Talbert St Claire posts Low whistle videos to Youtube

Whistle
1

Got this from Talbert St. Claire earlier today, (I think only because I posted publicly that I liked his recorded version of May Morning Dew), and although I don’t communicate with him, I thought I would pass it on just in case someone might be interested, as he is not a Chiff member any longer: (His version of May Morning Dew on a Kerry Pro Low D, in his car):

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1_GBJWXIGU
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhi6S5HAnZo

Talbert St. Claire has shared a video with you on YouTube

Hello Barry,

I dedicated this video to you! How have you been? I was hoping that if you don’t mind, can you Please share my new 2014 channel and this here slow-air to board members on chiff and fipple. I am no longer a member. Will you please share this with the board? Please don’t tell them that I told you to do this. I am seeking some help and so many others will learn from all the coming tutorials. By the way, I hope that you like both videos. p.s. There will be lots of tutorials up in the very near future. For every piece I perform there will be a tutorial that will follow. Lots of teaching and all for FREE!! Let me know please what you think. Thank you Barry! Talbert St Claire

Part 1: The May Morning Dew (Slow Air) Kerry-Pro Tunable Low D
by Talbert St. Claire

First, I dedicate the video to Mr. Barry otherwise known as “green spider” on the chiff and fipple whistle forum. I am happy that you enjoyed my recorded version and hopefully this here video version is satisfactory. There is also a “tutorial” for this air. See Part 2.

Recorded 02/08/2014

Davy Spillane popularized this air without question. I also recorded it many years ago. This I have to say is my favorite air of all time! It has so many different emotions attached to it. I improvised it without knowing exactly how I would approach it again after so many years being away from it. See Part 2 if one is seeking to learn this. Feel free to subscribe to my channel. There will be lots of tutorials coming soon. Every piece I play will feature a video tutorial that will follow. Thank you

Personally, I like his earlier recorded version much better, but some might want to tune in to his channel and learn the piece as he plays it, or keep tabs on what he is up to, possibly. There was no email to reply back to him, (sent via noreply@youtube), even though he said to let him know what I thought. But when I had contacted him years ago, he told me not to write back and forth, as he preferred not to, so here is my reply and requested referral to his youtube channel postings, anyway, for those whom it might hold an interest.

[ Moderator Note: Added Part 1 ]

2

He certainly is being like the palm tree there.

I can’t place his accent in the tutorial. For some reason, I had him pegged as Scandinavian, but his accent sounds like a European who lived a long time in Canada maybe?

I’d comment on the air, but I can’t really abide them. It sure seems like a hard thing to do a tutorial on compared to, say, a jig… More power to you, TsC.

3

That was excellent. Interesting how he chose to play in his car in the winter.

I wonder who is at home? Maybe someone a little weary from the whistling. I get that a little when I pull out the banjo.

4

Talbert also had another video of him playing in a car in winter before on Youtube, on an MK. Think it was the same tune too.

I have done so myself on occasion, (playing in my car) as I live in an apartment, and there is always someone home in neighboring apartments, it seems. Or the wife, and I try not to bother her with my playing too often either. But I absolutely hate the acoustics of playing in a car-it makes your whistles sound dead-and terrible! Though it’s OK for just working on something, when you are not playing for tone.

5

The vagaries of taste aside, no matter how pleasing you find the playing you should know it is NOT The May Morning Dew in any way, shape, or form. It doesn’t qualify as that just because the player wants to call it so, any more than calling a tomato a bird makes it a bird. In the Irish tradition - and this is a well-known Irish tune even without Spillane’s help - an air is the melody to a song, so be it simple or be it ornate in presentation, a reasonable and recognisable conformity and emulation of the song’s scansion is not optional if you would be taken seriously by those who know it; anything else is just noodling, as is unfortunately the arguable case here. A coincidence of having roughly the same general kinds of notes is not enough if the song referenced doesn’t fit the playing. Your only hope of getting an air right with any certainty is to learn from listening to the song itself, as sung.

Now here is The May Morning Dew:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GsWYmbcP4

Contrast and compare.

6

So… underhand pseudo-recognition/advertising!

7

I saw a similar video of this, by TSC, a couple of years back. In his car , in the winter. I have to admit, it still leaves me with a very strange feeling. I just don’t get it!

8

Well, Nano, not everyone conforms around here, and some may even prefer to noodle, and not be so seriously strict when it comes to making music. As you say, you can call something anything you want. But if it has elements of the tune in it, then maybe it’s your interpretation of the tune, even if it strays from tradition. Or maybe that isn’t allowed either?

Or maybe we should just divide the forum to conformists and non-conformists? Oh wait, I think you already are doing that. Nevermind! But thanks for pointing out that it isn’t really what it is called, merely someone’s idea of it, or more accurately probably-Davey Spillane’s twist on it.

9

A few points on this:

  • It’s not a question of conforming or not conforming. This just isn’t the tune. It hasn’t got the notes of the tune, and it hasn’t got the phrasing of the tune (or any tune that I know). As a result, it doesn’t hang together.
  • As such, I don’t count it as someone’s idea of The May Morning Dew.
  • It’s definitely NOT Davey Spillane’s twist on the tune. Davey Spillane’s version is a version of the tune, with notes that either stick closely to, or suggest in an alternative, but artistic way, the tune itself, and with phrasing that strongly brings to mind the song air itself. Talbert’s playing doesn’t. It’s not close to Davey Spillane’s version - I’m not talking about quality, but the nature of it. This is a string of notes - Davey’s is a version of the tune. So no, I can’t accept that calling this “Davey Spillane’s twist on it [the song air The May Morning Dew]” is “more accurate”.

