why no flute in Appalachian music?

Irish Flute
21

I have to vote with cultural traditions. The practical explanations don’t ring true.

In the 19th Century I’m sure flutes (or fifes) were readily available, familiar, cheaper and more portable than violins.

Flutes were used in concert halls, chamber orchestras, family gatherings, and casual music. Stephen Foster played an 8-key Firth, Pond & Co, and the American flutes were quality instruments from 1820s on.

Too quiet? Maybe flutes blended too quietly compared with the louder banjos and violins.

Too Legato? OT music seems to prefer staccato.

Did Canadian folk music & dance traditions also neglect the flute? Quebequos? Cape Breton?

Even in ITM historically, aside from some token flutes, didn’t the fiddles dominate?

22

Right. Flutes were popular and people had to play something on them, and many people
could play well enough. A good deal of the tunes they played, other than classical, became part of the OT tradition today. They just weren’t recorded. I figure flutes were probably widely used in OT music back in the day when the tunes were originally played. There has been a tendency to equate OT with Appalachian, is all. There’s a lot more to OT than the high, lonesome sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7rrfy9rxbY

23

The question of what instruments get used is really interesting. Banjo is everywhere in US music till the 1920s. Then it very quickly gets replaced by guitar. African Americans stop playing it almost altogether, even though its an African instrument in origin. By the 1950s, it’s the instrument of the white “folk.”

As I understand it, just to take the Irish example, in the 18th century Irish music was all harp harp harp. Then according to Francis O’Neill it’s the pipes the pipes. He says that in his childhood (born 1847) only people who did not want to make a living at music played flute. Serious musicians aiming to make money at it played pipes or fiddle. Then by the twentieth century the pipes die out–I have no idea why–and apparently by the 1950s many Irish people had no idea there was an “Irish” pipe.

O’Neill is pretty vague about “flute,” sometimes including what we would consider whistles as flutes. He refers to “the German flute” sometimes, I assume meaning Boehm. But he says they were played everywhere in ireland, and I assume they were probably played everywhere in England and Scotland, though I don’t know.

Instruments get “gendered.” It might be that flute was “gendered female” in Scots-irish culture. It’s certainly gendered female now: in our daughter’s middle school band, the flutes are all girls, which is typical.

It’s worth noting that at the moment when we get serious recordings of “folk” performers, a lot of them have moved to cities, both northern cities and southern regional cities that were industrializing. It’s easy to find the origins of both “country” and “blues” in people who were displaced from their rural homes. And it’s also pretty clear that anybody moving from the hills of Tennessee to Memphis was going to run into other immigrants in those cities, and gone to vaudeville shows, and bought a lot of records. So as mentioned the recordings we have are less of a record of folk practice than they might at first appear to be.

24

He refers to “the German flute” sometimes, I assume meaning Boehm.

German, Concert and Timber flutes are all names for the same thing. Simple system, wooden flutes.

25

To put it bluntly, if you can hear the influence of Irish traditions in Appalachian/Old time music song and dance and not that of English traditions, then it simply demonstrates your ignorance of English music, song and dance and the history of folk traditions in Britain and Ireland.

Look up Cecil Sharpe’s and Maude Karpeles’ work in collecting songs in the Appalachians. Note the similarity of Appalachian styles of step dancing to English styles of stepping (flat-footing). Note that the tune you mentioned in your opening post was well known across Scotland and England. Note that large numbers of English settlers arrived in Appalachia and they did take their music, songs and dances with them.

English folk and traditional music is routinely ignored even in our own media. When mentioned on popular TV programmes it’s usually to disparage it and laugh at it. English songs, dances and tunes are routinely attributed to other countries and the close historical links between English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh folk music covered up with ethno-nationalist claptrap … and now it seems it’s being written out of North American musical history too.

