'Others can do beautiful things with my little tunes'
"New ways of passing on traditional music – by CD, by book and online – are helping Irish musicians to share their sound with trad-lovers all over the world, writes SIOBHAN LONG
PLAYING BY ear is one of the great cornerstones of traditional music. It’s thanks to the players’ finesse that tunes can be picked up purely from listening, with scant reference to written notation. It’s a reflection of where traditional music has sprung from, that musicians rarely burden themselves with sheet music. But in keeping with the laws of perpetual motion, the tunes are being passed on in many other ways too, which in particular, is a boon for players with a hunger to add newly composed tunes to their repertoire.
Over the past decade, online music tuition websites have sprung up, where musicians the world over can learn a tune from an Irish musician without ever having to set foot in this country. The Irish Traditional Music Archive and Na Píobairí Uilleann have both embraced the internet, making tunes available in notation form, as well as in fully interactive MP3 formats, all the better to make them accessible to anyone who wants to listen, play, analyse or interpret them in all their three dimensional beauty."
PLAYING BY ear is one of the great cornerstones of traditional music. It’s thanks to the players’ finesse that tunes can be picked up purely from listening, with scant reference to written notation. It’s a reflection of where traditional music has sprung from, that musicians rarely burden themselves with sheet music. But in keeping with the laws of perpetual motion, the tunes are being passed on in many other ways too, which in particular, is a boon for players with a hunger to add newly composed tunes to their repertoire.
Over the past decade, online music tuition websites have sprung up, where musicians the world over can learn a tune from an Irish musician without ever having to set foot in this country. The Irish Traditional Music Archive and Na Píobairí Uilleann have both embraced the internet, making tunes available in notation form, as well as in fully interactive MP3 formats, all the better to make them accessible to anyone who wants to listen, play, analyse or interpret them in all their three dimensional beauty."
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