Becoming Irish or becoming Irish music?

[The Weekenders]

Will paw through cds when I get the chance and make you a list. I only have one CD that is not an Irish or Scots born player, I think Joanie Madden. (Or is Conway from Chicago?) That tune is tucked in medleys a lot and not always attributed. Yeah, its on Chieftains, Kevin Burke, Chulrua, BBand, Potts of course.

Maybe I just imagined it...but I sure hear it a lot and I don't go to sessions regularly.

[TonyHiggins]

Going back to the beginning of this thread, I'll speak for my own observations/experiences. I've seen the behaviors first hand that were described in the article. People with no background speaking with authority and passion about things they fantasized were true, and doing so to create that feeling of inclusiveness/exclusiveness. And, I've noticed passion and knowledge are in inverse proportion. And, as many people I know who don't play or care about Irish music who hate the taste of Guiness, it's funny to me how many people who do play Irtrad drink it up with relish. Anyway, I don't mix music with politics, so I don't have much patience for the pecking order business that obviously goes on in sessions. (I'm not saying it shouldn't go on in certain settings. Sessions happen for different reasons.) And all the sessions I've witnessed or participated in were certainly a performance for the pub, not a joining in of the punters, etc. Authentic or artificial? I don't really care. People get something good out of it, so that's great. The house sessions feel a lot better to me.

I had to reflect that the identification/exclusivity thing is seen all over society and identifying with Irish music and/or culture is better than identifying with neo-Nazis, street gangs, or military regiments. It's the instinct for tribalism. I think we're hard-wired for it.

On a personal note, being an Irish emmigrant to the US at an early age, I've always identified with both cultures, but felt somewhat of an outsider to both at the same time. I grew up thinking that I'd eventually move back to Ireland to live some day, but that thought holds less appeal and seems more fanciful as the years go by. I think I'd feel more at home with Americans by this time than the Irish in Ireland.

I fell into listening to Irtrad after my mom's brother visited from Dublin and gave my dad a Dubliner's album back in 1974. My dad had no use for it and gave it to me after I went nuts over it (the banjo and fiddle instrumental tracks- especially McKenna playing Kitty Come Down from Limerick and a slow fiddle solo of King of the Fairies). Two years later, I sought out more music and discovered the Chieftains. Got a tinwhistle and started playing on my own. I was embarrassed to be seen with it and would be invariably asked, 'what kind of music is that?' I'd sheepishly reply, 'Irish folk music.' (I quit playing for quite a few years due to school, marriage, kids, etc.) At the same time, I couldn't figure out why it wasn't internationally raved about. I thought it was the most phenomenal music in the world. When I discovered sessions in the mid 90's and the fact that the players weren't even Irish, I thought it was really weird, but I thought, hey, about time people figured out what was going on.
Tony

[Bloomfield]

Hmmm...
I don't really know what to think about this article after a first skim. I guess she's got some valid points in many respects, but she runs into the same problem I ran into when writing my undergraduate thesis (on a very similar subject) - it's impossible to write objectively when you yourself are directly involved in that which you are writing about. I'd like to know more about the author. Is she a good musician?
...
What I would really like to read is a healthy, self-critical article of this sort written by someone who has really immersed themselves in the music. I'd like to see that article published somewhere where other musicians and scholars could respond to it with their own articles, criticisms and insights. Anyhow, I give her credit for writing the thing.
Chris

I think those are great points. Apart from finding it somehow distateful that the author apparantly sits in these sessions and plays, talks to the people around her and then turns them into rabbits in a clinical study, I just don't trust the analysis. There seems this judgmental under-current in how she proves that the session stalwarts are basically bigotted buffoons who think they're doing one thing when they are really doing another.

Stuff like this

The host subtly grills the unsuspecting newcomer, asking for their musical and ethnic pedigree...

So he's asking how long have you been playing, where are you from? Isn't that the attempt to connect with the newcomer, to have some personal interaction? Is the author's expectation that when someone sits down with an instrument, they are not spoken to by anyone in the session? And "subtly grills" is so slanted. (Is she perhaps refering to herself being subtly grilled when she joined the session ostensibly to play music with others but really to turn it into an object lesson for her article and didn't want to let on?)

[The session hosts] most important role is to ensure that the "tradition" is upheld, although other musicians also may serve in this capacity.

Could you replace "that the 'tradition' is upheld" with "that the music is good"? But then again the sessions that I've seen are blissfully far removed from the Comhaltas. Also, I am not sure what to make of the authors understanding of "the tradition." She talks about traditional instruments, and then mentions the bodhran which is perhaps the least traditional instrument, being such a recent arrival on the scene. And she keeps at it: "In some instances they are shuffled off to what is known as "slow" or "beginner" sessions where they presumably learn the rudiments of the tradition." Shuffled off? Presumably? Is this an academic article or an ax being ground?

