How ye started?

Just a curious queston on how all you musicians were introduced to ITM

Family?
Friends?
Personal Interest?
Culture?
Nationality?

Personal interest, I think… I don’t have but a fingernail full of Irish in me, if that much (so far as I know). I’ve found the music to be a more pleasant diversion than American folk music and challenging enough to hold my interest. As I dig more into the history of some of the songs, I find the stories are as entertaining as is the music itself!

How’s about you?…

Started the whistle at 5 and button accordion at 8-self taught. Always had a good ear for music. Studied variations in school. Love African. Im irish aswell and love the culture. Im the only one in my family who has an ear for music. Also did my finals in the piano to qualify as a teacher… patience is a virtue… my only problem!

I moved to a very small town, and met some friends who had a band. They invited me to a practice session, “just for fun,” on my Boehm flute (that I only played just for fun, because I am really an oboist). The next day, they asked me to join their band. I had my first performing gig before I even knew anything about the style, and bought my first wood flute about 6 months after that.

parents trying to get me of the sofa

Some one has to blame the parents

A wife who’s Irish and into set dancing.

Oh and blame it on the wife… Typical man!!!

🙂

At school the head of music brought in a spare accordion which I taught meself on at lunchtimes. Got a Hohner Verdi II for my 18th birthday. Two years later, at university in (not at) oxford, an irish student friend took me to the Half Moon (yes I know it’s not exactly I but it is TM). A year later, I’ve just bought a melodeon.

But after attending a session how could you resist?

I love sessions. Great buzz

My dad has always been a musician, but I got into music because I heard the Corries, then Great Big Sea, and loved what I heard. Dad bought me a bodhran next Christmas and created a monster.

Bodhran is my favourite instrument. I think it Christy Moore is legendary. He would be in my top Irish Performers

I was a youngster (late teens, early 20s) around the time of the so-called revival - The Planxty/BothyBand/Chieftains/Boys of the Lough/De Danann era…ie when THOSE guys were young as well. Basically I was one of the pools that stayed full when the tide went out. I’m not complaining. On listening to Ronan Burke’s Clare FM show at Milltown (see the thread I posted earlier today), I’m struck by how much the older players commented on how many young people are playing the music these days. But that’s something we should never take for granted.

Oh, and I meant to say the endless blossoming of talent that goes with it, and how it diversifies and yet remains true to the origins. For example take a listen to some of Karine Polwarts stuff:

http://www.karinepolwart.com/

The tunes came to me from several directions, but I suppose it was a fondness for ballads, going back to childhood, that kept me anchored in trad music so that I was an easy target when the modern revival took off in the 1970’s. Before that, I was aware of the tunes, but they were peripheral and it was a time and place where I had limited very exposure or access to recordings of authentic ITM.

But to answer the question more specifically, it was actually Steeleye Span that flung me into ITM, via the Boys of the Lough.

“limited very” = “very limited”. Commutative law applies.

I don’t know when I started listening to it…I started with New Age music, which led into Enya, which led into Celtic music, which led to Riverdance, which led to ITM. I think.

Instrumentally, I played the violin long before I got into the music. Over the last year or two, I’ve started branching--though I think I might have some problems next year in orchestra keeping my classical and ITM playing habits separate.

Key, have you ever jetty fished for sea bass? 😉

I’m thinking about getting a mohawk, but I’m bald. I understand you can get velcro and then have interchangeable wigs, but I’m worried the bright colours I’d like to try would scare the fish away. Perch are particularly shy of such things…

“Just a curious queston on how all you musicians were introduced to ITM” ~

Damn Sars, are you expecting this to be the biggest thread ever, are you intering that contest. You might end up in the Guiness Book of Records for TheSesh. “ALL” of us, really? You have some faith… Worse yet if you believe everything we might say. You left something off your list:

Family?
Friends?
Personal Interest?
Culture?
Nationality?

The wee folk, the fairies… No prizes guessing who peed in my soup and poisoned me with music… 😛

Actually, they aren’t so ‘wee’… I had the shight beat out of me from when I was ‘wee’, and the music hammered in. “You WILL do this OR ELSE!!!” At least the hammering and kickin’ was rhythmic… “Yes da, whatever you say, just don’t kick me there…” And worse, he used a Hammond Organ with a Whirlitzer horn ~ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Sorry, and I meant to say ~ and all of the above… 😏

I’m just replying here to prevent ceolachan from inadvertently violating the six-replies-in-a-row law.

