Airs

[PallasAthena]

Is there any exact definition for an air? I know it is generally slow and melodic and it may have words, but is there any more specific "specifications" for what makes an air an air?

[SteveShaw]

What I love about ITM is that it often resists exact definitions and rules, and slow airs are a prime example. I think you've got it in one! The real question is, can Danny Boy ever be a slow air?

[BigDavy]

Hi Steve

I thought that an air (as against a slow air) was the tune to a song, and a slow air could be any speed, but it has to be arhythmic.

So Londonderry Air could be both

David

[SteveShaw]

I hardly dare to play slow airs on the harmonica in public (I'm scared off by those who say you should know the words in Gaelic first ) but I play a good few to myself at home and dream of getting 'em right. I'm going to annoy everyone by reproducing a sizeable extract from an article I wrote recently (for a harmonica magazine!) about slow air playing on the harmonica. I'm perfectly prepared to be shot down! Ahem:

Most traditional Irish instrumental music evolved for dancing to. The reels, jigs, hornpipes and polkas would be at the heart of many a social occasion. Many a pub session today is dominated by the “lively stuff,” but song, too, has a central place in the tradition. Now most people will be familiar with the rousing Irish pub song – the likes of “Whiskey in the Jar,” “Wild Rover” and “The Jug of Punch.” And what could bring a tear to the eye (after a few pints at least!) better than a lusty rendering of “Danny Boy?” Incidentally, the tune to Danny Boy, the Derry Air, is an excellent harmonica tune which sounds very nice on a chromatic or on a Paddy Richter-tuned diatonic in G. These songs have their place, but for the purpose of this article we need to set them aside in order to explore a very special kind of song that’s far more deeply embedded in the tradition.

The Gaelic Irish language has a strong tradition of poetry and story-telling, and this is frequently expressed in song form. In social gatherings the singer would perform unaccompanied in Gaelic in a highly-ornamented and expressive manner. Such singing is referred to as sean-nós, which translates as “the old way” or “custom.” Sean-nós is still heard today but relatively rarely, especially outside Ireland. Scholars of traditional Irish music have attempted to define its characteristics, and I’ve distilled the list below from various sources in order to highlight the aspects of sean-nós that we harmonica-players need to take into consideration. It isn’t intended to be comprehensive.

1. A “bare” voice is used (not 'sweet', and with a certain 'natural fierceness').
2. No vibrato.
3. No dynamic. (loud/soft)
4. Emotion is expressed through the use of vocal ornamentation, which varies from singer to singer.
5. Free, non-metronomic rhythm is used by the singer.
6. The meaning of the words dictates the way the music is expressed.
7. Use is made of the glottal stop/dramatic pause.
8. It is unaccompanied.
9. The melody varies from one verse to the next and from one performance to the next.
10. The singing is in the Irish language.

An offshoot of sean-nós singing is the art of the playing of the song melodies on instruments. A melody so played is called a slow air. Now, no term in Irish music is so loosely-employed as the term “slow air.” Many traditional musicians use the expression to refer to any melody played slowly. Some fast dance-tunes can be slowed right down and called slow airs, and many a modern composition of a more reflective nature has been so-defined. Even “Danny Boy” has on more than one occasion been slotted into the category. This is such a widespread practice that it’s tempting to allow it as valid, but if you do you’ll upset many a traditionalist, so beware! Strictly speaking the term should be reserved only for melodies derived from sean-nós songs. These days, with the ready availability of CD recordings, it’s easy enough to learn slow airs by ear and have a go at them on the harmonica. You may be able to do this sufficiently well to convince an audience – but it’s very unlikely that such an audience will contain any musicians who are familiar with traditional Irish song. Another thing - it’s almost a cliché in musical circles to say that it’s harder to play slowly than quickly, but in the case of Irish slow air playing this is especially true, and for many more reasons than mere questions of timing and phrasing.

For one thing, if you learn a slow air tune from a recording you are immediately divorced from the song lyrics. The person who played it on the recording may well have had an intimate acquaintance with the Gaelic words to which the air was set, but here you are trying to play the tune blissfully unaware of what the song was even about. Now, you may immediately spring to your own defence and declare that your version is satisfying in terms of pure musicality. Faced with opposition from traditionalists, I once tried to argue that hundreds of harmonica players have achieved considerable success with putting their own individual stamp on the melody of “Summertime,” yet it would plainly be ludicrous to attempt to fit the lyrics back to many of these versions. The flaw in my argument (as I was made acutely aware!) was that “Summertime” is a relatively modern creation that exists in an idiom in which improvisation is the norm. In attempting to interpret a slow air on the other hand, in isolation from its traditional roots as a story-song or lament, I would be playing fast and loose with the tradition and would be at risk of having scorn heaped upon me.