26




What informs my interest in replying to the OP on this thread, is that I’m intimately connected with American old time musicians and play both American old time and English regional music, including for our regional form of stepping from my local Mendip area in Somerset. A foot in both camps if you like. The importance of understanding and respecting regionality has been hard- taught into me first-hand, in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, by some of the finest and most respected contemporary American OT musicians, and those principles have inevitably fed and been ‘reimported’ to my home context and are now fundamental to my own approach to reengaging with, educating and sharing my regional music in our local communities. I’m truly grateful to those American friends for their kindness, generosity, knowledge, patience, inspiration and guidance. In my case I would refer to the effect of their teaching on my understanding and outlook as ‘life-changing’. I’m also a busy researcher in specific fields of English vernacular music. So any assumption of ignorance is a little wide of it’s mark. I don’t think the replies of our US friends here are meant as rude. But I too am passionate about the way in which English vernacular has been ‘written out’ and repressed and to a large extent denied - predominantly by the social and economic mechanisms and the prejudice and disdain of our own establishment. We ordinary English folks have a vernacular culture; that fact does not disrespect or conflict with other vernacular cultures, instead it adds diversity and beauty. And we should always remember and take collective strength that denied does not equate to absent or lacking. :slight_smile:

27

It’s still a question of the timeline. The music we call “Appalachian” or “Appalachian Old Time” (the subject of the thread) evolved over a very long period of time. The mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee were starting to be settled all the way back to the Revolutionary War era. The music that we call Old Time goes back much further than the arrival of the Irish immigrant wave of the 19th Century, and the flutes they brought with them. Or that they bought from flute makers in the USA at the time.

So the question would be – if “flutes were probably widely used in OT music back in the day when the tunes were originally played,” and this period dates back as far as the 1700’s or maybe even earlier, then exactly what kinds of flutes are we talking about? Do we mean primitive cane flutes? Baroque flutes that migrated from the city orchestras up into the mountains?

I’m not sure either type could have easily played along with the fiddles and banjos up in the mountains. A distinct advantage of string instruments is the way they can adjust to each other’s tuning. Not so easy with fixed pitch early or primitive-design flutes.

Indeed, and in fact my own family on my Mother’s side is English, dating back to a guy who stepped off the boat in New England during the 1700’s. And then the family ended up in the northwestern corner of the North Carolina mountains until the early part of the 20th Century. I have an Irish great grandmother who married into my Father’s side of the family, but as far as I can tell, his family was primarily English and ended up in Georgia (and later Florida, like my Mom’s side).

I don’t know exactly what kind of music they were playing while still up in the mountains, but I do have my grandfather’s beat-up fiddle, complete with a big screw holding the neck on, a homemade repair. The tone is weak, but probably good enough for the time. It makes a nice wall hanger.

28

Did you notice the title of thread and the specific question" Thanks for the intelligence that English music had an influence of music in the US, Captain Obvious.

Poor England! Sadly ignored while screwing ireland over for centuries. Agreed, it’s never a good idea to ignore the history of violent colonial oppression.

This is how cultural imperialism works. I’m asking about Irish immigrants to Appalachia, and you’re specifically telling me that the really important thing I need to know is about clog dancing in who gives a shit-shire.

Let me be clear: the fact that English folk culture exerted a large influence of folk culture in the US is indeed Very well known. In the early 20th century, it’s closely connected to racial anglo saxonism: for example, John Powell and the White Top Folk Festival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Powell_(musician) For what it’s worth, This very same John Powell, advocate of English folk music, declared my great great grandfather a black man, making me legally a black man in the state in which I now reside. It was part of his effort to preserve the purity and primacy of anglo saxon culture.

http://theaporetic.com/?p=54




But let’s make sure to not let the focus slip off England.

29

I hope this thread doesn’t degenerate into argument and hostility, because I have found it truly fascinating so far!
Hopefully, its not too late to ask this basic question: Isn’t it true that when the influence of Irish (and other) earlier
musical traditions occurred in Appalachian/Old Time music, the flute was not actually present in those other traditions?

My understanding is that the flute was adopted into Irish traditional music at a much later stage, as was the whistle, and
that they eventually became mainstays despite being “modern” instruments that were introduced into a tradition that did
not include them at all. This begs the question of whether the relative absence of the flute in OT music an opportunity
waiting for a talented flute player to demonstrate the capabilities of the instrument to shine in that music, or is whether
there is something more fundamental about the OT musical tradition that is incompatible with the flute? Stated another
way, is there any aspect of Irish traditional music that makes it especially suitable for flutes but which is absent in OT?

