what attracts you to different players?

Irish Flute
1

My teacher asked me a couple of weeks ago about which flute players I like. He knew that I like Chris Norman, and we’d listened to a couple of tracks that I like from Deirdre Havlin and Jack Coen. The first name that came to mind was Frankie Kennedy.

How does one reconcile that these are his favorite flute players?

My teacher played the first set from the second Maread and Frankie album (the one with the B&W photo on the cover) – does anyone know the names of those two reels? Anyway, he played them slowly, in a pretty well-ornamented style. Later I listened to Frankie’s versions. Wow! almost no ornaments at all.

So what attracts me to his playing? Yes, it’s crisp, he definitely had a great feel for the music, gave the tunes a good swing. But can anyone put into words what the difference is between Frankie playing a tune and a good amateur playing it?

2

I was listening to that CD (Ceol Aduaidh) on the way back from pipe band practice today and is one of my favourites. That first set is just called Tommy People’s Reels. Track 11 is titled the same. I’ve seen some of the tunes in books just called “Tommy People’s.”

Frankie’s style isn’t overtly technical but very musical. This is nicely exemplified on track 3. I haven’t listened to Deirdre Havlin or Jack Coen but Jack Coen’s style has been described as being not very technical but very musical too.

I think you’re getting into that grey area of what makes a good player. You’re no stranger to this forum so I’m guessing you’ve heard the argument that you don’t need to make a living at it to be good and that you don’t have to cram tons of technique and play at light speed to be good. So I would say the only thing that fundamentally separates Frankie from a good amateur is the knowledge of being a successful, professional musician which is a whole different skill set.

Cheers,
Aaron

3

The first reel is sometimes known as ‘The Farting Badger’.


When they recorded the first album [and the second, and possibly the thrid too] these guys were not professional musicians. The whole ‘knowledge of being a succesfull professional musician’ thing does not come into question as far as I am concerned when thinking about irish music. The best players I know are in most cases not professional musicians.
I think the most important thing is musical background and understanding of the music and what it communicates. For example ornamentation is there for a reason and using it with judgement and understanding is the hallmark of a good musician be it amateur or professional. it’s a misconception that loads of stuff in a tune is the hallmark of good playing, it isn’t.

4

Beautiful hands. Works with non-fluteplayers too. :wink:

Sonja

5

I must say that quite often what often draws me to flute player is the accessibility of their style. Although I love the playing of Matt Molloy I seldom listen to him as he is just doing too much for my poor head to cope with. I love Jack Coen, Josie McDermott, and Micho Russell because they play in a style I can hope in some way to achieve and they just have that ‘magic’ Im looking for. But that is largely me listening as a player. I find that those that are now my most listened to recordings were the ones I had assigned to the ‘academically interesting but not for everyday consumption’ pile when I first heard them.

When it comes to fiddle etc. (which I dont play) my criteria (nasty sterile word) are a little different but I am still drawn to players with ‘the touch’ rather than the latest ‘star’ who can play a set of reels in under 12 seconds. If you know what I mean?

I know there are some fellows on the board who say that those of us who prefer the older players style, warts and all, are just kidding ourselves and that we are just a bit backwards, or up ourselves or something. But they are, of course, wrong. :wink:

6

Hello

TG4 did a documentary on Frankie and his music and one of the points that a lot of contributors made was that Frankie was a perfectonist about his music. Like a lot of fine musicians he was totally dedicated to his music, spending countless hours practising.
This perfectionism can be almost obsessional and seems to be a hallmark of nearly all the great musicians that I know. In another thread about the chanter stop key Peter Laban made reference to a squak that old pipers made at the end of a set (I am paraphrasing here, I hope correctly). He eventually reckoned that it was the jump to the stop key that caused this squak. This attention to detail sums up what great musicians are about. They seem to have a need to know how something is done, and, having found out, might never incorporate it into their music.
Harry Bradley will talk eloquently and at length about the Feis Ceoil recordings (made on wax cylinders around 1905) and will point out a particular effect where I could not even hear music.
Great musicians might have been born with perfect pitch or other aural skills but most of the rest is just hard work and determination and in the ITM sense, a huge connection with what went before. There is no magic formula here but unfortunately there is no easier or softer way to do it.

Regards

John Moran

7

Oops, I guess I didn’t express myself very well. I didn’t mean to stress the amateur part, but the good part. That is, what separates a good player, who can hit all the notes with a good tone, from a great player who hits all the right notes in a way that affects us deeply?

You’re absolutely right that it’s a grey area. There may very well be those on the forum who think Frankie’s playing is uninspired. I’m interested in what people like in Frankie as well as other players, as well as whether anyone can put into words some specific characteristic of his playing that made it special.

