Air: My Love Is A Band Boy

[cboody]

not on English concertina and Autoharp...

[Nanohedron]

Not my idea of an air.

Guess it goes to show that it's all in where you pick it up, right?

[cboody]

You got that right!

[benhall.1]

There you have it.

Oh good.

The version I have is just a touch different in some minor details, informed by Mickie and Elizabeth Zekley's arrangement from the recording Fiona's Folly. It was one of the first airs I ever learned. Zekley lingers on it a bit too somnolently for my taste, though, so I ramp it up a tad, but still keep to unmetered phrasing while playing it definitely slower than Ben did here. I try to evoke the wistfulness I mentioned earlier.

I'm struggling to imagine unmeteredness for this tune. Could you link to an example? I think with a lot of the airs notated in O'Neills there is a modern tendency to remove meter when at the time the things would have been in strict tempo (or at least recognisable meter). There aren't too many recordings of airs from that era, but in any case the term "air" meant something different then. It simply meant "tune" and was often used to include any tune type, including all of the dance tunes that form the vast bulk of trad music as played today. O'Neill tended to use the term "air" for tunes that didn't fit into other tune types. Many of the airs collected by O'Neill that don't fit into the now usual categories of reels, jigs, hornpipes etc, or that aren't slow airs, based on song tunes, are now no longer played. It's a shame. I have a few, so someone plays them at least.

[david_h]

As played by Ben it sounds to me like it would have words in English rather than Irish. In the style of, say, Cathal McConnell. Does that make sense ?

Edit to add - there is a page on mudcat that gives "I'll marry my Johnny" as an alternative title.

[Tunborough]

Is the disco/dance mix version renamed My Love is a Club Kid?

"Joey is a Punk Rocker"

[PhilD]

Many of the airs collected by O'Neill that don't fit into the now usual categories of reels, jigs, hornpipes etc, or that aren't slow airs, based on song tunes, are now no longer played. It's a shame. I have a few, so someone plays them at least.

Care to share some of the titles of these no longer played tunes? Would be interested to look them up.

Thanks Nanohedron for highlighting this tune, I wasn't familiar with it. I like it.

[Nanohedron]

The version I have is just a touch different in some minor details, informed by Mickie and Elizabeth Zekley's arrangement from the recording Fiona's Folly. It was one of the first airs I ever learned. Zekley lingers on it a bit too somnolently for my taste, though, so I ramp it up a tad, but still keep to unmetered phrasing while playing it definitely slower than Ben did here. I try to evoke the wistfulness I mentioned earlier.

I'm struggling to imagine unmeteredness for this tune. Could you link to an example?

Found it! Before you listen, bear in mind again that I don't particularly like his personal treatment of it: the pace drags too slowly for me, the phrasing could be more cohesive in places, there are recurring jarring notes needing attention, and (least of all that might matter) the arrangement is rather dated; it wasn't the playing, but rather the melody itself that grabbed me. Forewarned as you are, then, here 'tis:

Zekley's setting of MLIABB

I think with a lot of the airs notated in O'Neills there is a modern tendency to remove meter when at the time the things would have been in strict tempo (or at least recognisable meter). There aren't too many recordings of airs from that era, but in any case the term "air" meant something different then. It simply meant "tune" and was often used to include any tune type, including all of the dance tunes that form the vast bulk of trad music as played today. O'Neill tended to use the term "air" for tunes that didn't fit into other tune types. Many of the airs collected by O'Neill that don't fit into the now usual categories of reels, jigs, hornpipes etc, or that aren't slow airs, based on song tunes, are now no longer played. It's a shame. I have a few, so someone plays them at least.

As for what you have to say about a modern tendency toward unmetered rendering of airs, I can't speak to that as I don't have an unimpeachable background in the history of such things. There's been so much discussion here at C&F about the right way to play airs in that fashion - and indeed that's usually the way I've ever heard them - that I've taken unmetered playing of airs (properly done) as more of a given in most cases, with metered renderings as an option.

EDIT: FWIW, upon surfing the Web I find that in our own usual trad context there is an abundance of unity in the combined historic definition of "air" as, yes, simply "tune", also "tune to a song", as well as an abbreviation for "slow air", but in that last category there is also repeated mention of unmetered renderings as commonplace. That that mode of playing would simply be evidence of creeping modernism has so far not been mentioned even in the more scholarly-looking sources I've been able to find, not that what you say isn't true.

Here's a version that gives plenty of justification for paying it in metered fashion (until the jazz, anyway ):

Version by the band Gwendal

The metered playing does bring to mind something along the lines of a planxty or other harp tune. It just occurred to me that I could do it both ways if I were to arrange it for performance.

[Nanohedron]

BTW and per my OP, I still don't know what "band boy" in the title really means...

...anyone?

[MTGuru]

I still don't know what "band boy" in the title really means...

Maybe a youthful version of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKbADFJOCkU

[Nanohedron]

Or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFB61fQWl_A

[Nanohedron]

The B part is basically Geese in the Bog.

And I just realised that the A part has a strong familial relationship to the song Next Market Day.

[benhall.1]

I'm struggling to imagine unmeteredness for this tune. Could you link to an example?

Found it! Before you listen, bear in mind again that I don't particularly like his personal treatment of it: the pace drags too slowly for me, the phrasing could be more cohesive in places, there are recurring jarring notes needing attention, and (least of all that might matter) the arrangement is rather dated; it wasn't the playing, but rather the melody itself that grabbed me. Forewarned as you are, then, here 'tis:

Zekley's setting of MLIABB

Right. I told you I was struggling to imagine it unmetered. That version isn't unmetered. They play the first part in normal triple time, keeping pretty much strictly to tempo, albeit painfully slow and with the occasional bit of sloppiness in the articulation which just puts the rhythm off from time to time, but without deviating from the tempo overall. Then, for some bizarre reason, they lay the second part, also in strict 3/4 time, but at twice the speed! Why would you do that? It's perverse.

So I'm still struggling to see how anyone could play it unmetered, as a great many "slow airs" based on song melodies are nowadays.

[david_h]

BTW and per my OP, I still don't know what "band boy" in the title really means...

...anyone?

Maybe do a Google image search for "marching band" and take your pick. Plenty of finery to turn a lassie's head. Or is that too simple ?

Or am I missing some joke ?

[Nanohedron]

That version isn't unmetered.

In the playing, sure it is. As with certain ways of singing, the meter is suggested but phrasing takes the tune, as played, out of rigid meter. Instead of being accountable to the metronome, it goes by phrasing. That's what I mean by "unmetered". If there's another term for that, I don't know it; metric elasticity, perhaps?

Here's another example of the idea as sung by Iarla Ó Lionáird:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEiuM_eHuw

Then, for some bizarre reason, they lay the second part, also in strict 3/4 time, but at twice the speed!

Come now, that's exaggeration. There's nothing strict about it; it only approaches the meter. And yes, there's a touch of rubato, but twice the speed it is not. Not even close.