Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, May 9, 2008
Saturday Night Sessions: A New Tradition
(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.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Ethnography Essay: Saturday-Night Seisiuns
The bartender seemed a bit nonplussed when I told her that I was working on a paper for school. She asked me if I was old enough to drink and I told her I wasn’t.
“Too bad,” she said shrugging, “it’s kind of part of the experience.”
I looked around a few times at the decorative shamrocks hanging cheerfully from the rafters and the television set and realized that there had been something odd about the way the bartender had spoken. She had said “the experience” with a gravity that’s often reserved for proper nouns, as though she were speaking of a time-honored holiday. Eager to find out more before the room filled up with thirsty patrons, I turned my attention back to the bartender and asked what she thought of the place. She explained that she’d been running the bar on Saturdays at the Irish Cultural Centre of New England for the last two months and that it looked like it was going to be another gem of a night. She also told me that the bar is technically only supposed to be open until midnight but that she usually has to kick the musicians out by 12:30 in the morning.
“You have to kick them out?” I asked across the counter from my barstool perch.
“They’d never stop playing if I didn’t.”
For the first time that night, I started to understand that the little bar meant more to its denizens than four walls and full glasses. There seemed to be a feeling of tradition associated with the place, a sense of a fondly remembered past and a promising future. I was about to continue my inquiry when a chorus of fiddles, mandolin, banjo, lute, and tin whistle sprang from the shuffling stillness of the back corner and embarked on a triplet-feel melody in unison. It was 8:00 in Canton, Massachusetts and the Saturday-night seisiun had begun.
Seisiun is pronounced “session” and has just about the same meaning; according to the Irish Cultural Centre’s website, it’s the “gathering of singers and musicians to sing and play [Irish] songs”. The seisiun 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 seisiuns, songs are shared amongst several generations of musicians and listeners, the youngest learning the songs from repeated exposure to the performances of their elders (http://www.irishculture.org).
As the music greeted my ears, the communal nature of the seisiun quickly became evident to me. The musicians, as opposed to being sequestered to a stage, sat around a collection of small tables in the back corner of the room, facing not the “audience” but each other. Those in the ever growing “audience”, if it could be called that, didn’t sit morosely in their seats waiting to politely applaud at song’s end; they leaned in close to one another and spoke animatedly over their beers; they called out encouragements to the musicians, who they seemed to know by name; they listened attentively to the soft strains of soloists and singers and sang along when the songs called for a chorus; and when a song was finally over, they didn’t offer their approval so much as they imposed it across the room with hoots and handclaps. They did all these things with a comfortable confidence that suggested that they’d been there before and with a collectivity that suggested that they knew not only the place, but each other.
When one of the musicians got up to fetch a drink, I introduced myself and asked her if seisiuns were usually so social. She told she’d been playing the bodhrán, a type of Irish drum played with piece of wood called a “tipper”, at seisiuns for only a little over a year and already she’d met over two-hundred people, musicians and listeners, who had come through the bar, just as she was meeting me. She continued to say that when she’s played at seisiuns, she’s never felt that she’s been playing to the people around her, but rather with them, as though when she “enters the room, the music comes out of the walls and moves through [her]”. It’s this feeling that keeps her coming back to the Saturday-night seisiuns, as well as the opportunity to have a “front row seat to watch musicians with talent” play.
The talent she was speaking of was abundant. In instrumental Irish folk music, the melody reigns supreme over all else, often inviting as many as a dozen instruments to play in unison with as little as a single guitar providing chordal accompaniment. The melodic instruments included a banjo, a mandolin, an accordion, a tin whistle, uilleann pipes, and two fiddles. The bodhrán player told me that one of the fiddle players, an Irish citizen in his early twenties who had “come to America to visit family, met a girl, and has been here ever since”, exhibited so much passion in his playing that the Irish Cultural Centre added him to their payroll to encourage him to stay.
Sean, as I learned he was named, bowed his head and stared intensely at the ground while he played, stomping his foot to the beat as his fingers flew up and down the neck of his fiddle. When he didn’t know a song, by mandate of seisiun tradition, he would lay down his fiddle and head to the bar. When he passed me on one of his trips, he patted me on the back and asked how I was doing in a thick Irish accent, grabbing two frothing glasses of beer that the bartender had knowingly prepared for him and returning to his fiddle before I could respond. Even as a newcomer, I already felt as though I was being recognized and accepted amongst those who I assumed to be regulars at the bar. I was, after all, brandishing a head of thick red hair.