Actually, now that I think about it, I was introduced to iTm by his dyslexic twin brother, oTm.

~ and a record Burl Ives singing songs from Newfoundlan ~ and of course my good buddies Charlie and Son, that’s Mr Patten and Mr. House to youz yahoos, they taught me the true art of being ~ that I must eat the bug in the tequila ~ and it was those fine gentlemen that served me skin warm rum in my babby milk and dipped my dummy in harsh Rye…

IM BACK!!!!

God I wish this damn computer had broadband, work computers are great these days…

Anyway yes Ceol Im aiming to start the longest thread in history, intersting thought though. Im ere listening to Christy Moores “Burning Times” one of the best albums ever. I wish I was older when the likes of Planxty were in their glory, years ago there was the best bands.

Im great for debates or even starting trouble. A friend of mine always wondered how I get myself into such awkward situations and can get back out of them. I should be shot.

Damn Bob, you know or knew oTm? How about you, wanna go fishin’? Do you like fresh mackerel?

Sarfly, another dyslexic…Halellujah!

Yuk the worm in Tequila. Thanks I just had my dinner. Lets not start this discussion on duck soup or Jeremy will cut “My World Record Attempt” short.

Dug up all my old music notes today, god damn cobwebs.

Lexadixlic???

Guys I feel as if your abandoning MY thread. ITM NOW!!!

Damn, a post Planxty kid, really? I’d best step back and show my youngers some respect. And self taught too. See, I do read it all before I start a tirade. I’ll be kind now and start lurking again. So, what about you, you can’t be a true Irish musician if you don’t partake of some decent grain based poteen and some Mackerel and tatties, of course we’d have to fish for them and gut them and all…

Avoiding classical piano practice. I was at university, supposedly studying ‘serious’ music. I found shutting myself in a little cubicle with a piano oppressive and quite unconducive to music making. Then I borrowed some tapes of Planxty, De Danann & The Bothy Band & tried to copy them with a mandolin. Eventually, I dropped out of university and enrolled on a self-directed course in tunology and session hopping. 10 years on and I’m still studying.

1. Electric rock bands (age 20-40)

2. Acoustic rock band (age 40-something to a few years later) that played a lot of Pogues songs

3. ITM (age… none of your business)

I now find numbers 1 and 2 completely boring, and I don’t think there will be a number 4.

They haven’t started putting any visible bugs in the poteen, but I know some that add some unspoken protein to help the mash along… 😉

I was thinking today. A few weeks ago a thread was posted with the subject of tunes being in Irish and we all basically went mad at the comment.

In thinking back I agree with them in a sense. It must be awful confusing for them to try to understand Irish when they wouldn’t recognise the language if it hit them in the face.

Now don’t even think about bringing in politics because its a whole load of rubbish if you ask me.

Now, back to you Sarfly, you really didn’t answer your own question. What music or musicians made you want to dance, from the toes to the nose and all in between, as it is a kind of dancing we do with our instruments even if we never leave the chair ~ ???

Ha I love fishing!!

Ok I never admitted it to my friends… God what a sad deprived child, I used to listen to Daniel O Donnell and say I would one day marry him. Ive been to councilling ever since.

I like a wide range of music… listen to anything. Always have. Just wish I had the time to listen to more. Im even thinking about going back to college to study different areas of music.

I only know two places doing it big time, Queens in Belfast and the University in Newcastle… You did mention African, and I just realized it wasn’t you that said they were post-Planxty, but back to Africa, have you come across any of the whistle playing there? Some of the wildest and fun playing on the whistle I have ever experienced, and a very interesting technique.

You mentioned ‘teaching’ ~ do you get to help people into the music ~ and have you started anyone off on the ITM route? (imagining you have…)

Listen Coel, Id dance to anything. Gave up Irish Dancing years ago but still attempt the brush dance which makes me fall from head to toe. I love ITM. Just sitting there tapping away and the excitement building up its like a pre-orgasm!!! Ah no I love all music. Blessed and dance to anything. LOVE bagatelle, love horseslips, Riverdance, Christy Moore, Kris Kristofferson, 70’s 80’s 90’s, various rockbands, a bit of oprea to sooth, shall I keep going?

