The flute and Irish history

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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by david_h »

I know someone has to go first, but isn't following relatives and neighbours the typical way of migration? From the census data (who else was in the house) it seems to have been what happened when my family were part of the move from field to factory in 1800s England. Its tough now if the Mediterranean or English Channel are in the way.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by bigsciota »

Looping back into the flute angle, do we know how the geography of Irish immigrants ended up factoring into the flutes that they (as many anecdotes discuss) sent back to Ireland? Were certain cities in the US known for a flute industry, and do we see any of those flutes showing up back in Ireland?

One of the things that I have to say puzzles me somewhat is that while I've heard the whole "relatives in America sent over a flute" story a lot, we don't really seem to see a huge amount of American-made flutes in the hands of Irish players in Ireland, relative to English ones. Where did they go? Or was is mainly German flutes they were sending? McKenna's flute and Terry's GLP seem to suggest that American flutes can work well for trad, but maybe the volume of English-made flutes just crowded them out?
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by PB+J »

bigsciota wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:04 am Looping back into the flute angle, do we know how the geography of Irish immigrants ended up factoring into the flutes that they (as many anecdotes discuss) sent back to Ireland? Were certain cities in the US known for a flute industry, and do we see any of those flutes showing up back in Ireland?

One of the things that I have to say puzzles me somewhat is that while I've heard the whole "relatives in America sent over a flute" story a lot, we don't really seem to see a huge amount of American-made flutes in the hands of Irish players in Ireland, relative to English ones. Where did they go? Or was is mainly German flutes they were sending? McKenna's flute and Terry's GLP seem to suggest that American flutes can work well for trad, but maybe the volume of English-made flutes just crowded them out?
Terry will know more, but I think there were a lot of people making wooden flute in the US. As mentioned before the Sears catalogue has them into the 20th century. I think a lot of them are marked "nach Meyer," in the style of Meyer," rather than with American maker's names, sort of the way Kay and Valco in Chicago made a lot of different instrument brands or how one Korean guitar factory makes half a dozen brands.

So I think it's very likely a flute could have been sent back with no marks distinguishing it as American made
Last edited by PB+J on Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

I know of several Rudalls mentioned by various people. And this one arrived in Clare, sent to Josie Hayes by Paddy Killoran (with another flute, Rudall, that was lent to someone and was never returned). American flutes not so much.

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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by an seanduine »

My understanding of ´American Made´ flutes is a little more nuanced. One element that influenced American instrument making was a ´nativist´ sentiment that led to various duties and import barriers to protect the nascent American instrument manufacturing businesses. For a period of time you could import keys and other hardware unimpeded but not so much whole instruments. Great Britain and France in particular were seen as a threat. The American Band Instrument Industry (and in consequence flutes) were encouraged to flourish during this period. This was in the nationalistic fever run-up to our ´Splendid Little War of 1898´. Curiously there didn´t seem to be much of a barrier to importing instruments from ´the Germanies´ and this was exploited for all it was worth by Sears & Roebuck.

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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

I'm sort of learning to understand that my trying to understand Irish music history is more about my finding what presentation of it is not true, rather than reaching any definition of what it is. To try to reframe the discussion :

Two main views predominate.

The first presented at its extreme is that traditional Irish music as we know it is recent, that the tunes are predominantly recent (mostly mid 18th century onwards). Irish music was continuously interrupted, often forgotten or simply diminished to the point of irrelevance, and only took a new popularity after new instruments, new tunes, new social realities and influences , were provided and quite possibly from abroad. This is exemplified by a lack of continuous, at times any, documentation of Irish music over the space of several hundred years prior to 1700 . A few tunes go back to 1600 or so, and that's all the Irish had then. There are no instruments found, there weren't any. A good example of deconstruction possible of the countervailing "romantic" view is found here

https://www.academia.edu/82158173/THE_L ... _1786_1882

And that essay ends with an absence of evidence is "probably" evidence of absence one line conclusion that is worth.... what it is worth.



The second view is that that just linked essay is not wrong, but that it offers no insight at all to music before that date. The newer documented and still now popular tunes are simply the point in evolution Irish music was at as its music was first notated. The main absence of earlier tunes is due partly to those evolving into the documented newer tunes, partly due to lack of earlier annotation. That all Ireland had for a century before were ten or so airs isn't credible. This is actually the gap we are looking at compared to where annotation starts, it stretches from late medieval, say 1400, through to even 1850. Before that span , it seems the evidence of music being at a level equal or greater in prominence to anywhere else exists in one form or another. Within that space there is enough mention of music, but not enough to draw any great conclusions, especially at local folk level. Destruction of music playing stands out in the record for its blatantcy, but a move to more discreet performance obviously won't as easily. A search of early music in Morocco often leads to Almohad destruction of instruments as main record, for comparison.



