Maud Gonne and Seamus Meehan’s piping have been subject of discussion here before, IIRC. There’s a certain, enjoyable, .
madness to it
Gymnastics aside, it’s a lovely tune.
Dance music it ain’t.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Seamus Meehan after discovering a handful of his recordings in the Jim McGuire archive on Tom Kennedy’s site, and he’s got me taking a closer look at Andy Conroy.
Until recently, I had only heard a few snippets of Conroy and I viewed his extreme tight stuff as an interesting novelty, but not particularly musical or worth exploring. But I think Meehan manages to incorporate elements of it with great success.
For example, listen to his second time through the A part in The Wise Maid (1:38): https://jumpshare.com/s/8XzLCmdII0j71BUpaIOt. It’s composed almost entirely of pippity tight triplets, punctuated here and there by low and back Ds, and it creates very interesting textural and rhythmic effects. I often find extended triplet runs to require compromise, going for showmanship at the expense of musicality, but not here.
I think part of what makes it work for Meehan is his execution – the super tight stuff requires a degree of precision in timing and note duration that most players don’t achieve, even some otherwise strong players. So now I’m revisiting Conroy and trying to hear the lines he’s aiming for in his head, even if his fingers aren’t always hitting it dead-on. He’s probably got a lot of ideas and maneuvers worth adapting.
EDIT: Lots of Andy Conroy in the archive I linked, too!
I didn’t know about those archives, lots of great stuff there. Always up for more Andy, he was like no one else, and his music always somehow had a twinkle in its eye - listen to him play the Sweeps, for instance.
Here’s some of Seamus on his other instrument, the piano accordion: https://pipers.ie/archive/media/?galleryId=1217&mediaId=27822 With Paul Shaughnessy on the fiddle. Very much the polar opposite of his piping. This cut is from set dancing tapes NPU issued in the 80s, lots of pipers to be heard of course, but also box playing from the likes of Breandán Ó Beaglaoich, and flute/fiddle.