop his or her ear and the ability to distinguish the core from the periphery. And on that score frankly I’d advise anyone to listen to P. Canny rather than M. Hayes.
I would not agree that ‘the tradition’ as a whole has rejected Tommy Potts’ ideas. During his lifetime he was looked upon by many as ‘being away with the fairies’ but at the same time he had a profound influence on the playing of people like Joe Ryan and Paddy Canny. Canny, on one of his Gael Linn 78 rpms of the late 50s recorded a version of Garret Barry’s that has Tommy Potts written all over it.
Gradually many of his ideas have seeped into the playing of players from a wide spectrum, Paddy Glackin, Sean Keane, Ronan Browne, Davy Spillane and many more have been clearly influenced by Potts. Martin Hayes is a case in point, the version of the Star of Munster on his 1993 CD was taken from Potts’ playing almost by the note. Echo’s of Potts’ music can be heard in the playing of many of the present generation, not all of his stuff caught on but his ideas are more alive than when he himselfs was playing, alone in his house in Walkinstown.
re Mark Cantors ‘what is before is before, it’s a snapshot’ , I think the essence of the tradition is it’s acknowledgement of what went before, building on what what was passed on, at times going back to re-validate present playing. Music of places and people, dismissing the past as ‘a snapshot, the past’, is pretty much contrary to that.
I don’t think it’s useful to debate whether or not Hayes playing is traditional or not or only partly so. But he has his music grounded in the music of those that went before, he speaks partly in their voice adding his own life experiences and influences to that. If you knew Martin Rochford’s music and the music of the musicians Hayes grew up with you’d realise just how much they left their footprints in his music.
Bloomfield, what’s up with your comments about open-mindedness and “then we should change the tradition so he becomes…”? You have a license to psychoanylize? What makes you think my comment was a “call” for anything? It was a good-natured description of what I like, not what you or anyone else should like. I don’t care whether you think the way anyone else in the world thinks. And “need for validation”? I thought this was a discussion board. Why the personal attacks, man? Snapshot, shnapshot. I’ll choose my words better and use APA style next time I join the Academia here.
<<There is a lot of great great music out there that isn’t pure drop, isn’t at the core of the tradition.>> (Bloomfield)
Speaking as a peripheral kind of guy on this forum (not least due to my instrument not-of-choice, the harmonica), I do find a lot of this pure drop stuff a little precious, and I’m glad to see the acknowledgement I’ve quoted above, but I think a lot more than Bloomfield implies IS at the core of the tradition. C’mon, the tradition wasn’t fossilised at some arbitrary point in the middle golden age in the distant past. The real world dictates that very few people, relatively, will have much access to “pure drop” - and here I don’t count listening to recordings, which, in this music above all, is a pale imitation of the real McCoy. There are many WONDERFUL musicians gigging and recording today who may have learned their trade pure drop-wise or not who can, frankly, drop hot “ess aitch one tee” on some of the old timers - both technically and, yes, FEELINGFULLY, though they do not “live up to” the pure drop idea, as they play in groups with accompaniment etc. OK, they are standing on the shoulders of giants at times, and they would cheerfully admit it. Gimmee half an hour and I’ll expound… So - they have to put up with the um-ah brigade who cast aspersions such as “ahem…maybe they’re not really traditional…” I’m talking mainly of those artists who’ve crossed my very limited path since, say, the first Planxty album. And I’m not talking about any of that fusion/over-electrified/folk-rock stuff - I am talking about the likes of Martin Hayes, the subject of this thread. In my view they took the whole tiresome dying thing and rescued it (there wouldn’t have been much left to rescue had it not been for the Irish-Americans in the first half of the last century - cheers, guys!). They are solidly part of the core tradition, and the pure drop purists (and I do like pure drop and listen to it and appreciate it) are the ones who are the dinosaurs who can’t embrace change (lamentable though some aspects of change are, such as the threat to regional styles, but we can’t be King Canutes here so we address it as best we can). History always judges the conservative curmudgeons harshly. When Haydn, who was a bit of a conservative really, heard Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony for the first time, when all around were condemning it, he said “From today, music can never be the same.” Wise man!
I just thought of an idea for a thread: Had Planxty/Bothy Band/Chieftains never existed, would we be be here discussing traditional Irish music on forums like this today?
Funny how great topics attract strong views and great postings.
I don’t think this is just about Mr Hayes. I think it is about the changes that have taken place in the last century to all kinds of folkmusic.
