Quoting from this thread: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=23224
> It's part of the recording made during the 1972 NPU visit to Willie, the last recording before he died.
Is this a private recording? Is this the only recording of Willie playing Nora Criona the piece way? Let's see if what I'm trying to say makes sense here:
I was listening to Mick O'Brien play one of the Goodman Collection versions of Taimse i Mo Choladh (uilleannobsession radio archives: thanks for that, Patrick). For anyone who tries re-constituting airs from printed selections, or just slow air playing in general, his playing is very interesting-- strong, short phrases, often feeling like individual notes. The style is reminiscent of the Nora Criona piece on Drones & Chanters (which cites Willie Clancy as his source).
Via the kindness of others, I've heard the old McFadden & Early cylinder of "Lord Mayo" (and I've never heard slow air playing like that before). The similarities in the strong, short-phrase treatment are perhaps even more striking... which may be the real influence showing through on both Nora Criona and Taimse i Mo Chodladh. I've never heard Willie play Nora Criona to know how he plays it.
So, I relistened to Pat Mitchell's treatment of Nora Criona, "from Willie" as the liner notes say. Not really the same treatment, in terms of closing off short phrases, as Mick. So now I was interested in either hearing Willie's source version, or at least have someone confirm that the phrasing in it is either more like Pat or Mick in terms of closing off the chanter. Or, I'm wondering if that old "Lord Mayo" was a big influence on Mick.
Is that Early/McFadden cylinder the only one featuring that kind of slow air playing? Or are there more sources?
Mick O'Brien, Clancy and Sgt. Early
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Kevin L. Rietmann
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Folktrax in England has a Clancy/Bobby Casey record where Willie plays either Nora Criona or the Humours of Glynn, which was another piece. Pat Mitchell played a Cnat in the Humours, which always makes my stomach turn slightly...that isin't on his record, though.
Willie was very big on singing, he's simply trying to make the chanter sound like the voice. Listen to some sean-nos singing and try and replicate it and voila. The chanter is the best instrument for the job if you ask me.
I think Willie learned the Humours of Glynn from some old fiddler. I have a copy of an article onpieces that talks about it. One of his jig versions of Nora Criona comes from an old Tom Ennis record - it's not the one Mick or Pat recorded, the other version, which he called "Patsy Touhey's Version". Maybe the label on the record was gone! or someone remembered Patsy playing it that way as well.
I've read too that some of the other pieces in the old days were Paddy O'Rafferty and the Gobby-O, which in America is called Jefferson and Liberty. I've never seen the transcriptions of these, the Roche book has a version of the Humours of Glynn though. Someone told me once that the original idea of piboarech [sp!] was that you'd take a tune, any tune, and "pioabareachize" it, build up the variations as you went along. You could make on up on the spot, and my friend thought the piece perhaps was the same way originally, that if you wanted to throw out a piece, you'd take a jig, reduce it to a kind of waltz time, and add little runs and ornaments, just pull it out of your hat. But I don't know if musicians in the past actually approached pieces this way.
Willie was very big on singing, he's simply trying to make the chanter sound like the voice. Listen to some sean-nos singing and try and replicate it and voila. The chanter is the best instrument for the job if you ask me.
I think Willie learned the Humours of Glynn from some old fiddler. I have a copy of an article onpieces that talks about it. One of his jig versions of Nora Criona comes from an old Tom Ennis record - it's not the one Mick or Pat recorded, the other version, which he called "Patsy Touhey's Version". Maybe the label on the record was gone! or someone remembered Patsy playing it that way as well.
I've read too that some of the other pieces in the old days were Paddy O'Rafferty and the Gobby-O, which in America is called Jefferson and Liberty. I've never seen the transcriptions of these, the Roche book has a version of the Humours of Glynn though. Someone told me once that the original idea of piboarech [sp!] was that you'd take a tune, any tune, and "pioabareachize" it, build up the variations as you went along. You could make on up on the spot, and my friend thought the piece perhaps was the same way originally, that if you wanted to throw out a piece, you'd take a jig, reduce it to a kind of waltz time, and add little runs and ornaments, just pull it out of your hat. But I don't know if musicians in the past actually approached pieces this way.
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djm
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Regarding taking a tune and reworking it while playing it over and over, you only have to listen to Johnny Doran for that. There are several references to Willie following Doran around like a puppy for several years to learn his piping, so it may not be that all pipers worked tunes this way, but that Willie was following Doran's influence. Just a thought.
djm
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
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Cayden
Pretty much along the same lines as K Rietman:
I have at least two recordings of Willie playing, one the NPU and the other one was taken by Peter Kennedy (say no more). Breandan breathnach has written some on the bakground to playing 'the piece way'. In fact Willie himself at some point wrote to 'Ceol' to ask what for godsake playing the piece way' was. Breandan came back noting that Willie's own playing of Nora Criona, the Humours of Glin etc was probably one of the best examples, without Willie realising it.
I think the whole thing goes back to old styles of north Kerry (compare some elaborate versions of Banish Misfortune that Patrick Kelly had and Willie himself again, probably learned from Kelly which probably go back to George Whelan's music) and West Limerick.
Early and McFadden playing Lord Mayo is a bit different again.
I have at least two recordings of Willie playing, one the NPU and the other one was taken by Peter Kennedy (say no more). Breandan breathnach has written some on the bakground to playing 'the piece way'. In fact Willie himself at some point wrote to 'Ceol' to ask what for godsake playing the piece way' was. Breandan came back noting that Willie's own playing of Nora Criona, the Humours of Glin etc was probably one of the best examples, without Willie realising it.
I think the whole thing goes back to old styles of north Kerry (compare some elaborate versions of Banish Misfortune that Patrick Kelly had and Willie himself again, probably learned from Kelly which probably go back to George Whelan's music) and West Limerick.