As I had this very thought, I started to wonder if the majority of the patrons saw themselves as being “Irish”. I know that to a limited extent, I’ve always viewed myself as “Irish”, even though I have very little idea of what it might mean to actually be Irish. An elderly man who had been helping out behind the bar all night was standing nearby. I’d seen him speaking to many of the patrons as they’d circulated past the bar and I figured he’d be able to offer some insight as to how people who come to the Saturday-night seisiuns view themselves. I said hello and told him about the paper I was writing, realizing quickly that he was quite hard of hearing and elevating my voice to a near shout by the end of my explanation. He told me that he was born in Ireland and had lived there for over twenty years before immigrating to America, where he’s been for the last forty. I asked how he felt about the music they played at Canton seisiuns.
“It’s all right,” he replied after a brief moment of contemplation, “but it’s not the same as what they play in Ireland.”
I pressed him a bit further as to what he meant and he told me that most of the people who come to the seisiuns identify themselves as Irish, but they are fundamentally American. Even though the music and atmosphere aren’t incredibly divergent from those he remembers from Ireland, he often gets the distinct impression that when he attends the seisiuns, he’s not just listening to Irish music, but Irish music in America.
I thanked the man for his words and turned back to the music, trying to discern the implications of the old man’s thoughts. As I pondered, the musicians were discussing how they were going to play the next “set”, an instrumental derived from the combination of three shorter tunes that are performed by moving seamlessly from one to the next. The man I assumed to be the group leader (a guitarist and vocalist who everyone deferred to on song selections) named the three tunes that would comprise the next set. Sean, the young fiddle player, laid his fiddle on the table in front of him and, half jokingly, said he wouldn’t play this particular set because one of the three tunes was not traditionally played with the other two.
“Everywhere else in the world, they play it the right way,” Sean hollered teasingly from the bar.
“Well,” the group leader replied with a patronizing smile as he began strumming his guitar, “here we don’t.”
It was after witnessing this exchange that it dawned on me why the Saturday-night seisiuns were so important to people. “Perfect” emulation of what is considered to be traditional makes music into an exhibition, a fascinating experience but one that can ultimately leave its listeners with the impression of having heard what can be called musical acting: music that posits itself as being “authentic” when there is, in reality, an ever-present, conscious detachment from the time and place of the music’s origins. At the same time, there is something inherently powerful about listening to music that one feels is unique to them and their community, music that has a history of affiliation with what one perceives to be their culture. With the Saturday-night seisiuns, people have found a way to both celebrate their shared heritage and participate in a dynamic social experience with a fitting soundtrack.
The seisiuns in Canton are valuable because they are filled not just with familiar songs and endless drinks, but because they are also filled with familiar faces and memories of Saturday-nights-past. That they are not the same as the seisiuns one would find in Ireland and they don’t aspire to be; they are a local tradition all their own. The musicians and patrons make no attempt to transport themselves to a mythical, utopian homeland through an artificial recreation of ancient music, rather they take pride in being a part of music in Canton, Massachusetts. In this way, the music is a tradition, but not in the traditional sense of the word; Canton’s tradition isn’t one that’s stagnated in its own historicity, but one that is fortified and amended every Saturday night.
I left the Irish Cultural Centre with a sense of having been a part of something transcendent, yet humble. With a slight smile lighting my lips, I crossed the green-painted wooden bridge to the parking lot, familiarizing myself with its features in anticipation of my return on some Saturday night in the future. When I return, I anticipate the bartender might have to kick me out along with the musicians as Sunday’s early hours press on.
Websites Used:
http://www.irishculture.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_traditional_music_session
“Too bad,” she said shrugging, “it’s kind of part of the experience.”
I looked around a few times at the decorative shamrocks hanging cheerfully from the rafters and the television set and realized that there had been something odd about the way the bartender had spoken. She had said “the experience” with a gravity that’s often reserved for proper nouns, as though she were speaking of a time-honored holiday. Eager to find out more before the room filled up with thirsty patrons, I turned my attention back to the bartender and asked what she thought of the place. She explained that she’d been running the bar on Saturdays at the Irish Cultural Centre of New England for the last two months and that it looked like it was going to be another gem of a night. She also told me that the bar is technically only supposed to be open until midnight but that she usually has to kick the musicians out by 12:30 in the morning.
