Irish mandolin

[danb]

Thanks Karen, it should be there soon

I'd also recommend, as others suggested, listening to the old masters. I get quite a bit of inspiration from Donegal fiddlers. Paddy Glackin (or his brothers Kevin & Seamus) are some of my favorites. Tommy Peoples ("The High Part of the Road") has been an enormous personal influence. Listen to what Brian & Michael do in Dervish.. the mandola + bouzouki is an excellent example of what backing should sound like.

[stevebenn]

One overlooked, but very valuable recording for Irish Mando is the first Touchstone album with Claudine Langille playing mando and tenor banjo. I think her playing on this album is brilliant and anyone looking to play Irish tunes on mando could do no better than to absorb what she is doing. BTW she is teaching at Swannanoa this summer.

Steve B.

[otterly2k]

YES YES!! I love this album...
Funny you should mention it... I was just in Halifax, and was visiting the local acoustic/folk music store there... plunking away on an old Gibson pancake mando they had there and was playing one of those tunes. The owner pops out of his workshop and says "Do you know where that's from??" (I didn't remember) and he pulls out the Touchstone LP.

Small world. Smaller mando world.

[glauber]

This is the one called "A New Land", right? (Yikes, Green Linnet). It seems to be out of print. There's one left (used) on Amazon.com, for $17, then a couple more for >$50.

[otterly2k]

Yes, that's the one. Great album... I think it's time that I get it on CD (still have the LP myself!)

[danb]

Touchstone is another frequent player on my iPod. I think "Jack Haggerty" is one of my favorite songs in the genre.

[Karen Kay]

Dan B. ~
Great! Can't wait for it to come. I've listened to the 2 tracks of "Shatter the Calm" on your site about a million-teen times. #

I didn't really know I liked Irish music as much as I thought but recently most of the tunes I'm learning are Irish and when I look for CD's it seems that it's Irish music that I end up buying. #I looked up the folks you suggested, Dan, & might have to get a couple of those. #I love the fiddle but the music I've been trying to find is Irish mandolin (etc) but seems it's not as easy as I thought. I bought a CD about a week ago by Round the House, "Keep This Coupon". #Dave Firestine is a friend from the CarpCamp at Winfield & the CD is a great find. #Dave plays an A Nugget, bouzouki, and banjo.

So, I guess anyone who could suggest more Irish mandolin music would be appreciated!
Karen
(now I have to go outside & watch the mailbox 'cause I feel Dan's CD might be here today)

[GBG]

Get the Michael Kerry CD-The Rocky Road.

[Karen Kay]

OK - where? #I found Michael Kerry before but seems it's out of stock at Amazon & the other places on the internet aren't selling his CD - just talkin' about it.
I also found "Extraction Reel" and like it a lot but I can't remember where or who did it?
Karen

[glauber]

OK - where?

CDBaby

[Karen Kay]

OK
Thanks a ton
KK

[glauber]

No problem. It took me forever to find it too. I wonder if it's really sold out, and there's just some leftover stock at CDBaby. The Website michaelkerry.com is dead, and my emails to him didn't get answered. It's really a fantastic album. I tell people to get that and Shatter the Calm, and between those two they should be able to find their personal style.

[Aidan Crossey]

Just revisited this thread after a while away and I'm amazed that my comment about John Carty has generated so much business for him!!

One of the problems for mandolin players is finding a ready supply of mandolin material to listen to. While the instrument is very popular with players of the music, few artists get to the stage where they're in a position to record a whole album.

On the upside, this leaves the mandolin player with lots of opportunities to blaze a trail.

I'd recommend that people listen really widely to Irish music and find out what pushes their particular buttons. To the outsider, Irish music may seem to be pretty much a "uniform" movement. The reality is that it's an incredibly broad church where style and taste unite and separate players. Michael Kerry's and Dan Beimborn's CDs exemplify two different approaches to the mandolin. Dan is a muscular player, whose use of energetic, aggressive (and alarmingly spot-on) triplets mirrors the energetic attack of the Donegal style. Kerry is more laid-back, but no less inventive and his style - to my ears - brings Clare to mind rather than the far North.

