This question was thrown out in passing on another thread, and I thought it might be interesting to set it up as a separate thread.
Since my wife is a Scottish fiddler, I play quite a lot of Scottish music, either harmony parts to her lead, or practising for workshops that I tag along to with her. I specially like slow strathspeys.
Being English, I like to play English tunes: Morris tunes because they’re easy; but I also like Newcastle-style dotted hornpipes, and most of all old English 3/2 hornpipes.
We both sometimes play in what nowadays are called ‘ceilidh bands’, but are really barn dance bands, and that’s the usual mixture of English, Scottish, Irish & American.
We also play in a small concert band that mostly plays early music: Playford, Praetorius, Susato, Arbeau & the like. A lot of those tunes seem to have their roots in France, if you dig back far enough; and I also love playing Massif Central bourees.
We spent 4 years in Sweden, and I love polskas, particularly slow polskas; sadly, they’re generally written by fiddlers and can be very challenging on the whistle, but there’s a few that I find playable.
There are a few klezmer tunes I love to play.
If I’m just playing on my own, I like fooling around with C minor blues on a B flat whistle.
The local pub session has a repertoire about 60% English, 30% Irish, and 10% Scottish. Within that, I particularly like the 12/8 slides, so I do play some ITM. I also really like Carolan.
I’d love to play jazz, but haven’t yet found much I can manage.
For me personally, a little strict ITM goes a very long way. However, I use ITM embellishments with lots of music that our band plays, regularly. I use the embellishments sparingly, as do the other whistle players in the band. Some that come quickly to mind are: Dougie MacLean songs (Caledonia, This Love Will Carry, Ready for the Storm, etc.), movie themes (The Call, from Narnia), ‘Eastern’ modal tunes (Frailach, Horo, etc.), modern popular tunes (In My Arms by Plumb), Scottish songs and tunes (Queen of Argyll, Valley of Strathmore, Our Kate, etc.), Shaker Tunes (The Burning Day, etc.) flat-out odd music (Mary of the South Seas), Grateful Dead songs (Ripple, Black Muddy River), and others.
Fettering whistles by shackling their use to iTrad/ITM strictures, has always seemed self-defeating to me.
I don’t play much ITM at all. I play, like sakbut, a range of stuff from English, Scottish, Irish, French, French-Canadian, American, Morris, Playford, Susato and anything else that comes my way that could reasonably be referred to as coming from western folk traditions.
Sackbut? A kindred spirit! I play cornett (but not well). My favorite music is baroque and earlier, for which I play trumpet, natural trumpet, the aforementioned cornett, flute, and the ever-popular recorder. ITM is more of an obsession - I think I’m addicted! Oh yeah, the occasional bluegrass, old-timey, and period music pop in as well. The group I play in, Gallowglass, is the resident band for our local re-enactment (Ft Henry Days) here in Wheeling, WV. For that event we try to play period stuff (1780’s and earlier), but a lot of that stuff WAS ITM anyway, so we fit right in.
Pat, I think you may have slightly misunderstood me. I mean, like the OP of this thread ‘Sackbut’, not ‘I play sackbut’. I only play whistle, a bit of guitar and recently bought a tabor pipe but haven’t given it much of a go yet.
Ok I’ll bight. Read the other thread with interest. ITM is not high on my list but I do like it and play some. Prefer the slower airs but they are harder to play well. I have many Scottish tunes in my head so that is what comes out when I doodle on whistle mostly (well I play GHB and have had pipe music in the house ever since I can remember) Gospel is another area that comes out often - I play in a church band and some of the songs lend themselves to whistle backing pretty easily. Kwela is something I aspire to but unfortunately the celtic roots are deeper than the african and so I enjoy to listen but struggle to play. I picked up a Chinese bawu the other day and out came some some ITM - it sounded quite cool and definitely ITM with a hint of Chinese flavour. This weekend I will be playing xaphoon, Bawu, whistles (low D, B, Bb and C) in accompaniment to Kalimba’s, chalumeau, Low D and A whistles and a gong for a fathers day concert. Most of what will be heard will be a fusion of Celtic and African tunes/rhythm’s.
I play mostly ITM but also a good bit from American folk traditions: Appalachian, old timey, New England, bluegrass, etc. Also some jazz and blues. Whistle is capable of handling a broad range of music.