Seanie, good point abut perfectionism. It’s really apparent in his playing.

8

on the flute obsession cd’s, frankie 's playing was one track that stood out for me. it’s deceptive - as other tracks (players) seem to be calling for attention (in-your-face style) but his was some of the more pleasng-to-the-ear playing.

9

I’m drawn to playing that communicates something to me, almost as if a secret -surrounded by the tune- is being whispered in my ear. Complexity in technique can do this, and just as well not do it at all.

I wonder if what speaks to me necessarily speaks to others.

10

I came at it from a different direction, so I guess it’s not surprising I have a different perspective.

I think somewhere on Brad Hurley’s website he describes people who hear Irish flute and then are stricken with a pathological desire to “make that sound.”

That was me. I was, and remain, awed at the way the best players can fool the ear and make something so simple so full of layers of complexity, while never loosing the simple directness of the tune.

I am still possessed of a “pathological need” to make that sound.

–James

11

I see where your going. Now I have to change around my answer. Musicianship is the magic word I think (if I correctly understand the meaning of the word) which goes to what Peter said about background and understanding of the music. It’s the sensitivity and sensibility the player has to the effect of what he/she does with the tune that separates what we like in some players and don’t like in others.

I also agree with Peter (or hopefully he is agreeing with me) about the whole “professional” issue. What I was trying to say about the professional musician’s skill set is that it doesn’thave anything to do with how well you play the music but what you know about playing gigs, recording CDs, promotion and all of the business side of it. At the time of Ceol Aduaidh those weren’t skills Frankie Kennedy may have honed but by the time some of his last Altan recordings came out he had developed those skills.

Cheers,
Aaron

12

Different playing and players speak to me at different times. A lot of it has to do with where I am with my playing at any given point, I think.

But I guess what gets me most is sheer creativity with a tune – I’m a sucker for people who can take a bunch of notes and transform them into a living, breathing thing with a personality and story all its own. (I especially love when a player is creative enough to take an old saw and make me hear something entirely new whether by stripping it down, changing the tempo/rhythm, attitude, etc.)

Anyway, whether it’s awesome technique, fabulous variations, or sometimes utter simplicity, it’s the perfection of the thing – the appropriateness of whatever they do that makes the music, and the instrument, sing.

And then of course, since a lot of this is dance music, I guess it’s also the players who make me want to dance. :slight_smile: (or in some cases, weep, etc.)

In my experience, the average listener – i.e. me before I got obsessed with the “omigod, how did they do that?s” – probably responds to music more at that level, too. My experience in our band is that often the tunes we find interesting for their complexity/character, because Solas does them :wink:, etc. – aren’t the ones that get the crowd going. For them, the energy we might bring to a good solid jig, reel, or hornpipe that’s winningly played with swing, style and verve – that’s usually the ticket.

A year or so ago, I heard John Skelton say in a class that the real goal in his playing isn’t to get people to say “What a great player!” Instead, he wants people to say “What a great tune!” So everything he does is for the tune; he gets out of its way.

And the more I work on stuff, the more deeply I get what he means. Once again, my band’s audiences don’t seem all that impressed by a constant stream of rolls, cranns, nooks, crooks, and turns – instead, they respond to the hook of a great tune and getting pulled along by it.

And thus, I am once again reminded why all these hours wrestling with all this technique? Merely to be able to deploy it in such a way that hardly anyone notices it (unless you’re an ITM nerd, of course): because they’re too busy being captivated by the tune it happens to be setting and supporting.

Hope that makes a modicum of sense!

13

Speaking of Molloy, I had a chance to sit in at a session in Boston with his son Peter. Quite a fine flute player he is, but not quite as busy as his da. Not that I don’t like Molloy Sr., I just found his son’s playing more “musical”, very lovely.

Corin

14

When people beging talking about how a musician affects them, the words “speak” and “story” come up again and again. I’ve puzzled over this a lot but it seems so elusive. The first time I remember hearing it was when Duke Ellington’s band was playing on TV. I was at my uncle’s house and when Johnny Hodges took a solo, he said " He can really make it speak." That struck me at the time as very apt. It was as if Hodges was just standing there talking through his horn. The great sax player Stan Getz talked about this a lot. He had a scheme worked out where parts of the music corresponded to different verbal elements and from this, he said, you improvise and talk to the audience. I realize I’m dwelling on jazz here, rather than traditional flute playing, but the words “story” and “communication” have appeared in this thread and that says to me that there’s something fairly pervasive about this theme. Several months ago I read a book about jazz musicians that had a lot of material in the musicians’ own words. Again, over and over, the theme of telling a story came up.

Steve