(Sean and Me)
My Experience with Irish music and Irishness
Growing up, I recall thinking I was “Irish”. This wasn’t because I was born in Ireland or had Irish relatives, because I wasn’t and I didn’t. In retrospect, I think there were two primary reasons for my thoughts: I had red hair and my mom used to play traditional Irish music on our Dodge Caravan’s stereo system. That is, until I entered adolescence and became the family’s domineering road DJ, forcing my family to listen to the Offspring and late-nineties Chili Peppers at unhealthy volumes. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that the depths of my “Irishness” are shallow, but the concept has always been there.
When I was assigned this ethnomusicological blog project, some part of me felt compelled to reexamine the Irish music I’d spent my childhood with. I figured that because I’d gotten on in years, I’d started to develop nostalgia for better times; whenever I’ve heard the strains of traditional Irish music, I’ve found myself experiencing a sort of sincere homeliness. But at the outset of the project, it had been years since I’d actually listened to Irish music, and then it was always something that belonged to my mom. I wanted to see if I could find something new in the music, something that would explain why the word “Irish” had followed me around for twenty years of my American life. As I set out on my assignment, I hoped that I hadn’t become so detached from my limited Irish “roots” that I’d be unable to reenter the realm of Irish music.
A Little Historical Background
I won’t delve too deeply into the history of Ireland or Irish music, but I feel there are a few things that should be mentioned.
The middle of the nineteenth century saw millions of Irish immigrants come to America as they fled Ireland to escape famine. Some of these immigrants journeyed west, but a great many stayed in the New England area, particularly in states like New Hampshire (where I’m from) and Massachusetts (where I did my research). On the 2000 US census, 10.8% of Americans claimed Irish ancestry while states like New Hampshire and Massachusetts yielded rates of 19.4% and 22.5% respectively. Suffice to say, there is a certain pride that Americans of Irish ancestry reserve for their roots, particularly in the New England area. Some call these prideful people part of the Irish diaspora, people whose families were at one point displaced from Ireland, because they exhibit what William Safran calls a “diaspora consciousness”, an awareness that one has of their belonging to a diaspora group (Safran 1991:84).
Musically, there are several instruments that are considered to be historically traditional in Irish music. These include the fiddle, harp, flute, and tin whistle. It’s been said that these instruments "represent the Irish nostalgic and sometimes tragic past" and are symbols of Irish identity (Johnson 1995: 58). It should be noted that instruments like guitars, banjos, mandolins, and bass guitars are not seen as traditional instruments (Foy 1999: 18-20).
Canton, MA
After perusing the Internet, I found a place in Canton, Massachusetts that seemed as though it would be perfect for my study of Irish music in America: the Irish Cultural Centre of New England. Not only was the ICC a mere commuter-rail trip away from Providence, it also hosted a “traditional Irish session” every Saturday night at its bar.
This is the bar as seen from the eyes of a late-night session spectator:
My Experience with Irish music and Irishness
Growing up, I recall thinking I was “Irish”. This wasn’t because I was born in Ireland or had Irish relatives, because I wasn’t and I didn’t. In retrospect, I think there were two primary reasons for my thoughts: I had red hair and my mom used to play traditional Irish music on our Dodge Caravan’s stereo system. That is, until I entered adolescence and became the family’s domineering road DJ, forcing my family to listen to the Offspring and late-nineties Chili Peppers at unhealthy volumes. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that the depths of my “Irishness” are shallow, but the concept has always been there.
When I was assigned this ethnomusicological blog project, some part of me felt compelled to reexamine the Irish music I’d spent my childhood with. I figured that because I’d gotten on in years, I’d started to develop nostalgia for better times; whenever I’ve heard the strains of traditional Irish music, I’ve found myself experiencing a sort of sincere homeliness. But at the outset of the project, it had been years since I’d actually listened to Irish music, and then it was always something that belonged to my mom. I wanted to see if I could find something new in the music, something that would explain why the word “Irish” had followed me around for twenty years of my American life. As I set out on my assignment, I hoped that I hadn’t become so detached from my limited Irish “roots” that I’d be unable to reenter the realm of Irish music.
