Blue grass and american folk music on irish flute

[AnthonyBeers]

hello all,

Was sitting here (in Africa missing home again) and wondering if any one really plays any bluegrass or other appalacian music on the flute, I figure it must be possible, since the Dulcimer was invented by Scottish imagrants (old ones are diatonic) and the army of wood cutters coal miners, colliers, and iron workers contained a healthy number of Irish and Scottish imagrants, that's how I got to be born there (irish german).

It seems strange that the accordian, mandolin and the fiddle which are so comon back home were not joined by the flute. I even occasionally have herd a stray Highland Pipe in the mountains.

If anyone has any good tunes, historical ideas why or Tony you are dumb they play it all the time. I will be interested to hear about it.

[jim stone]

I play a lot of Old Time music on whistle and flute.
There is a Folk School here in St. Louis, with jam sessions
every other saturday, and I sit in. The D whistle works
very well. I also use an A fife (Sweet, cherry),
which helps for A and D. This works fine.
I play the D concert flute too, and that is so
far the most difficult, though it works. It has
to cut through banjos and fiddles; however
I do think it has a good deal of potential.

People are glad I'm there.

There is a bluegrass session too, happening in
another room at the same time. How welcome
I am depends on how purist they are. If they're
after the Bill Monroe sound, i'm less welcome.
Again the D whistle works fine.

Why flutes and whistles weren't included I don't know,
but they seem perfectly natural for this music,
especially Old Time, and I hope more people
start playing them.

Of course if you're at all adept at ITM you have
adequate chops for Old Time. The tunes (fiddle tunes) are
full of life and lovely but simpler, you can often
pick them up on the fly, and ITM ornamentation
works fine. Also there is more possibility to
play harmonies and to solo.

Good stuff.

[MTGuru]

This is an interesting question. Here's the short version of my conjecture.

The Appalachian region was settled largely by Ulster Scots and Border Scots from the Marches during the great migration from around 1720 to 1770 following the Acts of Union of 1706-7, as these marginalized populations came under increasing political and economic pressure. Being unwelcome in the already settled coastal and tidewater colonies, they pushed south into Appalachia mostly through Chesapeake region ports.

During this time, piping traditions throughout Great Britain were experiencing a period of decline in favor of the fiddle - the truly hot instrument of the 18th century in terms of popularity, availability, affordability, and portability. The settlers' music reflected this prevailing context, reinforced by availability of cheap instruments in trade with piedmont and lowland areas of the American South, populated largely by immigrants from southern England and East Anglia where piping traditions were weak but fiddles were popular.

In this period, the baroque flute (or flageolet) was confined to the drawing room as an expensive, genteel and quiet instrument, less readily available, and with insufficient power to be seen as an attractive solo instrument for driving dance music. The era of cheap simple system flutes following the Boehm explosion of the late 19th century was still a hundred years away. And cheap mass produced tin whistles awaited the arrival of industrialization and the availability of rolled metals around the same time.

Fifing was confined mainly to an organized military context with weak influence in Appalachia. Reed flutes and whistles must have existed in Appalachian folkways, but more as children's toys and personal amusements than for dance music; and perhaps as a stronger tradition among African-American populations than in white Appalachia, if survivals of folk wind playing in the South (e.g. Otha Turner) and the Caribbean are any indication.

These factors strongly favored the fiddle as the dominant instrument in autonomous Appalachian trad. The 19th century addition of banjo as an accretion from minstrel pop music completed the picture. By the time of the mid 19th century resurgence of piping in Scotland, the Borders, and Northumbria, the isolation of Appalachia from even other American traditions had cut off that avenue of influence.

Notably, fluting and whistling never gained or re-gained a strong footing in Scottish music either. To the extent that flutes and whistles are fairly common in Scottish trad today, it's largely a back-influence from the Irish and pan-Celtic revivals of recent years. And areas such as the Scottish Northeast remain strongly fiddle-centric. Whether the subtle bias against wind playing is due to historical accident, or the dominance of GHB and its unfriendliness to co-existence with other winds, or to some deeper underlying aesthetic animus toward winds, remains an open question.

[tin tin]

Very interesting (and plausible) conjecture, MT.
Here's a thread that involved similar subjects. Check out the Nicholas Williams clip for a cool example of Old-Time flute playing.

[MTGuru]

Thanks for the links, Tintin! Yes, that other thread circles around some of the same issues. It's a research topic of ongoing personal interest to me. And I quite enjoyed the Nicholas Williams cut.