Early and McFadden playing Lord Mayo is a bit different again.
Sorry guys, I must have been very unclear.
Here are audio samples to help me out:
Pat Mitchell's playing of Nora Criona:
http://www.prism.net/buile/patcriona.mp3
It is mostly legato. Compare it with Mick's playing of the same tune-- Mick closes off the chanter a lot more:
http://www.prism.net/buile/mickcriona.mp3
They both cite Willie as their source. My assumption, in terms of open vs closed style, is that Willie's will be more like Pat's than Mick's. Can anyone confirm? So where did Mick get those ideas to play like that.
I find Mick's style of closing off lots of notes rather striking. He also does it in the Goodman version of Taimse i mo Choladh where he's had to reconstitute the air from a printed source. Lots of strong closed off notes:
http://www.prism.net/buile/micktaimse.mp3
Stylistically, I thought perhaps Sgt Early's playing in Lord Mayo is the big influence:
http://www.prism.net/buile/earlymayo.mp3
I just hadn't heard Willie's Nora Criona to know how he plays it, and whether there are other players who use that striking closed style of slow air playing besides Sgt. Early.
Here are audio samples to help me out:
Pat Mitchell's playing of Nora Criona:
http://www.prism.net/buile/patcriona.mp3
It is mostly legato. Compare it with Mick's playing of the same tune-- Mick closes off the chanter a lot more:
http://www.prism.net/buile/mickcriona.mp3
They both cite Willie as their source. My assumption, in terms of open vs closed style, is that Willie's will be more like Pat's than Mick's. Can anyone confirm? So where did Mick get those ideas to play like that.
I find Mick's style of closing off lots of notes rather striking. He also does it in the Goodman version of Taimse i mo Choladh where he's had to reconstitute the air from a printed source. Lots of strong closed off notes:
http://www.prism.net/buile/micktaimse.mp3
Stylistically, I thought perhaps Sgt Early's playing in Lord Mayo is the big influence:
http://www.prism.net/buile/earlymayo.mp3
I just hadn't heard Willie's Nora Criona to know how he plays it, and whether there are other players who use that striking closed style of slow air playing besides Sgt. Early.
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djm
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Eric, you are talking about "phrasing". Willie's version of Nora Críona as a slow air is more legatto than Mick's version, but still has some stops between phrases.
Kevin has given you the source of the Willie recording - The West Wind, Folktrax #143. Available from Folktrax: http://www.folktrax.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
djm
Kevin has given you the source of the Willie recording - The West Wind, Folktrax #143. Available from Folktrax: http://www.folktrax.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
> Willie's version of Nora Críona as a slow air is more legatto than Mick's
Thanks for the confirmation, DJM.
> Eric, you are talking about "phrasing".
Sure! And all in good fun & humor I'll mention the terms "phrasing" and "phrases" might've slipped into my first post once or twice... or three, or four times
But you may have detected my reticence to ~only~ term it phrasing because I didn't want it mixed up with melodic phrases. Mick is going beyond the melodic phrases, and into mimicing imagined, individual words by closing off the chanter and attacking small snippets of any given melodic phrase at a time (just want to edit and say he's not the only to imagine words when playing, but the treatment of individual notes is pretty unique). It makes for a heavily accented approach-- and in my exposure to almost exclusively commerically recorded pipers, an approach I hadn't heard parallels with until the Early/McFadden cylinder.
Where in ~some~ ways I could imagine Mick's version of "Nora" as an outgrowth of Pat's (it'd take too long for me to try to write out what I'm thinking there
), it seemed like the heavy accents took another leap forward in "Taimse." The occasional similarities in melodic phrases between the Early/McFadden's "Mayo" and "Taimse" may have led Mick to treat it the way he did, if in fact it was an inspiration.
That leads me to my other previous query: Mick O'Brien aside, is the Early/McFadden cylinder the only "source" of airs played in that very staccato style?
> the other one was taken by Peter Kennedy (say no more).
Will I need to apologize, or send contributions to a musicians fund, if I order from Kennedy? Some of the material I want (the McPeakes for example), he's the only source I know of. I keep hesitating due to imagining I'm transgressing a line of political correctness.
Thanks for the confirmation, DJM.
> Eric, you are talking about "phrasing".
Sure! And all in good fun & humor I'll mention the terms "phrasing" and "phrases" might've slipped into my first post once or twice... or three, or four times
But you may have detected my reticence to ~only~ term it phrasing because I didn't want it mixed up with melodic phrases. Mick is going beyond the melodic phrases, and into mimicing imagined, individual words by closing off the chanter and attacking small snippets of any given melodic phrase at a time (just want to edit and say he's not the only to imagine words when playing, but the treatment of individual notes is pretty unique). It makes for a heavily accented approach-- and in my exposure to almost exclusively commerically recorded pipers, an approach I hadn't heard parallels with until the Early/McFadden cylinder.
Where in ~some~ ways I could imagine Mick's version of "Nora" as an outgrowth of Pat's (it'd take too long for me to try to write out what I'm thinking there
), it seemed like the heavy accents took another leap forward in "Taimse." The occasional similarities in melodic phrases between the Early/McFadden's "Mayo" and "Taimse" may have led Mick to treat it the way he did, if in fact it was an inspiration.That leads me to my other previous query: Mick O'Brien aside, is the Early/McFadden cylinder the only "source" of airs played in that very staccato style?
> the other one was taken by Peter Kennedy (say no more).
Will I need to apologize, or send contributions to a musicians fund, if I order from Kennedy?
Some of the material I want (the McPeakes for example), he's the only source I know of. I keep hesitating due to imagining I'm transgressing a line of political correctness.