dots vs ears

[Hoovorff]

As an aside re: Folk music and "classical" music: When I was doing musicology/music history, I wrote an entire dissertation on the way British and Irish composers tried to create operas based on their own folk tales and folk music, just as the Germans and others were doing on the continent. (Musical competition akin to the militaristic/imperial competition occurring simultaneously.)

A composer named Charles Stanford composed an opera titled "Shamus O'Brien." It used just one Irish folk tune and then his "imitation" of an Irish style. It was considered a controversial opera because of all the Irish troubles and the Home Rule issue going on at the end of the 19th century. Stanford opposed Home Rule, but the English press considered his opera dangerous because it depicted the rebellion of 1798 and the hero was a "peasant." The press in the Republic of Ireland embraced the work as truly national. The English banned the opera from performance during the worst years of the Irish troubles.

Stanford's use of the Irish tune and his recreation of the Irish style is pretty stereotyped (and amusing, now). He got the tune from a 19th century collection. I doubt if he'd heard much authentic Irish music, since he spent most of his career at the Royal College in London.


Jeanie

[colomon]

It's not a matter of music not being created in a vacuum -- it's more a matter of ready influences, and ready exposure. A Mozart tune might make it into a popular collection (see Riley's Flute Melodies, for eg.), but it's doubtful the musically illiterate were reading or being influenced by such melodies.

And are you so certain that everyone who ever had musical influence on Ireland was musically illiterate? That seems a rather rash assumption to me.

I've just been glancing at the pages covering the 1700s in O hAllmhurain's Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music, and the environment he describes sounds vastly more complex than the impression I get from you.

A) Harpers like O'Carolan were definitely influenced by baroque music.

B) Instruments like the fiddle came from the Continent, long after the instruments' evolution was influenced by the demands of "classical" music.

C) A lot of the older dances came over from France.

D) Reels came from Scotland, and as they started to make inroads in Ireland: "Sheet music, which appeared in Dublin in the 1790s, contained well-known Scottish reels like 'Miss McLeod', 'Lord McDonald', 'Miss Johnson', and 'Rakish Paddy'." (I don't know how much influence the sheet music itself had, but its very existence suggests a different world than you seem to be picturing.)

E) Hornpipes came from England, where they had been popular in English theatre.

Irish music has a glorious mish-mash of influences. It seems to me that James is dead on right -- music for which notation is important has been a part of those influences since at least 1700. (The Mozart example is weak, because he's 50-100 years later than most of the main formative influences of the music, and the influence would generally have been more subtle than just incorporating a classical melody into a tune anyway.)

Mind you, I'm not clear what this has to do with the use of dots in ITM. The tradition is oral, and that's a really important part of what the tradition is all about. I've already said I don't think you can really learn a tune just from the dots -- you might get the basic notes and general style, but not the rich tradition of how that tune is played.

[peeplj]

Colomon, great post!

Also the jig is of Germanic origin.

On the reel, I have seen some authors attribute it to Scotland, and some to the Irish. It does seem most point to Scotland as being the birthplace of the reel, though.

In actuality, the point of my post didn't really have to do with whether or not you use written music to learn the tunes.

The point of my post is that very early in the evolution of Western music as different people--mainly monks--where experimenting with different ways to notate written music, the music and the notation evolved together and influenced each other. At the time I'm referring to, Western music consisted primarily of monophonic plainsong.

Everything else in Western music evolved from that early plainsong. That's where the modes came from, it's where our concept of a scale came from, it's where our concept of rhythm and melody came from, and the very earliest notions of harmony had their beginnings in that early plainsong as well, as voices at a constant interval moved in parallel motion.

--James

[Gordon]

I wasn't saying all Irish musicians were musically illiterate. I said that folk music was the result of the common musician/non-musician, and most in this category were musically illiterate. What you are doing is reading music history backwards; finding examples where folk music influenced published or performance works (English theater wasn't all that high-brow, long ago, BTW), and inferring there was some open exchange of musical influences, back and forth, between musical institutions. Folk music, by it's very nature, tends to be stubborn in its traditions (I know this will come as a shock to you all). While polkas and hornpipes may have migrated into the tradition (which they certainly did) from other cultures, they didn't arrive via written music. Which is, I believe, your contention.

