The Requisite Intro

L.E. McCullough’s Whistle Blog

Greetings,

I’ve been playing the tinwhistle since 1972. Started out learning Irish traditional music, but gradually absorbed other idioms as well.

LOVE this little instrument.

Finally got around to starting a blog about it. Which will be observations about playing the whistle and learning Irish music. Trying to organize thoughts on the inner essence of what mentally happens when I play the thing… and if you play the whistle, you well know things DO mentally happen.

Will try not to be too intellectual or ethnomusicologically intense… (do you realize the amount of caloric energy expended in just spelling “ethnomusicologically”? … probably an extra day of your life depleted…) Can’t promise, though — like the scorpion said when he stung the frog carrying him across the raging river knowing they would both drown, “Sorry, dude, it’s just my nature.” [Stith-Thompson International Folklore Motif-Index K815.6].

Not going to give reviews on whistles or whistle players. Just wanted a space where I can spin out some thoughts I’ve been having the last number of years about this crazy little pipe and the music rolling around my head.

Just stuff I think about the whistle that you might think about, too, if you play it.

And, yes, feel free to respond and even send in your own thoughts on whistlery or Irish music. Probably will publish them if they’re interesting. What have we got to lose?

More about everything else that is or might be L.E. McCullough may be found at http://www.lemccullough.com — books, records, plays, performances, etc.

Fead on!

iBAM! Chicago, Nov. 2011

AN INCREDIBLE IRISH-AMERICAN cultural event took place in Chicago last month that too many people outside the Windy City don’t know about yet but should.

It’s called iBAM! — Irish Books Art Music! — and it convenes close to 100 authors, actors, visual artists and musicians for a public festival in the spacious halls of the Irish American Heritage Center on the city’s northwestside.

The program and participant list is still up at http://www.ibamchicago.com. Prepare to be amazed at the diversity and scope of traditional and contemporary expression of Irish culture.

I was, and I’ve been on this Hibernian beat for a good long time.

A book fair, plays, panels, lectures, literary readings, live music, dance, photography, poetry, cooking, folklore, spirituality, award-winning exhibits like “The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats” direct from National Library in Dublin — iBAM! is a non-stop two days of activity.

The theme of iBAM! 2011 was “Handing Down the Tradition” and that’s where my contribution came in.

I was booked to give a presentation titled “Irish Traditional Music:  Where It’s Been, Where It’s Going” and also moderated a panel looking at trends in preservation and collection of Irish traditional music with Dr. Matt Cranitch and Paul deGrae (we got accordionist Jackie Daly to chime in on Chief O’Neill’s Hornpipe for a musical coda).

Among the local musicians, Handing Down the Tradition was evidenced by a host of family-based units — The Dooleys; Patrick and Karen Canady; Gerry and Kevin Carey; Joe O’Shea and Mike O’Shea; Sheila Doorly-Bracken, Frank Quinn and Pat Quinn; the ensemble led by Noel Rice, Cathleen Rice-Halliburton and Kevin Rice; the world renowned sean-nos dancers The Cunninghams — along with local stalwarts Pat Finnegan, Aislinn Gagliardi, Cormac McCarthy, Chicago Reel, Broken Pledge Ceili Band, Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill and more.

However, iBAM! isn’t an academic event but more of a focused ongoing discussion exploring the evolving nature of Irish culture and its place in today’s world. And that covers a lot of territory.

I ended up hanging out a lot with the authors, who seemed to be in the majority, as befitting Ireland’s centuries-long love of The Word spoken, written, acted and sung — which pretty much describes the totality of Castlebar, Mayo’s  John Hoban, who combines music, tales, song, poetry and more.

Anyone who thinks the “Golden Age” of Irish and Irish-American literature has passed should re-consider.

Another highlight was a panel chaired by American Public Radio host Bill Margeson that included Chicago musicians Liz Carroll, Jimmy Keane and Sean Cleland and Milwaukee Irish Fest founder Ed Ward chatting about Irish music in Chicago over the last few decades.

