Got into a discussion the other day about differences and similarities between Irish and Scottish flute playing. Bottom line to the discussion: Is there a significant difference in style between Irish and Scottish playing or do fluters in the two areas utilize the same wide variety of styles/techniques but some play music of Ireland and some play music of Scotland? Is this another example of the dissipation of “regional styles” due to travel, recordings, radio/television/internet?
If there is a “Scottish style”, who would be practitioners who might have a CD or YouTube presence?
Calum Stewart
Some of Chris Norman
Claire Mann, kinda
Nuala Kennedy (Irish, but some Scottish and world music influences)
Phil Smillie (flute player from Tannahill Weavers, with solo album)
Initially spring to mind…
Kevin O’ Neill - Treacherous Orchestra etc
James D MacKenzie - Breabach and solo
Duncan Brown ex Breabach
David Foley - Rura
Iain MacDonald - ex Battlefield Band and many other projects
Hamish Napier - solo and various
Others living long term in Scotland and playing & working mainly with Scottish players..
Tom Oakes (Devon)
Ryan Murphy and Jarlath Henderson (S & N Ireland)
I know mostly folk on the west coast though and there’ll be plenty in the east too I’m sure.
I would say the better Scottish flute players play in the style of the folk they’re playing with, or the session/gig they’re playing in, at the time. Pretty much as players on most other instruments do. Usually they’ll play in a pointed Scottish style in some situations, an Irish style or Scottish east/west coast style etc in others.
You hear more individual/regional styles in solo/ish projects. For example… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWpCAYAwj9A
… and out of curiousity, Steve - there’s no shortage of Irish flute players for you to discuss, but who were the players you came up with from Scotland ?
Here’s something for you, Steve. As far as I know, this might be the earliest recording of a Scottish musician playing the wooden “simple-system” flute. [ If anyone knows of any earlier - and there may be many, but not in the Scottish “folk scene” that I’m aware of - I’d love to hear of it ].
“The Corries” were the most popular “folk” act in Scotland for many years from the 1960s until Roy Williamson sadly passed away in 1990. Roy had some tuition on both flute and whistle from Finbar Furey, who lived in Edinburgh in the late 1960s. Finbar composed a slow air for him called “Roy’s Hands”, which was recorded a few years ago by John McSherry, as well as by Finbar himself.
The duo sing a comical song, “The Wedding Of Lachie McGraw”, at the end of which Roy plays a tune he composed himself called “Ballenmuir Cottage”. It has echoes of the “Flogging Reel” in there to my mind - I must get round to playing it, for the sake of Scottish flute history, if nothing else. Have a listen, anyway :
Thanks to Kenny and the rest who responded. I’ve some listening to do.
What prompted this for me were some presentations at the recent Pipers Gathering in Connecticut. There were two folks there giving tuition and workshops on the flute with backgrounds in Scottish music: Will Woodson (mentioned above) and Laura MacKenzie from Minnesota. Both have extensive Scottish piping backgrounds but it was interesting to see that their approaches to the music on the flute differed greatly from each other. That’s what led to the questions about whether there is a Scottish flute style (or a bunch of Scottish regional styles) or whether people play simple system flutes in both Ireland and Scotland in a variety of ways and any national differences are mostly in the tunes they play. There were some mentioned, e.g., Nuala Kennedy, who seem to have one foot firmly in each country’s music, but I’d be hard pressed to tell when one of them is playing “Irish” or playing “Scottish”.
Still not really clear on the latter bit but thanks to you folks, I have a solid list of Scottish players to listen to and see what I hear in their music.
I am a friend and former student of Laura MacKenzie, and we occasionally discussed the difference between ‘Scottish’ and ‘Irish’ flute playing. The conventions of Scottish flute playing are primarily dictated by the type of tune being played (i.e. strathspey vs. hornpipe). My understanding is that Irish flute gained the significance it did due to its similarity with how the Irish pipes are played. There’s quite a bit of transfer in terms of embellishments, likewise with the whistle. People who were interested in piping technique often took up whistle and flute, and due to the similarity of the ornaments, flute players arguably “spoke the same language” as the Irish pipers.