However, while Dan and Michael diverge as regards approach to their instrument, they also have many points of concurrence. Both are deadly serious about their instrument, pushing the boundaries and overcoming any technical limitations to create a sound which is uniquely "them" but also instantly recognisable as part and parcel of an evolving tradition. Great CDs both and worth shelling out a few quid for!

But whereas Dan and Michael represent two very different approaches to the music, there is a musch wider variety of styles and approaches available in the recorded repertoire of other instruments. If we think of fiddle alone, recordings of the great Sligo masters - Michael Coleman and James Morrison - are still readily available. Recorded in some instances over 80 years ago but still as fresh as ever (out of tune accompanists notwithstanding!).

And there's the great Donegal tradition - Johnny Doherty, Vincent Campbell, the Byrnes, etc.

Check out the superb "Paddy In The Smoke". Mainly solo fiddle playing recorded live in various North London pubs during the late 60s. Listen to Martin Byrnes work the fiddle and hear the buzz that announces him ("Byrnes! That's Byrnes!").

And then there are the latest crop ... Martin Hayes, the much-mentioned John Carty, Oisin MacDiarmada, Caoimhin O Raghallaigh to mention just a few of the fiddlers who've impressed me in recent years.

Not to mention pipers, fluters, whistlers, banjoists, box-players, concertina players ...

Listen widely and find the style(s) that stop you in your tracks. I'd recommend concentrating on solo players. The ensemble stuff can be great crack but those fussy drop-out arrangements, semi-harmonies and counter-melodies begin to grate after a while and, let's face it, the essence of Irish music is the solo player putting his or her mark on a tune.

Irish melodies generally adapt easily to the mandolin - after all, same tuning as the fiddle. However, tuning aside, the inherent differences between fiddle and mando mean that it's not possible (easily) to replicate fiddle technique on the mando. And not at all easy to replicate the sound, feel or approach of other instruments.

But remember, this leaves room for the creation of your own style. As long as certain rules-of-thumb are observed (and I doubt if anyone could list these easily ... since, like all aspects of the music, they are concerned with taste) then many avenues remain wide-open for exploration.

Think of the music as a journey ... the music comes quickly to some people, but generally reveals itself gradually (often frustratingly so) to most. Stick with it, even when it's seemingly beyond your grasp, and you'll bear fruit in your own good time.

[pickerfromhell]

One of the problems for mandolin players is finding a ready supply of mandolin material to listen to. While the instrument is very popular with players of the music, few artists get to the stage where they're in a position to record a whole album.

On the upside, this leaves the mandolin player with lots of opportunities to blaze a trail.

I certainly agree on the difficulty factor when researching music. Many times, I am just dipping into my fiddle repertoire, and blazing the so called trail. Some of my celtic music gets blended with the Ozark mountain influences.

cb

[Bluegrasstjej]

Thank you everyone for advice and replies! I don't know if I'm wiser now but at least I know it isn't any more complicated than what I'm already doing. Playing tunes and adding my style to them...Not good at those Irish ornamentations yet but I'm working on them.

[PaulD]

Some of my celtic music gets blended with the Ozark mountain influences.

While it might not be "pure Celtic" (whatever that means... Celtic comprises many traditions and the music is always evolving) I think the blending with local styles is part of what it's all about. For example, the Cape Breton music has a distinctive flavor all it's own, and I find myself gravitating often toward the Scottish bands even though I love the Irish music as well. And for those much more studied and knowledgable than I am there are notable differences between traditional music from the different Counties in Ireland. Pulling your Ozark Mountain influences in just continues this evolution, in my opinion.

With this in mind, I like Aidan's remark "Listen widely and find the style(s) that stop you in your tracks." I just replayed the Dervish Spirit CD tracks "O'Raghailligh's Grave/The Swallow's Tail" 5 or 6 times between last night and this morning... listening to the melody and arrangement and focussing on different instruments each time through; it stopped me in my tracks!

BTW: Can somebody give me an approximate pronunciation of "O'Raghailligh"? I'd like to reform my Celtic band (Formerly Gaeilge Briste) and incorporate this tune... I would need to be able to introduce it!

[glauber]

One overlooked, but very valuable recording for Irish Mando is the first Touchstone album with Claudine Langille playing mando and tenor banjo.