Im trying to get my brother into it, also taught him a few scales on the piano to get him into it and during the summer Ill be giving my cousin lessons on the Tin Whistle. To be honest I must get back into it myself but really don’t have the time.

Im also a person who likes to look back and think, ya I taught him/her that and feel good about it. It could be any thing from riding a bike to their first paint stroke.

Im actually starting a charcoal portfolio based on ITM. Can’t wait to get it going and go to festselling them.

Oh ye are in for it now, Ive just copped that ye are talking about me behind my back on the other thread.

By the way I don’t have blonde hair/streaks. Im dark and thankfully not bald or grey.

Plus yes I enjoy a bit of fishing

Don’t forget to go digital with it, well, selfishly speaking, I love drawings and have seen some damn fine character sketches done of Irish musicians.

I owe you one, or more than one, so, to get it back on track, because I like the sentiment of this thread, I have known and heard of folks where it wasn’t the music that got them first, but the visual ~ but even more ~ the spirit and character behind some of the folks that had it as part of who they were. I remember, though too vague for me to recall who, a fiddler, quite a nice fella, a clean player who’d had a little of the classical training evident in his technique, in a good way ~ who said it was a picture he’d seen of a fiddler looking relaxed and smiling, which stuck with him and made him want to fit that picture himself. For him it had nothing to do with the music, at least to start with.

When I was traipsin’ round Eire I had this habit of buying whistles by the box, I know, there’s always a few duffs or more, but I did clean them up before travelling with them. If some child approached me with interest, I’d make a deal with them, if they could play a basic scale I’d let them have the whistle for free. So, I’d give them their first lesson and reward them with an instrument. I must have given out at least one box full just in Limerick down near the river a short walk from the main road, town centre… Maybe nothing came of it, maybe one person took it somewhere. That would be nice… Maybe some tinker child made a bit better take tooting because they could do more than three fingers? ~ enough to avoid getting whacked by their da…

Bought a Lunasa CD in Paris just out of curiosity. Listened to it and was immediately set on fire!

Had been playing Boehm flute, but had put it away for about 15 years, because it never felt “right” to me. Never could get into classical music.

Out of inspiration from Kevin Crawford, bought a wood flute and rekindled my interest. Loved the smokey sound. This was “right!” Got tin whistle and started learning new tunes.

Only regret is that I didn’t find the Irish flute sooner. Biggest fear: so many tunes, so little time!

Thanks, ceol, but I can’t stay still long enough to fish. I’m a slacker, but a restless slacker.

In my area, the poteen has three seasons – corn, peach and apple. Right now, it’s peach.

What are we fishing for? Are ye taking the p*ss out of me? Well im going to get ready to go out tonight to a bar named McMunns where there is a great paid sessions with a fiddle flute and box, great night ahead. Gud lak!

And to invent puichín with a good juicymaggot that I chose not to be put onto a hook for the bass.

Damn Bob, you’re from Georgia? Hot damn. Do you know Savannah, and the river, and the fishin‘, and Brunswick, and the isles ~ St. Simons and Jekyl and ~ gar fish, and cotton mouths and ~… One of the first songs I ever learned as a child was a mulato song about the jaybird… Damn, stories flooding back. I have only had Georgia poteen, white lightnin’ once, but I’ve hunted boar there, and I’ve fished and crabber there too, and crawdads too, I particularly liked the blue crab. I didn’t know there were three seasons for poteen. We had to be careful as kids because you could get yourself shot. Those damned stills were all over the woods and camouflaged, and there was lot of poison made, the stuff that made folks blind and killed them. Some idjits used to put badly rotted carcases in the mash, and sometimes it increased the bad alcohol content and they were too damned stingy to clean off the first run ~ definitely idjits. One incident while there something like 11 people were killed, and I don’t remember how many lost their sight…

But the white lightning I had was quite nice, and no headache, so no bad alcohol. that person knew what he was doing. I couldn’t count the many stills we found out and about, underground, in trees, and even in the swamp underwater… Mad eh? I have to say, I think the Irish do a better job, but I’m not too fond of the potato variety….