However, the difference between Scottish pipes and flute is much greater. There isn’t as much “shared language” among them, likewise between the flute and fiddle (the other dominant Scottish instrument). Many embellishments on the Scottish pipes and fiddle simply have no equivalent on the flute. Scottish flute tradition was mostly centered around the personalities and outlooks of a few players that either already played the romantic flute and began learning Scottish trad, or expat Irishmen who learned the local repertoire.
As far as style goes, there’s certainly a Scottish whistle style, very staccato and favoring wide-bore whistles, but for flute the only thing that comes to mind is a more “northern” inflection favoring breath pulses and fewer rolls (probably the Donegal-Glasgow connection). Certainly no crans, though individual players may have tried to approximate some of the Scottish pipe embellishments, but did so more or less on their own. I think Scottish flute playing more or less lacked a “critical mass” of players who could share ideas and develop a tradition.
…Anyway, that’s what I remember. Granted, I had started drinking heavily at the time and may be completely garbling this.
I wouldn’t describe Calum Stewart’s playing as “traditional” anything. I’d describe most of the post-1960s (and therefore post-Matt Malloy) flute players as “folk pop,” with Sean Gavin, Catherine MacEvoy and Harry Bradley being the notable exceptions.
I would say there isn’t a prevalent Scottish style. Not in the way fiddle and box styles are different between the two countries. Style is really going to be particular to the players, their musical backgrounds, and influences fused into the projects or bands they’re involved with. It’s not as established as fiddle, box, or pipes. Not like in Irish music.
My understanding is that Irish flute gained the significance it did due to its similarity with how the Irish pipes are played
I don’t think that’s correct. The flute is only remotely similar to the pipes and I would suggest at a basic level they are more different than similar. Fluteplaying does not directly, or easily, translate to piping although experience on one wind instrument will ofcourse be a help when taking up another. And when a player of one plays the other, cross-pollination will take place.
The similarity between flute and whistle, that’s a more tenable link, a lot of players started out playing the whistle and ‘graduated’ to the flute, which was played for more volume. it is probably worth noting the old players called both the whistle and the flute by the same name : ‘flute’, only sometimes distinguishing ‘concert flute’ and the ‘tin flute’, which obviously translates directly from the Irish.
There are elements of style that carry over across the musical spectrum, rolls, cuts and graces etc can be found used in one form or another on most instruments. In the case of rolls, the basic roll on pipes, flute and whistle is very similar in execution. Various instruments have stylistic devices that influence/inform similar things on other instruments, even if their execution is very different. It’s a tangled web.
There has been a school of thought that maintained that if a tune couldn’t be played on the pipes, it couldn’t be proper Irish Traditional Music at all at all because the pipes would be the yardstick for everything. I think that’s a school of thought trying a bit too hard at being pipe centric. But that’s perhaps a different story again.
Many embellishments on the Scottish pipes and fiddle simply have no equivalent on the flute.
And that (perhaps changing ‘equivalent’ to ‘literal equivalent’)…
As far as style goes, there’s certainly a Scottish > whistle > style, very staccato and favoring wide-bore whistles, but for flute the only thing that comes to mind is a more “northern” inflection favoring breath pulses and fewer rolls (probably the Donegal-Glasgow connection). Certainly no crans
I’d struggle to accept any of that as a generalisation.
I’d struggle to accept any of that as a generalisation.
MadmanWithaWhistle wrote:
I’d describe most of the post-1960s (and therefore post-Matt Malloy) flute players as “folk pop,”
Or that.
I had missed that bit. At best it betrays a lack of familiarity with fluteplaying as it exists in Ireland, other than that put out on commercial recordings.
And an obvious underestimating of the different roles musicians can step into, stylistically, depending on the situation they’re playing in.