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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default The Emigrant's Adieu

    I am doing an event at the Oxford Human Rights Festival next month, using Irish and Scottish traditional music to tell the story of migration, mainly to North America. It will be shown in Oxford on 24 March (on the offchance that anyone reading this is there) and will be online after that.

    This is a trailer/taster:


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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Thank You Richard for bringing this event to our attention. I'm quite interested in learning about the Oxford Human Rights Festival. In the past my band has presented similar presentations about the Jewish Diaspora along with Klezmer music. I'm sure that you understand the connection between past and present as I hope everyone does. I can't think of a better way to look at the world than through music. (And mandolin in particular!).
    Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Thanks Doug. I am really interested in what your band has done. (I clicked on the link in your profile.) Is there more information you can provide?

    The Oxford Human Rights Festival was launched 21 years ago as a film festival and has since broadened into an arts festival. It is entirely student-led and organized. I taught human rights at Oxford Brookes University for 15 years until my retirement last year - and it was sometimes rather frustrating, as student ideas on human rights were not necessarily the same as mine, but such is life. I offered them this event, which they accepted. It is very much a work in progress and something I plan to continue exploring after the festival.

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    Registered User Dean Gray's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Fascinating program Richard. Will it be streamed or recorded?

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Thanks, Dean. It will be recorded and, as far as I know, not streamed on 24 March but only shown to a live audience. It will be available to stream after the 24th.

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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    [QUOTE=Richard Carver;1894999]Thanks Doug. I am really interested in what your band has done. (I clicked on the link in your profile.) Is there more information you can provide?

    [/QUTE]

    I will gather some information that I can share via the internet. This question reminded me that the material is currently not on our website (or my profile page). We should correspond via email to answer specific questions. And I'd like to be notified about the Oxford event via email.

    Generally we have done a number of PowerPoint presentations with live music and narrative with question and answer sessions afterwards.

    There is a more current project available on my wife's bio page at the music school called 'The Garden of the Righteous'. It's an hour long video! So please just 'sample' some parts! Ha, ha.

    Here is the link
    https://www.macphail.org/faculty/judith-eisner/
    Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile

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    Registered User Simon DS's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Great project Richard.
    I really like that you focus on the academic side and work to give students a structure to allow them to think relatively freely - at least while they’re in class. Who knows what they’ll do outside in our relatively harmonious world?
    I have a lot of disordered ideas on the subject, some emotive as nostalgia can be, so ‘lecture with tunes’ sounds good to me.

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Doug, The Garden of Righteousness looks fascinating. I have only dipped in so far, but I'll watch the whole thing and learn. I have sent you an email.

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Simon, thank you. Unfortunately I had much less time for music when I was being paid to teach, so the lecture with tunes is a new thing. But I suppose what you describe approximates to my teaching philosophy.

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    A number of you were kind enough to express interest in my musical lecture. This is taking place tomorrow at 12.30pm GMT and, contrary to what I wrote earlier, it is being streamed. This link takes you to a blog where I explain a bit about how I came to do this. There are also links to some of the tunes I have included as well as the link for signing up to join the event. The video will be public after the event and I will post a link here.

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    Peace. Love. Mandolin. Gelsenbury's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Looking forward to it!

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Thanks so much, Dennis. For you and anyone interested, the whole video is now online.


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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Richard, I have just begun watching and listening to your video and am finding it truly fascinating. I am but a bare ten minutes into it at this point but am finding it quite absorbing. Thanks for making it available to all of us. It is so good to see a fellow SAW regular in a different light and I think that you have (admittedly in only ten minutes watching) managed to combine dialogue and music while letting each have equal (?) prominence. It must have been a big part of your thinking trying to achieve a balance between having the script overpowering the music for those of us who are principally listening for the tunes, and not having the music diverting listeners away from your historical narrative. Will be watching the whole video later this evening! A fuller response will follow.
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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    John, thank you so much for your interest in this. I am really glad you are enjoying it and I'd very much welcome your thoughts when you have watched the whole thing.