I don’t know enough about OT to be able to even start to answer these questions, but the little I have heard, I really like.

30

Well it seems there was no tradition of flute playing amongst the mostly Scots-Irish/Ulster women and men, together with Scottish and English people, that settled in the Appalachians back in the day, so they would have their own music with them, which which became Appalachian music. The Irish traditional music that was played in Ireland, by Irish men and women who emigrated, would have mostly lived on in the Irish Catholic communities in the cities on the Eastern Coast of the New World. Here you’d find the simple system flute and uilleann pipes.

Then by the twentieth century the pipes die out–I have no idea why–and apparently by the 1950s many Irish people had no idea there was an “Irish” pipe. pj+b

That’s just not true pj+b, where are you getting your information from, Donald Trump? Uilleann piping has never died out in Ireland. Leo Rowsome was playing pipes, making pipes and repairing pipes from 1922 up until his death in 1970. There were uilleann pipe makers such as William Rowsome, Leo Rowsome, the Taylor Brothers, the Maloney Brothers, Thomas Keenan, Dan Dowd, John Clarke, Matt Kiernan, Tadgh and Denis Crowley, Moss Kennedy etc., Uilleann pipers such as Brother Gildas, Leo Rowsome, William Rowsome, Ned Gorman, Tom Dywer, Tom Rowsome, Micheal O Riabhaigh, Tommy Kearney, Martin Rocheford, May McCarthy, Peter McLoughlin, Michael Falsey, Seamus Ennis, Dan Dowd, John Ward, John Doran, Johnny Doran, Felix Doran, Tony Rainey to name but a few.

31

Could be: I’m not sure how common flutes were in folk culture before, say, 1847. Maybe ordinary people just didn’t have musical instruments. Historians of music in the colonial US say violins and flutes, including recorders and transverse flutes were the most common instruments. So let’s say 1750 or so, the era of Daniel Boone, we’d have to assume that the people who came to Appalachia, either from Europe or from the East Coast of the US, commonly played flutes.

32

‘Stated another way, is there any aspect of Irish traditional music that makes it especially suitable for flutes but which is absent in OT?’

Truly, no, at least in my opinion. The OT tunes are often Irish tunes, or like Irish tunes, or anyhow tunes on which wooden flutes sound grand. I say this playing in both sorts of session. OT tunes are often (not always) more simple and easier to pick up, but that makes no difference to how they sound on flute. And the other instruments are typically those in Irish ensembles, e.g. mando, banjo, fiddle, et al. The chief reason flute isn’t often part of OT sessions is that fluters don’t go.

33

That information comes from multiple sources but most recently from the Documentary “Good Piping,” in which it’s words in the mouth of Eugen Lambe, maker of Pipes!

See here:

https://vimeo.com/24786300 starting at about 15 seconds.

Multiple people in that documentary talk about how rare the pipes and pipe playing had become by the 1950s, even while acknowledging yes they were still played.

You can rest assured I get no information from Donald Trump

34

Sure, as I mentioned im my previous post, I’m completely ignorant of English instrumental music and dance. I’m well aware that the English even did influence some of the more recent jigs, ballad-like airs, and songs that most would refer to as Irish. As far as both Appalachian flatfooting and buckdancing go, it’s a huge, unique blend of dances including Dutch, German (which also influenced OT music, by the way), and possibly even Native-American. I’ll assume you are correct in stating the English influence on those dances, since I can’t point to specific similarities, but there was also an undeniable influence of Ulster-Scot and Irish music and dance.

I’m very sad that English music and dance is being ignored and suppressed in its very birthplace. I genuinely hope that it is able to make a comeback, since I truly believe the folk music world is better with it. I hope you understand that I harbour no ill will at all.

35

Okay, you can put an end to that right now.

FWIW, one day only a few years ago I was playing my C set outdoors, and a young Irishman (red hair, an accent, the works) came up to ask about it, because he’d never seen or heard anything like it before and didn’t know what they were. At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but it soon became evident that he was in earnest. In this day and age, as you might imagine, I was shocked. My point: Based on that encounter alone, the idea that Irish nationals might not know that there is an Irish bagpipe is not at all far-fetched, for as surprising as that may be to us. I think we often forget that we swim in a small pond.