Sorry Sarfly, off topic again, though maybe somebody was brought to Irish music because of alcohol ~ visiting pubs?

Do you like eel Bob? We could just play music and collect the trap in the morning, same for crab or lobster too…

Thats quite true. Seriously, whats the first thing you think of when you think of irish music. The image I get is fiddles and whistles, Guinness/Whiskey and drunk people attempting a jig/reel/hornpipe/drunkness…
then a string breaks and all hell breaks loose and the tinkers daughter is accused of being a witch as she claims she heard the banshee crying, to arrive home to her father mysteriously dead in the barn with the white horse standing over him, breathing deeply, as the dew dies away.

Nice write up in your details Bob, a recommended read:

https://thesession.org/members/9191

But how actually did you get started in music? The Irish connection is made there, but what about the beginning?

Well Sarfly, and I am honestly welling up and ready to cry ~ faces and smiles, that is what first comes to mind, and also the sounds of laughter and folks holding me in the dance ~ and the tease of it all ~ huh! ~ and what just jumped into my mind are the holes eaten into my favourite coat at the time that some rat fancied for a meal… Maybe it was the Guiness spilled on it? Good, the welling stopped… 😉

You know what never fails to amuse me is the fairy stories of Ireland or the little people. I have known of many stories, many claimed to be true, incidents happening in Donegal, Tipperary, Kerry. Im sure there is many other places in Ireland who believe the same.

A Puiseog is a man who is cursed that if he sets foot on your land you will for ever have dying stock - known in Kerry and its believed they still exist and certain people are not allowed on other farmers land as they or their family are known.

Tipperary - where my aunt and uncle lives it is supposed to be well known for fairies. For example, there was a fairy forth on my aunts land and when I was younger I used to run around it 3 times and make a wish to find they came true.
Theres a gate not one person has ever closed as it is the fairys path and if you close it you have very bad luck, a brave man did and a couple of weeks later was in a crash and his passenger was injured.
Also in that area a man has a large boulder at the top of a hill whih he needed to have moved as it was causing obstruction with farming… the next day it was back at the top.
When my uncle in laws uncle heard a calf cry one night he went around the pond to see wha the problem was, seen something on the ground, gave it an innocent kick, went back home, the next morning found that his white farming horse was lame and he claimed that it was the fairies horse he kicked.
In Donegal a lady I know claims that a small lady used to come to her door asking her to keep away from the apple tree as it was scarying her children.

I think the Irish Folklore, Culture and Music are amazing. Look at Darby O Gill and the Little People and how music is associated with that.

Never fails to amuse me.

Its great to be Irish!!!

🙂 😉

Sarfly: “Listen Coel, …”

All you have to do is add a T to ‘ceolachan’ and you can make ‘coelacanth’.

Dont get you?! Should I feel stupid now… OR BLONDE to make the statement clearer

LOL!!! I like it… A survivor or a remnant?

I take it none of ye believe my fairy storoies then 🙁

When ye play music do ye ever become emotional by it, I do. I think its a geat way to bring them out.

Ceolachan, you mentioned earlier you like the sentiment of this thread. I have to agree, its strange because I have never before met you guys and to be honest by accidently finding this sight you have brought and revived one of the things I love the most and Im so happy with that.

I just started this thread off purely out of curiosity.

How I started:
My best friend was half Irish, and played a Pogues album for me (If I Should Fall From Grace With God) and I moved on the The Dubliners. Joined the local session after learning 5 chords on the guitar. Started playing the fiddle after three years, and I am still at it (13 years later). The shift from the Folkie stuff to the Trad was pivotal, but I still have a lot of time for songs.

S

I like the fairy tales.

I’m not so sure about spoon associating me with something akin to a ‘dinosaur’, but I’ve been called that before, maybe better the fish version…

Sadly, I wonder, the coelacanth predates the dinosaurs, I wonder what that says?

Nice addition snorre, jsut so you know your appreciated. I am considerably more Poque than Dubliner, but a Coelacanth?

