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[Chris Ryall]

So, Cooper, I accept that many of the dutch tunes I learned as a teenager seemed to come from elsewhere, your tradition is as  aquisitive as ours. But things like Kort met Stroop, Jan Perriwit and Hakken Toenen (please correct spellings!) do have a certain Duthchness? What defines it? 

[MartinW]

I think there is some similarity to recognizing accents. If you are familiar with an accent you recognise small differences that are not noticeable to someone else. So many English Southerners can't hear any difference between Yorkshire and Lancashire, it's just 'Northern' but to anyone living there, there are a vast number of differences that let you place an accent much more precisely. Conversely to many northerners think anyone within 50 miles of London sounds like a cockney but a Londoner will hear differences between different parts of the city, let alone the surrounding counties.

Similarly with music. Someone who know Irish music well will recognise the different regional styles. Someone familiar with traditional music in general will just hear it as Irish. Someone not familiar with folk music at all wil probably just categorise it as 'folk', and not hear any real difference between different British, Irish, or other west European tunes.
 
In both cases you recognise the sounds because you are familiar with them and pick up small differences that others just don't hear.

martin

[Frank Lee]

Just listening to a group who's name suggests they come from my area (north Cumbria). 
They describe their music as being 'very unique'(!).  If I had to pinpoint where their music came from I'd say somewhere west of the western isles and north of County Derry, on a boat obviously.  Oh, hang on, they're playing Swedish stuff now, ok, Aberdeenshire then.  As with accents (very good analogy), where I even hear northern Irish 'folk' singers 'doing' the currently obligatory Yorkshire accent, the music is influenced by whatever seems to be selling and putting bums on seats.  The tunes with local characteristics will always be around in the background though, but at times will be sucked into the  musical sausage factory, and emerge spiced and flavoured according to current tastes and the need to make money. 

[Bob Ellis]

This thread has made me listen really carefully to many of the seventy-odd field recordings of traditional Dales musicians in my collection and to compare them with traditional musicians from other parts of the country. My purpose was to try to define the essence of Dales folk dance music, but the result was somewhat different from what I expected.

The differences between different regions of the country were less noticeable than the difference between musicians playing different instruments. There was a commonality of 'style' between the melodeon players (Kit White and Mark Anderson), that was discernibly different from the concertina players (Sam Fawcett, Septimus Fawcett and Bob Beadle), different again from the piano accordion players (George Beresford and Harry Cockerill) and even more so from the fiddle players (Peter Beresford and John Wallbank.)

While it should come as no surprise that the particular characteristics of each instrument open up and close off various musical possibilities and will therefore lead to different styles of playing (a point that has been made already in this thread), what did surprise me was that this was more noticeable - to me, at least - than the regional variations. This has led me to think differently about what defines music from the Dales (or from any other region.) Right now I feel as though I am further away from pinning down that definition than I was before I started reading this thread.

[Cooper]

So, Cooper, I accept that many of the dutch tunes I learned as a teenager seemed to come from elsewhere, your tradition is as  aquisitive as ours. But things like Kort met Stroop, Jan Perriwit and Hakken Toenen (please correct spellings!) do have a certain Duthchness? What defines it? 

Good question. I should probably start with the tunes you mention,...i only know them from the folkloristic scene, not from any jam or living tradition. Also i know Gort met Stroop and Jan Pierewiet are played a bit more widely around, like in Flanders and the Flanders-part of France...but also in Denmark if i recall correctly. Hakke Toone i don't know much about, but i think it has a German connection....But i also agree they share some characteristics that could make them "Dutch". I would make a connection with the dance immediately: They way is see them performed is usually with wooden shoes, or as if the dancers could have wooden shoes,...I dont really know the word in English that covers what i would say in Dutch...coarse? plump? crude? Lot's of big movements, not a lot of subtlety. And i think that is what the tunes are as well, and the way to play them correctly to the dance. (they are all tunes that have a specific choreography to them, not something generic like "scottish" or "waltz" or "Cha cha" or "tango" :-))




To address more: Yes indeed i was NOT looking for tunes that travel around,...i was looking for a description of idiom of what makes tune x sound Irish, or player y sound Swedish, or singer Z sound French. Many said it already, sometimes you need only 2 bars and you know it already, without knowing the tune: "this band is from.."

Many already said that the dances can give a good idea...and i agree. That's one reason why i wouldnt call Go Mauve English; it's a French style scottish. BUT please note i inserted "French style" there. A lot of those dances travel around just as much as the tunes do. Go Mauve does not sound as a Swedish Style Sjottish (don't remember how that is written) and it does not resemble a Dutch style Schots at all. So,...it's hellpful,..but not the end of it by far.

[IanD]

By most definitions, Serpentiner och Konfetti is now a traditional English morris tune...

[Bob Ellis]

...and Thème Vannetais (aka Twiglet) is heading that way as well.

[Cooper]

By most definitions, Serpentiner och Konfetti is now a traditional English morris tune...

Glad we're not looking for definitions then...

[Boyen]

I think a large part of "insert land"-ish of music is not neccesarily the written notes but rather the actual performance.
And with this factors like ornamentation, emphasis, basses/chordal accompiment, tempo and even the music instrument play a large a role.

Just as an example, I was learning Haste to the Wedding some time ago and saw it was the TOTM as well, but all the versions I heard weren't anything like the versions I was learning the tune from, even though the notes were exactly the same.

[rees]

Just as an example, I was learning Haste to the Wedding some time ago and saw it was the TOTM as well, but all the versions I heard weren't anything like the versions I was learning the tune from, even though the notes were exactly the same.

Exactly so, this has fascinated me all of my life. I think that the English step-dance tune Pigeon on the Gate has as many versions as there are musicians.

Once you have a tune really embedded in your repertoire then you will begin to express your soul through that tune.
Thus will be born another new version. It makes me very happy 

[Bob Ellis]

Once you have a tune really embedded in your repertoire then you will begin to express your soul through that tune.
Thus will be born another new version.

That's one way of excusing the way I mangle your Zuppa Inglese, Rees? 

[triskel]

I think there is some similarity to recognizing accents. If you are familiar with an accent you recognise small differences that are not noticeable to someone else. So many English Southerners can't hear any difference between Yorkshire and Lancashire, it's just 'Northern' but to anyone living there, there are a vast number of differences that let you place an accent much more precisely. Conversely to many northerners think anyone within 50 miles of London sounds like a cockney but a Londoner will hear differences between different parts of the city, let alone the surrounding counties.

Similarly with music. ...

I couldn't agree more, indeed you can still (with some, mainly older, players) detect a North Clare, West Clare or East Clare musical accent in this county, never mind one from Sligo or Donegal, but these things are getting ironed out these days... 

[Chris Ryall]

… which (returning to thread) might be why Eire regularly wins the Eurovision song contest?