36

It would be equally interesting to wonder why bagpipes didn’t persist in US folk music. You’d think they’d be up in the West Virginia mountains playing bagpipes of one sort or another Maybe they were, I really don’t know. But by the time Appalachian music is getting codified as a “thing” they don’t seem to appear. I wonder if folklorists had some ideological opposition? Folklorists were forever preventing African Americans from playing songs that folklorists didn’t; think there legitimately black.

Patsy Touhey makes a living following the Civil War playing the elbow pipes in Vaudeville houses, so clearly Irish Americans knew about and had an appetite for the pipes in the decades after the Civil War.

37

FWIW, one day only a few years ago I was playing my C set outdoors, and a young Irishman (red hair, an accent, the works) came up to ask about it, because he’d never seen or heard anything like it before and didn’t know what they were. At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but it soon became evident that he was in earnest. In this day and age, as you might imagine, I was shocked. nanohedron

Of course there are Irish men and women who have never encountered a set of uilleann pipes live. They are nowhere as common as violins, guitars, banjos, or accordions. The young Irishman you met could have been an Ulsterman, perhaps he came from a small place where there were no uilleann pipers. Prehaps he had no interest in Irish traditional music when he lived in Ireland, who knows?

I took issue with the sweeping statement “Then by the twentieth century the pipes die(d) out” which is rubbish. The uilleann pipes never “died out” in Ireland

38

I’m very sad that English music and dance is being ignored and suppressed in its very birthplace. I genuinely hope that it is able to make a comeback, since I truly believe the folk music world is better with it. Bigbpiper

Um, English music and dance is very much alive and well in England. There are many folk festivals all over the country. There are folk clubs where people sing and play English traditional music, all over the country. There are concerts and recordings. There are local newsletters, there is a nationwide magasine fRoots.

39

That’s entirely possible; it’s easy to never have to step outside of pop culture, which is the dominant thing now. Even if Trad’s all around you it’s possible to have no interest in it. I know an older gentleman who grew up in the wake of the Gaelic Revival: his dad had driven a nail into the radio dial so that all it would play was the Trad station, but the young fellow wanted a much bigger world, so needless to say in that forced environment he developed an antipathy for “The Dydle-ee-Dye,” as he still calls it to this day. For him, Trad came to represent only poverty and ignorance. Perhaps due to our mutual association, his opinion has softened some, but he’d still rather have classical or jazz any day. It’s tempting to speculate that if it weren’t for that one uncompromising nail, he might have even had room for Trad among his tastes, too.

Darned close, though.

40

Well, one of the primary characteristics of instrumental Irish trad is the use of ornaments, many of which are interruptions of a sustained tone. It’s (arguably) the legacy of the early (pre-Uilleann) pipes that couldn’t be interrupted. These pipe ornaments were later adapted to fiddle, then flutes, whistles, and accordions.

There is no similar ornamentation in OldTime music. You might hear some hammer-ons and pull-offs on the string instruments, but it’s nowhere near as heavily ornamented as Irish trad. So that’s one big difference. A flute can shine in Irish but it’s more limited for expression in OldTime music. You can play cuts and rolls anyway, but it’s not exactly something people are expecting in the music, and it might even be a distraction.

There may have been a degree of cultural rejection as well. Maybe flutes were considered fancy instruments from the city? Maybe associated with Classical music? I don’t know. Traditions of “appropriate” instruments develop in many genres.

I think it’s worth pointing out that the flute has never made major inroads in the folk or pop music of the USA. The extreme case would be Bluegrass, with a narrowly codified group of allowed instruments. But even in Blues, Rock or Jazz, there have been very few prominent flute players over the years. It’s just not a common instrument outside of the Classical world, or Irish trad where it’s basically an imported tradition.

So maybe it’s not too surprising that it’s an uncommon instrument in OldTime jams as well. It’s not exactly a prohibited instrument, like it would be in Bluegrass. It’s just not among the first half-dozen instruments you think of, when you think “OldTime music.”