I was just wondering if you call the sound of Mike Rafferty and Jack Coen something particular? I really like the sound of these two (I have bought the CDs “Speed 78” and “The Branch Line” and they are great) - do you know any other recordings with the same “laid-back, old-school” kind of sound?
Actually, it’s quite amazing how different tunes can sound when different playing-styles play them. Whether you like the fast, ornamented stuff or the more “basic” it seems there’s something for everyone. How great is that!
They’re both from East Galway and both exemplify (in different ways) the East Galway style of playing with its particular pulse and measured playing.
If you like those guys you’d probably also like these for starters:
Sean Moloney: two solo CDs, Potsticks and Music on the Wind, and an earlier CD with his brother – Sean is from the famous E. Galway family of flute players who were in the Ballinakill Ceili Band that inspired both Jack and Mike’s playing.
Paddy Carty: solo album with Mick O’Connor on banjo (Shanachie label) or better yet his tape with Conor Tully on fiddle, which may be out of print but worth hunting down.
Patrick Ourceau and Gearoid O’hAllmhurain’s CD (Tracin’), which technically is East Clare not East Galway, but they’re so close geographically and musically that it doesn’t matter!
Claire Keville, John Weir, and Eithne Ni Dhonaile: An Trí Is A Rian – no flute, but wonderful concertina, fiddle, and harp. Plenty of that East Clare/East Galway spirit, tempo, and pulse.
If you can find any old recordings of the Ballinakill Band, those are worth hearing too. I think there’s some available on CD but don’t have the references; I listened to tapes of them during a visit to the Irish Music Archives in Dublin some years back and they were great.
Man, so many good workshops this summer. . . . how does one choose between E. Durham, Boxwood, Augusta, and Swannanoa if only one will fit into the budget?
One feature of this style, maybe deceptive though, is
that it sounds attainable. There are a lot of flute players
I will never be able to sound like; I’ll never have the
speed and the virtuosity; no non-genius who started
flute at 60 will get there before his fingers fall off.
But maybe, just maybe,
I can play like Rafferty and Coen. Not as well, of course,
but close enough for folk music.
Thank you all for your input! At the site listed below the different playing styles are explained - it gives you an idea of the differences and lists players who “belong” to them. Comes with soundfiles.