I think what was once very localised is now globalised. IOW you’d not be surprised to hear a person from the other end of the world play tunes you grew up with in a local tradition.
So it is hard to be original in a style that has been circulated for 75 years all over the world, modified and thrown back at its original audience with many improvments .
When in a desert the weather can become mighty dry, IOW the lack of variety is precisely what follows from a dumbing down global style and with it OC follows the narrowing of vision; so being also about the experience of an audience as well as the skill of the player, we can’t blame Mr Hayes for what we cannot hear - even if it is well played.
It has been said here many times, so I feel free to say it again , that I may hear only what I am able to hear.
We can point at many examples of how the globalization of the ethnic music market has resulted in many forms of cross-fertilization, but some of it is so good that it attracts wide acceptance, and some of it requires some pretty refined tastes to appreciate it. I would classify Martin Hayes as being in this latter camp. Some people like it, some don’t. But the pure drop stuff is pretty much accepted universally on its own, so there must be something significant in it that many of its contemporary permutations lack.
I don’t object to people trying new things, but I don’t automatically like something just because it is new. I liked what the Beatles did to American rolk n roll. I liked Planxty’s fusion efforts between ITM, Bulgarian folk music and modern folk-rock. I liked what Paul Simon did with African R&B (though some purist critics howled that he was exploiting the musicians he involved). There’s lots of examples where people have added something worthwhile to the new “world music”. I just don’t get the attraction in Martin Hayes’ style, and I don’t seem to be alone.
It may be about what you hear but I suspect much of the mishearing results from not listening to what is barely noticeable, IOW its about HOW you listen as much as what you hear.
Refined tastes? I wonder what are you talking about? As best I recall sales, it was the Cheiftains that sold the CDs NOT Planxty and the rest; but yes these bandwagoneers did sell a few CDs but not in the volume as the Dubliners and Cheiftains did.
Mr Hayes hardly sells any CDs - hence we see him fussing about the country playing anywhere he can get a gig and so to sell a few more CDs.
For a contrast listen to Paddy Canny and wonder why his market became - limited ie he is a better fiddler but he too sold very few records.
Of those he did sell most went to musicians the majority of which were fiddlers in Ireland. I suspect the same fate awaits Martin because he seems not to have realised he is no Micheal Coleman. I do think, however, that Canny and his peers Vesey O Loughlin et al all of them very well knew they were a poor substitute for the Sligo school that preceeded them.
It is interesting to note that generic trad did sell on the back of the Chieftains Itrad craze - 1980 -2000.
Sorry, Toasty, I was going by the opinions of other ITM musicians related to me, not by any notion of CD sales. “Refined tastes” was my attempt to politely say I think it sounds like crap, but what do I know? Though I know several ITM players who have gone to MH’s concerts and/or bought a CD or two, only one (a fiddler of course… oh, and her mother, too) actually professed to liking his stuff.
Can you substantiate your claims about anyone’s sales, or are these just your impressions? I don’t believe the earlier players you mention ever marketed themselves as professional musicians, nor were their recordings ever marketed outside a small audience. Similarly with Martin Hayes’ attempts at circulation, he has little or no publicity, and as you noted, plays every bathroom and beerstall that will have him. Chieftains, Planxty, etc. have been highly publicized all along. I don’t think you can even compare these two streams of recordings at all; one being heavily commercialized for a wide audience, the other being for the hardy dedicated few.
DJM, have you ever been to one of Martin’s live shows? You ought to go hear him if you haven’t. When I saw MH the first time, I had no idea who he was other than some irish fiddler guy. My knowledge of ITM at the time was limited to uillean pipers. Well, all I can say about that show was that he really brought the goods. If I hadn’t already been sitting on the ground (outdoor show) I would have been blown out of my chair. Actually, that’s probably a bad analogy, as what was great about his playing was the emotion he brought to his performance. His playing was bursting with “personality.” Not flashy or “high energy” necessarily. I was actually dumbfounded at the time that a guy playing a solo fiddle could keep me enraptured for an hour and a half. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust just hearing the CD’s, you have to see him live. If you have and just don’t care for his playing, well, fair play to you, we all like different things.