Working our way back, O'Neill collected a thousand and more tunes that were around in the period of, arbitrarily, 1850 to 1900. The range of explanation goes from :

They were musicians with a cause, sat down and invented all the tunes to restart traditional music.

They collected a medley of Irish and Irish-American tunes that evolved after the famine.

They collected the Irish tunes and derivatives that had been around since 1800, or earlier even, with some newer also.

There is a vast difference between all of those ideas. I would say third. That would imply that there was an undocumented background tradition through 19th century and earlier, the shape of which I would not know.

If we look at others, say Petrie, he seems to have collected song and airs ? He was classically trained and might have thought little of jigs and dance that was deemed common, instead looking for more profound meanings.

The dance masters, they were interested in style of tune more than origin, the origin often being a romantic bonus.

Later (or earlier) stylisations, whether modern realities, or by dance format, managed social setting, or religious demand stand out as points of initiation, when they are not.

History isn't neat in that sense, modern learning wants boxed answers that definitively prove right, but that would be completely unrealistic, tending to be no more than a form of self reward.


The reality of it all is that you have a steadily increasing population throughout time, music from time immemorial, various segregations of society including geographical , various disturbance to continuity, introductions and assimilations of outside influence, all going on continuously to a greater or lesser degree through all of that time.

Among the largest interruptions I count are change of daily setting. Conflict is an obvious one, but a maid singing a milking song is not the same as a version notated in a book in a city library poured over sentimentally by an academic in their spare time before giving a lecture on household emancipation. Even sincere revival of a song might only capture it as interpretation compared to it being sung in its natural setting.

I'm not a musicologist or academic, I just study this all haphazardly as my attention takes me, and I don't intend to or pretend to provide answers. Some books are definitive, but often many take much time to read with little subject matter directly specific to a question, and too often they carry major bias or narrative. I find the tunes themselves speak when played, there are often brief ideas on origin at tunearch, mudcat on lyrics of songs, and a few other sites offer detail. There are plenty of academic papers on any theme, and these are usually much briefer and with more detail than books. Then there are websites for all tastes, I read from all sites, even those I disagree with I will still look over. To round up I will just link various of the resources and presentation of ideas I found useful for anyone interested to get a broader picture, or possibly find something they equate to somehow. Oldest to most recent in time :

In

Flutes, pipes, or bagpipes? Observations on the terminology of woodwind instruments in Old and Middle Irish

Jacopo Bisagni has a look at how the early musical background in Ireland might be better understood via written source, giving some example of study. Though he suggests the transverse flute as later introduction, equally there is no proof either way. Notable is the more humble position of the "flute" in the musical hierarchy.

"It is a well known fact that no Irish written musical record exists prior to the twelfth century. It is for this reason that, as eloquently put by Ann Buckley, ‘it has become a commonplace to introduce this topic with a litany of apologetic negatives, expressions of regret for what is lost and what may once have existed as evidence for the practice of music in medieval Ireland’. Nonetheless, once we have accepted the idea that we shall probably never know which melodies were played and sung in Early Medieval Ireland, it is equally true that the evidence for other aspects of Medieval Irish music is in fact quite plentiful. "


https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/F ... c262d57a8a

Song, harp, and poetry are themes that coexist at various levels throughout subsequent years. I leave those as a distinct reality that, although not really distinct, are slightly their own world compared to what is nowadays labelled as "trad". They deserve their own presentation and so I will just leave those at that here, often suppressed I would imagine that ballads, songs and airs are most related.

For an idea on musical realities that were common in europe

Troubadour 13th century, banjo players might enjoy, plus the related estampie
https://earlymusicmuse.com/kalendamaya/

Skipping the tune if nescessary , there is a very pertinent presentation further down on the relationship between church and early music
https://earlymusicmuse.com/birdonabriar/

From there in Ireland we are on to limited notation and then known dances from early 16th century on as notion of existing composition and style of, if not actual music. I'm not sure it is known who in society adopted the dances when, what co-existing or earlier ones might have been. The rennaisance through to 1800 was quite cross cultural in many ways, the world didn't look like it does now in terms of "organisation". What seems sure is that by 18th century dancing is very popular across the whole of society in Ireland.