Primarily ITM, both dance music and O’Carolan type tunes plus the occasional (too few) slow air and some song accompaniment, but also a significant amount of Welsh trad (ditto) plus bits 'n bobs of English (Morris and otherwise), Scottish, Breton, French and an odd few Shetland, Italian, Scandinavian and Balkan tunes. I’ve always dabbled in the Baroque (on 8-key flute, not whistle or traverso) and am another who started out playing Renaissance (Susato, Praetorius etc.) dance music on recorder and Boehm flute before discovering folk in general and then ITM. I’m also not averse to a bit of jazzy/bluesy impro (on 8-key flute again) to accompany blues-based songs at sessions. Bar the last, my YouTube channel gives a fair representation of my range/interests.
Today I was rehearsing Francesco Molino’s Nocturne op. 38 (I think) number 2, for flute and guitar, with a guitarist friend. Lovely early romantic.
I also play a lot of baroque and early recorder/flute music. And some Irish music on the whistle. E’ divertente, non c’e’ dubbio, ma non ne faccio una ragione di vita.
Edit - sorry, I’ve never done that before. I meant to say: it’s fun, but not the main thing for me.
Yes - I’m starting to discover jazz a bit more. Actually, I find jazz is more fun on a bass recorder, but I know I’m treading unfamiliar repertoire here, and I only play for me, so I’m not sure if it’s actually really faux pas to do so.
I love contemporary classical repertoire: French folk music. Growing up in Ireland, I kind of missed opportunities. I didn’t realise how much I actually really wanted to play proper live Irish music, and my sources for written music are dire at the moment. Also liking world music a lot - Swedish folk music; Soviet Russian, classical chinese and Balkan repertoire.
I like and attempt to play ITM but haven’t had sufficient immersion to play well. A number of people said to try and learn by ear if I could. Just play tunes that I really know well. So I learned a lot of hymns which are the tunes I know well. I also like bluegrass, jazz, delta blues, and other things as well.
When I play whistle I tend to split my time three ways. I play highland pipe tunes on whistle; I play stuff off Scottish flavored celtic rock CDs; and I learn to play STM and ITM tunes that my friend plays on harp. He’s bilingual because he plays in Irish sessions, but he is also active in the Scottish Harp Society of America (or whatever it’s called).
One of my good buddies in high school is a world-class sackbut player these days. Always figured he’d go far in music, never imagined it would be with an instrument I’d barely even heard of.
As to the on-topic discussion, I play mainly Irish and Newfoundland trad on whistle, with a smattering of Scottish, French Canadian, Ontario, and Old Time tunes thrown in.
as a private music teacher, i play whistle along with whatever my students are interested in learning. so i end up with a lot of Baroque/classical music with a violin or cello student, rock/funk/jazz/latin with guitar or bass students.
also a fun way for them to see that the whistle is a “real” instrument (which is doesn’t seem to be viewed as much here in the US, mainly since recorder is the instrument 4th graders learn in school, so people think whistle IS a recorder, and that it’s only for kids to bang out “Hot Cross Buns” on)
When I don’t play ITM, I play classical or music from movies.
I totally love classical, and I wouldn’t be sorry to see a classical music forum on Chiff and Fipple.
I love classical stuff too. And shows and stuff. But that’s mainly on fiddle (plus a little bit of classical on flute). On tinwhistle, it would all be trad.
I had to think long and hard about this question. You see, it occurs to me that I do not know what ITM actually is. I play lots of tunes with origins in Ireland. Mainly slow ones. I enjoy playing them and books with titles like ‘the best 100 slow irish tunes’ are excellent sources of inspiration.
Now, I would be fairly confident claiming to play ‘Irish Tunes’. I would be slightly less confident claiming to play ‘Irish Music’. I would be a little uncomfortable with someone saying I played ‘Irish Traditional Music’ - I would probably feel the need to correct them. I would feel very vulnerable to ‘correction’ if I claimed on this forum to play ‘ITM’.
So when I am not playing ITM, I might be playing Irish tunes, or Irish music. I am just as likely to be playing scottish/english/breton music (I never query the provenance that closely - file off the serial numbers and send it back out again ). I could be playing gospel, or rag or blues or any one of a number of tunes that took my fancy. I even tried a Knopfler one once. Hell, I can even play ‘Concerning Hobbits’.
As I said on another thread, the best thing about Irish tradition (as I see it) is the emphasis on art as a participatory and inclusive activity, rather than a passively consumed commodity produced by a exclusive few.