Hey Sarfly, what about the Pookahs? The little bastards. They really wind me up, going around and squattin‘ on all those beautiful berries and makin’ them go all mouldy, yuck! At least the mold is there to let us know some unkempt fairy being wiped its arse on them… If I ever catch the little sprites I’ll squeeze the juice out of em to make a brew…

Sarfly started it. Anyway, coelacanths are still alive and well… and I just like anagrams - I don’t do innuendi. There’s nothing more frustrating than an almost-anagram. I pride myself in having a name that anagrams perfectly to ‘Avid Greed’.

You’ve lived in Georgia, Ceol? I’ve visited Savannah and the islands several times, but never lived that far south.

How did I get started in music? Dunno. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t passionately drawn to music. And I was never satisfied with just listening. I *had* to play and sing. In school, we sang folk songs in the classroom and they stuck with me.

When I got a harmonica at the age of eight, it was a recreational drug. I didn’t know anything about technique or style, but I could get a buzz just from playing a simple cowboy tune. A couple of years later, I got a fifteen-dollar Stella guitar for Christmas and started fumbling around, trying to learn how to get music out of it.

The local folk musics were gospel, bluegrass and honky-tonk/hillbilly rock & roll. I listened to all of those as well as whatever caught my attention from the radio, TV and movies. I was more excited by flamenco guitar or African drumming or the zither theme from The Third Man than by rock & roll or bubble-gum pop.

So, really, I can’t see a beginning to it.

“When ye play music do ye ever become emotional by it, I do. I think its a geat way to bring them out.”

I would even say I’m not much interested in music that doesn’t touch me emotionally.

Georgia on my mind… I not only lived there, and left some amount of blood and tears there, if someone comes along with an accent bent anywhere in that direction, well, like Kerry, mine goes askew to meet theirs… I can still feel the oyster cuts from mucking around in the mud flats there, and I suspect there’s a good portion of biting and sucking things that owe me in some small part to the continuance of their form…

Georgia did have a good part to do in my music, however I might neglect it… Would it be dating me to mention Paul Revere and the Raiders? 😉 I wonder if Glynn Academy is still standing and educating in Brunswick?

So, Sarfly gone beddie bye? How exhausting emotions can be, eh? Yes, music moves me too ~ not always as a favourable wind…

Turned to the beautiful music first, for emotional release, in the 70’s, quite accidentally, and its been there ever since. The fairies must have had a hand in it, no other excuse. There are tunes out there just beggin’ to be played, so when I hear the ones that grab, I do (try, anyway). Also, there are so many memories intertwined in some of the auld tunes, that they really get to me. Wouldn’t have it any other way. For a while there used to play emotionally, heavy stuff, but its amazing now that I don’t really have to anymore, the music is even better than it was back then. Just luv it.

a trip to ireland had much to do with it…

I am back!!! Had the worst night of my life but we all live with these things.

Ceol I don’t give up that easy, im always around the corner.

Oh ceol the pookah, hmmmm hallowe’en, for some reason I don’t think that originated in Ireland… or I could be wong.

Great sesh tonight, joined in (brought the whistle along) and they loved it. Was thrilled… don’t play in sessions much and I am invited back next week.

Wong… I mean wrong!!!

See ye tomorrow guys an we can begin the Irish Folklore on how ITM associates with Fairies (course it does).

Well, Vil-hatarn, I have the same story…
My dad used to listen to Celtic music and I grew up listening that. When I was 14 I started playing the boehm flute, but only classical.

Then, a couple of years later, I bought a Tin whistle and started practicing… the following year I was crazy about ITM.

Now I’m practicing the flute! and it’s great!! But I’m having some problems when I change the wooden flute for the boehm… specially the style (I found me playing an Italian giga like an Irish Jig… or rolls in the middle of a sonata… yes, incredible).

And have another problem… I like ITM so much that I’m not so interested in classical music now… and sometimes I don’t have time to practice the boehm flute because I’m always with the wooden one… I don’t know what I’m going to do! I study music as a career and I work with this, but I think I’m becoming so obsessed with ITM that I don’t like playing other thing!

Is there anybody who has the same problem??

I honestly dont know, it evolved I think of a more communal way of enjoying music with others. Too many 10 guitars type rock bands around here (my personal hatred and as a friend describes them “as insidious as ectoplasm”). Too many classical snobs - dont get me wrong I live classical music I hate elitists.