"The first native Irish documentary evidence of dancing is an account of a Mayor of Waterford's visit to Baltimore, County Cork in 1413, where the attendees "took to the floor" to celebrate Christmas Eve. However, the Norman invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century may have brought with it the round dance tradition, as it was contemporaneously performed in Norman strongholds. Accounts of dancing in the 17th century suggest that dancing was by that time extremely widespread throughout Ireland."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_dance


So I think it fair to assume Ireland had its own forms of dancing in 1500, and from there if not earlier also saw the introduction of european dances, some of which were to then become distinctly Irish. Dancing I know little of, and so am simply aggregating information here, others feel free to correct.

I will start with the Carole which was not nescessarily introduced to Ireland but represents early circular dance

https://www.medievaldanceonline.co.uk/the-carole

The Prima is old from Asturias and still danced , just possibly related

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fRnNhY1qGFg



"There is ample evidence of Irish jigs or Irish step dancing in the 16th century, in 1569 Sir Henry Sydney sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth in which he expresses his enthusiasm for the Irish jigs of Galway. A report from 1600 mentions that some forms of Irish dances were similar in form to English country dances, and later references mention the "rinnce fada", also known as the "long dance" or "fading" "
Wiki

As in Ireland the jig is well known, for the fun of it here is an old dance that looks (I mentioned I don't know dance styles?) "jiggish" to me, by Vaqueiros of northwest Spain

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_contin ... e=emb_logo

The Vaqueiros (exonym) are a semi nomadic herders, an independent and often purposefully marginalised people.


Fast forward to 1700-1850


"Indeed during this particularly turbulent era in Irish history of the 1800s, dancing and music making as a social activity was immensely popular throughout all stratas of Irish society. And it has even been reliably recorded that at 'hedge schools' dancing was one of the most popular subjects, and that if this was not offered the children showed an even greater reluctance to attend than they usually did!!

From 'A Tour of Ireland' by Arthur Young, Dublin 1780 and reprinted in 'Arthur Young's Tour of Ireland 1776-1779', edited by A.W.Hutton, 1892, London, Bell & Sons:

"Dancing is so universal among them that there are everywhere itinerant dancing-masters, to whom the cottagers pay sixpence a quarter for teaching their families. Beside the Irish jig which they can dance with a most luxuriant expression, minuets and country dances are taught; and I even heard some talk of cotillons coming in."

Also when travelling through Killarney he wrote again:

'"ll the poor people, both men and women, learnt to dance, and are exceedingly fond of the amusement. A ragged lad without shoes or stockings was seen in a mud barn, leading up a girl in the same trim for a minuet."' "


Early 18'th and 19'th c. Irish Dance
Instruction Manuals or Manuscripts

http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/dance/dundalk/preface.htm

Which contains further information.

So there you likely have the background to music collected in the 19th century.



Various original texts of tunes at

https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Irish_F ... ollections

Early music reproduction (I haven't browsed them at all)

https://www.ancientmusicireland.com/about-us#

http://ancientmusicofireland.blogspot.com/



Discussions with links

https://thesession.org/discussions/34231

https://thesession.org/discussions/43321

"...and I also have seen a lack of Irish tunes I can date to the 1700s. I own a large collection of reprints of Scottish music from that time but few Irish. Many of the Scottish books contain Irish tunes, and I am starting to find Irish tunes from that period through the Traditional Tune Archive at http://tunearch.org/wiki/TTA. A good example is the reel The Maid of the Spinning Wheel, published in O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland in 1907 and in a 1756 collection by David Rutherford as The Wild Irishman. So far the older Irish books I have found appear to have a mix of tunes that are recognizable as dance tunes with other types of music, and many are in flat keys as if arranged by a non-traditional musician. I am still studying and learning, so I am far from the last word on 18th-century Irish music. John Whitacre "


Last but by no means least, Ann Buckley's work, listed at

http://irishhistorians.ie/members/ann-buckley/


All the above and more might easily (and more thoroughly) enough be condensed onto a single webpage so that those looking for a basic understanding could orientate themselves a little. That isn't for me to do.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Terry McGee »

Yes, lots of makers in the US - for instance, the NLI lists about 120 for New York and 60 for Boston. By comparison, though, about 320 for London. Dublin about 40, Sydney and Melbourne 1 each. That's across all history and there's lots of repetition as companies changed names, EG Carte replaces Rose at Rudall's. But it's a rough indication.