And take that passage I quoted earlier:

The following examples illustrate some of the ways musicians challenge insiders to demonstrate their loyalty. One especially skilled American female musician, who speaks with a slight Irish accent, is often ridiculed for what the other's regard as an affected accent. Because she is a gifted musician, they cannot dismiss her through her musicianship. Instead they deny her total participation by saying, "She isn't really Irish you know" or, "She just puts on that accent. She'd like to think she's Irish." Perhaps not surprisingly, these backbiting remarks come from musicians who affect other Irish cultural traits which are not their own. Another gifted female musician, who claims no Irish ancestry, was faulted for her fondness for diverse types of music. One day I mentioned that I thought she was an uncommon musician for her age. To my comment, a critical musician solemnly responded, "Yes, she's very talented, but she needs to make a decision what she's going to be. Either she's going to play Irish music, or she's not. She can't be loyal to all of them." This unbending criticism came from a musician who often plays music from other music genres as well and is typical of the subtle ways the musicians indoctrinate the neophytes and newcomers into the session community and the world of Irish traditional music. In addition to these type of statements and criticisms there are also many other ways the musicians restrict membership.

Whose word are we taking for it that it was an "especially skilled" or "another gifted" player? At this point I am not trusting the author to discern good (Irish) music from bad. And it doesn't seem to have occurred to her that the guy who told her that the "gifted" musician might need to choose what style of music to play, was really suggesting that the "gifted" musician wasn't that good, without wanting to slam her. (He still sounds like a bit of a fathead, frankly.) (And what cracks me up is that the author suggested that "she was an uncommon musician for her age..." which sounds like the author is affecting Irish speech patterns.) Then there is that slant again: "backbiting remarks" "unbending criticism."

It is obvious that sessions, like quilting bees, poker rounds, church choirs and swingers clubs are going to form little sociological sub-cultures, or whatever you want to call them. All little sub-cultures use subtle or not so subtle markers of who belongs and doesn't. So, as for academic content: What does the article actually say?

[Zubivka]

Only one detail puzzles me:

Who's this "Royce"

[ChrisLaughlin]

Only one detail puzzles me:

Who's this "Royce"

Yeah, when I first saw that, I though "Heck, if she is using Royce Lerwick as a source then she's in big trouble!" It turns out it's someone else, Anya Royce.... whoever the heck she is

[The Weekenders]

For all the trouble he has caused, Royce has pointed out many of the very things that people complain about here and are being discussed in the article. He is an enemy of sheet music, unspontaneous controlling people and session "little Hitlers"... His contributions about reel types on the Irtrad Forum were very instructive and I learned from him.

I miss his ranting, frankly. I have to read "Confederacy of the Dunces" to witness similar verbosity.

[Pat Cannady]

I really wonder if the author of this article can play her way out of a paper bag. I'm inclined to doubt it.

Lemme get this straight, then. I think the author is implying that the more accomplished players who are getting paid to run a session and maintain a certain standard of technical proficiency should also accomodate raw beginners, players of any sort instrument imaginable, and musicians from other traditions, correct?

For the sake of argument: imagine if I were to show up at a strumalong session for folk singers and proceed to play 20 minutes' worth of my favorite reels on my flat pitch B uilleann pipes? What? You mean you guys have RULES? Okay, lemme borrow a guitar...what do you mean STOP? You mean you guys have STANDARDS, too? I thought this was a free for all! You guys are just A BUNCH OF SNOBS!!!!

That's maybe a bit extreme, but that is how many of you react when someone who is more experienced says slow down or just a little quicker, please, put some bounce in it, no we don't play O'Carolan tunes here, take those goddamned spoons and stick them up your ass, etc.

All music genres and the musicians who practice them have certain rules of behavior and standards for public performance. This includes Irish sessions, even ones in Ireland. People will try to encourage beginners, but at some point it is up to the beginner to bear down and improve - you can't expect to be coddled, and why should you? Isn't that immature?

[Nanohedron]

Only one detail puzzles me:

Who's this "Royce"

Yeah, when I first saw that, I though "Heck, if she is using Royce Lerwick as a source then she's in big trouble!" It turns out it's someone else, Anya Royce.... whoever the heck she is

I'll probably be seeing the Roycinator within the week; I'll ask him if "Anya" is his nom de plume, and does he write some racier stuff.

[BoneQuint]

Thanks Tony, that was a very useful perspective to a dabbler like me.

The original verbose, long-winded, and redundant article wasn't. It looked like a formal academic rant to me.

[Nanohedron]

Like Bloomfield, I could have sworn I heard the sound of an axe on a grinding wheel in the background.