The closest I can think of to getting interested was a 10 day fly fishing trip with a singing Irishman - who happened to play the bagpipes.

It was a while ago, but I’m fairly certain I first started learning guitar to impress some girl…..😀 Then about 3 months or so after I’d started playing, my mum took me to see the John McCusker band on the grounds that Ian Carr was an amazing guitarist, he was, and I was hooked ever after. But I still can’t play like him….nor did I get the girl :-p

“Wong” is awight Saflee. We nodised duh spech impedoomant, especially after you’ve been out for the night… 😉 Your thread is coming along nicely… So, are you going to start another one like the other one ~ “I’ve been invited back! ~ Should I or shouldn’t I?”

https://thesession.org/discussions/10567

I’m not worried about the fairies, they can take care of themselves, I’m worried about you believing in Daniel O‘Donnell, Darby O’Gill and his ‘Lord of the Dance’. Now that does have me scared, more so than the fairy forts I’ve come across, like a circle of oaks shaking as if something was desperate to get out, like a fierce storm was blowing through them and going to uproot them ~ on a still night…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pookah ~

"~ a creature of Celtic folklore, notably in Ireland and Wales. It is one of the myriad of fairy (faery) folk, and, like many faery folk, is both respected and feared by those who believe in it.

According to legend, the Púca is an adroit shape changer, capable of assuming a variety of terrifying forms. It may appear as an eagle or as a large black goat (its name is a cognate of the early Irish ‘poc’, ‘a male goat’ and it lends its name to Puck, the goat-footed satyr made famous in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream), but it most commonly takes the form of a sleek black or white horse with a flowing mane and glowing yellow eyes. ~ "

Shape shifter eh? There are some things I’ve never told anyone outside of family ~ heh, heh, heh…

So how’s about a little respect and fear for a change?

My head hurts so bad today. And I don’t have a speech impedement (did I spell that right!!!)

Ok ok the púca is Irish, I was only rising you.

Can’t believe Im at work today. Never again drinking cointreau. Oh ya Im going to Will Clancy tomorrow for the night. Its a choice of being a “WAG” for the Munster Final or dear old Willy.

Ceol you must think Im a right airhead… “SMAT ” correction SMART

I like airheads!

By the way, I love Countreau, but it was never designed to be guzzled… 🙂

See, me too ~ “Cointreau” ~

http://www.cointreau.com/ ~ and a great mixer too, and a blast to cook with…

If you ate the equivalent in orange peel or zest you’d feel like shight too. But what I want to know is why no one commented if you were knocking back shots of Cointreau at a session of all places. What kind of session are you attending? Do they wear suits? The ‘lads’ are knocking back Pims and you’re on your second Cointreau ~ now that image is weird and giving me a headache…

#3 ~ it does make a nice if not classical Margarita…

#4 ~ I also love good Mariachi and Mexican food, mmm, mmm, good… Must be from eating all those bugs in the bottom of the tequila bottle…

Oh im posh, go to black tie events the whole time. Walk into a venue where theres a harp at the reception, a tall gentleman standing at the hall entrance with a tray of appetisers and bottles of Cointreau in his hand.

Dream on!!!

No I drink Heineken but I was out with a man who was knochking the pints back and I couldn’t drink anymore so moved to Cointreau. I find its a drink that makes me go crazy. Love it though. A very sophisticated drink.

The session I was at? Was great craic, a few locals were playing, I didn’t even dream of playing, they wouldn’t have known what had hit them. Fields of Athenry!!! Go on boss gives anodder luv!

Going to bring up the bodhrán tonight (I have a darling boss in my part time job wh pays me to play the bodhran and drink).

Oh and I drink it with 7up, a fresh bottle at all times. Last night I was “unknownly” drinking doubles, maybe triples.

Im off to work, Ill be back later tonight and let ye know how the session goes, im going without the beater and doing the finger tip and knuckle job (ok ok ya I practised it). Going to Willy Clancy tommorrow and I really am looking forward to it.Take care.

Is this the thread where we share with each other how we got started drinking? Sounds like a bloody AAA meeting.