Now, you might like Talbert’s offering here - that’s up to you. Personal taste and all. But let’s see it for what it is … and what it isn’t.

10

I stand corrected, thank you Ben. So it’s not Davey’s take on it, who was following the traditional tune-song-air then, nor is it the true ITM version that so many know. I actually didn’t listen to Talbert’s version all the way through here, but I still probably wouldn’t have known anyway that the tune he was playing was so different. But yes, it is still a matter of conforming to a particular set of values. It might be helpful for some to realize it’s not the same as the original, such as those who are traditionalists.

And yes, you’re right in the fact that some may like it even still-taste and all. I’m certainly not defending Talbert or his music-just the fact that some others will not mind either way, and should have the freedom to say so without seemingly being right or wrong. That was my point.

Good to know there is a traditional basis for it though, and I will listen to Nano’s suggestion on Youtube for it just to hear the difference.

I really liked the playing of this on his CD from where I first heard it-just how it was played and expressed-the feeling he put into playing what he did. But that was purely a non-technical reaction on my part to his music-and how I relate to music, no matter who is playing what. I’m just wired a bit different when it comes to listening to and playing music it seems. That’s OK with me.

11

Well, somebody has to be the loyal opposition :slight_smile: I don’t particularly like TSC’s version of May Morning Dew, nor for that matter do I particularly like Davey Spillane’s version (readily available on Youtube). None the less I can certainly see relationships between them and relationships to the sung version posted above. I’ve heard the “you have to know the words and how a singer phrases the song to do a slow air properly” argument many times, and doubtless it is true if one is trying to present a traditional version of a slow air. But, to go another way may still make music. I don’t think one should be purjoritive (sp) and make pronouncements about “it isn’t even the tune” or “it is only a collection of notes.” That simply isn’t so any more than Wanda Landowska’s odd interpretations of Bach (or Glen Gould’s sometimes equally idiosyncratic ones) are not Bach. Or for that matter Casals versions of the cello suites or the Segovia transcriptions that lurch around through romantic versions of various Bach pieces are not Bach. I don’t care much for some of those I’ve mentioned, but they are still interpretations. Seems to me benhall.1 has the right of it.

12

Huh? Sounds like a rather common U.S. accent to me. A good bit different than is spoken here, but doesn’t sound like any Scandinavian people I have heard speak.

13

Just for the record, Seane Keane is singing this one, and does a lovely job with it. I remember the impression he made on my a long time ago when I first heard this clip of him-it’s great. I had to ask on Chiff about him to find out who it was-saw it on TV and loved it. Yes, big difference, for sure, but room for both in my world.

Thanks for the reminder, Nano.

14

As a side note and not to pirate this thread, I have in my whistle fleet a non-tunable narrow bore low G Overton Goldie whistle in a black anodized finish that it a one of a kind in the world as was confirmed to me by Bigitte Goldie. This low G that sounds awesome was once owned by Talbert St. Claire.

Cheers,
Cayden

15

Not that this has anything to do with these videos, but Turlach Boylan and Zac Leger were staying at my house some years ago and we were watching a few minutes of some kind of New Agey/World Music horror on TV. We were pretty much speechless, until Turlach let out a little explosion of laughter and said, “Sorry, but I keep thinking about a humpback whale suddenly bursting up on the stage in a spray of water and then crushing these musicians.”

16

I like your signature, Dale.

17

Well said, cboody, and thanks for those examples of other variations on a theme. I think some people just color outside of the lines, where others need those boundaries. Nothing wrong with knowing where the lines are either, for that matter, just for reference. To me, making music is more important than what colors I choose, or lines I may blur in the process.

18

And yet I find myself needing to distinguish between the playing of a free-form improvisor, however inspired, and one who has built a genuine foundation through disciplined study of a vibrant living tradition.

Out of respect, I’d have called it ‘Meditation on Low Whistle’, or some such.

19

But that is the issue, isn’t it? In order to color outside the lines - deliberately, creatively, artistically - you need to know where the lines are. And in none of Talbert’s recordings does he show any indication that he knows where the lines are. Not a single “straight” dance tune or air, played in a way that demonstrates an understanding of the traditional materiel from which he purports to draw. To compare this to disciplined artists like Gould, Landowska, Segovia or Casals is a bit disingenuous. They all knew exactly where the lines are that they chose to extend.

The same can be said of great trad players known for pushing boundaries - Liz Carroll, Brian Finnegan, Natalie MacMaster, Davy Spillane, Sharon Shannon … it’s a long list. I’m a great believer in paying your dues to earn your artistic license. And without that qualification, you’re literally just faking it. Some knowledgeable listeners may like the result anyway on purely aesthetic grounds, and in other cases you can fool some of the people some of the time. But to then claim, even implicitly, mastery of faking it to the point of posting “tutorials” is presumptuous to say the least.

20

Thanks MT, for your evaluation-I trust that you know where the boundaries are, and I’m not really surprised that Talbert doesn’t. I wouldn’t know myself, nor would I say otherwise. Yes, I imagine tuturials based on faking this knowlege is a whole other matter that isn’t helpful to others, unless you just label it “improvisaton”. If not, it’s just a form of copying how someone plays something-and a form of flattery I guess to the seeker.

So, my apologies for not knowing what I was posting the link to, though maybe I should have know better given the history there. Some improvisers may still consider it of value. I like to do my own in that regard.