I don't like fast Irish tradition music. Give me my airs.

[benhall.1]

Oh, I accept that the word "air" is used extremely loosely by O'Neill and others. Plenty of ambiguity there. It's not, per se, a "Scots dialect word", though. It's English. The Scots may well have borrowed it ...

[david_h]

"your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear"
A Midsummer Nights Dream [its a play in English by Shakespeare], act 1 scene 1

"believed to have been written around 1594 to 1596" - Wikipeadia

[hoopy mike]

"your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear"
A Midsummer Nights Dream [its a play in English by Shakespeare], act 1 scene 1

"believed to have been written around 1594 to 1596" - Wikipeadia

That's a misprint. What Chaucer actually wrote was "your tongue's sweet hair" based on his experience with a lady who possessed a particularly hirsute set of tonsils.

[hoopy mike]

...in Scotland, where the most popular instrument in traditional music is bagpipes...

That's quite a liberal definition of "popular"

I meant popular to play...

Yeah, they are certainly popular to play. Maybe you didn't spot my wink. We regularly play "Burning the Piper's Hut". Not having access to an authentically traditional recording I'm never sure if it should be played as a lament or as a celebration.

[benhall.1]

No, i've just realised that my last post is nonsense, in one respect: "air" isn't a Scottish word at all. It's just plain, ordinary English. Sure, it's developed ambiguities over the years, but what word hasn't?

[Denny]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeQsZOQqO6I

[highland-piper]

The Scots "borrow" plenty.

I guess the point to all of that though, is that in Scotland the word air has been used to mean "melody" or "tune" for more than 200 years. Ed Miller, an icon of traditional Scots song, tells a story about asking an older guy to teach him a song. The older guy says something along the lines of: Aye, I'll gie to you laddie, but you'll have to find the air yourself. Which Mr. Miller explains meant that the old man would teach him the words, but that it was up to him to find an appropriate melody. This seems very different from what has been described about Irish song, with certain lyrics being associated with only one melody. One of the songs he sings, written by Brian McNeill, called "Give the Fiddler a Dram" ends with the words "Let the fiddler find the air" which is always followed by the fiddler playing a set of reels.

That doesn't mean that modern Irish session musicians can't come up with a different use for the word though.

I looked air up in my Harvard Dictionary of Music and they said that in the early 1700's it was in use in France to mean the melody of a song. Later it was used to mean the melody of a dance, and finally came to mean an instrumental melodic piece. In the 1700's there were strong ties between Scotland and France, so it could be the Scots started using the word then, taking it straight from French.

Harvard also had an entry for aire, which is a Spanish word for a mostly extinct form of South American dance. I think that would have two syllables. All of the Scottish and Irish books of the 18th and 19th centuries seem to agree on "air" as the spelling.

Going back to the topic at hand, I never liked slow airs played on high whistles. Originally I had assumed the reason for my dislike was the limited scope for expression. But now that I play highland pipes, I find I like slow music on them, and they are even more limited (especially when played idiomatically) than whistles. I'm starting to think I really just don't care for the sound of the whistle -- despite having a bit of fun playing it.

[highland-piper]

"Burning of the Piper's Hut" is both a reel and a pipe march in Scotland. It's interesting that some people play it as a slow tune.

@Ben: Scots dialect is English.

[jemtheflute]

"your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear"
A Midsummer Nights Dream [its a play in English by Shakespeare], act 1 scene 1

"believed to have been written around 1594 to 1596" - Wikipedia

"air" - "ear"....... assonance?

I haven't gone to any reference sources, but for what my general knowledge is worth, English/Scots "air" (with or without an archaic e on its end), French "aire", Italian "aria" and probably other languages with cognates are all using the same root concept of sound borne through the air/sound emanating on the air exhaled by a singer/instrumentalist etc. to denote a melody. If there's a traceable sequence of adoption/spread of the word I'd guess it came from Italy (like so much to do with music) and got adopted in translation. It really does not matter which language used it first - the concept is clearly a common one and I don't think the modern ITM use of it is more than a variant with perhaps a slightly more specific sense to it. I think the older sources that have been referred to in this thread were all using the word in its general Indo-European or at least Romance musical meaning - essentially synonymous with "tune" and "melody" and not having any clear or exclusive association with (slower) speed/tempo/rhythm or with dance or song use. Even in ITM usage tunes like O'Carolan's that are neither dance nor song associated have long been termed "airs", but not "slow airs". For some typical uses see this link from an online presentation of A Collection Of Ancient Songs, Ballads, And Dance Tunes, Illustrative Of The National Music Of England by W. CHAPPELL. With Short Introductions To The Different Reigns, And Notices Of The Airs From Writers Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries, This is volume one of two. Published By Cramer, Seals, & Chappell, 20. Regent Street. London circa 1860.

[oakuss]

Yeah, I get you. Still, I like the dances more than the airs. But what I like is when they are played at a leisurely tempo, with a lot of style and personality. What is a leisurely tempo? However fast you can go and still play well, with a lot of style and personality. For a lot of great players, that's pretty bloody fast - and still they make it sound so comfortable. But I'm happy hearing it pretty slow as well, as long as it is played really well.

It's kind of like eating slowly, tasting everything.

[quote="CelticWhistler"]Okay, I admit it. As a whistle player (and soon-to-be flute player), I don't like fast Irish tradition music (reels, jigs, etc). No offense to anyone here, and I am not knocking this style. But for me personally, it just doesn't work. I have played the whistle for more than 5 years now, and started out playing fast ITM, but I don't play this style any more. Modern society is already rush-rush enough as it is.

[AlBrown]

I think I see a consensus brewing here. Not that 'air' has one definition, but that the same word can have different meanings, and certainly different connotations in different countries and different musical traditions (the English, Irish and Scots interpreting different things different ways, imagine that!). In my experience, here amongst New England musicians who play in the Irish tradition, the word 'air' is used to mean the tune to a song, but more commonly it is used to describe a slow instrumental tune, almost always played solo, which has an elasticity to its rhythm, especially as you get to the end of phrases, where it often slows even more (like a Sean Nos song). It is distinguished from waltzes, harp tunes, and other tunes which may be slow, but have a regular meter to them. These 'regular meter' tunes are the most commonly heard slow tunes at a session, because they lend themselves to communal playing, where an air is more of an individual endeavor. A common beginner mistake is to attempt to join in on an air, which often stomps on it. Many accompanists will not play along on an air, even if they know the person playing it very well.

[jemtheflute]

I'll subscribe to your outline consensus statement, Al - a pretty fair summary, IMO.

[benhall.1]

I agree too, Al. Reasonably, and reasonably accurately, put.

[s1m0n]

Oh, I accept that the word "air" is used extremely loosely by O'Neill and others. Plenty of ambiguity there. It's not, per se, a "Scots dialect word", though. It's English. The Scots may well have borrowed it ...

The scots dialect is english. Or at least, anglish. Only they pronounce it ingliss. They stole the name from the scotoi (who were irish), but the language now called scots is the language that germanic speaking anglo-saxons brought into the lowlands at the same time they settled England. They pushed the real scots into the highlands and islands and then took their name.

[david_h]

Don't the Picts come into that somewhere ?