Lastly -and this sort of idea adds to the misconception that all things Irish are ITM - accomplished musicians such as O'Carollan weren't considered traditional at all until relatively recently. When Sean O'Raida (sp?) recorded many of his tunes with soon-to-be members of the Chieftains, with the harpsichord as his instrument, many of his tunes joined the fold at our local sessions. Indeed, the recording is great, and it definitely influenced ITM after the fact, but that's putting the old cart before the horse.

But enough on this. Notation helps, doesn't hurt, and still has nothing to do with tradition.

Gordon

[Wormdiet]

I wasn't saying all Irish musicians were musically illiterate. I said that folk music was the result of the common musician/non-musician, and most in this category were musically illiterate. What you are doing is reading music history backwards; finding examples where folk music influenced published or performance works (English theater wasn't all that high-brow, long ago, BTW), and inferring there was some open exchange of musical influences, back and forth, between musical institutions.

And the straw-man goes down!
No one is saying that folk music is dumbed-down classical music. The strongest claim anyone has made is that classical music has had a tangible impact on folk music in Ireland, as James has demonstrated.

Folk music, by it's very nature, tends to be stubborn in its traditions (I know this will come as a shock to you all).

Again, I contend that in the absence of records on what "folk music" was really like, it's very difficult to say what the rate of change was. I do know that the Pibroch tradition has changed tremendously due to the influence of the MacCrimmons.

Let's speculate on the nature of "traditional" Irish music in, say, 1400. No modern fiddles, no Upipes, no flutes. So the big three "traditional" instruments are out of the picture. Probably not any reels, jigs, or hornpipes. What are we left with? Where is this pristine kernel of folky purity that defines ITM? Harpers, perhaps? Wait a minute, upper-class, professional musicians, say they couldn't have influenced folk music, right?

Lastly -and this sort of idea adds to the misconception that all things Irish are ITM - accomplished musicians such as O'Carollan weren't considered traditional at all until relatively recently. When Sean O'Raida (sp?) recorded many of his tunes with soon-to-be members of the Chieftains, with the harpsichord as his instrument, many of his tunes joined the fold at our local sessions. .. . .
Gordon

More evidence that folk traditions are malleable and evolve. which is certainly true of the modern era.

You can't have it both ways - On the one hand saying that "traditional" music doesn't evolve, and on the other, simply defining "traditional" music as folk music stripped of its outside influences. It's circular reasoning.

At the end of the day, it's all music - whether "trad" or not, whatever that is or might have been. The music stands or falls on the basis of the subjective reception of the individual listener - ie whether they enjoy it or not. The category which we antiquarians on a message board shoehorn it into is in the end pretty insignificant.

[Cathy Wilde]

At the end of the day, it's all music - whether "trad" or not, whatever that is or might have been. The music stands or falls on the basis of the subjective reception of the individual listener - ie whether they enjoy it or not. The category which we antiquarians on a message board shoehorn it into is in the end pretty insignificant.

(In the tradition of The Great Amen"): Aaaaaaaa-mennnn.

One last thing: I must beg context again. Very rarely is there a true vacuum in these situations -- I mean, we're not talking the Kalahari here. Thus, I would not underestimate the influence of churches, church schools, missionaries, and in the Catholic case, the nuns. I'm willing to bet a couple of pints that there were a few sisters who managed to beat some notation, even in the form of piano chords, into the occasional rural head over the years!

And of course, those constantly-invading armies way back when .....

Also, any city of any consequence had its share of itinerant musicians, teachers, and even the occasional composer after -- what? 1650? And in later days, I don't recall Dublin being on the young Mozart's tour, but he did hit London ... and who knows how influences spread from there? All it takes is one provincial music-master visiting his auntie in London and hearing young Wolfgang at someone's salon and then surviving the boat trip back home ....