A Little Historical Background
I won’t delve too deeply into the history of Ireland or Irish music, but I feel there are a few things that should be mentioned.
The middle of the nineteenth century saw millions of Irish immigrants come to America as they fled Ireland to escape famine. Some of these immigrants journeyed west, but a great many stayed in the New England area, particularly in states like New Hampshire (where I’m from) and Massachusetts (where I did my research). On the 2000 US census, 10.8% of Americans claimed Irish ancestry while states like New Hampshire and Massachusetts yielded rates of 19.4% and 22.5% respectively. Suffice to say, there is a certain pride that Americans of Irish ancestry reserve for their roots, particularly in the New England area. Some call these prideful people part of the Irish diaspora, people whose families were at one point displaced from Ireland, because they exhibit what William Safran calls a “diaspora consciousness”, an awareness that one has of their belonging to a diaspora group (Safran 1991:84).
Musically, there are several instruments that are considered to be historically traditional in Irish music. These include the fiddle, harp, flute, and tin whistle. It’s been said that these instruments "represent the Irish nostalgic and sometimes tragic past" and are symbols of Irish identity (Johnson 1995: 58). It should be noted that instruments like guitars, banjos, mandolins, and bass guitars are not seen as traditional instruments (Foy 1999: 18-20).
Canton, MA
After perusing the Internet, I found a place in Canton, Massachusetts that seemed as though it would be perfect for my study of Irish music in America: the Irish Cultural Centre of New England. Not only was the ICC a mere commuter-rail trip away from Providence, it also hosted a “traditional Irish session” every Saturday night at its bar.
This is the bar as seen from the eyes of a late-night session spectator:
I had never been to an Irish session before my first visit to the ICC and had little idea what this somewhat underwhelming little building contained.
But let me back up for a moment and tell you about sessions.
Sessions
To cite an essay I wrote about one of my experiences in Canton, a session is the gathering of musicians that “refers particularly to the playing of “traditional” Irish music in a community setting, an event held frequently and open to any and all within the community. During sessions, songs are shared amongst several generations of musicians and listeners, the youngest learning the songs from repeated exposure to the performances of their elders.”
For those of you whose familiarity with Irish music comes from Lord of the Dance, take note that sessions aren’t Irish music being “performed” on a stage. For example, this is not a session:
But let me back up for a moment and tell you about sessions.
Sessions
To cite an essay I wrote about one of my experiences in Canton, a session is the gathering of musicians that “refers particularly to the playing of “traditional” Irish music in a community setting, an event held frequently and open to any and all within the community. During sessions, songs are shared amongst several generations of musicians and listeners, the youngest learning the songs from repeated exposure to the performances of their elders.”
For those of you whose familiarity with Irish music comes from Lord of the Dance, take note that sessions aren’t Irish music being “performed” on a stage. For example, this is not a session:
This is an example of what Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett calls “heritage music”, or music that has been singled out for preservation and exhibition, or performance (Kirshenblatt Gimblett 2002: 134).
Sessions are not “contrived performance” designed to fill theatres, but integral parts of “communities where the music has been getting along 'on its own,' patronized by local people and performed by local musicians, for generations (Hast and Scott 2004: 1).”
Sessions have their own logic. They usually occur in bars amidst socialization with the musicians facing each other as if to suggest that there is no “audience” that they are “performing” for. Dorothea Hast and Stanley Scott write in "Music in Ireland" that the music is "neither a performance... nor background music", rather it is part and parcel to the entire Irish pub experience, serving to create a communal space for those who frequent the pub (Hast and Scott 2004: 5). Sessions usually look something like this:
or, in the case of the ICC in Canton, something like this:
In his somewhat satirical book on Irish sessions, Barry Foy writes:
"The session is the wellspring of Irish music, its beating heart. Its importance to the tradition must never be forgotten. The sometimes tricky, over-rehearsed material that finds its way onto recordings and the stage may maintain a higher profile, but it owes its vitality to the decades of sessions that preceded it and gave shape to the music (Foy 1999: 65)."