Jimmy shared a newly rediscovered wire cylinder recording of 19^th-century Tipperary/Chicago fiddler Edward Cronin – a major source of repertoire for the vital Francis O’Neill tune collections.

Hearing the sound of pure drop fiddling summoned into our present from its brief flickering long ago was a striking reminder of the music’s power to persevere across the decades.

The weekend kicked off with a Friday night awards dinner honoring five distinguished exponents of Irish and Irish-American culture:  Leitrim fiddler Maurice Lennon, Dublin fiction writer Maeve Binchy and three Chicagoans — choreographer Mark Howard, sculptor John David Mooney and author/sociologist Fr. Andrew Greeley. All five have spent a lifetime not just passing on their art but redefining it to include ever more inventive ways to express that cultural core.

At the dinner I was reminded of the many forms the handing-down can take. Up through the 1970s, when Irish traditional music in America was confined to Irish-only enclaves in a few cities, the Irish import store was a key source of information about local musicians, upcoming music events, new recordings from Ireland (along with the occasional longlost trad disc from the 1950s or beyond).

My initial gateway into the wonderland of Chicago Irish music was Shamrock Irish Imports on North Laramie Street operated by Maureen O’Looney.

One chilly March day in 1973, I wandered into the store and inquired where one could find Irish traditional music locally.

She told me that a fiddler named John McGreevy and a piper/flute player named Kevin Henry would be performing at a St. Patrick’s event that very afternoon at Ford City Mall on Cicero Avenue.

The rest, as they say, is history. To my delight, Mrs. O’Looney was at the awards dinner where I was able to again express my gratitude in person for that “good steer”. Her shop is moving into the Irish American Heritage Center this month.

Another prime Irish music knowledge base in the Paleo-Internet Era of Human Existence was the physical, hand-held, press-printed newspaper. In tracing Chicago Irish music history, I found papers from the 1800s like the Irish Republic, Chicago Citizen and Irish News invaluable for details about the Irish cultural milieu of the time.

LITTLE TOWN OF SPIRALS - Cynthia Mayti

Today that community chronicling task is ably filled by Chicago’s Irish American News, which co-produced iBAM! with the Irish American Heritage Center.

I still have an issue from the paper’s inaugural year of 1977 with the headline “August 15 Named ‘Irish Day’ by Mayor”.

The bottom of Page 1 features an editorial titled “Why Support an Irish American Center”, and the pages are filled with features on local Irish music, theatre, fine arts and dance (with results of the summer’s Chicago Feis including mention of a young Mark Howard in the Boys Junior category).

I recall a remark I heard flutist Noel Rice make nearly 40 years ago:  “To help Irish culture survive in the future, we have to make sure it grows by design, not accident.”

iBAM! is a fundamental part of that design. 

For anyone seeking blissful immersion in the Past-Present-Future of Irish culture, iBAM! 2011 had it all.

# # #

Diddy-Wah-Diddy

A quick Independence Day Week post paying tribute to the Spirit of American Music — and the willingness of musicians everywhere to cross borders, b(l)end genres, venture into the metaphorical musical wilderness a-lookin for the elephant guided only by those inner voices whispering “Over here… come on over here, pilgrim…”

Cronin’s Hornpipe-Diddy Wah Diddy-Glen Allen-Mama’s Getting Younger

— from the 1984 album Late Bloomer (Kicking Mule Records).

Ernie Hawkins – guitar (Cronin’s, Diddy-Wah-Diddy), vocal (Diddy-Wah-Diddy); Doug Anthony - guitar (Glen Allen, Mama’s Getting Younger); Larry Edelman - mandolin; Sam Waterkotte – acoustic bass; L.E. McCullough – vocal (Mama’s Getting Younger), harmonica, tinwhistle, clarinet, bones

The Man from Bunclody

A birthday celebration was held this past Sunday for button accordionist/fiddler Tom Dunne at the weekly Irish music session he and fiddler Tony Horswill have been co-hosting for several years at St. James Gate Publick House in Maplewood, New Jersey. A great time was had by all. Exceptional carrot cake. Flowing beverages. Appreciative listeners. It should happen every week!

