Irish Music!

 And I was going to add '..and my part in its downfall..' but thought better of it. Because for me Irish music has given me such joy over the years, and continues to do so, that I couldn't even raise a smidgin of sarcasm. Let me explain the picture at the top of this post.

That photo was taken in the paddock next to our house in Pudsey, Yorkshire in about 1972 or 1973. I'm the young lad on the left playing bodhran. I confess. We are likely playing the Bucks of Oranmore. That bodhran was actually made from an old garden riddle and some pigskin by my father, who is the fiddle player second from the right. He died only about five years after this photo, but had passed on the basics of Irish music to us by then, and me and my siblings still play it half a century later. He also passed on his enjoyment of playing, and that hasn't changed either. 

Anyone who has been to any of our birthdays or weddings (or even funerals) will have noticed that Irish music keeps popping its head up. We usually end up dancing a few sets when there is floor space at any family bash and there are always a few people ready to get out a fiddle or flute or accordion. And as Cro knew to her cost, even the next generation have a basic set of tunes which includes the hornpipe 'Off the California', which is quite nice to listen to the first twenty times. 

Your contact with Irish music may be deep or passing, but you will be aware of the general foot-liberating nature of it, whether you have heard Riverdance, or the Dubliners, or a session happening in a local pub. I will try to link a video of our local Irish session here but not sure if I can make it work. If done right, it has lift and swing and joy and a great deal of satisfaction for the players as well as the audience. 

We didn't really think of it as 'Irish music' or even 'Folk music' when we were growing up, as it was the default. It was just what people played. Even now, I would say to my siblings 'Fancy a few tunes?' and the Irish bit is unsaid and not needed. 

The thing that makes it most fun for me is the way that it is played in sessions. These are meet-ups (on an agreed evening) of say five to ten musicians, with passing visitors also welcome, to play Irish reels and jigs, almost always in a pub. People usually have a couple of hundred tunes in common so if you have been doing it a while you will know most of the tunes that are played, and you join in to make a lovely sound together, even if it is the first time that you have played with these people. Visitors often say 'do you practice a lot?' or 'have you been playing together long?' but it is quite possible that this is the first time you have met any of them. The shared set of tunes is a bit like Latin was in the middle ages. You can go anywhere and be understood. I have even played at a session in Beijing where I was the only musician with an alphabetic language (the others were 汉语， 한국인 , and 日本語) but we could communicate perfectly well by playing the Bucks of Oranmore.

The really enjoyable thing about session playing is that it involves both your own playing and your own listening because each player is trying to meld their playing to that of the person who started this particular set. It is an intensely communicative experience even if you never say a word. When it really hits its straps (and that doesn't mean being fast, it means being lively and alive) you can hear the occasional 'g'wan!' and 'whoo!' from the attentive listener who knows what they are hearing. And you can't fake it. If you are not enjoying playing, it comes out in the sound. But when it is on, it's such a joyful experience that you can't mistake it. 

And looking back now to the first time we started to learn jigs and reels when we were about 11 or 12 I know that at first it required a bit of work, and the tunes sounded awkward and lumpy. And our parents said 'Go and practice those tunes for half an hour', and I am so glad that we did. That investment of childhood time has repaid itself thousands of times over in the enjoyment of playing (and it kept me fed a few summers when I busked around Europe too). And now, in my mid-sixties, I know that I will carry on playing all my years and will have something that is a thread of memory and enjoyment through all my decades, linking family and friendship and love and enjoyment (and Guinness). The best present anyone ever gave me.