You’re actually mixing Heineken with Cointreau? ~ and 7-up ~ and a bodhran beater ~ what a combination for disaster ~ you deserve to get sick… But you can’t be all bad, evening gowns and black tie aside, cause you at least are working on the finger and thumb. It must be that man you idolize, what’s his name, sings and has been around for yonks and sort of plays the bodhran too ~ 😉

Hey ghostly-knobber, how about your conversion?

Come on, give me your paw, it’s over here button:

https://thesession.org/discussions/10584

I would tell you how I got started, but I already did before on two or three other threads. Sometimes the discussion forum is like a merry-go-round.

Your right, but a good story is always welcome on a repeat, and each time we can either develop a clearer view, or even have forsight that was missing the last time ~ or you can embelish it like a tune. Now, a silver tongued fossil like yourself should be able to produce some really interesting anthropology… Oh sorry, did I call you a fossil, not yet really, but someday we all will be, except for the small scraps of life we revive and leave behind us in print or graphics… But the ‘silver tongue’ is fully intended. When you put your mind to it you’re a damned good story teller…and you do seem to get better with age…

mmm plain tea biscuits dunked in cointreau.

Whoa! Joze, graphic silence as you sup and drink in peace? Or did you accidentally lean on the ‘enter’ key?

Cointreau on vanilla ice cream. Tea biscuits on the side.

If you experienced the person who I was socialising with that night you will very ell understand why I changed to Cointreau.

Anyway the session was fantastic tonight and I did it… played without the beater SOLO!!! Im so proud. 🙂

Oldstrings is vanilla ice cream nice with Cointreau? Alcohal and cream curdle, I guess it just might.

both

Seriously, must try that. Love Cointreau, only thing is I have an ulcer (shame to say Im 20) and im in so much pain tonight and I am cursing it, even though I have not drank much of it.

Pain? ~ was this the finger-thumb technique you’ve been working up? Be careful how you bend the wrist. I love the softer sound of the hand, but you can end up feeling like you’ve been hitting sandpaper after a while, and it can even cause bleeding. Rather the later than the wrist.

Cointreau is lovely with ice cream…and say some nice ginger biscuits. Orange and ginger are a union made in culinery heaven… 🙂

OH MY GOD ye missed the best ever tonight. Ok if anyone here was watching the Kerry Cork Muncter Final… Kerry were crap and it was a creap game, but at the end score we were even.

The session after was almighty, should have notified ye before hand (not that ye would have come here), but my God. Obviously I didnt play, I was wearing a stetson (cowboy hat if I spelt it right!) but guys I love Kerry so much.

Sorry Ceolachan, was meaning to say. I fractured my hand a few years ago and always play a slight bit tense on the right. How ever

Like Phantom Button, I have told the story in threads before, but bottom line is that it was primarily the radio that drew me into this community, specifically, Brian O’Donovan’s show on WGBH out of Boston.

Sorry my home computer is very messed up…

Cont.

How ever I can play with my left hand very well without the beater. I feel as if I am a pure odd balls but I’m ambidextrious. Worst thing about us having so much fun tonight is that a lady jumped of a cliff near my house, not sure if her body has been recovered but what a tragic thing. The third suicide I have heard of this week. Also a friend of mine had his garage burned down (hes a mechanic), what is the world coming to.

Oh ya I’ll leave yo on a short note… Fagermeister and Redbull… great stuff. Seriously will get you going on any instrument. Loopy juice. I feel like Im an alco now ??? No I am not. I have work tomorow. Slán agus oíche mhaith.

Damn Sar, sorry to hear all the bad news. How’d you fracture your wrist?

You need some Ben & Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide ice cream with Cointreau and some walnut biscuits…

Played pub piano in the market place. The Irish travellers all congregated in certain pubs so I picked up the session (songs as well as tunes) tradition from them.

I fractured it when I was younger, my uncle was messing with me and I swung my arm around and hit it off his elbow, my God the pain was crucial. Also I sprained my wrist messing around and it gets very sore at times.

Listen, I am the biggest complainer you will ever converse with in your life!!!

I grew up in Scotland and as a boy used to play with my family and for ceilidhs etc, though in those days there were no sessions in pubs in our part of the world.