The only thing I could think to bring to the festivities was a newly composed tune, a hornpipe. Tom has a very deft touch with hornpipes, and I’m hoping the tune sits well on his box or even the fiddle.

I called it “The Man from Bunclody”, this being the habitation in County Wexford from which Tom originally hails. Maybe if enough people play it here and there, it’ll someday meld into the tradition as “Tom Dunne’s Hornpipe”.

Tom Dunne is one of those traditional musicians you encounter who, within five seconds after they start playing — you know it’s the Real Deal. Because it just sounds right.

I realize that’s a shockingly non-objective way to describe his style. But it just is. Because he just does.

What I enjoy best about playing with Tom Dunne is knowing that whenever he plays, I’m hearing some part of the music I’ve never heard before … in a way I’ll likely never hear it again.

When we play a tune I’ve played a thousand times, I know his version is coming out through a convection of musical roots that twist down into the deepest, richest core of the tradition. A musical culture so far distant from our modern aural universe that the only way it can ever be heard even faintly is as an occasional echo through a player like Tom Dunne.

You can judge for yourself by listening to his two CDs to date:  Musical Memories with the late Joe Banjo Burke and A Fiddle Tribute To Paddy Cronin. There are rumours of a third CD in the works produced by Hearts Content, Tom’s trio with Iris Nevins (guitar/harp) and Linda Hickman (flute/whistle).

Encourage these rumours and spur them into digital reality… Tom turned 65 yesterday, and with the shape he’s in, he might only be around for another 50 years.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Fleadh Season Is Upon Us

The Mid-Atlantic U.S. Fleadh Cheoil took place last weekend at the spacious Hilton Hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey. And it was superb.

This was a qualifying competition for performers of Irish traditional instrumental and vocal music. The first- and second-place winners in each category are entitled to compete in the annual Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann — the All-Ireland traditional music championships that bring thousands of musicians and a quarter million onlookers from around the world to a small town in Ireland each August.

Beyond the competitive aspect showcasing the talents of some astonishing young musicians, a local fleadh serves as a barometer of the music’s overall health. The polished, recital-level performances testify to the skill and dedication of teachers and students; competitors and visiting players from possibly anywhere on the planet commingle in impromptu sessions throughout the hotel all weekend.

A good local fleadh can get you feeling pretty optimistic about the future of Irish Traditional Music.

I remember my first:  May 5, 1974 … a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon in Chicago at Hubbard High School on the southwest side. I competed in the Over-18 Tinwhistle category and was awarded 1^st Place.

A miracle of sorts, considering I’d been playing the music just under two years. In addition to qualifying for that summer’s All-Ireland contest, I received a trophy (pictured right) — a true modern marvel of Neo-Constructivist Kitsch Deco styling that, sadly, has not survived the decades.

But I have retained my participant copy of the Official Adjudication Sheet with scoring filled out by the Official Music Adjudicator. Who on that particular day was the even-then legendary Clare fiddler Seamus Connolly, now the distinguished Sullivan Artist-in-Residence at Boston College.

1) Jig:  good traditional style; make sure to end tune properly.

2) Slow Air:  nicely played; phrasing not at all times correct.

3) Reel:  nicely played; watch the rhythm & phrasing when ornamenting!!

4) Hornpipe:  very well played; best tune; lovely ornamentation.

I still look at these comments from time to time. Because they’re as good advice now as they were then, no matter how long you’ve been playing.

And because I vainly wish to believe I can still render a hornpipe as well as I did 37 years ago.

Of course, when I’d started playing ITM, competing was the furthest thing from my mind. Hadn’t thought much about performing the music in public beyond learning enough tunes to credibly participate in a general session and have something to offer musicians kind enough to share their time and knowledge.

I was, after all, merely a budding ethnomusicologist whose mission was to analyze and describe this unique musical culture to the non-Hibernian world. The idea of putting myself forward as a musical equal to established players from the roots tradition was inconceivable.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the fleadh … restrained academicism got banjaxed by unfettered passion.

