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[Theo]

I wonder if Theo's main experience of southern sessions is the EATMT Trad Music Day at Stowmarket. That, because of its East Anglian location and maybe Katie's influence, is a particularly melodeon-heavy gathering.

It is certainly one of them and other events in Suffolk.  The other main one is Whitby  (which most of you probably think of as north!).   Whitby is probably biased too because of the large presence of dance sides that have melodeon based bands.

But what is indisputable is that since the mid 20th century there has been a huge uptake of melodeon among English folk musicians which has influenced the development of the "traditional" English music.

[Howard Jones]

Here's voice from the continent. To me Cutting doesnt sound continental at all, i hear mostly Britain there.

Modern Britain certainly, but then he did a great deal to help shape that style.  Perhaps I should have said continental technique rather than style - playing in the upper octave across all the rows with extensive use of all the basses.  He doesn't sound much like traditional English players, which is the point I was trying to make.

[Howard Jones]

Andrew's and Theo's preference for small sessions - 6 to 8 is ideal for my taste. But as ever, YMMV.

As I rule I agree.  The delight of informal sessions is musicians bouncing off one another to see what emerges, and in a large session that tends to get swamped. 

Not always though.  One of my happiest musical memories is of a session I led with the Electropathics at Beverley Festival more years ago than I like to think about (I say led, we just set it rolling and let it flow).  A room full of good musicians who were listening and responding to one another and who were willing to sit back and let the music 'breathe'.  It was magical, I wish I'd recorded it.  It was drawing to a natural conclusion when some w****r came in with a piano accordion and decided it needed "livening up".  He was wrong.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Aside from festival type fun, I prefer a smaller session, so more than a couple of boxes and I feel they are in danger of dominating (depending upon players) and more than three fiddles and you feel like you're in an orchestra string section :-

I agree that too many boxes isn't a good thing. If you're going to have a lot of one instrument in a session, the fiddle would be my choice, There's something about the blend of the sound from several well played fiddles together - call it an orchestra string section if you like, but what's wrong with that? I've had some great musical experiences surrounded by four good fiddlers in a session!

I wonder if Theo's main experience of southern sessions is the EATMT Trad Music Day at Stowmarket. That, because of its East Anglian location and maybe Katie's influence, is a particularly melodeon-heavy gathering.

I know, I know, I'm being harsh, I'm wrong and I pretty much agree with you    Buuuuuut, I was remembering one particular session (which will be nameless ... 'cos someone is bound to disagree with my recolection!) which when the "string section" all turned up and got going acted like some sort of machine and no-one else would get a look in for half the evening. That's all.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Oh, another competition, I don't think it's been mentioned.

DERT.

It has done great things for rapper (dance and music) over the years and is very popular with the different teams.

[EastAnglianTed]

    Just have to say, Howard I am enjoying your posts about trad' English- putting it into words better than I can 

[malcolmbebb]

h like traditional English players, which is the point I was trying to make.

Did you have anybody particular in mind - or material?

[Cooper]

Here's voice from the continent. To me Cutting doesnt sound continental at all, i hear mostly Britain there.

Modern Britain certainly, but then he did a great deal to help shape that style.  Perhaps I should have said continental technique rather than style - playing in the upper octave across all the rows with extensive use of all the basses.  He doesn't sound much like traditional English players, which is the point I was trying to make.

I can't be a better judge of that than you, i suppose, but i do warn for the proximity-effect.

From over here there isnt much of a difference between Uruguay and Paraguay. I am sure the Uruguayans and Paraguyans can think of a ton of very important differences.

W

[Howard Jones]

h like traditional English players, which is the point I was trying to make.

Did you have anybody particular in mind - or material?

For starters, and in no particular order ...

