who are the true heroes of this new age of piping?

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 12:27 pm

Well , for a start, 'the session' was unknown in Dublin (or anywhere) in the 40's. It was not as big a deal to sit down and play with others, that is a subsequent social/ cultural (at times anti-social and anti-cultural) manifestation. That it is a reletively new fad is clearly displayed in the amount that the aforementioned players (and others before them) chose to record solo.

In terms of comparisons I'm talking solely in the context of piping here. Comparing pipers to each other, not critically but to see and to be able to hear and celebrate what they were doing that was so different to each other. The notion of comparing players critically to contemporaries is not important or useful to me, I value any musician ( or skip over them) on what they were/are doing (or not doing) themselves and generally only trace influences as a matter of interest. What use in judging a musician on their contemporaries? I'm just glad to hear good,expressive, unique musicians (or even not so good or unique sounding ones!). Even more unfair is to judge them completely out of context on our own ever faltering standards.

In my experience the listening skill acquiring process is a rewarding one. The closer you truely and non judgmentally just listen, the more you hear, the more you like, the more you play...

Regards,

Harry.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:36 pm

Hmm ... this is devolving into a very subjective area of personal tastes. The appreciation of each musician as you suggest would depend on one's personal experiences, past influences, and concious or unconcious prejudices. For instance, if I am not a player, nor trying to be one, I would have a very different take on what is good or bad about a particular rendition of a tune. It would also affect my tastes as to what makes a good tune over a dull one. As someone who is trying to gain some abilities as a player, my tastes could be based more on a musician's technique or variations instead of just accepting the music as played. A dancer might again have very different priorities as to what points they may deem important when they are listening.

For instance, when I listen to Clancy's playing, I am struck by his variations, by the way he plays more of an "impression" of the tune than the tune itself (very jazz, that). You might hear something very different when listening to the same thing. So if you should say that someone is very good, or what they did on such and such a track is superb, I might find the same thing unremarkable, and wonder what the fuss is about. That is where I would appreciate some guidance on what it is more experienced players find significant when they listen, so that I may broaden/improve my own understanding of the subtleties of the music.

Am I making any sense?

djm

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 2:37 pm

Yes, you are. I am all for interpretive listening/ reading resources used in context but I would caution against taking them too much as bible or overstating them to the extent that they impair the developement of your own listening skills.

Whatever you or I think of Willie Clancy's playing and brilliant, organic employment of variation it is still a thing that exists in it's own right regardless of any baggage that we bring to it ( for example, his use of variation isn't 'very jazz', it is more accurately 'very Willie Clancy's use of variation'!).

It is my opinion that if anything beyond our own personal experience is to be understood in it's own right by us then it takes a suspension of many of our constructed beliefs and values. When you just truly listen and don't think, criticise or cast value judgements from your experience onto somebody else's (often vast) experience then you just have music being played by a fellow human being. It either sounds expressive or not so expressive, complex or less complex, fast or slow etc., of course our perceptions of these things might change as we evolve as listeners and accordingly what we are drawn to listen to in the playing will probably change as new facets of it reveal themselves to our concious aural awareness. (I remeber listening to tapes of The Bothy Band when I was a kid just starting off, tapping my toe to the booming accompaniment, the intricacies of the melody had not yet 'sunk in', I didn't become tuned into that untill I started the long but rewarding task of sitting down, listening over and over again to get passages of the melody and trying to play it on the whistle. Years of listening later I now hear fairly well what is happening melodically and I can enjoy the accompaniment if I wish).

I think the key to understanding such material lies in accepting it on it's own terms, not just dissecting it to composite, 'easier' parts or comparing it to something that is quite integrally different through imposed values that are not really pertinent to it.

Regards,

Harry.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 5:00 pm

of course our perceptions of these things might change as we evolve as listeners and accordingly what we are drawn to listen to in the playing will probably change as new facets of it reveal themselves to our concious aural awareness

Sounds suspiciously like, "Wait till you're older, dear."

Okay, I'll wait a bit longer. So I just got some new piping CDs. How come I'm so very drawn to the playing of John McSherry, but politely bored by Pádraic Mac Mathúna? (that ought to get the natives restless

).

djm

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 5:50 pm

Harry wrote:It is my opinion that if anything beyond our own personal experience is to be understood in it's own right by us then it takes a suspension of many of our constructed beliefs and values. When you just truly listen and don't think, criticise or cast value judgements from your experience onto somebody else's (often vast) experience then you just have music being played by a fellow human being. It either sounds expressive or not so expressive, complex or less complex, fast or slow etc.

Wow, Harry, brilliant!

You really should think of writing books.

g

john mcsherry · Post by **john mcsherry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:02 pm

Hello,
Just popped my head in to see what's been going on. While I'm here I might as well offer a few of my thoughts on things. I'm a great believer in respecting what has gone before (within reason). There's a few recordings I've heard of Seamus Ennis as a younger man. His playing was sweet, precise, tuneful, in constant tempo and above all it incorporated all the elements of an energetic, imaginative, innovative and adventurous player.
This for me was Ennis at his best! Good for the listener as well as the avid piping enthusiast. Indeed, I'm inclined to think that he was a very forward thinking kindo' chap in those days. I've listened to almost everything else by Ennis subsequently and have found these later recordings to be of a man not in top form. His lack of control of the instrument is very apparent to me but of course he's older? Anyway, one can still appreciate his musicianship and skills at this time but should be careful of falling into the trap of worshipping and idolising the WRONG thing!
Good piping should incorporate all the various elements of good music. I've often wondered why Ennis has been the 'Guru' for so many pipers and not the likes of Doran or Touhy.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
Keep piping sweetly on.
John

NicoMoreno · Post by **NicoMoreno** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:03 pm

but Harry: expressive, complex.. these are all things that can only be determined by judgement, or using ones brain to think about the music.

