Blodeugerdd: An Anthology of Welsh Music & Song

[jemtheflute]

Well, I've got to say it....... Wow! I received my complimentary (as a contributor) copies of the Blodeugerdd CD this-morning and I've just listened to it (while working on iainbeag's flute). It really is superb; Ceri has done a fantastic production job both in putting together the contributions and on the technical side. It is a great introduction to Welsh trad music and musicians and the current WTM scene, and everyone can be very proud of their contributions, but it also works well as an album, as was Ceri's intention. I hope someone else will give it a proper review here! I don't think anyone who enjoys traditional music will be disappointed if they buy it.

(BTW, this doesn't count as a commercial plug as I won't be gaining any significant royalties or anything from CD sales.)

[srt19170]

Thanks so much, srt19170 for your account. Great stuff. Ceri is indeed a delightful, knowledgeable, gentle person. I'd warrant the people you saw him playing with were probably his current fiddle-playing musical partner Christine Cooper, and the other two were most likely from Sling near Bethesda....and if one was paying pibgorn (and a George Ormiston flute I overhauled recently....) that will have been Andy MacLauchlin of Crasdant and maybe Stephen Rees, Crasdant's fiddler (I'm not sure if he lives in Sling, though I know he's in the Bethesda area....

Stephen Rees was indeed the fiddler. I didn't get to see Crasdant at the Festival, but I bought one of their CDs and was surprised/happy to hear the Polthogue Jig, which I recently learned. It's a lovely tune, and I like the Crasdant name for it as well -- the Teapot Jig.

[johnmcochran]

Thanks for the tip on the album, Jem. I picked up a copy today at the Folklife Festival down at the National Mall. It really is wonderful stuff. I'd highly recommend it.

There's lots of fine music being made under the hot D.C. sun down there on the National Mall. The kids and I saw The Hennessys ... Sild ... Linda Griffiths and her daughter, Lisa (who played smoothly thru some unexpected polyrhythmic accompaniment from Gai Toms and a group of Washington schoolkids ... banging, one tent over, on a "found" drum kit of scrap metal and plastic tubs).

My 4-year-old daughter, however, was most taken with a woman named Angharad Pearce Jones, who was clanging on an anvil next to a smoking furnace, demonstrating traditional iron-working. My daughter spent part of the evening yesterday clattering on an imaginary anvil with a wooden spoon. Music of a kind ... at least to her dad ...

[srt19170]

I didn't get to see Crasdant at the Festival, but I bought one of their CDs and was surprised/happy to hear the Polthogue Jig, which I recently learned. It's a lovely tune, and I like the Crasdant name for it as well -- the Teapot Jig.

After a more careful reading of the liner notes, I see that the Teapot Jig (Dick Lee) is actually the second jig on that track. Still a great name for a tune, though!

[johnmcochran]

Does anyone know anything about the tune on Track 4 of this CD? It's listed as "Ton can Pensylvania" or "Pennsylvania Song Tune."

It's beautiful ... and I'd like to learn it. Googling turns up nothing.

I'm doubly interested because I come from a pretty long-line of Pennsylvania coalminers and steelworkers, and I know something about the Welsh experience in the coalfields and steel mills of Pennsylvania. Just curious if there's a connection between that history and this tune ...

[benhall.1]

I don't know, but I would imagine that it is connected with the Pennsylvania in Cwmbran, South Wales, near where I grew up.

[srt19170]

Does anyone know anything about the tune on Track 4 of this CD? It's listed as "Ton can Pensylvania" or "Pennsylvania Song Tune."

I was curious about "Pembroke Spuds" and likewise found nothing on the Net. When I get a chance I might transcribe the first few bars and see if it's about under some other name.

I actually talked with Ceri Matthews about whether the Welsh tradition had made good use of the Internet in the way the Irish tradition has, and he said it hadn't. It's too bad because (regardless of your position on sheet music) that's one way to capture and preserve the music.

[jemtheflute]

Thing is, the WTM community is tiny by comparison with ITM, and so to have enough active people with enough time, expertise and volition to do do all that sort of stuff online is proportionately less likely (think what a huge proportion of ITM folk still don't....!)..... there was a specialist WTM website which set out to include tune notations (in ABC) a while back but it has died for lack of activity. There are several other online resources of Welsh tunes, including this one and our own Lesl Harker's: http://jodeejames.home.att.net/welshabc.htm, as well as Welsh inclusions in the mainstream ABC resources. These are pretty limited, however, and mostly won't include much obscure stuff or new compositions by musicians currently active in the tradition. There are also many very well known session/dance tunes (and also songs often sung, not necessarily by "folkies") of which it is hard to find printed copy. There is far less in the way of tunebooks available in print (hard copy) than for ITM or STM, though there are some very decent/useful ones (I have a Word Doc basic Bibliography I will happliy zap to anyone who wants to send me a request by PM with their e-address) and there is plenty more period material in archives awaiting rediscovery and publication.

I can't throw any further light on Ton Can Pensylvania, but if you want to link up with me on Facebook, srt19170, I can connect you to Ceri Ashton (with whom I have just linked up myself) who plays it with her sister on the CD and you can ask her yourself! Or maybe Ceri Rhys Matthews knows more about it - he's on FB too.

[Akiba]

Jem,

Fine playing on your track. Enjoying the duet, the harmony, one thing I miss in ITM. Well done.

What flutes are you and TS playing?

Thanks.

Jason

[jemtheflute]

Hi Jason. Thanks for the kind words. I'm playing my R&R (of course!) and Tom was playing my Rampone because the arrangement utilised its low B a couple of times and his own Aebi 8-key only goes down to C. (There is an alternative arrangement for those bits avoiding the low B, but we wanted to do it 'cos we could!)

Re: harmony - there is more of a tradition within the Welsh idiom of using harmony than in ITM (viz many of the other tracks on the CD), but that said, this arrangement is consciously modern and also referencing/imitating other things - it ain't "straight trad" by any means!

[jemtheflute]

Here's a link to an audio interview with Ceri about the Blodeugerdd project and what he was trying to do. It also has a little more info about the Pennsylvania thing at one point.