“You have to kick them out?” I asked across the counter from my barstool perch.
“They’d never stop playing if I didn’t.”
For the first time that night, I started to understand that the little bar meant more to its denizens than four walls and full glasses. There seemed to be a feeling of tradition associated with the place, a sense of a fondly remembered past and a promising future. I was about to continue my inquiry when a chorus of fiddles, mandolin, banjo, lute, and tin whistle sprang from the shuffling stillness of the back corner and embarked on a triplet-feel melody in unison. It was 8:00 in Canton, Massachusetts and the Saturday-night seisiun had begun.
Seisiun is pronounced “session” and has just about the same meaning; according to the Irish Cultural Centre’s website, it’s the “gathering of singers and musicians to sing and play [Irish] songs”. The seisiun 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 seisiuns, songs are shared amongst several generations of musicians and listeners, the youngest learning the songs from repeated exposure to the performances of their elders (http://www.irishculture.org).
As the music greeted my ears, the communal nature of the seisiun quickly became evident to me. The musicians, as opposed to being sequestered to a stage, sat around a collection of small tables in the back corner of the room, facing not the “audience” but each other. Those in the ever growing “audience”, if it could be called that, didn’t sit morosely in their seats waiting to politely applaud at song’s end; they leaned in close to one another and spoke animatedly over their beers; they called out encouragements to the musicians, who they seemed to know by name; they listened attentively to the soft strains of soloists and singers and sang along when the songs called for a chorus; and when a song was finally over, they didn’t offer their approval so much as they imposed it across the room with hoots and handclaps. They did all these things with a comfortable confidence that suggested that they’d been there before and with a collectivity that suggested that they knew not only the place, but each other.
When one of the musicians got up to fetch a drink, I introduced myself and asked her if seisiuns were usually so social. She told she’d been playing the bodhrán, a type of Irish drum played with piece of wood called a “tipper”, at seisiuns for only a little over a year and already she’d met over two-hundred people, musicians and listeners, who had come through the bar, just as she was meeting me. She continued to say that when she’s played at seisiuns, she’s never felt that she’s been playing to the people around her, but rather with them, as though when she “enters the room, the music comes out of the walls and moves through [her]”. It’s this feeling that keeps her coming back to the Saturday-night seisiuns, as well as the opportunity to have a “front row seat to watch musicians with talent” play.
The talent she was speaking of was abundant. In instrumental Irish folk music, the melody reigns supreme over all else, often inviting as many as a dozen instruments to play in unison with as little as a single guitar providing chordal accompaniment. The melodic instruments included a banjo, a mandolin, an accordion, a tin whistle, uilleann pipes, and two fiddles. The bodhrán player told me that one of the fiddle players, an Irish citizen in his early twenties who had “come to America to visit family, met a girl, and has been here ever since”, exhibited so much passion in his playing that the Irish Cultural Centre added him to their payroll to encourage him to stay.
Sean, as I learned he was named, bowed his head and stared intensely at the ground while he played, stomping his foot to the beat as his fingers flew up and down the neck of his fiddle. When he didn’t know a song, by mandate of seisiun tradition, he would lay down his fiddle and head to the bar. When he passed me on one of his trips, he patted me on the back and asked how I was doing in a thick Irish accent, grabbing two frothing glasses of beer that the bartender had knowingly prepared for him and returning to his fiddle before I could respond. Even as a newcomer, I already felt as though I was being recognized and accepted amongst those who I assumed to be regulars at the bar. I was, after all, brandishing a head of thick red hair.
As I had this very thought, I started to wonder if the majority of the patrons saw themselves as being “Irish”. I know that to a limited extent, I’ve always viewed myself as “Irish”, even though I have very little idea of what it might mean to actually be Irish. An elderly man who had been helping out behind the bar all night was standing nearby. I’d seen him speaking to many of the patrons as they’d circulated past the bar and I figured he’d be able to offer some insight as to how people who come to the Saturday-night seisiuns view themselves. I said hello and told him about the paper I was writing, realizing quickly that he was quite hard of hearing and elevating my voice to a near shout by the end of my explanation. He told me that he was born in Ireland and had lived there for over twenty years before immigrating to America, where he’s been for the last forty. I asked how he felt about the music they played at Canton seisiuns.