During the previous few months, I’d been privileged to meet half a hundred veteran players in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. All had graciously shared books, tapes, records, stories – whatever might help an outsider better understand the music that occupied such a central role in their lives.

Yet it became clear that fact-founded analysis alone would never suffice to tell the full story of this tradition. To convey even an iota of what it might mean emotionally to its exponents, I would need to become as passionate and devoted a player as the musicians I was chronicling.

Total objectivity could only be attained from total subjective immersion.

After a few weeks of intense woodshedding, I entered that first fleadh just to see how far I was off the beam. Winning wouldn’t mean I was a real Irish traditional musician; on that one day playing those particular tunes, my performance had simply sounded okay enough to translate into points along a sliding grade matrix. Like weighing a stack of lunchmeat on a scale … visible quantity but no clue to the intangibles of taste or quality.

What it really did mean wouldn’t sink in until the post-fleadh céilí at Hibernian Hall on W. 63^rd Street. The weekly Irish Hour radio broadcast hosted by Martin Fahey, Sr. on WOPA-AM had just concluded, and dancers were gathering on the floor.

“Larry McCullough!”

Through the crowd noise, someone called my name. I turned and saw Seamus Connolly approaching.

My first thought was:  Yikes! They realized they made a scoring mistake, and I have to give back my beloved Neo-Constructivist Kitsch Deco Over-18 Tinwhistle Trophy.

He shook my hand and spoke in a serious but friendly tone. “You played well. You’ve got a good traditional feel.”

I stammered out a surprised thank-you. Then, awkward, congealing silence. “Umm… is there anything else I should do?”

He smiled and beckoned toward the bandstand. “Play some tunes for the céilí.”

Probably the best ITM wisdom I ever received.

Some might think a local fleadh is an ordinary thing. This committee does that, that committee does this, etc., just a mundane myriad of details to grind out the task of processing a few dozen musicians to the next level of competition.

But when I walk through a local fleadh, it tells me the music is Alive in a Big Way. Because of all the people who care about it enough to make it happen — competitors, organizers, adjudicators, volunteers and especially the audience.

People who realize the seeds of tradition don’t get planted by themselves. Who show their respect for heritage by making it possible for neophytes to excel and grow into master musicians. Who understand the power these humble melodies have in making our world a more joy-filled, more humane place.

Because of you mighty fleadh-mongers, the 2011 Mid-Atlantic U.S. Fleadh Cheoil is History.

And a vital part of the Future.

#  #  #

p.s.:  check the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest fleadh websites for details on how to become a volunteer… or for information on how to join one of your local Irish traditional music clubs.

Check here for info on other North American regions:  U.S. Northeast, U.S. Southern, U.S. Western, Canada East, Canada West.

** The 2011 All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil is in Cavan, Aug. 13-22.

Drift Away

On a chilled, rain-sotted evening a couple weeks back, I saw Kevin Crawford and Cillian Vallely backed by guitarist Ted Davis perform a concert at the gracious home of Mike and Rose Flanagan in Pearl River, New York – a town just across the New Jersey border that’s become a veritable whirling nexus of Irish traditional music activity the last few years.

Through some sort of cultural kismet, Pearl River and its environs have attracted an ever-expanding core of adult ITM players and a half dozen music and dance schools nurturing Irish folkways among a new generation of super-talented youngsters.

The local Shoprite even has a special Irish section in the “International Foods” aisle.

And this is a Good Thing.

I’d seen Kevin and Cillian before with their sensational regular group Lúnasa, of course. The two sets this night were largely drawn from their 2009 album of flute-pipes-whistle blendings, On Common Ground (BallyO Records).

It might be assumed that because I play the music, and even several of those tunes, that I’d have spent the evening mentally comparing my versions to theirs. Studying their technique. Focusing on minutiae of phrasing, embellishment, variation, etc. Every musician does this subconsciously. Can’t help it. It’s how our minds are wired.