    From a technical perspective, you are absolutely correct about my thinking when it comes to balancing music and talk. In fact, one of the reasons I did the trailer that I posted earlier was to address some of these questions and I did play about a bit with sound levels after some comments I received on that. More broadly, as you suggest, there are two distinct audiences. The one here is primarily interested in the music (which is why I posted the entire musical soundtrack separately as a SoundCloud album, complete with "liner notes"); but the audience at the festival was primarily interested in migration, which is why the musical sections without talking or pictures are seldom more than 15-20 seconds. But there is constant music right the way through. And of course it was a massive challenge, not only to record all the music (33 tunes) but also to manage the video side. I did recorded lectures during the pandemic and, of course, the short videos that I post here, but this was at a whole different level.

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    Registered User John Kelly's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Hi Richard. I have now finished your magnum opus and really enjoyed it very much. I am glad to see you have the same idea about audience that I mentioned; at times I did find myself tuning in to the music at the expense of the commentary, especially where a tune was new to me, so your posting of the music and information on your Soundcloud page is a great idea. But I did find the commentary very interesting and it certainly holds the attention easily.

    The video is really well put together and the selection of materials, both musical and historical, is pretty well balanced. It is interesting for a Scot like myself to look into the history of slavery and our nation's big part in it and to acknowledge that past for what it represents. I live just across the River Clyde from Greenock which had a huge connection to the sugar trade and of course many of our biggest cities grew on the proceeds of the slave trade and the plantations. even our National Bard, Robert Burns, almost became involved as an accounting clerk in Jamaica had his Kilmarnock Edition of his collected poems not been published successfully in time to keep him here in Scotland.

    Phil Cunningham, the famous Scottish accordionist and composer and one half of the internationally-known duo with Shetland fiddler Aly Bain produced a great two-part series on BBC TV very recently, The Narrow Sea the Farther Shore. Phil was tracing the links between Scotland, especially the south-west, and Ulster and he wrote a new musical piece building in sounds he recorded in both Scotland and Ulster. Really worth a listen and look.
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Thank you, Richard. I watched the film for the first time today and feel in awe of the scholarship, music, narration and technical work that have gone into this. It's really something special, and I find it difficult to put into words just how much I like it.

    The musical content gives it great "replayability". Having heard most of the tunes on your YouTube channel before, I focused on the academic side this time. But I'll watch it again with headphones to appreciate the sound more fully. As it happens, I'm teaching acculturation and multiculturalism tomorrow, so I'll advertise your film to my students.

    If I remember correctly, you say at one point in the video that (I realise I'm paraphrasing substantially here, but hopefully not distorting) it can be quite difficult to learn lessons from history, especially when it seems easy. But, as you say throughout the film, understanding these migrations of the past on their own terms will give us a better chance of understanding today's ones. It's basically the difference between generalisability and transferability, and I thought you made the link with the present very elegantly and convincingly towards the end.

    I also liked the point about how the tunes have migrated, not always following the same routes at the same time as the people. Perhaps a similar point applies to our favourite instrument, the mandolin. Figuratively speaking, it seems to have crossed the Atlantic at least twice. First came the evolution of the flat back, and then its arrival in Celtic traditional music, which still seems to be ongoing and in which American musicians seem to be playing a big role. Migration is a given, as you say.

    On the theme of mandolin and migration, you are probably aware of Noctambule's latest album on just this topic:
    https://youtu.be/Y7-AEGAxAvA

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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Dennis, you say above ".. it can be quite difficult to learn lessons from history.." and the older I get the more I realise just how sadly true this can be. We constantly see the failures to learn from the past in our dealings with each other and in the ways we treat each other. Extremism in all its many facets seems to be on the rise once more and mistrust clouds our reasoning. Through music we can maybe establish common links and look forward to that time when "Man tae man, the world o'er, shall brithers be for a' that" as my National bard, Robert Burns, said away back in 1795.
    I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. - Eric Morecambe

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Thank you both, John and Dennis, for your comments, which are more than kind. And thank you for taking the time to watch my film all the way through - it is a bit of a time commitment (although as you note, John, it does actually break fairly naturally into a series of segments of about 10-12 minutes, so it can be watched in smaller bites.) And thanks for the suggested further watching/listening. I am out of regular BBC range these days, but I will try to track down the Phil Cunningham show. And I wasn't familiar with that Noctambule album before - absolutely beautiful.