And I agree, I haven't seen American-made flutes in Irish hands except in very recent times. I think they would have been far too expensive. And you'd need to know where to find them. I imagine a lot of the émigrés sending back flutes wouldn't have been flute players. They would have bought them off the Sears catalog, or from a local music shop, or someone at the pub, and packed them off for "little Noreen" or whoever "back home".

And although we sneer at them today for their tuning, unresponsiveness, impossible foot keys, etc, they were probably quite influential in developing the style. You had to push such a flute to be heard among the other instruments. And pushing the low notes using the jet-offset technique (blowing at the bottom of the hole) helped the somewhat flat low notes by moving the energy away from the flat and weak fundamental into the more audible and better-tuned partials. Hearing Gray Larsen pushing his small-holed Firth and Pond up to loud was an eye opener to me, and the same can be done and has to be done with the old German flutes.

I think the large English flutes had to wait for them to become unwanted and therefore very cheap, and for entrepreneurs like Paul Davis (Davies) to harvest, fix up and sell over in Ireland. And for Irish players to be able to afford even those prices. Paul was charging 100 pounds for a Rudall in 1974, though he would bend on that to get a good flute into the hands of a good player. That was probably both a charitable act, but also good business practice. Such a player becomes a walking advertisement for Paul's services.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

"The result is that today we have a superfluity of practitioners who know how to play, but are lacking in understanding of what they are playing and how it came to be. And we must accept that the progress of this academic field will remain, as it has been for decades, mainly in the hands of passionate individuals who make their living in other ways and have limited time and resources."

The below looks over early 19th century realities.

https://journalofmusic.com/opinion/cult ... -barbarism

And

Authenticity to Classicisation: The Course of Revival in Irish Traditional Music Fintan Valleley

https://www.jstor.org/stable/29736270

Sort of follows on with various ideas.


Bigsciota, technical analysis of music isn't for me, as you mentioned that though and I came across an article...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 2#ref-CR49


There are various short references to traditional music in 18th century Ireland, but so far I have not found an attempt at wider description, should be one somewhere. Will just present relevant links for now, and should get around to reading other posts when I have time.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by an seanduine »

Yes, Terry, as you said, evidence on the ground for better flutes in Ireland is spotty and anecdotal. Mike Rafferty as a young´un, before emigrating to the states was exposed to a variety of transverse instruments. He learned on a fife for the village band. Mike´s father before him played the flute until he lost his teeth. A sympathetic parish priest (not always a given where ´the music´ was concerned), arranged for ´Barrel´ Rafferty, Mike´s father, to receive a practice set of Uilleann Pipes, from Leo Rowsome. Mike´s father lost his sight about that time, and Mrs. Rafferty was convinced it was blowin´ the flute is what did it. She deep-sixed that flute. She didn´t want Mike to play it. Mike himelf spoke of having a ´good´ flute when he played out for ceilidhs, but lost it to a ´borrower´ who never returned it.
My take away from all this is that as more and more emigrants who found work and better times remitted instruments back home, the number of better flutes went up. Reg Hall paints a vivid picture of music in London, with players haunting the London pawnshops for instruments. Willie Clancy spoke of buying either a Coyne or Harrington set of pipes this way. Any of the emigrants to New York City would have gone up to the avenue where there were rows of music shops and music publishing houses. These shops often had well made American flutes as well as others. I own several such flutes, branded by the music shop from about 1890 to 1910.

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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by david_h »

Could it be that the demand in Ireland wasn't enough to support the 'industrial' multi-person workshops that would, I guess, beat a lone craftsman on price (and marketing, distribution networks etc)?
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

Mike Rafferty as a young´un
:boggle: In an Irish context this sounds very confusing ( or perhaps confused). The sexes are divided, rather binary, in 'young fellas' and young wans also 'your man' or your wan' etc. :lol:
She deep-sixed that flute. She didn´t want Mike to play it.
Tommy McCarthy had a similar story, he started on a small fife like 'flute'. One night he came home only to see his mother, afraid it would lead him 'astray', had put it on the fire. He saved it, a bit scorched.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Jayhawk »

Mr.Gumby wrote: Tue Nov 01, 2022 5:21 am
Mike Rafferty as a young´un
:boggle: In an Irish context this sounds very confusing ( or perhaps confused). The sexes are divided, rather binary, in 'young fellas' and young wans also 'your man' or your wan' etc. :lol:
Language is so much fun, isn't it? On our side of the pond, young'uns is gender neutral. My great-grandmother (who came west in a covered wagon during the Oklahoma land rush) was an Ozark hillbilly through and through, and her speech was a mashup of Elizabethan English with Scottish English and likely Irish English mixed in. Ye, you'uns, we'uns, y'all, ally'all...I know there are a ton more (thee and thou were not uncommon, either) but she passed away in 1978 at 98 so I don't recall them all. She was a living time machine, but even at a young age I was fascinated by the words she used that I'd only seen in read in old books or heard in old movies.

