Hi everyone. I’m taking a masters level class this semester at NYU taught by Mick Moloney and Jene Butler. The course if called Globalization and Irish Music and Dance. My final grade is based on a research paper in which I get to chose the topic. My paper is going to be on the transition of Irish music from a pre-industrial culture with a strong oral culture tradition to a modern, information-age global society. I want to explore what aspects and elements of Irish music have changed in this transition as well as what parts of the music and music culture are lost and what parts become magnified or exaggerated in the new post-industrial environment.
The reason I’m posting all this here is because I am looking for one or two people to interview for the paper. I already have a few other interviews lined up including the piper, Jerry O’Sullivan. I’d like to interview a musician (doesn’t have to be a piper per se) who has a strong foundation or understanding of Irish music as it was pre 1960s and who has observed the tradition as it has dealt and coped with the changes in the socio-economics of Ireland, Celtic Tiger, globalization, immigration etc etc. Also, it would be beneficial if the person lived in the NYC area so that I could meet them in person as opposed to over the phone. I currently live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Any help you guys can give me in finding a musician or two that I can interview would be very helpful. I don’t plan on publishing the interview, it’s just for my school paper. Feel free to PM me if you’d rather contact me regarding this privately.
Sorry to be a bit of a pedant, but what makes me pull back is the agenda that seems to be implied. Aspects being “lost” verses aspects being “magnified” or “exaggerated.” Which seems to me to suggest that you think Irish music has taken the wrong road, in the fashion of Monty Python’s “Four Yorkshiremen” sketch. Maybe you don’t mean that all, but it is just how it reads. I would say that someone like Jerry O’Sullivan has probably benefited from the globalization of Irish music – more gigs, more albums sold, more people with access to the pipes, more people coming for workshops and lessons (yes, me being one of them; I had lessons from him when I lived on the East Coast). Why not use more neutral language. Or balance out the pejorative with the positive. What has it lost, what has it gained, what’s different?
the transition of Irish music from a pre-industrial culture with a strong oral culture tradition to a modern, information-age global society.
This is an interesting topi and I wish you the very best in your research.
There’s just one thing to keep in mind.
While the learning and teaching tunes and songs quickly by ear were skills that were (still are) very important to have it was equally important to be able to read music then too. Probably more so than today.
I pre industrial Ireland a musician had function in society. You played at weddings, funerals, parties, etc. ‘The session’ didn’t exist and playing in your kitchen for fun was frowned upon in such a labor intensive society.
If you look at census reports for the 19th and early 20th century, under occupation people wrote down what they did to earn money. But most adults had another skill that was very important to local society like water divining, folk remedies for humans and animals, weather prediction, musician, etc. These skills weren’t weekend hobbies.
Every town and village had couple of senior musicians who kept a big bundle of sheet music which was basically the set list that the musicians would refer to when playing at events.
So you had to be able to read and read well to be able to play with other musicians at events.
The only musicians who didn’t read music were the blinds ones. But they would have a relative or servant/assistant who would read to help them out. Think of Carolan. He didn’t memorize everything he wrote.
Most pipers ‘didn’t play well with others’ and were treated as eccentrics. Some were odd people alright but most of them had old sets that weren’t in concert pitch.
I must also admit that I’m a big fan of the t show, Mythbusters, and every time I’m reminded of an aspect of Irish folk/traditional culture I want to scream MYTH!!! really loud.
I would be more interested in how and why people with a non traditional background are attracted to play
“Irish” music. I have a theory on race memory and isolationism
Just a digression
Bryan
I don’t think it’s that complicated. Lots of people play music which has no relation to their ethnic/cultural background. Because they like the way it sounds.
Go see Marty O’Keefe. Marty is 102 years old, plays the violin and concertina, was born in Kilkee, Co. Clare and now lives in Rochester, New York. He’ll tell you whatever you need to know. He’s the real deal.
As for “race memory” that’s the kind of rubbish Noel Hill spouts
I think it’s part of the thing of course, but there are a lot of other aspects to it. Ok there are pipers in Germany, France, Russia, Japan and so on… but there are musicians who play any odd style anywhere… the miracle of our time is you can choose the musical style you want to play, which wasn’t the case in old times, when you only had access to the culture of your own restricted community, and even then music did travel (slower than now, no internet) !
I think the image which is associated with the music matters a lot ; to make it short people who were fond of western movies often listened to country music, even though country hasn’t so much to do with cowboys !
I know a lot of players of Irish music on the continent (Europe) have, or had (when they started playing), a very romanticized idea of Ireland and things “celtic” ! Might be the same in the US. I’ll second Tom on that one, myth may be a good reason why people want to play that music.
could it be that one of the changes is that today there’s the potential to make big bucks from irish music and dancing?
i saw michael flatley, a wonderful flute player, recently on television doing a set of tunes with a girl fiddler who was dressed like miley cyrus snazzing it up like they were playing las vegas
I’m afraid the vast majority of people playing Irish music don’t have Mr Flatley’s bank account. This is just the most visible part of the Irish scene today, which is a bit removed from the tradition. But it’s right that’s it maybe is a bit easier to make money with the music, although I think people who earn a living by playing Irish music are a very small minority.
Thank you everyone for the responses. I’m going to follow up on some of these leads.
TheSilverSpear - You make an interesting point about my language. Without writing an in depth diatribe here, I suppose I generally do tend to look skeptically at modernization’s affect on traditional culture. I try to suppress this tendency and be as objective as I can, but it can be difficult.
tompipes - Thank you for your informative response. With respect to literacy, when I use the term oral culture, or a culture with a strong oral residue, I don’t necessarily mean that the performer all all illiterate or even musically illiterate but that does play into it as well.
maki - I would be open to the possibility of a skype interview with someone if you have someone in mind.
Now, now. Framing ideas of genetic memory or collective unconscious in terms of race memory is bound to be problematic, to the extent that the notion of race is scientifically rubbish. You’re in Grattan Flood and Seumas MacManus territory there, and probably not a great starting point for an NYU term paper.
FWIW, I asked a friend who has attended many Noel Hill workshops, and was told that it’s not something that has ever come up in that context. Steampacket, are you referring maybe to private communications or things that Noel has written? Just curious.
And the irony, to continue on from Steampacket, of the idea being supported by someone who plays what Breandán Breathnach [calls] 'the only musical instrument invented by an Englishman’.
But, having heard the argument trotted out a few times, it’s not about who makes the instrument, it’s about who can play the music well and who can’t, based on their genetic make-up.
