One of the biggest problems trying to copy Arty McGlynn is that he tunes his guitar in a unique way. TTBOMK no other professional guitarist uses the same tuning.Pat Cannady wrote:Arty did a fantastic job of backing, too; I wish more accompanists tried to emulate him.
There's but one, or two in the piping on the first Planxty album. No more than a momentary dropped octave. If I could play with only ten times the mistakes he makes, I'd have a hard time keeping the ego down (at least until She Who Must Be Obeyed set me back in placePJ wrote:On the subject of LO'F, he's a great piper but two things bother me: (1) I've never heard him play a bum note (drop an octave or something similar) and (2) I've never seen a photo of him smiling - he always looks very serious.
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I suppose I must clarify that. I don't care how he gets the right chord voicings out at the right time and with the right touch, only that he makes it a priority. I see too many other backers who don't and I wonder why they think it's appropriate.PJ wrote:One of the biggest problems trying to copy Arty McGlynn is that he tunes his guitar in a unique way. TTBOMK no other professional guitarist uses the same tuning.Pat Cannady wrote:Arty did a fantastic job of backing, too; I wish more accompanists tried to emulate him.
I seems to me any piper who manages to make his living from music seems to come in for some stick. I suppose there are only so many solo piping albums you can sell and the die-hard piping fans is a limited audience. At some point, you have to mix it up with some other style if you want to get new listeners - which is essential if music is your livelihood.ausdag wrote:Poor ol' Liam O'Flynn gets continues to get a bad wrap with his orchestral work
It was mind boggling listening to him, almost intimidating, like I'm afraid I would never be able to play like that. He's scary-good.Pat Cannady wrote:You should hear him without the orchestra
Get all of the Planxty CDs, some are better than others but all of them have at least some tasty piping on them. And see if you can get any private recordings of him at tionols. He still has to be one of the best even now, with more pipers playing at a high level than at almost any other time in the instrument's history.
The reviewer is obliquely referring to the theme of the work - the canvas ship lost in the sea on the way to Newfoundland. In the work, the pipes represent the ship.myrddinemrys wrote:I bet if they stuck troy donockley's mic on his reed his sound wouldn't be lost in a sea of orchestration.
I agree 110% with Pat. I first heard Liam at one of the early Planxty gigs in 1970 and he blew me away - much more than the Chieftains. I went to that concert because I had heard about him, but it was clear then and in subsequent early Planxty gigs that his relly big impact was on people who mainly wanted to hear the "Three drunken maidens" kind of stuff, but who were stopped in their tracks by his solo pieces. At the end of each, you could almost hear a collective sharp intake of breath followed by delirious applause.Pat Cannady wrote:You should hear him without the orchestra
Get all of the Planxty CDs, some are better than others but all of them have at least some tasty piping on them. And see if you can get any private recordings of him at tionols. He still has to be one of the best even now, with more pipers playing at a high level than at almost any other time in the instrument's history.