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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by Mr.Gumby »

Language is so much fun, isn't it?
It is. 'Young 'un' gender-neutral is also common enough in Britain, as far as I know. Here it all 'did you see yer wan/your man?' etc.

My son is well into all that sort of hiberno-english expression, taking great delight in them. Micho Russell's 'she's a great block of a woman', 'that one is as mad as a box of frogs' and all that.

My gran, born in the final year of the 19th century, had a huge store of unusual expressions and sayings. At some point I had most of them but they're fading, at this stage.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by GreenWood »

Slightly off topic but relevant in terms of "local hierarchy" or something like that...

PB+J

"In O’Neills childhood 95% of the land in Ireland was owned by Protestants and land was not available to buy." PB+J



"A survey of the 4,000 largest landlords in 1872 revealed that already 43% were Roman Catholics, 48% were Church of Ireland, 7% were Presbyterians, and 2% unknown."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Acts_(Ireland)

"In 1870 302 proprietors (1.5% of the total) owned 33.7% of the land, and 50% of the country was in the hands of 750 families."

http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/ir ... e-land.htm



1876

Above 1000 Acre 3745 owners.

43% catholic = 1610 owners

Lowest threshold of 1803 owners of 1000 to 2000 acres total 2.5 m acres

1610/1803 x 2.5 m acres = 2.2 m acres catholic

Of total 13 m acres for 1000 acres and above = 12.5%

If I calculated properly.

From Landlords and Tenants in Ireland Finlay Dun

https://ia802706.us.archive.org/1/items ... 00dunf.pdf


Which also seems to say local acquisitions since 1850 were minimal.

Obviously preparation and presentation of figures is often used to paint one picture or another, but here the two versions don't seem to fit, even if catholic owners were the tail of the 4000 in terms of property size. Also ownership is quite a flexible term depending on associated protections (of proprietors and tenants) and ability to trade at sub-ownership levels also. Placing owners religion as representative of history is indicative but not reliable, and potentially antagonistic.

It isn't to argue, I don't know and it isn't a theme I plan to study, just placing a juxtaposition.
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Re: The flute and Irish history

Post by PB+J »

GreenWood wrote: Tue Nov 01, 2022 11:37 am Slightly off topic but relevant in terms of "local hierarchy" or something like that...

PB+J

"In O’Neills childhood 95% of the land in Ireland was owned by Protestants and land was not available to buy." PB+J



"A survey of the 4,000 largest landlords in 1872 revealed that already 43% were Roman Catholics, 48% were Church of Ireland, 7% were Presbyterians, and 2% unknown."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Acts_(Ireland)

"In 1870 302 proprietors (1.5% of the total) owned 33.7% of the land, and 50% of the country was in the hands of 750 families."

http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/ir ... e-land.htm



1876

Above 1000 Acre 3745 owners.

43% catholic = 1610 owners

Lowest threshold of 1803 owners of 1000 to 2000 acres total 2.5 m acres

1610/1803 x 2.5 m acres = 2.2 m acres catholic

Of total 13 m acres for 1000 acres and above = 12.5%

If I calculated properly.

From Landlords and Tenants in Ireland Finlay Dun

Greenwood, there is a long history of land reform in Ireland. Google "land war" for example, and recognize that a great deal can change between 1848, when O'Neill was born, and 1878, the years the wikipedia links you provided refer to or when Finlay Dunn was writing in 1881. There is an international movement to reform landownership practices. I just was quoting Dun's account of land reform in Lettermacaward, where the colored ancestor came from.


One of the points I keep trying to make is about specificity regarding dates. Specificity about time is a really important thing. From O'Neill's birth to Finlay Dun's book is thirty three years. Think back to 1989, and consider how different the world was 33 years ago.

I keep making the point that "tradition" imagines a world without political change, but Ireland is politically turbulent and goes through a lot of political change in addition to, or maybe in response to, demographic catastrophe. The politics and demographics of of Ireland changed a lot after the famine. By 1900, Catholics had become the majority of landowners.
Last edited by PB+J on Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:12 am, edited 4 times in total.
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