This is all to say that are session are a highly traditional practice indicative of an advanced state of Irishness… unless something different is happening.
What I found in Canton suggests that sessions may serve a different purpose.
Canton, MA (again)
I ended up making my way to Canton four times during my study. With the reading I’d done about sessions beforehand, I had expected the experience to be somewhat alienating due to my lack of Irishness. ‘At least I have red hair,’ I told myself in preparation for the odd, disapproving looks I was sure I’d encounter. Yet in the ICC’s little pub, a place well off of the main road and somewhat hidden amongst the trees, I found an immediate feeling of acceptance. As I went again and again, I realized that many of the same people frequented the sessions from week to week, establishing a sort of Saturday night community of bar patrons with a penchant for Irish tunes. The more I attended the sessions, the more I knew what to expect from each of the musicians who presided over the bar’s back corner. I began to get excited when I recognized a song, singing along quietly when I could remember the words. I even came to know some of the musicians.
Remember that picture at the beginning of the blog? In case you were wondering who Sean was, he’s the guy who runs the Saturday night sessions. Sean Kane plays guitar and sings at the Canton sessions, writes his own material, and is all around very knowledgeable about being Irish-American: he grew up in Brockton, MA with his Irish mother and used to spend his summers in Westmeath, Ireland. In an interview I did with Sean before a session, I expressed to Sean that even though I’m not particularly “Irish”, I never got the impression that I was unwelcome at the Canton sessions, or that they were something exclusively “Irish” reserved only for those who exude “Irishness”. Without missing a beat, Sean detailed his ideas of what “tradition” and “authenticity” really mean (and are worth) in Irish session music.
Tradition and Authenticity
In Handler and Linnekin’s article “Tradition: Genuine or Spurious”, they suggest that there is a “common sense” definition of tradition that “refers to an inherited body of customs and beliefs (Handler and Linnekin 1984: 1).” Using the common sense definition of tradition, anything that falls outside of the boundaries of tradition in an attempt to practice that tradition is somehow less genuine, less authentic, than those attempts that adhere strictly to the traditional. For example, most sessions are primarily instrumental with very little singing. Because of this, “traditional” Irish sessions feature very few “songs” and are composed primarily of “jigs” and “reels”.
During our interview, Sean indicated that the Canton sessions were not overly concerned with being traditional:
“We’re pretty egalitarian here because a lot of seisiuns… have that almost “jazz-like” mentality, that the musicians are playing for the musicians and aren’t you lucky that you might be sitting there hearing it. There won’t be any singing and they’re going to do whatever they want to do and that’s the way it is. And even singing… in a really traditional setting there’s… a bias against it… We just don’t do that… because it’s about building up the night and not just about the music… If you play three hours of jig and reels… I don’t find that to be the most attractive thing for a night out (excerpt from interview).”
So what value can a session, the “wellspring of Irish music”, claim to have when it defies the tradition it’s supposed to be grounded in?
Handler and Linnekin find the common sense definition of tradition to be faulty because it implies a permanence that doesn’t exist. They write that “there is no essential, bounded tradition; tradition is a model of the past that is inseparable from the interpretation of tradition in the present (Handler and Linnekin 1984:4)." In other words, tradition is an ever changing, interpretive practice, not a stagnant one.
When it started to seem that the Canton sessions weren’t overly concerned with being “traditional”, I asked Sean whether or not authenticity was a big deal. Here’s what he had to say (the Sean Connor he refers to in this clip is a young Irish fiddle player at the sessions):
“You can only be authentic to your own experience.”
With those words, I felt like Sean got to the heart of what makes Canton’s sessions so special.
Conclusions
Anthony McCann writes that the seisiun is culturally important not because it's a "colonial relic" but rather because it’s a "response" to current circumstances. Sessions are part of what McCann calls the “gift economy”: session music is available to us not because we have wallets, but because we have ears (McCann 2001: 92).
