I got home from work yesterday to find that my Willie Clancy and Micho Russell CDs had arrived from The Living Tradition in Cork. Quick service – only a week from order to delivery. The CDs are wonderful! I’m not knowledgeable enough about Irish music to critique the music. All I can say is that I love it. The recordings are very good technically, good clear sound without overproduction. You gotta hear these guys play!
In addition, tonight the wife and I are going to see Dervish in concert, and this weekend is the Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival. We’ll be seeing Cherish the Ladies, Tommy Makem and family, Eileen Ivers and many more, all for the $8 admission. I’ll rest on Monday.
Mike
Good stuff. Which WC and MR CDs did you get?
Limestone Rock (MR) and Minstrel from Clare (WC). They have quite different styles, at least on these recordings. Micho seems to use less ornamentation. Maybe because Willie plays the pipes he uses more cuts and rolls when playing the whistles. Anyway, it’s a treasure being able to hear these musicians and have their art preserved for coming generations. After all, how do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from?
Mike
I don’t know the Limestone Rock record (yet). Minstrel of Clare is great (thanks, Feadan!
).
I think Micho Russel has a style very different from what you hear today. he uses these glottal stops to separate notes, I think. And he doesn’t really use rolls at all, at least on the recordings that I have. I just love the way he takes these enormously long breaths, putting big spaces in the tune but somehow keeping the pulse going.
If you like “Minstrel from Clare”, be sure to acquire “The Pipering of Willie Clancy Vols. I and II” from Claddagh records. There is some lovely whistle-playing on those albums despite the title. Besides, listening to solo pipes recordings is good for you and your musicianship
[ This Message was edited by: Pat Cannady on 2002-07-19 16:38 ]
On 2002-07-19 16:38, Pat Cannady wrote:
Besides, listening to solo pipes recordings is good for you and your musicianship > >
I am sure it is. Unfortunately it’s also bad for my marriage…
On 2002-07-19 16:06, Bloomfield wrote:
I think Micho Russel has a style very different from what you hear today. he uses these glottal stops to separate notes, I think.
I noticed that he doesn’t seem to tongue, but separates notes somehow, even three identical notes in a row without ornamentation, making them come out explosively. I can’t figure out how he does it. Is that what you mean by glottal stops? And how does one do them?
On 2002-07-19 17:24, blackhawk wrote:
On 2002-07-19 16:06, Bloomfield wrote:
I think Micho Russel has a style very different from what you hear today. he uses these glottal stops to separate notes, I think.
I noticed that he doesn’t seem to tongue, but separates notes somehow, even three identical notes in a row without ornamentation, making them come out explosively. I can’t figure out how he does it. Is that what you mean by glottal stops? And how does one do them?
glottal stops is probably the wrong term. That’s what Brits do when they swallow “tt” sounds in the middle of words, you know “ma–er”, as in “what’s the ma–er”, instead of “matter.”
What Micho (and other older generation whistlers) do is control the breath with their diaphram, as if you are pronouncing “huh-huh-huh” into the whistle. It takes a bit of practice to get it going well, and I think it’s always more cumbersome than just tonguing. If you do it right, it comes from down in your stomach, not your mouth. If you practice it, it’s a bit like grunting.
On 2002-07-19 17:48, Bloomfield wrote:
What Micho (and other older generation whistlers) do is control the breath with their diaphram, as if you are pronouncing “huh-huh-huh” into the whistle. It takes a bit of practice to get it going well, and I think it’s always more cumbersome than just tonguing. If you do it right, it comes from down in your stomach, not your mouth. If you practice it, it’s a bit like grunting. >
Now that you explain it, I think I’ll stick to tonguing, too.
[ This Message was edited by: blackhawk on 2002-07-19 19:30 ]
Don’t know what Micho used, but I prefer a mixture of glottal stops and tonguing.
Nothing to get hung up about, the best way of learning the glottal stop technique is to whistle tunes (with your lips), where it comes spontaneously, then transfer what you’re doing to the (tin, wooden, whatever)whistle.
On 2002-07-19 08:30, burnsbyrne wrote:
I got home from work yesterday to find that my Willie Clancy and Micho Russell CDs had arrived from The Living Tradition in Cork. Quick service – only a week from order to delivery. The CDs are wonderful! I’m not knowledgeable enough about Irish music to critique the music. All I can say is that I love it. The recordings are very good technically, good clear sound without overproduction. You gotta hear these guys play!
In addition, tonight the wife and I are going to see Dervish in concert, and this weekend is the Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival. We’ll be seeing Cherish the Ladies, Tommy Makem and family, Eileen Ivers and many more, all for the $8 admission. I’ll rest on Monday.
Mike
I just got those two CDs as well, and two more by Micho. I’m really getting into the older stuff now. It’s the real deal.
How was Dervish, Mike? They’re my favorite group lately.
Dervish was great. The musicians were first class and the singer, Cathy Jordan, was wonderful and added a lively and colorful presence. She is also, to my ears, a very good singer. As is usual nowadays it seems the sound man was going for sheer volume rather than articulation so the vocals were a bit mushy. Unfortunately, they got a none too positive review in the local newspaper the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The reviewer faulted the lack of liveliness on the part of the guys and the “over” liveliness of Cathy Jordan. Maybe he thought he was going to a U2 concert.
Anyway, a very enjoyable evening.
I also saw Cherish the Ladies on Saturday at the Cleveland Irish Heritage Festival. They are uniformly excellent musicians and Joanie Madden is a stitch. She played a standard concert flute and a brown whistle, probably wood (I wasn’t close enough to see). She makes playing the whistle look so easy. It seems to be an extension of her hands.
Also saw a couple of tunes by Gan Bua but not enough to form an opinion. I also went to the petting zoo with my granddaughter and saw a bunch of sheep, goats, a big turtle and a llama. They were quite good, especially when performing their trademark tune, “Baaaaaaaaaaa”.
Mike