Now so far I’ve deliberately erected barriers. I’ve provided a list of rather forbidding-looking “rules,” and I’ve almost made it look like you should be dissuaded from even trying to play slow airs unless you are, at the very least, a dyed-in-the-wool Gaelic-speaking Irishman steeped in the tradition from birth. But I’m hardly going to be writing an article about slow airs and then forbidding their playing on harmonica. My feeling has always been that rules are there to be “respectfully broken,” and what I’ve tried to do so far is to emphasise the deeply-traditional origins of the song-tunes. There are many people around still who, rightly in my opinion, will defend that tradition to the hilt. Your heightened awareness of the ancient origins and central role in the tradition of slow airs will be one factor that contributes to your playing them better. It’s hard enough to be accepted as a harmonica player in Irish circles as it is. If you can display a little knowledge of the tradition in your conversation and a lot of respect for it in your playing you will do much to further our cause!

So, on to the practicalities. First, do you really need to know the song words before playing the air? There are several difficulties here, not the least of which is that you may not speak Gaelic. You could study a translation of the words, but much is then lost in terms of the nuances and subtleties of meaning, not to speak of clues as to how the tune could be phrased in the playing. At least you’d know whether the song was a story, a love-song, a poem about a particular location or a lament. To add to the difficulties it’s quite possible that you’ll find the words to a particular air have been lost in any case. Hearing the song sung by a sean-nós singer would be a very good thing to do even if you hadn’t a clue as to what it was about. At least you’d get some feeling for the manner in which this music is performed. And listen to airs played on recordings too. Many recording artists play slow airs with accompaniment, and I would suggest that there is much less to learn from these renderings than there is from listening to unaccompanied playing. In translating what you hear sung or played on to the harmonica you will have to “respectfully break” some of those “rules” listed above. I think, for example, that some vibrato and dynamic shading is perfectly acceptable. The fact is you’re playing an instrument, not singing. And you may elect to play with accompaniment. This should be applied very sensitively. I’ve heard some very fine air-playing completely ruined by ornate, cascading guitar arpeggios. On the other hand I’ve heard some lovely accompaniment on piano to many an Irish or Scottish air. These are judgements that come down to your innate sense of musicality as well as your respect for the tradition. Ornamentation, including bending, may be used to the full – that’s what a singer would be doing. Try to listen to the ways Irish singers slide up and down to the notes. I’ve heard it argued that, as you’re using ornamentation to express emotion, it doesn’t make sense unless you know the words of the song. You may be “adding emotion” in all the wrong places! This is a very difficult point to resolve. You may be rendering a tune with a perfect sense of musicality and it may sound very satisfying. But there may be one person in the audience who knows the song, and to him you may simply be playing fast-and-loose. A purist would say that you are doing nothing more than belittling the tradition. I would get round this in introducing the way I was going to play the piece by saying that my version takes musical ideas from the song and is not meant as a literal rendition. You could even give some background to the song to give a context to your version. By doing this you are at least showing respect and not ignorance.

The hardest part of playing slow airs is getting the free, non-metronomic rhythm right. We are certainly not talking about jazzy syncopation here - what you have to try to achieve is more akin to the rubato used in classical music, but frequently taken almost to extremes! A sean-nós singer will slow down and add emphasis by dwelling on certain emotional points in the song, and it’s frequent for slowing down to occur at the end of a verse. The pause before the next verse begins may be longer than you’d expect. Because every verse of a song is different, the points of emphasis will keep changing throughout the song, and good air-playing will reflect this. Now just because the original song may have had numerous verses it doesn’t mean that you have to drive your audience mad by playing the tune umpteen times. Be kind to your audience and keep your performance concise. They’re not exactly going to be able to stamp their feet as they may have been doing to your set of reels a few minutes ago. I think that three times through the tune with all your ornamentation and variation skills to the fore is plenty for a slow air, and sometimes less. A not-very-traditional but quite effective thing to do is to add a dance tune on to the end of your air (I’m ducking to avoid the purists’ aim here!). A jig or a polka from your repertoire can sound very good, especially if you can find one that is in a different “key” (mode) to the air. Don’t do this too often though. A good air is more than capable of standing alone, and you don’t want to dissipate too rudely the atmosphere of rapture and emotion you’ve built up.

[PallasAthena]

So..."slow air" is distinctly different from an "air"?...even more confusing...

I'm assuming airs overlap a bit with ballads?

...or maybe I'm overthinking this...

[dyersituations]

I'm assuming airs overlap a bit with ballads?

Someone told me that airs and songs/ballads come from essentially the same tradition. To some extent it is Sean Nos, but not exactly. There are many airs that come from songs.

Airs in my experience are mostly slow tunes. I have encountered airs in different key signatures. Also, one can play other tunes in an "air" fashion. We have been known to play a hornpipe so it sounds like an air.

[djm]

It is not all doom and gloom. There are airs that are retained in the tradition strictly as instrumental melodies. There is also a long held practise in the Irish tradition whereby the same melody is used over and over again for multiple songs. Obviously, each song has its own meaning and lyrics, so the lyrics will necessarily alter the structure of the melody somewhat.

Use this to your advantage.

If some smart @rse starts haranguing you about the proper shape of a slow air based on the Gaelic lyrics of the song, Xyzaeiou Qghltmnspt, simply explain that you are not playing Xyzaeiou Qghltmnspt, but rather, a much older, and far more authentic traditional song called, hGlqrtmnspt an Flzyuoieaghlrg. It is important to constantly browbeat hypertraditionalists with the appearance of even more extreme supertraditionalism.

djm

[Nanohedron]

Is there any exact definition for an air? I know it is generally slow and melodic and it may have words, but is there any more specific "specifications" for what makes an air an air?