The true tradition of the session is that it’s a gift to its community. It’s in this way that the Canton sessions, as with other sessions, are not part of some universal, permanent Irish tradition, but a traditional all their own; the music is played by those in the local session community for those in the local session community.
Because the musicians like to sing and the audience likes to hear them sing, there is a lot of singing at the Saturday night sessions. Because the musicians have all kinds of different backgrounds, they will play songs that come from bluegrass and country “tradition” at the Saturday night sessions. And even though it will never be a traditional Irish instrument, you might see the upright bass at a Saturday night session because it sounds good.
“Irishness” is quite simply not an issue in Canton. It’s not what’s at stake. Canton’s Saturday night sessions are valuable because they serve people, not romanticized ideas of ineffable authenticity. The bottom line is the sessions are not trying to be anything that they aren’t. For someone like me who isn’t Irish but has always been aware of Irish music, the sessions create a space where I can feel included. I don’t need to be Irish, I just need to love the music.
A new tradition is being established in Canton, a tradition of community and family and music. What will become of this tradition in the future I can’t say, but I hope that it will remain as dynamic as the people who show up every weekend to share music and conversation and, of course, beer. A tradition that grows and changes is powerful and, if I’ve learned anything from my time in Canton, far more valuable than clinging to antiquated concepts of “authenticity”.
See you some Saturday night,
Ben Nicholson
"The session is the wellspring of Irish music, its beating heart. Its importance to the tradition must never be forgotten. The sometimes tricky, over-rehearsed material that finds its way onto recordings and the stage may maintain a higher profile, but it owes its vitality to the decades of sessions that preceded it and gave shape to the music (Foy 1999: 65)."
This is all to say that are session are a highly traditional practice indicative of an advanced state of Irishness… unless something different is happening.
What I found in Canton suggests that sessions may serve a different purpose.
Canton, MA (again)
I ended up making my way to Canton four times during my study. With the reading I’d done about sessions beforehand, I had expected the experience to be somewhat alienating due to my lack of Irishness. ‘At least I have red hair,’ I told myself in preparation for the odd, disapproving looks I was sure I’d encounter. Yet in the ICC’s little pub, a place well off of the main road and somewhat hidden amongst the trees, I found an immediate feeling of acceptance. As I went again and again, I realized that many of the same people frequented the sessions from week to week, establishing a sort of Saturday night community of bar patrons with a penchant for Irish tunes. The more I attended the sessions, the more I knew what to expect from each of the musicians who presided over the bar’s back corner. I began to get excited when I recognized a song, singing along quietly when I could remember the words. I even came to know some of the musicians.
Remember that picture at the beginning of the blog? In case you were wondering who Sean was, he’s the guy who runs the Saturday night sessions. Sean Kane plays guitar and sings at the Canton sessions, writes his own material, and is all around very knowledgeable about being Irish-American: he grew up in Brockton, MA with his Irish mother and used to spend his summers in Westmeath, Ireland. In an interview I did with Sean before a session, I expressed to Sean that even though I’m not particularly “Irish”, I never got the impression that I was unwelcome at the Canton sessions, or that they were something exclusively “Irish” reserved only for those who exude “Irishness”. Without missing a beat, Sean detailed his ideas of what “tradition” and “authenticity” really mean (and are worth) in Irish session music.
Tradition and Authenticity
In Handler and Linnekin’s article “Tradition: Genuine or Spurious”, they suggest that there is a “common sense” definition of tradition that “refers to an inherited body of customs and beliefs (Handler and Linnekin 1984: 1).” Using the common sense definition of tradition, anything that falls outside of the boundaries of tradition in an attempt to practice that tradition is somehow less genuine, less authentic, than those attempts that adhere strictly to the traditional. For example, most sessions are primarily instrumental with very little singing. Because of this, “traditional” Irish sessions feature very few “songs” and are composed primarily of “jigs” and “reels”.