    I won't pick up all your points here, so as not to write a long essay. Mark Twain is supposed to have made the remark about history not repeating itself, but it sometimes rhymes. Having trained as a historian, I am wary of the idea that history has lessons. But at the same time, it is essential to understand history. I like the way you put it, Dennis: understanding the past on its own terms. Those weren't exactly my words, but they sum up my belief very well. We don't have to interpret slavery, for example, in terms of our own beliefs and standards. We just need an honest assessment of who did and thought what at the time. For example, I did not have time to discuss how Scottish thinkers were also to the forefront of the anti-slavery movement - precisely because of Scotland's deep implication in slavery.

    And on your point about migrating musical instruments, Dennis, I was actually thinking about precisely this point before the showing last Friday, hoping that someone would ask me a question about the instruments (they didn't). I mention the banjo in the film, but I don't say how both the other instruments I play, mandolin and guitar, are not a "traditional" part of Irish or Scottish music. Both migrated from Europe to North America and then back into traditional music. In some ways, the mandolin has made that journey more easily than the guitar. I had to cut a minute or so towards the end where I talked about Bayard's discussion of how Irish and British tunes evolved in the US. He, an American, clearly preferred the originals and blamed the guitar to a large extent for taking some of the subtlety out of Celtic music, as well as its strong focus on melody (substituting what the guitar usually does, rhythm and harmony). As a guitarist, I like to think he was talking about those guys with three chords and one 4/4 strum pattern. But I'm sure I'm not guiltless.

    Thank you both, again.

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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    That was an interesting documentary, Richard. There wasn't much new to me, but it was presented well. In recent years with so much hostility to refugees and "economic migrants," I've often wondered who do people think the rest of us people of European descent, in North America are descended from. In my own background, I have "United Empire Loyalists" who fled the USA after being persecuted for taking the wrong side in the Revolution; Huguenots who fled religious persecution in France; Hebridean islanders driven from Scotland by the Highland Clearances; a Hebridean couple fleeing bigotry because of a cross-religious marriage (Prot/RC); as well as numerous people who, although not refugees, came to better themselves in a new land (which by and large, they did, economically at least), and others I have no idea about. I don't think I'm in much of a position to criticize either refugees or economic migrants.

    A couple of small points: "Garryowen" (Eóin's Garden), from which the tune takes its name, is a village in Ireland, now a neighbourhood of Limerick. I read somewhere that there was a military base close by in the 19th Century, but can't find the reference today. When you speak of Irish tunes in the French-Canadian repertoire, not only the tunes but people crossed cultures. A great many French-Canadians have Irish ancestors. A list of prominent Quebecois includes Claude, Frank, and Yves Ryan, Daniel Johnson, Jean-Baptiste Kelly, and Mary Rose-Anna Travers (La Bolduc). I've seen similar names among Cajuns. Generally where there wasn't great isolation or a religious divide, new migrants intermarried with older settlers. In Canada until recent years, not many people of Irish and British Protestant background married French Catholics. French Hugenots married with Proestants, so that their Huguenot religion and French language disappeared. However, from what I've seen, musicians generally aren't too picky about a tune's origins. As long as they like a tune and can figure it out, most will play it and pass it on.

    Good work. Thanks.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Ranald, thanks for taking the time to watch, listen and comment.

    Your thoughts on Canada are interesting to me, because I know it much less well, inevitably, than the US. I was particularly taken with your point about French-Canadians and Irish, which somewhat modifies what I said in the video. The point about the Cajuns I was more familiar with - Dennis McGee, for example It has also been my impression that, as you say, the Huguenots have tended to assimilate very quickly into the general Protestant population. The example I know from my own research is South Africa, where many Huguenots fled after the Edict of Nantes and were integrated into the Dutch population within a generation. The French language disappeared except in people's names - it's why so many Afrikaners have French names. Oh, and the names of wines too.