But this night was different, and not just because of the intimacy of the Flanagan parlor or superb accompaniment by Ted Davis. I wanted to let the music take me to a SUB-subconscious level. No analysis. No scrutiny. Just seeing if the sounds could burrow down and strike a level of deep, heretofore unfathomed Ur-Craic.

When the first tune kicked off, I leaned against the rear wall, closed my eyes and sank into tantric breathing mode … breathing to relax, relax and detach … relax to where just one brain synapse pushed artfully ajar would be enough to let the music travel along a whole new path to a mental part of Me I’d never been before.

I can’t say for certain at what point in the set (possibly the twin-whistled Man from Moyasta medley) that I felt the music changing … not changing speed or timbre or texture … but changing dimension … mass … volume even … like the way you hear sound when your head is under water, the sonic waves altering in location and amplitude as they pass from one medium into another (air into water) to be perceived wholly anew in every aspect by your sensory field — in this case translating audio stimuli into visual and tactile form.

Only the music wasn’t muddled; it was voiced with searing clarity and infinite nuance, phrase after phrase after deftly-framed phrase rippling out agile, pulsing note swells that merged seamlessly with the drumming raindrops outside. It was music that allowed my mind to wander into a borderless, timeless aural space where I could feel Everything and Nothing at once. And not worry either way.

[This is where I need to mention that the only pre-concert substances I had imbibed were tap water and a slice of Charlie Sporn’s tasty homemade soda bread, spiked moderately with sugar and butter.]

What’s most remarkable is realizing I’ve been playing Irish traditional music for nearly forty years, and it still has the power at any given moment to seize hold of my internal gearbox and torque me straight into a riveting out-of-body in-body experience words can never really describe.

But that’s all in the music’s DNA, most likely. A gift from the ancients to us stressed, frettish, anxious moderns.

Chroniclers say that the ancient Irish had three classes of music: one with the ability to inspire sadness, the second for sparking joy, a third for inducing sleep.

Listening to the Kevin-Cillian-Ted trio this night, I’d be tempted to add a fourth category:  music to let yourself just drift away to wherever it is you need to be.

And that is truly a Good Thing.

*  *  *

DRIFT AWAY — vocal by Dobie Gray
(author/composer:  Mentor Williams)

Day after day I’m more confused

So I look for the light through the pouring rain

You know that’s a game that I hate to lose

And I’m feelin’ the strain, ain’t it a shame

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Beginning to think that I’m wastin’ time

I don’t understand the things I do

The world outside looks so unkind

I’m countin’ on you to carry me through

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

And when my mind is free

You know a melody can move me

And when I’m feelin’ blue

The guitar’s comin’ through to soothe me

Thanks for the joy that you’ve given me

I want you to know I believe in your song

Rhythm and rhyme and harmony

You help me along, makin’ me strong

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul

I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaPnOASOWIU
Dobie Gray himself, 1974 with some English cats on BBC

Sound of One Fipple Chiffing

The Flute was asked:  “What virtue do you possess that you are allowed to touch the lips of Krishna?”

The Flute replied:  “I have one virtue. I have made myself void of all matter. I have emptied myself of non-self so that you may fill the void with divine breath.”

— Sri Krishna Chalisa (Hymn to Lord Krishna)

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Shubh Diwali!

Celebration of the annual Hindu/Sikh/Jain religious festival of Diwali has been happening bigtime throughout our part of Central Jersey this weekend.

The first day of the festival marks the vanquishing of the demon Naraka by Lord Krishna and his wife Satyabhama (pictured below, post-vanquishing).

Krishna is almost always portrayed holding and playing a flute. And the flute is often used in Hindu devotional music, heightened perhaps by the belief that the instrument’s tonal vibrations produce a mental state that helps the listener move forward along the road to Pure Awareness. Which is a good thing.

Started wondering: is anybody using the whistle to play Irish Traditional-type Music to get deeply in touch with Higher Power-type feelings?

Would love to hear about it!