“It’s all right,” he replied after a brief moment of contemplation, “but it’s not the same as what they play in Ireland.”
I pressed him a bit further as to what he meant and he told me that most of the people who come to the seisiuns identify themselves as Irish, but they are fundamentally American. Even though the music and atmosphere aren’t incredibly divergent from those he remembers from Ireland, he often gets the distinct impression that when he attends the seisiuns, he’s not just listening to Irish music, but Irish music in America.
I thanked the man for his words and turned back to the music, trying to discern the implications of the old man’s thoughts. As I pondered, the musicians were discussing how they were going to play the next “set”, an instrumental derived from the combination of three shorter tunes that are performed by moving seamlessly from one to the next. The man I assumed to be the group leader (a guitarist and vocalist who everyone deferred to on song selections) named the three tunes that would comprise the next set. Sean, the young fiddle player, laid his fiddle on the table in front of him and, half jokingly, said he wouldn’t play this particular set because one of the three tunes was not traditionally played with the other two.
“Everywhere else in the world, they play it the right way,” Sean hollered teasingly from the bar.
“Well,” the group leader replied with a patronizing smile as he began strumming his guitar, “here we don’t.”
It was after witnessing this exchange that it dawned on me why the Saturday-night seisiuns were so important to people. “Perfect” emulation of what is considered to be traditional makes music into an exhibition, a fascinating experience but one that can ultimately leave its listeners with the impression of having heard what can be called musical acting: music that posits itself as being “authentic” when there is, in reality, an ever-present, conscious detachment from the time and place of the music’s origins. At the same time, there is something inherently powerful about listening to music that one feels is unique to them and their community, music that has a history of affiliation with what one perceives to be their culture. With the Saturday-night seisiuns, people have found a way to both celebrate their shared heritage and participate in a dynamic social experience with a fitting soundtrack.
The seisiuns in Canton are valuable because they are filled not just with familiar songs and endless drinks, but because they are also filled with familiar faces and memories of Saturday-nights-past. That they are not the same as the seisiuns one would find in Ireland and they don’t aspire to be; they are a local tradition all their own. The musicians and patrons make no attempt to transport themselves to a mythical, utopian homeland through an artificial recreation of ancient music, rather they take pride in being a part of music in Canton, Massachusetts. In this way, the music is a tradition, but not in the traditional sense of the word; Canton’s tradition isn’t one that’s stagnated in its own historicity, but one that is fortified and amended every Saturday night.
I left the Irish Cultural Centre with a sense of having been a part of something transcendent, yet humble. With a slight smile lighting my lips, I crossed the green-painted wooden bridge to the parking lot, familiarizing myself with its features in anticipation of my return on some Saturday night in the future. When I return, I anticipate the bartender might have to kick me out along with the musicians as Sunday’s early hours press on.
Websites Used:
http://www.irishculture.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_traditional_music_session
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Response to Comments #2
Hey Abigail,
I agree with you that having some other perspectives included would be a good idea for making generalizations about Irish traditional music. I'm going to be very careful when framing my final blog post to make sure it doesn't sound as though I believe that the Irish Cultural Centre is representative of Irish music everywhere, rather my concern with this project is my analysis of what's going on in Canton (which, of course, could be extended to studies of Irish diaspora music in other places in the future). Talking to Sheila was really helpful and the books she gave me have been great. Let me know if you'd like to look at any of them. For my blog post, I'm definitely going to include an excerpt from the interview because Sean is an extremely eloquent speaker and his voice communicate more than a transcript of his voice. As of right now, I feel really good heading into the project and have a large body of text/media/experience to draw from. Can't wait to see what you come up with!
-Ben
I agree with you that having some other perspectives included would be a good idea for making generalizations about Irish traditional music. I'm going to be very careful when framing my final blog post to make sure it doesn't sound as though I believe that the Irish Cultural Centre is representative of Irish music everywhere, rather my concern with this project is my analysis of what's going on in Canton (which, of course, could be extended to studies of Irish diaspora music in other places in the future). Talking to Sheila was really helpful and the books she gave me have been great. Let me know if you'd like to look at any of them. For my blog post, I'm definitely going to include an excerpt from the interview because Sean is an extremely eloquent speaker and his voice communicate more than a transcript of his voice. As of right now, I feel really good heading into the project and have a large body of text/media/experience to draw from. Can't wait to see what you come up with!
