[Harp-L] Irish Music as SPAH

[Aongus Mac Cana]

I was intrigued to hear that Richard Sleigh is going to teach Irish Trad at
SPAH this year. I would dearly like to participate.

Alas as I am somewhat past my "sell by date" and live on the other side of
the Atlantic I am unlikely ever to attend a SPAH gig. Maybe with a bit of
luck I might one day make it as far as the NHL festival in Bristol.

It is not all bad though. In two weeks time I hope to be able to take
classes from Mick Kinsella and Rick Epping at the Willie Clancy Summer
School in Milltown Malbay County Clare.

I heard an up and coming young Traditional Irish Fiddler being interviewed
on radio some time ago. He remarked that when you achieve a reasonable level
of competence with your instrument that listening becomes as important as
practice. I think that he might well be right and I would recommend any
aspiring trad player to build up an Irish Music disk collection - not all
just harmonica either.

Richard mentioned that he intends to use some of Brendan Power's teaching
resources. Brendan Power is of course the "Sean Maguire" of Irish Harmonica
(any Irish Trad aficionado will know exactly what that means!) His album
"The New Irish Harmonica" is a good start to an Irish Harmonica record
collection.

Good luck to all Richard's students. The Irish Trad scene needs a few more
harmonica players.

Beannachtai

Aongus Mac Cana

[rex]

I have never been to Ireland but do enjoy the music. I have read from online sources such as this one

http://www.davesharmonicas.com/all-ireland-champions.htm

that in Ireland they prefer tremolo harps, which they call mouth organs. However it seems that here in the States the diatonic and chromatic are the top choices for playing Irish music. In the provided link it says at a gathering of 50 Irish players 47 were playing tremolo. Noel Battle and Henry Creaney are both tremolo players. I do enjoy Brendan Powers music and have no doubt that Richard will do a fine job. I was fortunate to sit in on a SPAH Teach In hosted by James Conway. He had a variety of harps that included some tremolo harps. 

[Aongus Mac Cana]

Hi Rex,

Thanks for your note.

You are right that the Irish Trad “establishment” does incline to favour the Tremolo. In fact competitions usually just have a tremolo class with the Chromatic for instance placed in the category of “other instruments”. This does not suit me as I am not crazy about the Tremolo myself, although the top exponents of the instrument such as Noel Battle and the Murphy brothers are very good at what they do and render the tunes accurately and with flair. I had the privilege of playing a duet with multiple All Ireland Champion Noel Battle at a Music School/Festival in Kerry last year.

The Irish traditional music establishment can be slow to adapt to new instruments. The two row button accordion which is now a mainstay of the Irish Trad scene used to be frowned on years ago as not being “quite traditional”. Even now the Piano accordion is not exactly “flavour of the month”.

If you are interested in learning to play Irish music I would recommend that you look up the “Dusty Banjos” web site. They have great teaching aids particularly a tutor book and accompanying CDs where tunes are played at a very slow pace and then at normal speed. Working your way through that book would give you fifty or so regular tunes that would enable you to partake in any session.

Just last night at an event in Gort County Galway I picked up a certificate for playing in a Guinness Book of Records event last year, where 406 musicians on a variety of instruments played an Irish Music set. The previous record was 300.

Beannachtai

Aongus