78 RPM flute recordings available online

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 3:12 pm

I've been posting dubs of 78s to the Internet Archive, and Sticky topics of these dubs are at the Uilleann Pipes and Traditional String forums. Maybe a mod will...Stickify? this one as well. These are recordings not reissued to date.

We'll start with a record by a Leitrim player Charley Higgins, paying tribute to John McKenna. The first medley will be familiar to Gavin and O'Murchu fans.

Bucks from the Mountains, McPartland's Style

John McKenna's Farewell, Captain Kelly

carrie · Post by **carrie** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 6:24 am

Thank you! Those are great!

cboodro · Post by **cboodro** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 7:44 am

Great fluting! Lovely accenting, and was that flutter-tonguing I heard? Wheeee! Thanks for posting those.
(Sounds more like a piano than a bass in the accompaniment, though. )

dlambert · Post by **dlambert** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:06 am

Very cool stuff. There's a lot of good old tunes on the site. Thanks!

dlambert · Post by **dlambert** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 9:38 am

Check out Sean Maguire's Boys of the Lough and Reaveys. Masterful playing.
http://www.archive.org/details/SeanMcGu ... oughReavys

Anybody know anything about this guy?

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 4:48 pm

Sean McGuire Interview from fiddle.com. His early sides are actually a bit restrained - or more traditional? compared to what came later, which I really enjoy as well, I should say. I've all his LPs and some amazing pub recordings from 66/67 too.

He also devised a six part setting of the Mason's Apron, which we've all heard Matt Molloy play.

There is a piano on that record, slipped my mind. It's extra muted and there's a bass in there as well.
This Cape Breton fiddler, Joe MacIssac, made a 50s or 50s LP with piano and a saxophone player who did nothing but softly harmonize here and there. Charming sound.

I notice I've posted a good few fiddle/flute duets already, and a couple of group recordings as well which feature the flute. Search for Irish Flute and you'll find them.

Today's tunes:

September 10th

Charley Higgins and Jack Dolan

Mouse in the Cupboard, Mist in the Meadow

Paddy Finley, Streams in the Valley

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:41 pm

Kevin L. Rietmann wrote: He also devised a six part setting of the Mason's Apron, which we've all heard Matt Molloy play.

I have a 10" record of Sean Maguire playing his setting of Mason's apron. He's backing another musician, who plays church organ(!), issues sentimental recitations, and sings a few songs in his educated baritone, sounding horribly out of place. Maguire sings the odd refrain, & plays fiddle, (pipes, I think) and whistle to die for.

The whole thing's edited up into one long track on each side, with the various bits all segueing into each other.

It really is a curate's egg.

I've burned it to file, but it was one of the first recordings I tried, and I had the volume on audacity set too high, which added distortion. One of these days I'll do it again. The recording of Mason's apron, at least, should get posted somewhere.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 8:46 pm

I wanna Stickify this, but I seem to have lost or mislaid my Powers of Stickification. Curses. That arch-fiend Lex Luthor may be behind this...

I'll check with Dale, et al.

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 3:11 am

Pity you're no longer Sticky, Nan. I'm sure Dale has some Mod Balm.

s1m0n, I'm trying to imagine what your record sounds like with no success. You could buy this in stores? Is there some market in Ireland for Burroughs-esque cut ups?

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:19 am

Kevin L. Rietmann wrote:Pity you're no longer Sticky, Nan. I'm sure Dale has some Mod Balm.

s1m0n, I'm trying to imagine what your record sounds like with no success. You could buy this in stores? Is there some market in Ireland for Burroughs-esque cut ups?

"The sound of ireland", at least as imagined by homesick immigrants in the fifties or so. The market was here, or perhaps there for distribution in North America as souvenirs or gifts.

The edits aren't really a mishmash; there's usually an instant of silence between one thing and another, but it clearly wasn't designed for playing out of order, or for eliminating the excruciating organ-playing and stiff singing, because of the lack of identifiable tracks.

Edited: And the organ playing isn't really excruciating, just in the wrong place.

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:30 pm

September 11th

Tom Morrison

The Tenpenny Bit

Tom Morrison, PJ Conlon,and Tom Higgins

The Bank of Ireland, The Ships are Sailing

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 9:40 pm

Say, I have a question. Someone told me quite some time ago that old recording methods (the person didn't specify any particular method or give more details) speeded up the music---that is, we are hearing the music being played faster than it really was. I just listened to

Tom Morrison, PJ Conlon,and Tom Higgins
The Bank of Ireland, The Ships are Sailing

and I was wondering if the recording method may have speeded up the sound or if this was the speed at which the music was originally played. I don't know anything about old recordings, so sorry if this question is lame!

withak · Post by **withak** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:02 pm

If it was speeding things up then the pitch would be higher also.

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:03 am

Cynth wrote:Say, I have a question. Someone told me quite some time ago that old recording methods (the person didn't specify any particular method or give more details) speeded up the music---that is, we are hearing the music being played faster than it really was.

Anything from the 78 era, especially earlier, that's one of the questions engineers have to ask themselves when remastering--the old turntable drives weren't all that precise, and were likely to get happy or sad depending on variations in the electrical supply, etc. If a record was cut with a turntable running a few revs fast, the resulting record plays slow. And vice versa.

Sometimes pitch variations can be heard in tracks known to have been cut on the same day, so they'll know for sure something was screwy.

If there's a fixed-tuning instrument, like a piano (or even flute), then the engineer can say to themselves, "they're probably not playing in C# on purpose", and slow it down a semitone.

With vocal tracks, solo fiddle or fiddle (or voice) and guitar, it's a wild guess.

Kevin L. Rietmann · Post by **Kevin L. Rietmann** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 1:12 am

One thing to keep in mind with Tom Morrison's records is that he seemed to be playing in E. Probably he had a F flute with the slide pulled out a bit. You hear a lot of fifing in his playing - maybe he brought his band fife to the US! The pianist on most (all? some were uncredited) of his sides was the talented Ed Geoghean, who I'm sure could vamp away in A or E as easy in D and G (I play piano, it's not that big a deal). Morrison really ran into trouble trying to tune to PJ Conlon's accordion on the sides I'll post tomorrow, though - they're quite diabolically out of tune, but are lively and interesting music anyway - first side with the Plains of Boyle Hornpipe, I believe.

These dubs of Morrison come from Phillipe Varlet, who knows his stuff, so we can take these as close to "correct" pitch (and thus tempo) as can be. He wasn't always a bolts of lightning player, either. I'm posting them in sequential order of release, too.