-Ben
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Critical Review - Dorothea Hast and Stanley Scott's "Music in Ireland", Chapter 1: Invitation to a Session
In the first chapter of their book, Hast and Scott recount a trip they, as Americans, made to Ireland in 1997 in which they were invited to a small pub named Gleesons to attend a traditional Irish session. They differentiate sessions from other "contrived" presentations of Irish traditional music, such as festivales, schools, clubs, and competitions, in that with the pub session "the life of the music [is] in a community where the music has been getting along 'on its own,' patronized by local people and performed by local musicians, for generations (1)." They describe Gleesons as "a single, spacious room" with a fireplace and a small area in one corner reserved for the musicians. Junior Crehan, the 89-year-old fiddler and long-time leader of the Sunday night session, begins the session with a jig he wrote himself and has been playing for years. Between sets of jigs and reels, the musicians take breaks to talk and drink, alternating casually between playing and relaxing. The music is loud enough to be heard by all those in attendence at the pub, but not so loud as to prevent conversation because, as pub owner Jimmy Gleeson states: "people want to come in and converse... It's a farming community. So it's very important that you can hold a conversation... If someone is singing, that's the one time, the only thing I want to hear when someone is singing is the big clock ticking. And you know when you can hear the clock ticking that you have silence (4-5)." Hast and Scott write 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 (5). In this spirit, specific tunes and players become part of the unique fabric of a given session, varying from one session to the next (10). Sometimes, "tunes have... been regarded as the personal property of the musicans who played them", though not necessarily those who wrote them. This is due to oral transmission being the "primary" form of continuity with Irish traditional music: those who preserve a tune by repeatedly playing it are in many ways given credit for the tune (12). The session is a place where specific players and community members are highly valued. Overall, the impression Gleesons left on the authors was one that "evoke[d] nostalgia for a simpler, less commercial way of life (15)."
Question: does practicing "tradition" involve adhering to ideas of what is "authentic" or is it more about establishing a local routine unique to a specific community? Or maybe more importantly, how do those who feel they are participating in tradition concern themselves with authenticity?
Question: does practicing "tradition" involve adhering to ideas of what is "authentic" or is it more about establishing a local routine unique to a specific community? Or maybe more importantly, how do those who feel they are participating in tradition concern themselves with authenticity?
Friday, April 18, 2008
Critical Review - Barry Foy's "Field Guide to the Irish Music Session"
Written in a somewhat satirical style, Barry Foy's book addresses the subtle social etiquette and contemporary environment of the traditional Irish session. Foy describes a session as being a "gathering of Irish musicians for the purpose of celebrating their common interest... in a relaxed, informal setting" where the musicians simultaneously work to keep alive the "tradition" of the session and to share an evening of drinking with friends at the same time (12). He describes the music as being anything but a "jam", rather Irish traditional music consists of: "specific tunes in specific rhythms, played in specific ways in specific keys of specific instruments (13)." This requires that those who participate in sessions be extremely knowledgeable about the material being played, lest they not play at all. Because Irish traditional music is, stylistically, "unisonal" (all melodic instruments play in unison), chordal accompaniment is not required and, in fact, not necessary (53). Foy lists the fiddle, tin whistle, uilleann pipes, flute, concertina, accordion as being instruments that would be welcome at almost all sessions while guitars, mandolins, bodhrans, and banjos should never number more than one, if at all (18). The majority of tunes (not songs, which are sung, which are played far less frequently than tunes) can be classified as "reels", typified by fast tempo and a lively sound (23). Reels are strung together to form larger pieces, what Foy jokingly calls "BTSTs", or "Buncha-Tunes-Strung-Together", which usually consists of three tunes (30). Though there are no "rules" for how many times a single tune in a BTST should be played before moving to the next, the standard number is three, unless the tune is unusually long or short, in which case the number of repetitions is adjusted accordingly (25). Foy claims that BTSTs are determined in three ways: the tunes are classically played in a certain series that is generally known to everyone who plays Irish traditional music ("Tarlbolton"/"The Longford Collector"/"The Sailor's Bonnet"), a musician shouts out the name of the new tune while the one currently being played is ending, or someone just starts playing a new tune once the one has ended and hopes that enough other musicians know it to join in (31). Alternatively, some sessions set up their BTSTs beforehand, which Foy argues goes against the traditional aesthetic of Irish music. During sessions, long pauses between BTSTs are common in that the session is more of a social construction than a truly performative one (45). The prevalent use of electronic media has caused regional styles that were once transmitted orally to recede from the session in favor or versions of tunes found on mass-produced compact discs. This can cause clashes at sessions as tunes played in specific keys (so as to accommodate instruments like the flute that cannot really be tuned) are altered on recordings and musicians who aren't familiar with the "traditional" key may alienate those instruments which the tune was initially written for (81-82). In the end, Foy argues that the session, which is quite unlike a "normal concert" or recording by its highly interactive nature, still provides the basis for almost all contemporary recordings and concerts: "The session is the wellspring of Irish music, its beating heart. Its importance to the tradition must never be forgotten. The sometimes tricky, overrehearsed material that finds its way onto recordings and the stage may maintain a higher profile, but it owes its vitiality to the decades of sessions that preceded it and gave shape to the music (65)."
