"Dance Tunes" or "Airs"?

[Nanohedron]

OMG. Kitty Lie Over. I can't mention that one without gushing. I loaned it out to someone and I can't get it back; he says he doesn't have it, never did, but I know better. Fair enough, I suppose. I'll just have to shell out all over again, I miss it so.

[talasiga]

If I went to a concert and you played an Air, I'd have the desire and the nerve to go up to you after the concert and talk to you. Not if you didn't - no matter how excellent your jigs and things.

I feel that you are giving short shrift to dance tunes actually.
.....

Darling, actually I'm not. I didn't say I didn't like dance tunes. Anyone who frequented the Rose Shamrock and Thistle in Rozelle, Sydney in the early eighties would know this.

What I said was that an Air was likely to get me talking to the musician and give verbal feedback. Dance is the feedback for dance music and poetics for Airs.

[Redwolf]

I really love playing airs, but prefer to only play those that I have learned to sing first. I don't think you can do justice to a song air without either knowing the song, or hearing enough people who know it well singing it to have a good idea of the kind of phrasing involved. Frankly, most of the people I've heard play slow airs really murder them...it's obvious they've never heard the song!

I've only really gotten into playing dance tunes in the past couple of years, since I've been going to sessions. I probably play dance music a little more frequently than airs at the moment, both to keep in shape for sessions and because I'm focusing a bit more on my singing.

Redwolf

[Tony McGinley]

I am still facinated, and even a bit
bewildered at this stage, about the
whole business of "Airs" in ITM.

When and where I grew up there was
very little of Irish dance music to be
heard. In fact there was a distinct, and
almost mocking, dislike of the diddli - di
music. In those days it was bashed out
in oversized ceili bands with many piano
accordions, drums etc. ITM then for me
consisted of the songs, ballads and airs.

ITM playing as it seems to have evolved;
in large competing groups of individuals playing
exclusively dance tunes, is to me, a strange
new species that has evolved Darwinian style
from the origins.

The dance music would originally have been
almost exclusively to dance to, and was rarely
considered a performance art. There would
been a handful of musicians providing the music,
and often a single piper. (he who pays the piper
calls the tune). Solo playing would not have
been an issue.

I have been talking to Tomás Ó Canainn about
this subject and he had a few interesting
observations. He has given me permission to quote
him here:

"It has always seemed to me that many trad players
feel a bit inadequate when it comes to playing airs.

I think it has something to do with a lack of confidence
in the sound they produce ( certainly true of fiddlers).

With all instruments, the lack of knowledge of airs makes
it unlikely that they would choose to play them together
at a session. Air-playing, by its very nature, is a solo thing,
so when they appear at a session it's generally a solo,
with the other players and the audience listening.
In some ways the same applies to songs."

I hope this stimulates further discussion on this
subject.

[Redwolf]

I definitely agree that air playing is a solo art or, at best, something that's best done by a select group of instrumentalists who have practiced the air together and worked out how it should be interpreted. For one thing, most airs aren't particularly metrical by nature, and trying to get a pub-full of musicians to play something like "Airde Cuan" or "Eamonn a'Cnoic" together in anything that even resembles an authentic style is next to impossible.

Ó Carolan tunes can be done at a session, I guess, but they're a different class altogether from the song airs that make up most of the "slow air" repetoire.

Redwolf

[SteveShaw]

I agree with all the comments made about air-playing. Where I would part company is when anyone suggests we should have rules about these things.

[Cynth]

OMG. Kitty Lie Over. I can't mention that one without gushing. I loaned it out to someone and I can't get it back; he says he doesn't have it, never did, but I know better. Fair enough, I suppose. I'll just have to shell out all over again, I miss it so.

I think you'll have to get another. When I got it I just listened to it once and thought Oh, that's nice. I can't imagine what was wrong with me--just not a good day maybe. Then just recently I put it on and I have been listening to it over and over. The whistle playing is so great too. Just everything. And some of the tunes seem really sort of strange. Oh dear. I think I'm gushing!

Darling, actually I'm not. I didn't say I didn't like dance tunes. Anyone who frequented the Rose Shamrock and Thistle in Rozelle, Sydney in the early eighties would know this.

What I said was that an Air was likely to get me talking to the musician and give verbal feedback. Dance is the feedback for dance music and poetics for Airs.

But I don't think very many people dance to the dance tunes nowadays. So the musician wouldn't be getting much feedback when he played dance tunes. His feelings might be hurt!

[Black Mage]

Personally, I think I know more airs than jig, reels, and hornpipes. Though I'm trying to even out my repertoire a bit. When I first started learning to play, I was rather intimidated by the jigs, they just seemed so fast. So I started by learning airs (Inisheer was the first song I learned). But as I've gotten better I've looked to learn more dance tunes. Partly because that's all that's played in sessions, and I was feeling pretty left out the first couple of times I went to my session.