Oscar Woods
Bob Cann
Dolly Curtis
Font Watling
Bob Roberts
Lemmy Brazil

Most if not all of these can be heard on commercially available recordings

I'm sure Andy Cutting has listened to these, and no doubt there are elements in his playing, but his style has moved on a long way and is grounded in both the English and European traditions.  He lists his principal influences as including not only John Kirkpatrick. Tony Hall, Martin Ellison, Dave Roberts and Roger Watson but also Marc Perrone, Riccardo Tesi, Christian Desnos, Michelle Pichon, Serge Desunay and Philippe Bruneau.  In reply to Cooper, I'm not suggesting that he sounds continental, but I am saying that his playing incorporates strong continental elements.  He is at the forefront of modern English melodeon playing, but his usual style doesn't sound much like the traditional players I've just named.

[Theo]

I'm sure Andy Cutting has listened to these, and no doubt there are elements in his playing, but his style has moved on a long way and is grounded in both the English and European traditions.  He lists his principal influences as including not only John Kirkpatrick. Tony Hall, Martin Ellison, Dave Roberts and Roger Watson but also Marc Perrone, Riccardo Tesi, Christian Desnos, Michelle Pichon, Serge Desunay and Philippe Bruneau.  In reply to Cooper, I'm not suggesting that he sounds continental, but I am saying that his playing incorporates strong continental elements.  He is at the forefront of modern English melodeon playing, but his usual style doesn't sound much like the traditional players I've just named.

So in developing his own style he is in the tradition of those who give life to a tradition by being grounded in a that tradition but taking it in new directions.  Another example from the recent past who comes to mind is Northumbrian fiddle player Willie Taylor who developed a very distinctive style, was influenced by players from Ireland and Canada and perhaps elsewhere too, but who's distinctive style is now part of Northumbrian tradition.

[Howard Jones]

So in developing his own style he is in the tradition of those who give life to a tradition by being grounded in a that tradition but taking it in new directions. 

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, the music has to evolve to stay alive, and I am a great admirer of Andy and the other leading players who are carrying it forward.  Standards of playing and musicianship are now incredibly high.  However English music, with the possible exception of Northumbria, has largely lost that touchstone of traditional styles which the Irish call "the pure drop" and which (to drag this back on-topic) CCE is trying to protect and encourage. 

It's tempting to speculate what might have happened had the EFDSS decided to take a similar approach to English music.  However as the English music movement emerged as a reaction against EFDSS (which at the time showed little interest in it) it is highly probable that we would have wanted nothing to do with it.

[KLR]

Regarding the OP here, a friend informed me last night there'll be a feis ceoil or whatever around here soon - with instrumental competitions too.  Had no idea.  I knew they had stepdancing competitions but didn't know they had adjudicators on board for us musicianers too.  It's sure none of the people I meet up with in sessions going to these things, far as I know.  I'd be curious who's competing at this thing, if anyone.  Little kids with whistles, I guess. 

They're also flying in a fiddler from Chicago to play for the dancers.   This in Portland Oregon, which has more fiddlers than you could shake a stick at.  I once asked a piano/whistle playing friend who's always playing for the sets - she's backup on one of the new Paddy O'Brien CDs, too - if she ever played for the stepdancing crowd.  Never!  It's a world unto itself apparently. 

There's luckily also a sean-nos stepdancing contingent in town, too. 

[Mike Hirst]

WRT the OP, my own experience might resonate.

Prior to moving North (W. Yorks. to Northumberland) I took no interest in competitions. Indeed competition was the last thing on my mind.

On visiting my first Northern festival (Rothbury) I was surprised to find that rather than playing in sessions, most musicians were at the competitions. I found the festival experience rather lack luster, to say the least.

Later that year I visited the Alnwick Gathering only to be confronted by the same experience.

In desperation I entered the accordion contest. Pitting my tiny one row against the big PA and CBA instruments. I took third place in the contest.

My first thought was:

"I AM NOT THE THIRD BEST ACCORDION PLAYER IN NORTHUMBERLAND!!!"

In a fit of pique I spent the winter struggling to learn how the competitions worked.