I sometimes cite this recording of Dubuque I made a few years ago on whistle with Mark O'Connor on fiddle and Jane Gillman on dulcimer as one example of trying to work a very simple non-ITM whistle approach into an Old Time setting. I'm not convinced it was entirely successful.

http://www.box.net/shared/ctm1umvkap

[AnthonyBeers]

Thanks so far this is very interesting, the other post was equally interesting.

Coming form PA (the backwoods part that is not Philly nor Pittsburg and nobody cares about) I kind of fall inbetween the northern and southern realities. Not New York or New England, and not anything like Georga.

I think it is complicated because our mountains were industrialized with the Blast Furnaces and the coal mines which employed an army of colliers, lumbermen, coal miners, Iron Casters, iron ore miners, wild caters, and all the others you need to keep them alive, farmers, coopers, cobblers and the like. When the timber (fuel) ran out, it all dissapeared.


any way, wondering if any one knows and good tune sources, I seem to be coming up with nothing but Tabs which don't help the old flute much.

P.S. Nice Tune I like it a lot

[jim stone]

This is pretty good, and if you search on tune names (midi)
you'll find other renditions of the same tunes.

Cold Frosty Morning is my favorite.

Also Kitchen Girl.
Possum Up a Gum Stump.
Going Down to Cairo
Nail that Catfish to the Tree

[G1]

I mentioned this somewhere here before, but roughly between the years of 1969-1972 I used to attend bluegrass jams in the fan district of Richmond, Virginia (USA); where there were sometimes as many as 30 musicians with banjos, mandolins, guitars and fiddles.

At one particular session, I showed up with a silver platter key flute - which brought much laughter and a bit of scorn. I was informed that 'you can't play flute to blugrass'. I proceeded to throw out my mish-mosh of Irish riffs to the old standards, and they changed their tunes (lol). After which, I explained the source and they became interested in this 'Irish music stuff'.

I hit the road full time shortly thereafter and don't know what became of it, but it sure is interesting how music and a little inventiveness can break stereotypes. Gotta love it!

[mcdafydd]

I stumbled upon a guy playing some nice blues riffs on a Boehm flute in New Orleans one evening. If you like the flute, you probably would've liked it despite how non-traditional it was. Maybe bluegrass is the next tradition ripe for flute-picking to take it into the next era.

[bepoq]

Would have called it a bit better than conjecture myself. Reckon you are right on both counts MT. There is a reason most of the Scottish flute players (with the notable exception of Nuala Kennedy - not from Scotland) play rather like Mike McGoldrick (latterly of Capercailie).

The emigration in question took place before the instrument in question was part of the tradition - simple enough, eh?

(kindly blame any inaccuracy or bluntness on too many pints recently (by which I mean in the last hour or two)).

[jim stone]

http://hetzler.homestead.com/music_2.html

Sorry, this got left out of my earlier post.
Good source of Old Time tunes,
and if you search on the tune names plus 'midi'
you get other midi settings.

Also

http://www.kitchenmusician.net/pages/km ... rigin.html

[mutepointe]

As summer is here and there are more music festivals, I was going to ask this question too. On stage is every type of old man (sometimes woman) with every type of stringed instrument known to mountainfolk. They could really set themselves apart if they added a whistle.

I do my part to adding whistle to modern folk music. To many people, I'm the best folk music whistler they know.

[MTGuru]

Thanks for weighing in, Ben ... even if it is the Guinness talking.

I wouldn't want to stick my neck out too far unless I can back up details and fill in some holes. For example, I suspect that fifing might have had more influence than is apparent.

I sure don't see anything wrong with trying to bring flute and whistle into Old Time as has happened in Scottish music, if you can pull it off with some acceptance from other players. After all, that's how all traditions acquire new instruments and evolve.

[crookedtune]

....if you can pull it off with some acceptance from other players.....

And therein lies the rub. My advice is to be very sensitive to the preferences of fellow session players. Like celtic sessions, old-time jams are often traditional by design, and you don't want to spoil that. But you can look for ways to splinter off with one or more of those musicians who are accepting of your instrument. I think flute and whistle work great with American folk/trad styles.

[AnthonyBeers]

I kind of guess it depends on what you think about "folk" music. When I think of folk music i think well folks. People, it is kind of an inclusive thing. (I know modern usage is different probably than the dialect of english I grew up speaking) But If you can play well and can keep up. I don't see why there would be any instrument should be barred as long as it could be played tastefully and stylistically. Empahsis on the last two points.
(some weird instruments (weird from a western music stand point) may not fit)

Maybe I am to romantic about available instruments and musicians.