I generally think of an air as the tune to a song, played on an instrument. I also think it's important that the words to the song inform one's phrasing.

Some airs may never have had words to them; The Lament for Staker Wallace is one such if my info is correct.

In either case, it's a good idea to have listened to multiple renderings of an air or song in order to "get" it: listeners may know the song well, and will be listening for the connection of the playing to the words. All of which isn't to say there isn't room for elasticity, but it ought to fit. YYMV.

[SteveShaw]

In either case, it's a good idea to have listened to multiple renderings of an air or song in order to "get" it: listeners may know the song well, and will be listening for the connection of the playing to the words. All of which isn't to say there isn't room for elasticity, but it ought to fit. YYMV.

The hyper-purists will say that you should know the original Gaelic words (if there are any). Only then can you know how to phrase the tune and where the points of emphasis should be. I don't know any Gaelic and I'm not a denizen of the Emerald Isle but I do have a lot of sympathy for this viewpoint. Try to imagine that you are a Gaelic scholar with a vast knowledge of the songs performed in the séan-nos tradition, sitting in the audience as some hairy-arse has a crack at a slow air, with the words to which he is blissfully unfamiliar. No matter how "musical" the performance is it would inevitably grate with our scholar. From an artistic point of view it isn't good enough to say that, well, so what, there just aren't that many Gaelic scholars around anyway so who's to know! It's far better to admit that you are just taking ideas from the tune and putting your own interpretation on it, hopefully producing something that will be musically-fulfilling for player and audience alike whilst not even pretending to be attempting an instrumental rendition of the song. In that way you are respecting the tradition at least.

Of course, you could just play the damn thing!

[dfernandez77]

question is, can Danny Boy ever be a slow air?

Depends on how relaxed I am, and if I had beans for lunch.

[Nanohedron]

In either case, it's a good idea to have listened to multiple renderings of an air or song in order to "get" it: listeners may know the song well, and will be listening for the connection of the playing to the words. All of which isn't to say there isn't room for elasticity, but it ought to fit. YYMV.

The hyper-purists will say that you should know the original Gaelic words (if there are any). Only then can you know how to phrase the tune and where the points of emphasis should be. I don't know any Gaelic and I'm not a denizen of the Emerald Isle but I do have a lot of sympathy for this viewpoint. Try to imagine that you are a Gaelic scholar with a vast knowledge of the songs performed in the séan-nos tradition, sitting in the audience as some hairy-arse has a crack at a slow air, with the words to which he is blissfully unfamiliar. No matter how "musical" the performance is it would inevitably grate with our scholar. From an artistic point of view it isn't good enough to say that, well, so what, there just aren't that many Gaelic scholars around anyway so who's to know! It's far better to admit that you are just taking ideas from the tune and putting your own interpretation on it, hopefully producing something that will be musically-fulfilling for player and audience alike whilst not even pretending to be attempting an instrumental rendition of the song. In that way you are respecting the tradition at least.

Of course, you could just play the damn thing!

Nyuk, as Weeks would say.

There's been an Irish poster who has said that anyone not of Irish birth has no business whatsoever playing at playing airs. Fair enuf, I suppose. But it's not gonna stop me. There have been other Irish players who have said that the airs don't get the play they deserve, and made no dire claims that airs should be the exclusive purview of the Hibernian. Given the diversity of Irish opinion in the matter, I'm going to satisfy myself, and play 'em. To hell with the begrudgers.

I've had compliments on my playing of airs from Irish musicians, FWIW. Instead of feeling good, it makes me nervous!

I am of the opinion that even if one doesn't understand the words, one can get the phrasing if one listens well, and better so if one has more than one example to draw from. As it is, some songs have no Irish words, having been composed in English: The May Morning Dew is one. Also, I think sometimes one can rely just on the rendering of the tune itself, especially if one has, again, multiple examples to draw from. But I do think that requires close listening and a faithful sense of the pulse. But that's just me.

Anyway, I'm agreeing with you.

[SteveShaw]

I'm agreeing with you too. I still don't know what "nyuk" means though.

[Nanohedron]

"Nyuk" is a Merkin formation of a wink-wink-nudge-nudge laugh. I associate it with The Three Stooges.

[jsluder]

I still don't know what "nyuk" means though.

Oh, a wise guy, eh?

[pancelticpiper]

Tomas O Canainn in Traditional Music In Ireland writes:
"It is the author's belief that no aspect of Irish music can be fully understood without a deep appreciation of sean-nos singing. It is the key which opens every lock. Without a sound knowledge of the sean-nos and a feeling for it a performer has no hope of knowing what is authentic and what is not...a listener who is not steeped in the sean-nos tradition will be unable fully to assess even an instrumental traditional performance of an air because the style of playing is so much affected by the implications of the language."
That I suppose sums up pretty well the "purist" approach. I cannot hope to live up to this standard, and the airs I play on the pipes I've learned from the playing of other pipers.