Chiff and Fipple Forums

No one mentioned Set Dances. Hmm....... tunes written along with a specific step dance? Just wanted to drop that one in. Oh yeah, and Mazurkas(?) Eastern European kinda aren't they?

Cranberry wrote:

Wormdiet wrote:Someone could soon make the argument that not all of these forms are "traditional," to which I would reply, neither are guitars, banjos, boxes, bodhrans, or probably even fiddles if you go back far enough.

If you go back as far as possible, the only style that is "traditional" is a cappella.

If you go back REALLY far, you get . . . a whistle. See the sites listed below for info on the oldest musical instrument yet found, a 50,000 year-old fipple flute that a Neanderthal used to play in a major key.

http://www.whyfiles.org/114music/4.html
 
http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm

Cranberry wrote: some people consider Enya to be ITM

Likewise, some others consider the Chieftains not to be ITM.

I don't understand this anti-chieftains thing. I suspect it's some sort of pseudo intellectual trip. I think they diluted their music, at least it didn't work for me when they got together with pop stars. But they were a major force in resurrecting ITM.

It is interesting to read the various posts about which artist or bands could be considered Irish Traditional. How I see it is, all music evolves with time and with the available instruments etc. - if this were not the case we would ONLY consider as traditional the caveman stage of music - WHATEVER THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!!!

Music will also tend to FUSE with various influences and evolve. Enya has gone down the highly produced electronic pathway but is essentially, IMHO, still very much Irish and, at least in some songs, still Traditional Irish, in flavour. Very few of the instruments so intimately associated with Irish Traditional Music are actually Irish at all. That includes the whistle, the accordion and the fiddle. The Irish were fast to grasp and use new instruments as they became available. The adaptation and use of the "Bosca Ceoil" or accordion is a good example of the evolvement.

I tend to believe that Irish Traditional music is partly to do with the structure of the music and A GREAT DEAL to do with the FEELING in the playing or singing. Martin Hayes uses the term "Lonesome Touch" (called one of his CDs by the same) - for me it is that emotion in the music, often plaintive in nature, but always full of feeling, that defines and seperates the music.

Irish music which is played or sung without much regard to the "feeling" is, IMHO, mechanical, empty, and not very "Irish". I do not enjoy the speed merchants who bash out the dance music like some manic machine gone wild, as if the faster and louder it it is played the better. But don't get me wrong about tempo - I have no objection to fast playing, provided it does not lose the "feeling".

I enjoy various attempts at evolving Irish music including fusion with other cultures and influences. I also appreciate the efforts to preserve a "snapshot" of what the past was like. But ask me, for instance, if I would prefer to listen to pipers of the past or to those of the present day - I have no hesitation is saying todays pipers far surpass what I have heard in very old recordings. The pipes and pipers have evolved, and as a result the music changes.

I say go with whatever touches and inspires you.

Whitmores75087 wrote:I don't understand this anti-chieftains thing. I suspect it's some sort of pseudo intellectual trip. I think they diluted their music, at least it didn't work for me when they got together with pop stars. But they were a major force in resurrecting ITM.

I think most of the people here who like groups at all would like the first 5 or 6 Chieftains albums. After that people start to get a bit picky. That's my own position and I think a lot would agree with me.

The only-pure-drop types dislike Solas and all the other grandson-of-Planxty bands. But much more common is the view that their first couple of albums are good but they go off after that.

In all areas of music it's difficult to maintain the freshness after the first batch of albums have been released and the artist gets on the treadmill of permanent touring.