Not talking about feelings you get when you play or hear a slow air that gets you teary or spacey. I mean whistle music that you yourself strictly play to move your mind into a deep meditation zone.

Like the music played on the ney for Sufi ceremonies,
or the shakuhachi used in Zen Buddhist meditation.

Or some of the Native American religious ceremonies that used a variety of wind instruments.

About twelve years ago, I was very lucky to have gotten to play a bit with Dennis Sizemore, an amazing performer of all manner of Native American flutes and whistles. He has immense knowledge about wind instruments and the earliest music on the North American continent.

And it’s interesting that the mythic Kokopelli — nomadic, storytelling, trickster deity of the Anasazi people of the ancient Southwestern U.S. — is depicted as playing the flute or whistle of some type.

[Perhaps there was some sort of sacred wind music employed by the Druids in pre-Christian Ireland. Haven't come across anything in the literature, but you figure some part of the crew must have had a fipple stuck in their belt and occasionally used it during a ceremony, maybe when the harper couldn't make it. Guess we’ll never really know.]

Only contemporary I’ve heard consistently creating a Celtic spiritual music and using some flute is a fellow named Seamus Byrne, who’s assumed the contemplative life of a modern monk and lives near Wicklow.

About the closest I’ve come is a tune I composed last year called Salim Halak — en anglais, Give Yourself Up. . . meaning give up/surrender unnecessary attachment to the habits that are bugging you, holding you back, etc. Here’s a brief listen.

But if anyone reading this does play the whistle or flute in any sort of transcendental mode, I’d love to hear about it.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

One day as Manjusri stood outside the gate,
the Buddha called to him.
“Manjusri, Manjusri, why do you not enter?”

Manjusri replied,
“I do not see myself as outside.
Why enter?”

— “The Iron Flute” (Genro, 18^th century)

E-Harmony Doesn’t Always Have the Answer

Bluezette Update.

by L.E. McCullough
© 2010 L.E. McCullough

In the eleven years since the passing of Bluezette, people have occasionally asked: did I ever find a satisfactory replacement?

Actually, a few suitors have emerged.

As mentioned earlier, I love the Burke B natural beyond all reason, especially when I play bossa nova. The sensuosity is utterly thrilling. I feel like Paul Desmond and Stan Getz floated into my soul and seized control of my fingers. It’s just a delicious timbre altogether. And sounds very nice on Irish slow airs.

Back in 2001, Pat O’Riordan sent me a zippy little hybrid, one of his original brass whistle heads slipped onto a key of D nickel Generation body — Der FrankenWhistle!!

Darned if it doesn’t sound superb. A warm, hollow sound in the low-register, cool and crisp in the upper. And, like the others, nicely in tune in both octaves.

I was introduced this year to the tweaked whistles of Jerry Freeman, and I have been enjoying his tweaked Blackbird Key of C.

It’s a sweet sound, light and clean. I used it to record the St. Patrick Was a Cajun/Paddy Bless the Gumbo medley on the Hanging Out to Dry recording this past spring. Check it out here.

And I’m finding that for my general session use, the John Sindt brass D blends well with everyone. The subject of a whistler having to deal with an occasionally wide-ranging tuning spectrum at sessions is a topic we can get into later… (awhile back accordionist Tom Dunne took me aside and expressed his thoughts on the subject, and they were somber ones — he observed that so many players at a session now tend to tune to their own electronic tuners and phone apps when they should be tuning to whatever “anchor” instrument present, an accordion or concertina that isn’t going to vary appreciably in tuning and therefore should be the standard pitch for that particular session; he’s correct, but when did Logic ever rule over New Gadget Fixation?)

The Sindt seems to have just the right range of overtones to accommodate this variance. It’s like an all-purpose umbrella — you’re covered for whatever wacky weather might happen by.

All these are beautiful whistles. But, alas, they just aren’t Bluezette.

I’ll keep looking, though. Destiny can pop around the corner when and where you least expect her.

. . . or it may be that, as we grow older, the imagined murmur of distant memory is the sweetest melody of all.

Best — L.E.