I think the argument about whether he is “pure drop” or not is pretty useless. I mean, why bother? Would that make his music greater? If you don’t like his music, would you suddenly like it more if the appointed representatives pronounced it “pure drop?” At the show I saw, he told the audience that he didn’t call himself an “irish” musician per se because he pretty much exclusively plays Clare repertoire. So he considers himself a “Clare” musician first and foremost. He may not be pure drop, but I think in 100 years his name will still be mentioned whenever the music of Clare is talked about. I personally don’t bother with all the labels. I don’t even like ITM, I like great music. I happen to find a lot of great music in the ITM world, but being ITM or “trad” or “Pure Drop” doesn’t automatically make it great music. The musician and the performance he or she gives is what makes it great.
james
The majority of Itrad is not Clare tunes so its a mighty small selection he’d be playing, but OC no such exclusions exists. In Clare they embrace anything that is musical, a place where musicians arrive and stay, if they are let do it — ahem ie if they can play well.
Hi, James. Yes, I have attended one of his concerts, but I hestitate to say I’ve seen him “live”. Its not just the tunes so much that are Clare, but the way they are played, with only a modicum of ornamentation, and a bent to playing the tunes in a sort of mournful fashion. However, dragging things out as slowly as he does is Martin Hayes style, not Clare style. I agree that when he cranks the speed up and starts playing normally he is a fine player.
Heck, it’s completely useless, because the “pure drop” label itself is useless.
Take Music at Matt Molloy’s, to use an example CD that lots of people have. If you listen to track 16, it starts off as a trio (I think) two flutes and one fiddle, then after one time through the second tune, a bunch of other people jump in, including bouzouki and guitar. But if you’re not listening carefully for that, what you hear is great music, all the way through the track. It goes from pure drop to not, and who but a pedantic fool cares?
I love the music of Peter Horan. I have recordings of him where it’s just his flute and his foot tapping. I have recordings of him as part of the duet with Fred Finn, some where it’s just the two of them and some with someone backing them on this or that. I have recordings of him as part of the trio that appears on Music at Matt Molloy’s. I have recordings of him as part of the mob scene on Music from the Coleman Country, complete with country-western band and organ in the background. And though I have no recordings of it, I know he played in a ceili band as well.
Now, as a musician, I especially love the solo recordings, because I can listen to what he is playing without anything else in the way. As a listener, I adore the duet recordings, because the two of them were a great team. But all of the recordings are exciting music and capture some aspect of his playing.
The pure drop thing is a shortcut to get you pointed in the right direction – generally speaking, one good musician playing alone is more true to the tradition than five dudes playing complicated arrangements. But elevating it to a holy thing is just silly.
(That said, I don’t find Martin Hayes’s playing particularly exciting…)
Pure Drop as a label doesn’t necessarily mean a solo performance, especially now-a-days. It refers to what the lead instrument is doing. Peter Horan is excellent for sure, and would easily be classified as Pure Drop, whether he is accompanied or not. If he is the lead instrument, then it is what he is playing and how he plays it that counts. Martin Hayes drifts in and out of what could be termed Pure Drop fiddling (maybe just to show that he can), but he doesn’t stay there long. I agree that I don’t find his personal style too interesting for very long - just my personal tastes, of course.
Mark C,
sorry if I’ve offended you. I am not claiming to know any better than the next guy. I didn’t think I had attacked you personally, and apologies if I did. I thought this was discussion board, too, and that I was discussing things.
::peeks shyly in:: Sorry to interrupt… ::whispers:: But what’s “pure drop” mean…? Sorry, I’m new to this–y’all are the first musicians I’ve really had any contact with…
RRRUUUNNN!!! Bonnie if you value your sanity, run away as fast as you can!!!
I take ‘Pure drop’ to mean a specific manner of playing (embellisments, speed, Phrasing and so on) pertaining to a certain style or area where a tune originates, and sticking as close as possible to that manner of playing it… keeping the tune or tunes as close to an original setting as one can.
Its too late. We have you in our eeevvvilll clutches. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Pure Drop is a term that is bandied about (sometimes snidely and with nasty overtones) meaning the way just plain folk in Ireland played their own music before it was commerciallized and repackaged for the international market.
Vermi, your other threads and signature point to your preference for the Chieftains and Clancy Brothers/Tommy Makem. These are all very commercialized versions of ITM. Just because there a lots of Irish people who like them too doesn’t mean they are actually playing/singing in a style that is true to the music’s humble origins, i.e. Pure Drop.
So you get the “purist” camp who disavow anything but Pure Drop. There are those who like the modern distilling of older Pure Drop stuff. Then you get those who want to legitimize what they play or like by calling it Pure Drop but it ain’t. And then you get people who like both the older Pure Drop style and the modern commercial styles. This last group are, of course, a bunch of wankers that everybody else is against.