During our interview, Sean indicated that the Canton sessions were not overly concerned with being traditional:
“We’re pretty egalitarian here because a lot of seisiuns… have that almost “jazz-like” mentality, that the musicians are playing for the musicians and aren’t you lucky that you might be sitting there hearing it. There won’t be any singing and they’re going to do whatever they want to do and that’s the way it is. And even singing… in a really traditional setting there’s… a bias against it… We just don’t do that… because it’s about building up the night and not just about the music… If you play three hours of jig and reels… I don’t find that to be the most attractive thing for a night out (excerpt from interview).”
So what value can a session, the “wellspring of Irish music”, claim to have when it defies the tradition it’s supposed to be grounded in?
Handler and Linnekin find the common sense definition of tradition to be faulty because it implies a permanence that doesn’t exist. They write that “there is no essential, bounded tradition; tradition is a model of the past that is inseparable from the interpretation of tradition in the present (Handler and Linnekin 1984:4)." In other words, tradition is an ever changing, interpretive practice, not a stagnant one.
When it started to seem that the Canton sessions weren’t overly concerned with being “traditional”, I asked Sean whether or not authenticity was a big deal. Here’s what he had to say (the Sean Connor he refers to in this clip is a young Irish fiddle player at the sessions):
“You can only be authentic to your own experience.”
With those words, I felt like Sean got to the heart of what makes Canton’s sessions so special.
Conclusions
Anthony McCann writes that the seisiun is culturally important not because it's a "colonial relic" but rather because it’s a "response" to current circumstances. Sessions are part of what McCann calls the “gift economy”: session music is available to us not because we have wallets, but because we have ears (McCann 2001: 92).
The true tradition of the session is that it’s a gift to its community. It’s in this way that the Canton sessions, as with other sessions, are not part of some universal, permanent Irish tradition, but a traditional all their own; the music is played by those in the local session community for those in the local session community.
Because the musicians like to sing and the audience likes to hear them sing, there is a lot of singing at the Saturday night sessions. Because the musicians have all kinds of different backgrounds, they will play songs that come from bluegrass and country “tradition” at the Saturday night sessions. And even though it will never be a traditional Irish instrument, you might see the upright bass at a Saturday night session because it sounds good.
“Irishness” is quite simply not an issue in Canton. It’s not what’s at stake. Canton’s Saturday night sessions are valuable because they serve people, not romanticized ideas of ineffable authenticity. The bottom line is the sessions are not trying to be anything that they aren’t. For someone like me who isn’t Irish but has always been aware of Irish music, the sessions create a space where I can feel included. I don’t need to be Irish, I just need to love the music.
A new tradition is being established in Canton, a tradition of community and family and music. What will become of this tradition in the future I can’t say, but I hope that it will remain as dynamic as the people who show up every weekend to share music and conversation and, of course, beer. A tradition that grows and changes is powerful and, if I’ve learned anything from my time in Canton, far more valuable than clinging to antiquated concepts of “authenticity”.
See you some Saturday night,
Ben Nicholson
Works Cited:
Foy, Barry. Field Guide to the Irish Music Session: An Authoritative Guide to Enjoying Irish Traditional Music in its Natural Habitat. Roberts Rinehart Publishers Lanham, MD. 1999
Handler, Richard and Jocelyn Linnekin. “Tradition, Genuine or Spurious”. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 97, No. 385, University of Illinois Press, 1984. 273-290.
Hast, Dorothea and Stanley Scott. Music in Ireland: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. Oxford University Press, USA, 2004.
Johnson , Thomas F. “The Social Context of Irish Folk Instruments”. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 26, No. 1, Croatian Musicological Society, 1995. 35-59.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. “Sounds of Sensibility”. 2002.
McCann , Anthony. “All That Is Not Given Is Lost: Irish Traditional Music, Copyright, and Common Property”. Ethnomusicology, Vol. 45, No. 1, University of Illinois Press, 2001. 89-106.
Safran, William. “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return”. 1991
Websites:
“The Great Hunger”. Wikipedia Foundation Inc. 2008. Accessed May 8, 2008.
“The Irish in America”. EuroAmericans.net. Accessed May 8, 2008.
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