Mine just arrived. What a fantastic album! Thanks.

g

[otterly2k]

FWIW, Touchstone made a second album called Jealousy...also worth having. It seems I have both on LP, but am looking for a source for these in CD form so they can be loaded onto my Ipod~

[Bob DeVellis]

The anglicised pronounciation is "O'Reilly."

[steve V. johnson]

I found the two Touchstone albums at Green Linnet's website, on sale and on cassette, for $2.50 each. I haven't transcribed them to CD so far. Check the GL site, they may have more...

stv

[Karen Kay]

Just ordered Michael Kerry's, "The Rocky Road" and "'Til the Wee Hours" by Round the House - both from CD Baby.
Am looking forward to hearing them.
I was looking at some others I read here but it'll have to wait until payday unless I win the lottery...
KarenKay

[Richard Singleton]

Claudine Langille lives in Vermont now and plays in a band called Gypsy Reel. They have a website (with gig schedule) and several albums out. I'm hoping to see them live on July 3rd. I was fortunate to see Touchstone several times in their heyday. I read somewhere that Touchstone had done a reunion gig at a festival but didn't find out any more.

[TimPiazza]

I don't think I can add much to what's already been said, but I'm going to try anyway, since I'm at a point with the trad stuff where I've got a bunch of tunes under my fingers and am now trying to get them into my heart.

I asked John Carty what makes an Irish tune sound Irish. His comment was that it's the accent--the same as what makes a person from Ireland sound Irish when they speak. So now I am on a quest to understand what makes the Irish accent in the interpretation of a tune. Surely, it's the phrasing, grace notes, changes in dynamics and timing, and the ornaments, all executed in an Irish style. I guess that's just a different way of saying what has already been said, but perhaps it is worth repeating.

John proceded to play a version of Cooley's Reel that he was messing around with, in Dm instead of the usual key. This gave him more low notes to work with, and while the feel and timing of the tune was the same, the contour--the relationship of successive notes to each other--was very different. It sounded like a distant cousin to the original melody. This was an eye-opener to me, because until then I had thought taking such liberties with a traditional tune was a cause for serving penance.

Another thing that John said was that when repeating a tune, he thinks one should never repeat an ornament in the same way, in the same place. If it's anticipated, don't do it. I think he's suggesting that you should never let the clay between your fingers harden, you need to keep working it to keep it fresh and pliable, and that's the soul of Irish music.

I think the only way for an American player like myself to learn the Irish accent is by listening to as many versions of a tune as possible, learning to play as many variations as possible, and perhaps even learning the tunes on different instruments. With time and practice, the Irish accent will become second-nature.

While mandolin is my primary instrument, I also try playing tunes on whistle, button box, and fiddle, so that I can understand where some of the ornaments and phrasing come from. #Granted, I don't play any of these well, but that doesn't keep me from learning from the process.

[PaulD]

Tim... you illustrated very well the point I tried to make early on, although an equally valid point was made that one should learn and internalize the tunes prior to working on ornamentation. In fact, I think you can noodle around on the ornamentation just to get your fingers used to it, but you can't really apply it until you've "gotten inside the tune," to use a term from early in this thread.

I like what John Carty said about trying to play the tune a little differently each time through... I think that adds a lot to Irish/Celtic music since it's not typically played like Bluegrass where each instrument takes a break. I've noticed this in other players, but especially on Kevin Burke's Sweeney's Dream. Maybe it stands out to me on that album for the reason others have pointed out... it's mostly solo fiddle and his playing doesn't get overwhelmed by the other instruments.

[mikeyes]

Tim,

I think your remarks illustrate another aspect of learning the music, getting a live teacher (especially one as good as John Carty) from whom you can learn and ask questions. I've been listening to my discs of the St. Louis class and looking at the videos I took and they are remarkable in the density of material available. Just learning the rythmn and pulses of the music is a lifetime of (fun) study.

I found the same thing when I went to Dingle and played polkas and slides. These tunes don't really come alive until they are played in their natural setting . Sort of like eating New Orleans style food, it tastes much better there for some reason.

If anyone is interested, I have a few short clips of John playing 'Wise Maid" and another tune I can't name but was one of the ones he taught us. If you have the band width I could email them to you.