Then I moved down south and for about 10 years didn’t play at all except occasionally at home for old time’s sake. This was in the days before the internet and I had no idea there was a thriving scene down here - albeit of Irish not Scots music.

One day however I walked into a pub in the town where I now live and there were guys in there playing. I begged them to stay put until I could run back home and scrape the dust off my fiddle.

That was the start of it. I now play once a week or so.

I’ll never be any good - and it makes me weep to think of the tunes I could have learnt in that 10 years. But it gives me enormous pleasure.

This is a great site by the way.

I was fascinated as a two year old with my granfather’s old hohner in the attic and on every visit insisted on tearing at it and making the most horrid noise I’m sure. So when I was 7 my parents took me along to Cecila Regan’s music class with the falling apart old box and the rest is history. Probably wouldn’t be playing today only for that bashed up old box 🙂

I saw a lot of rotting old one rows in attics and elsewhere in my tours around the Irish contryside. They always made me sad, but the tale of this old hohner, well, I’ve heard the results, a seed well planted and nurtured… 😉

In the attic?

Fecking amazing!

I was grounded for three weeks by my parents when I was thirteen and my brother played the whistle so I started on that although I was a guitar player. At the same time, he was also grounded for a fortnight. We swapped instruments and never looked back. Now he is the guitar player in the family and I am the whistle/flute player, my parents were very strict, the reason we can all play now is that we had bugger all else to do inbetween being grounded. Makes for competent musicians all the same! 😉

Hi guys,
Cant believe the thread is still going, making the record I thinks!

Anyway, I can’t play for a while…. will fell like a long time. When feeding my dog last night, I was opening the can and slit the top of my knuckle off on my baby finger, right hand, so I guess thats me out for a while

And it hurts so bad.

You shouldn’t drink and open cans at the same time…

It is nice to see you back blas… 😉 It seems we both had strict parents, but my mother wasn’t so bad and ma da only inflicted himself on us when he was home, which was off and on, his work had him away for long stretches of time. Music was good company in the interim… My father’s ‘strictness’ too often took the form of various demons…

Blas, what I want is the truth. The real question is ~ was it your parents that were strict or you who were unruly and troublesome?

Folks don’t go around grounding youngsters for that long without good reason ~ 3 weeks, and that’s the only block of time you’ve given up, leaving us with the trailer that it was not an uncommon predicament for you….

I wasn’t drinking.

My mother put me to bed without my dinner so to annoy her I would play Annie on the accordion. She didn’t like it but I would lock the door and open the window so every one could hear me.

“Annie” ~ oh damn, Sar, I feel for you, James Galway too…

I’m always slicing myself up, no inebriation required, or spilling something. I only found out recently that it had something to do with that catch-all term dyslexia. I can’t carry a bowl of anything anywhere without watching it. If I take my eyes off of it I spill it, or break a glass, or cut myself. Weird eh? The one funny test they put me through was to do with balance, which I’d been obsessed with since a kid. First I had to walk a straight line with my eyes open, one foot in front of the other, then with them closed… It was so frustrating, like I was drunk.

Back on the music side of things ~ I can’t honestly remember a time when there wasn’t music in my head or around me. It spills into and out of me all the time, but I don’t always remember a thing after its time has passed. I’ve had some lovely tunes just spring out when I needed them, like rain when you’re sad or a thrush to answer joy, or waves for contemplation. I love it, but I do wish I could remember them longer than just for the moment, but hell, they are nice gifts and if that is their life span, short, I’m just going to have to appreciate them while I can. It is an amazing magic and I suspect some kind of music will be happening in me right up to the end. I hope so…

Sometimes when I do try to grab and hold on to one of those gifts, it is so elusive that it seems to evolve and change faster than I can keep track of or notate… A fit like trying to catch a fairy. You can’t look right at it, you have to keep it in your peripheral vision the whole time, and if you slip, “POOF!” ~ it’s gone…

Im going to cry, I have to get a tetanus shot. Im petrified of needles. I can’t even type or write and I work in an office. Stupid dog.

Going back to the Annie thing.I did the play in 1st class and I just messed about on the button accordion. Oh and playing Dilín O Damhs (dont think I spelt that right)!!!