[Caj]

Lemme get this straight, then. I think the author is implying that the more accomplished players who are getting paid to run a session and maintain a certain standard of technical proficiency should also accomodate raw beginners, players of any sort instrument imaginable, and musicians from other traditions, correct?

No, that is not at all correct.

The article is not a rant about musicians or how sessions should be run; it is a sociological study of sessioneers in America, and how they culturally identify themselves. The author makes no argument about whether the behavior documented is right or wrong.

What's more: even if I read this article and jump to the conclusion that "boy some of these people are snobs," it's not snobbery over technical proficiency, but snobbery over cultural identification. E.g. "you're good, but you have no Irish roots, wheras my grandfather on my mother's side blah blah."

Nobody's saying anything about accommodating beginners, or snare drums, or salsa music in a closed session. The snobbishness here seems more like people exaggerating their membership in a culture to which they never actually belonged, and using this as a basis to exclude others.

Caj

[The Weekenders]

Many intellectuals, including classical musicians, who are attracted to the Trad, seem to want to "own" it after a short while and get very frustrated if it doesn't happen. Though I share origins with that characterization, I know my limitations.

I guess if I don't get better soon, I shall write an article or a thesis paper. Then you'll see what I REALLY think!

[colomon]

What's more: even if I read this article and jump to the conclusion that "boy some of these people are snobs," it's not snobbery over technical proficiency, but snobbery over cultural identification. E.g. "you're good, but you have no Irish roots, wheras my grandfather on my mother's side blah blah."

Yeah, I got that. But what I don't get is where these "ethnic snob" sessions are. It's not something I can recall ever running into. But then, our big local session is run by someone not even vaguely Irish....

Perhaps (assuming they aren't a figment of the author's imagination) they tend to center around areas with heavy Irish immigrant populations?

[Pat Cannady]

Caj - I saw that in her article. I still think she can't play, feels insecure about it, and blames the alleged bigotry of a few knuckleheads for her exclusion. Most musicians will welcome someone with real dedication and competence, and turn away from a prissy, self-important attention-seeker, even here in the Midwest where racism is quite rampant in many ugly forms. Even if one of the session honchos really did count her ethnicity as a mark against her, this is ONE PERSON out of literally hundreds who play the music in sessions in the midwest. I note she only visited three sessions, two in Chicago, one in Madison. Which ones, I wonder? And why, if you're going to risk pissing people off who might otherwise be willing to talk to you, would you limit your research and risk drawing an inaccurate and inflammatory conclusion?

She ought to at least develop some realistic expectations about her chops and how the lack thereof might exclude her, and then visit other Midwestern sessions.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't care if your last name is Nahasapeemapetlan, if you can play a trad instrument with a modicum of competence you're welcome to join a session if I have any say about it.

[Bloomfield]

Lemme get this straight, then. I think the author is implying that the more accomplished players who are getting paid to run a session and maintain a certain standard of technical proficiency should also accomodate raw beginners, players of any sort instrument imaginable, and musicians from other traditions, correct?

No, that is not at all correct.

The article is not a rant about musicians or how sessions should be run; it is a sociological study of sessioneers in America, and how they culturally identify themselves. The author makes no argument about whether the behavior documented is right or wrong.

Yes she does. How else so you explain all the loaded terms "shuffelled off", "unbending" (and he did it himself, ha!), "self-proclaimed expert" and so forth.

What's more: even if I read this article and jump to the conclusion that "boy some of these people are snobs," it's not snobbery over technical proficiency, but snobbery over cultural identification. E.g. "you're good, but you have no Irish roots, wheras my grandfather on my mother's side blah blah."

What do you make of the fact that she never concedes to snobs in the article a concern over the quality of the music (or even group dynamics), but that they are always watchdogs for [what they perceive as] the "tradition"? In the author's universe, is there a session leader or stalward who cares about the music, but is not a cultural snob? I would agree with you that there should at least in theory be such an animal, but I don't think the author would concede it.

Nobody's saying anything about accommodating beginners, or snare drums, or salsa music in a closed session. The snobbishness here seems more like people exaggerating their membership in a culture to which they never actually belonged, and using this as a basis to exclude others.

Caj

But the whole point is "Irish music not Irish," right? Everyone agrees that it's silly and stupid (and I guess sociologically noteworthy) that people are ridiculed at a session for putting on a phoney Irish accent (although I am not sure whether it says more about the session meanies or the "very skilled" musician with the phoney accent). But does the author actually distinguish between using music on the one hand and other cultural markes on the other as a means of exclusion? I didn't catch it. And note that she specifically refers to the exclusion of beginners, who are "shuffled off to a "slow" session."