And the hedge schools with the ABC notation ... well somebody had to know how to parse a tune and understand basic rhythm, meter, structure, etc. to come up with the language in the first place .....

So I propose that a bit of cross-pollenation is unavoidable here. Granted, most of the influence probably came from the non-formal-training side of things, but nothing I've seen here has convinced me that -- particularly in Irish music post-1700 -- there isn't some strain of formal musical influence from some quarter, somewhere, in much of the music -- except for perhaps that from the most remote areas and the true sean nos.

[Dana]

So I propose that a bit of cross-pollenation is unavoidable here.

I agree completely.

[Tjones]

Gordon,
I'm sure glad you've decided to take part again. This is a great discussion, I was starting to miss this aspect of the flute forum.

Tjones

[colomon]

I wasn't saying all Irish musicians were musically illiterate. I said that folk music was the result of the common musician/non-musician, and most in this category were musically illiterate. What you are doing is reading music history backwards; finding examples where folk music influenced published or performance works (English theater wasn't all that high-brow, long ago, BTW), and inferring there was some open exchange of musical influences, back and forth, between musical institutions. Folk music, by it's very nature, tends to be stubborn in its traditions (I know this will come as a shock to you all). While polkas and hornpipes may have migrated into the tradition (which they certainly did) from other cultures, they didn't arrive via written music. Which is, I believe, your contention.

No, I'm not contending dance forms like hornpipe arrived via sheet music. I'm contending that the "classical" tradition (including sheet music) influenced the development of the hornpipe. Handel and Purcell were writing hornpipes half a century before the form reached Ireland. If you want to claim that their work (and the work of dozens of less famous composers) did not influence the development of the hornpipe in the least, you've got a heck of a lot to prove.

If this folk music of yours was so stubborn, how did it adopt polkas, hornpipes, mazurkas, highlands, and yes, probably even reels? Why did many of the dances come over from the Continent?

In my experience, "folk" pick up music from everywhere they hear it. They don't give a rat's ass where it came from -- if they like it, they take it and make it their own. They are conservative, yes, but they hardly exist in a vacuum. The old flute player from Sligo has the odd Tin-pan Alley song as a flute air; the old singers from Newfoundland might sing you a Hank Williams song in between a 19th century Ohio song and an old Irish ballad. They don't worry about some mystical folk purity, they just perform what they like.

[Wormdiet]

Gordon,
I'm sure glad you've decided to take part again. This is a great discussion, I was starting to miss this aspect of the flute forum.

Tjones

I hope everybody recognizes my post above as debate/discussion - not a flame of any sort. This type of thing *is* fun if it doesn;t get personal.

[peeplj]

Gordon,
I'm sure glad you've decided to take part again. This is a great discussion, I was starting to miss this aspect of the flute forum.

Tjones

I hope everybody recognizes my post above as debate/discussion - not a flame of any sort. This type of thing *is* fun if it doesn;t get personal.

I agree--and I must add that even though I wasn't looking to start up an intense discussion, I am enjoying this thread.

--James

[Dana]

Hhmph. My tradition is better/purer/more original than your tradition!

I agree, this has been a fun thread.

Dana

[Denny]

In my experience, "folk" pick up music from everywhere they hear it. They don't give a rat's ass where it came from -- if they like it, they take it and make it their own.

Are you trying to say that they were musicians first?

My tradition is quite a hodge podge of extraneous sh*t...

Life is a strange old duck.
-Hank-

[David Levine]

Now go play...

[Cathy Wilde]

Hank lives!!!!

I've enjoyed this thread, too. This past weekend I had the honor of meeting and sharing a few tunes with a fellow named Tomas O'Canainn from West Cork. In addition to being a poet, singer, composer, author ("Traditional Music in Ireland", Ossian Publications), and pure-drop piper extraordinaire, he is also Sean O'Riada's successor in the music department at University College, Cork. Tomas is truly the living tradition and a lovely, brilliant man; I only wish I'd thought to ask him all this then!

(Incidentally, his compositions and arrangements are available in dot form : http://homepage.eircom.net/~tocanainn)