At Eastertide I took first place at Morpeth; later that year I took first place at Rothbury and Alnwick.

I feel slightly guilty at letting this unforeseen musical aggression take hold, but "if you can't stand the heat, keep out of the kitchen".

In real terms i have to say that the competitions are the most pure platform we have for music making.

As a jobbing musician i am always an adjunct to someone else's experience.

Most times I play there is another purpose.

When I go out busking I want to make money; when a play for I ceilidh I want people to dance; other times i play to support someone who is singing. Even when I play a solo gig. I am there to entertain. I am being paid to make people feel good.

When I play in a club, pub, or other venue, people are there to have a good time. They want to cop off; to feel happy; to have a good laugh. I am the conduit. i am the facilitator.

On the competition stage there is a purity. I am playing music to the best of my ability for my peers. There is no demand other than to play the best music, to the best of your ability. There is no other competitor.

[Ollie]

So in developing his own style he is in the tradition of those who give life to a tradition by being grounded in a that tradition but taking it in new directions. 

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, the music has to evolve to stay alive, and I am a great admirer of Andy and the other leading players who are carrying it forward.  Standards of playing and musicianship are now incredibly high.  However English music, with the possible exception of Northumbria, has largely lost that touchstone of traditional styles which the Irish call "the pure drop" and which (to drag this back on-topic) CCE is trying to protect and encourage. 

It's tempting to speculate what might have happened had the EFDSS decided to take a similar approach to English music.  However as the English music movement emerged as a reaction against EFDSS (which at the time showed little interest in it) it is highly probable that we would have wanted nothing to do with it.

I'm actually glad that we don't have a country full of people playing like Oscar Woods or Lemmy Brazil. I think CCE's approach to the 'preservation' of 'traditional' (whatever the hell that means) style is incredibly stifling, and I'm glad it didn't happen in this country. I also don't think that there would have been any greater standard now if this had happened because, well, there wasn't really one to begin with. I'm not knocking the collected players, but I don't think one can describe them as virtuosi in the same way that you might Will Atkinson - I appreciate this is a different style and instrument, but the playing is considerably more technically adept. Listen to recordings of Percy Brown on "English Country Music from East Anglia" - most of the time, he's not playing the basses in time with his right hand.

Traditions evolve and change. We don't know what those of a generation before Oscar Woods or Percy Brown sounded like, they could have been revolutionary from what had come before. We shouldn't seek to keep things as they were, we should seek to develop new things based on how things used to be, which is exactly what players like John Kirkpatrick did, consciously or not. I don't see that there's any break in tradition at all. What they learnt may have been mediated in a different way, but this is simply a sign of the modern age.

[triskel]

... I think English music is more open-minded and receptive to new ideas than Irish music, where even a guitar can provoke heated debate among purists.

Can it? 

Not around West Clare anyway.

There have been guitar players recorded playing Irish music since the 1920s - Louis Flanagan with the Flanagan Brothers and Andy Fiedler with the great melodeonist John J. Kimmel spring to mind - whilst the likes of the renowned Sligo fiddlers Michael Coleman and Paddy Killoran recorded (very successfully) with Michael “Whitey” Andrews on guitar in the 1930s, and Donegal fiddler Hugh Gillespie recorded with another guitarist, Jack (John) McKenna.

In fact the guitar has been around longer than the B/C accordion (in the Irish tradition) - whilst there are those who would decry the latter instrument!

Meanwhile, in my lifetime, Irish musicians have been responsible for introducing and popularising two new fretted instruments - the flat-back "Irish bouzouki" and the cittern - into the folk music of the British Isles and further afield.

... representative of the English music movement nationally, the usual fiddles, melodeons and concertinas are frequently joined by saxes, clarinets, recorders and whistles, trombones and other brass, hammered dulcimers, banjos, mandolins, mouth organs, pipes, mouth organs, the occasional harp ... In this respect I think English music is more open-minded and receptive to new ideas than Irish music ...