    On Garryowen, I didn't know about the military base. Something I didn't have time to mention in the video is that the lyrics that Errol Flynn and his chums sing are a really obnoxious drinking song produced by a group that sounds like a seventeenth century equivalent of the Bullingdon Club (if that cultural reference means anything to you) - a bunch of upper class yobbos who terrorized the neighbourhood.

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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Just read about the Bullingdon Club: they're new to me. In my country, students at the old, establishment universities like to take to the streets in a few annual rituals, then keep neighbours awake, drink, vandalize, and generally act obnoxious. The newer universities (many were built or expanded in the 60's), not so much. But don't get me on a rant -- privilege, elites, grumble, grumble.

    Too bad, history has to sometimes ruin a good tune. I didn't know that the Sioux had requested that we not play "Garryowen," but it's understandable. Still, Israel eventually got over the ban on Wagner's music. (I can't say for certain that there was a military base outside Garyowen; that's coming from a less than perfect memory. Still, the tune became widespread in military culture.) In my neck of the woods, Garryowen was just a lively jig to dance to.
    Last edited by Ranald; Mar-28-2023 at 5:10pm.
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    Some prominent English politicians (and ex-Prime Ministers including Boris Johnson and David Cameron) were members of the Bullington Club - enough said!

    Garry Owen became the regimental march of the US 7th Cavalry, famously led by General George Armstrong Custer (he of Custer's Last Stand fame). I believe there was a high proportion of Irish troopers in the 7th Cavalry, so again, music links strongly with culture and history. If any of our readers have not yet had a look and listen then I recommend Richard's production, even just for his very fine delivery of so many great tunes, both Scottish and Irish.
    I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. - Eric Morecambe

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  39. #23
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    [QUOTE=John Kelly;1899856]It is interesting for a Scot like myself to look into the history of slavery and our nation's big part in it and to acknowledge that past for what it represents. I live just across the River Clyde from Greenock which had a huge connection to the sugar trade and of course many of our biggest cities grew on the proceeds of the slave trade and the plantations. even our National Bard, Robert Burns, almost became involved as an accounting clerk in Jamaica had his Kilmarnock Edition of his collected poems not been published successfully in time to keep him here in Scotland. /QUOTE]

    On the other hand, Burns had this to say about slavery:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avAJ...annel=Pleiades

    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Registered User Richard Carver's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    She has such a lovely voice. Of course, Scots were very active against slavery - precisely because so many other Scots were implicated (just as in English schools we were always taught about Wilberforce, but they left out the explanation of why slavery was there to be abolished).

    John, I am sure you are right about Irish troopers in the Seventh Cavalry. I believe Garryowen found its way into US military culture in the Civil War (in which Custer made his name, of course) where there were many all-Irish units, mainly on the Union side. The version in They Died With Their Boots On is, of course, oversimplified.

    Ranald, this issue of the association of tunes with history is complex. As I say in the video, a tune doesn't have inherent meaning - it is all by association (in that sense Wagner is a bit different, because the operas at least embody various ideas closely linked to German nationalism and antisemitism). Garryowen as a tune is completely blameless, but I think the issue is that it was played at one particular massacre - sorry, don't have the details to hand - so it does have an awful resonance for the Sioux and I would completely respect that.

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    Default Re: The Emigrant's Adieu

    My first impression is praise for how all people are treated as equals in this story. Secondly is that the script flows remarkably well with the title of the tunes. Thirdly the 'takeaway' or overall impression is exactly the stated intent of the notion that people and music have a combined legacy that can explain past events in human, rather than 'official' terms.

    As a musician and fellow researcher of Irish tunes, I was delighted to hear familiar and not so familiar melodies along with corresponding stories. The sound of the instruments had a warm and relaxed character as did the narration. These elements made for a nice continuity that allowed me to focus on the meaning of the words and/or the contour of the melody. And the images not only told 'a thousand words' but were relevant to the topic.

    This is a gem of an accomplishment Richard. How was it received at the conference?


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