Question: exactly what are the social/temporal roots of the contemporary session? How far back does this "tradition" reach?
Question: exactly what are the social/temporal roots of the contemporary session? How far back does this "tradition" reach?
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Critical Review - Anthony McCann's "All That Is Not Given Is Lost: Irish Traditional Music, Copyright, and Common Property"
Anthony McCann opens his article by stating that Irish traditional music finds itself in "the best of times and the worst of times". In many ways, the music is more popular globally than it's ever been and interest is at an all time high. On the other hand, the streamlining of a music that was once a "traditional" cultural practice has commodified the music in ways that are problematic. McCann argues that transmission of Irish traditional music depends/has depended on the music being a "gift" (a "system of sharing" that is "as-yet-unarticulated") as opposed to a commodity (89). Groups like the Irish Music Rights Organization (IMRO) work to protect Irish traditional music as a commodity, that is to say, removing some pieces of music from the "public domain" so as to assign ownership of the song (who has written it/who has the right to use it). After this point, McCann reiterates that "the noncommodity aspect of Irish musical practice... [is] the "cultural glue" that holds the whole system together (91)." He brings up the Irish seisiun as the major platform on which the Irish musical "gift economy" takes place: the seisiun is culturally important not because it's a "colonial relic" but rather because it is a "response" to current economic circumstances: it allows for the free exchange of music in a society which values and supports artistic "ownership" of music (92). McCann makes the case for Irish traditional music as being a Common Property Resource (CPR) due to its "non-excludability" and its tendency to develop "rivalrous consumption", or a situation where "each user [of the music] is capable of subtracting from the welfare of other users" based on the context in which a given person uses the music (whether in a consumer market or a gift economy) (94-5). There is a constant struggle between those who want to perform the music outside of the commercial spehere and those who wish to "cordon of those aspects of the [musical] environment that seem 'useful'" and make music a "product" and musicians "producers" (95). "Tragedy" can strike with common property when "self-interest and social interest diverge". Irish traditional music is, by and large, open to being used by anyone who wants to use it. Yet, McCann argues, the social and cultural significance of Irish traditional music relies on its transmission and presentation as being a gift, not a product. When those acting in self-interest attempt to turn a profit on the music, they work against the very nature of the music that makes it special in the first place (96). Commodification "dimishes to humanizing domain of the gift" (97). The "negative reciprocity" of capitalism, the turning of "one man's gift to another man's capital", promotes "individualism and clannishness" at the expense of communal social practice (98). Ultimately, McCann makes a plea for a legal system which "recognizes the wealth, the breadth, and, most importantly, the social nature of traditional musics and [their] transmission".
Question: if what's traditional is a "contemporary response to contemporary conditions", the meaning of what is traditional in Irish music must be dynamic. Not to argue for commodification of music, I wonder: do sales and the copyrighting of music that is played in the "traditional" Irish style diminish the one's enjoyment of the music? Can commodified music bring just as much pleasure as music that is transmitted as "gift" if such a system is socially desirable? Essentially, is there a certain "sanctity" that capitalism defiles?
Question: if what's traditional is a "contemporary response to contemporary conditions", the meaning of what is traditional in Irish music must be dynamic. Not to argue for commodification of music, I wonder: do sales and the copyrighting of music that is played in the "traditional" Irish style diminish the one's enjoyment of the music? Can commodified music bring just as much pleasure as music that is transmitted as "gift" if such a system is socially desirable? Essentially, is there a certain "sanctity" that capitalism defiles?
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