Complex for some isn't necessarily complex for others, unless you are merely talking in terms of # of notes. Expressiveness can come on a long long note, as well, as on a series of 16th notes, but some people will find one more expressive than the other, or even different long notes more expressive or less expressive based on there judgment of the music

I am not trying to be argumentative, merely curious if you can offer more objective observations. (I appreciate what you wrote, and am not really in disagreement, but I am curious... I guess I am sort trying to play Devil's Advocate)

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:21 pm

DJM-
"Sounds suspiciously like, "Wait till you're older, dear."".

I should point out that I didn't call you 'dear',darling. It's not so much to do with age as time spent at it with clarity of purpose IMHO.

DJM
"Okay, I'll wait a bit longer. So I just got some new piping CDs. How come I'm so very drawn to the playing of John McSherry, but politely bored by Pádraic Mac Mathúna?"

That's a question best worked out by yourself methinks.

Regards,

H.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:57 pm

NicoMoreno wrote:but Harry: expressive, complex.. these are all things that can only be determined by judgement, or using ones brain to think about the music.

Yes, complex may have been the wrong word to use there, maybe intricate or less intricate. Do you really need to say to yourself conciously that you are listening to something that is fast relative to your chosen way of playing? Or do you just hear and/or feel the 'fast' or 'faster' and get exited ,or alternatively, get agitated and then tell yourself this? Same goes for intricate or less intricate? Do you hear it being too notey and tell yourself this mentally or do you feel it being too notey first?

I think a form as abstract as music belongs primarily in the realms of the emotions and that our mental responses are a middle man that is seriously open to suggestion (and there is *a lot* of suggestion around).

I would primarily consider (or at least certainly aspire to) determining the level of expression in a performance as a non thinking, solely emotional response to it which of course can be expressed intellectually.

Regards,

Harry.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:21 pm

Okay, Harry. Not to get too personal or anything, but perhaps you could expand my horizons a bit by explaining the difference between the way you played on stage at Chris Langan Weekend versus the way you played on your album, As I Carelessly Did Stray. Was the album a personal statement, and the stage performance just a crowd pleaser, or do you see the two very different styles as parts of the same coin (and if so, why)?

Was that really John McSherry, or is one of you pricks just winding me up?

The album I was referring to is At First Light, and no, it isn't just speed that attracts me so much as the fluidity of movement within a tune. I don't care too much for plain speed, like the rapid-fire execution of Robbie Hannan (though I wish I could play half so well), but when the notes fall together just right then the music takes on a colour that seems just right to me. Any complexity is absorbed into the music to make it a whole, so that it is neither too many nor too few notes, but just right.

Oops! I'm supposed to say IMHO.

djm

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:28 pm

john mcsherry wrote:I've often wondered why Ennis has been the 'Guru' for so many pipers and not the likes of Doran or Touhy.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
Keep piping sweetly on.
John

Howaya John,

I would say that in some diluted way Doran was a bigger influence than Ennis, that is if we are to believe all the pipers that claim to be playing 'the travelling style'. Keenan of course drew on the Doran influence and spawned a thousand clones. If only one or some of them would go that bit further back and actually listen to what Doran was doing that made his music so extraordinary and explore it today! Of course one of the true greats of last century, Willie Clancy, was influenced in no small way by Doran, he did choose to tackle the bull by the horns so to speak (he played quite closely after Doran at a stage in his stylistic development).

It's interesting that you state Touhey in your comparison, I've listened to Touhey tracks where he has lost control every bit as much as Ennis did in his own way. Still required listening in my own opinion of course. I love music that gets me 'edgy' sometimes.

Regards,

Harry.

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:32 pm

djm wrote:Okay, Harry. Not to get too personal or anything, but perhaps you could expand my horizons a bit by explaining the difference between the way you played on stage at Chris Langan Weekend versus the way you played on your album, As I Carelessly Did Stray. Was the album a personal statement, and the stage performance just a crowd pleaser, or do you see the two very different styles as parts of the same coin (and if so, why)?

djm

djm,

I'm not being coy here, but I honestly wasn't thinking about it on stage. I just did it.

I wasn't quite so enthralled/ exited/ happy/ playful with my sorroundings in the studio.

Regards,

H.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:50 pm

Perhaps a live album is what is needed (?). Too bad they tore down the Filmore East!

Not just a difference in playing style, but also in your choice of tunes on the album. Much more restrained, even fussy, playing. I notice a bit of the same on The Taproom Trio, where you only seldom let loose. When you were on stage I was sure I saw smoke coming off that stick!

djm

The Sporting Pitchfork · Sun Feb 22, 2004 12:26 am

This is utterly fascinating stuff and there's much that I'd like to add but I'm devastatingly hung over right now so the rest of you keep it up and perhaps I'll check back in later.

Ciao.

elbogo · Post by **elbogo** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 12:37 pm

Welcome to the forum, John!