I can't think of any clarinet or trombone/brass players in Irish music, but I have encountered Irish players of all the other instruments you mention, including some great Saxophone and mouth organ players (one of them being my car mechanic, who I'm glad to supply with new Tombo Band 21s every few months) plus the flute would be a VERY traditional instrument here.

Edited for clarification

[triskel]

        Maybe I'm being naive, but box playing to me has only ever been an open affair, where no one holds any superiority over another.

In fact, historically (going back to the early 1880s at least), competitions were a major element in promoting the melodeon, especially in Scotland, but also in England and Wales:

Scottish Champion players have included the "melodeon greats" Peter Wyper, James Brown and Pamby Dick, whilst the young Jimmy Shand used to play in competitions too.

[triskel]

I was trying to get JD in there as well, but the server wouldn't have it!
Of course there is a story behind JD's participation in the fleadh. 

But do you have a recording of him playing B/C? 

[triskel]

It's easy to imagine that ITM has always been strong but for many years it was a frowned upon backwater, a throw back to old days which was best ignored.  Comhaltas came into being in 1951 with the first fleadh held that year.  The competitions (and the courses) have been a major part in keeping alive the continuity of the tradition.

Absolutely! In fact, in the '70s I often used to get a lift up to Irish music pubs in North London with Bill Glasheen (an older fiddle player from Co. Tipperary) who lived near me in Leyton but regularly did gigs in them with Co. Mayo C#/D player Selena Munnerley. On one of those car journeys he recalled how, back home in the 1940s, he'd have to hide the fiddle case under his coat if he took it out to play, because playing traditional music was considered shameful at the time!

I'm also reminded of how shamefully Sean Read was treated in those years, whilst working for Clare County Council:

[Quote from Sean Read:] "Towards the end of 1949 there was a change of County Engineers …. So I was made Acting County Engineer. There was an inspector came down there and he was quizzing me on my hobbies, and he wanted to know about the band and how much the men were paid etc….. The next day the County Manager called across and told me the inspector objected to me in my exalted position as Acting County Engineer playing with a Céilí Band! “How”, he said, “can Mr Reid have any control when he is meeting every Tom, Dick and Harry at the cross roads!” So I was told that if I was to retain my position as Acting County Engineer, then I must have nothing to do with the Céilí Band.”

As a man with a growing family Seán was placed in a most difficult position, and so decided to continue to organise the transport for the Band but leave off playing for a while. However, someone reported his presence at an engagement in Galway and he was duly demoted. At that point Seán decided he might as well take his chance with the Band and so the playing relationship was resumed.

Edited to make it easier to read!

[Dave F]

Personally I wouldn't want to compete against other people, but what's practice if not some form of competition against yourself? This makes it sound tortuous, it isn't, it's more about trying to improve day by day and my benchmark is how I played the day before, rather than how well I play compared to other people.

Getting the basses right or not tying my fingers in knots when playing across the rows, are the best prizes I can ever get.

My view is that every musician competes in one way or another and there's room for all sorts of competition. In the end it's all down to personal preference.

[Anahata]

I'm actually glad that we don't have a country full of people playing like Oscar Woods or Lemmy Brazil.

Or fiddlers playing like the recordings of Fred pigeon...

You have to listen carefully to those older musicians, and learn what to take from their playing and what to ignore because they were old when they were recorded. Also don't underestimate the extent to which they understand their own culture. We were recently in a session at the Middleton Bell, and Reg Reader (well respected hammered dulcimer player who's been around for ever) turned up. We'd been playing all sorts of fancy tunes, and others had been regaling us with song, and it all seemed to be going down well, then Reg quietly started playing the Heel and Toe Polka - and half the people in the pub spontaneously got up and started dancing for the first time all afternoon.

There's something about playing the right tune at the right time that you can't learn by listening to records.

(edit: typo "Of" -> "Or" )