Amendment

The last post has been edited to remove reference to "The Rodonnettes", after some confusion ensued, following the post.

Irish Language Group and the "craic"

Last night I went down to the Manchester Town Hall to take part in a group photo shoot with some of the Manchester Irish Language Group, which inevitably was a great excuse for a get-together with lovers of the “craic” in a nearby pub, The Briton's Protection shown opposite.

After the photo, my piping buddy, Julia Ní Chonchobhair and I headed down to the “Briton's Protection”, a lovely old city centre pub, where the team had booked an upstairs room and some local Irish musicians, as an opportunity for the group to practise their Irish language skills. It was another opportunity for Jules and I to get our pipes out. Also with us was Frances O’Rourke, a very well known accordian and fiddle player on the local scene. After a couple of pints of Guinness everyone was in the mood and we started up the playing.

Jules and I still have quite limited repetoires but Frances seems to have a huge one, as did the two other musicians that soon arrived, Adele Farrell and Steve Prosol. So the line up was as follows:

Adele Farrell – box accordian
Steve Prosol – bazouki
Frances O’Rourke - fiddle
Julia Ní Choncobhair - Uilleann Pipes
And myself (Terry Kliszcz) – Uilleann Pipes and English Concertina

I’ve seen Adele play before at our NWUP Tionols, with fiddle player Emma Sweeney, and I love her playing which is characterised by much rhythm and syncopation. Since Julia was playing the pipes I took the opportunity to play my newly acquired concertina as much as possible.

The concertina turned out to be the subject of much interest with the other musicians, who all had a go at it. The reason is of course that the Anglo Concertina is the favoured instrument of Traditional Irish musicians, so it’s rare to see the English concertina used. However, I hope I’ve convinced them that you can actual play Irish music on the English concertina, to good effect.

I much admire Adele’s playing - it’s very rhythmic and full-bodied and, to my delight, I found myself blending in with the way she plays and inadvertently playing like she does, or trying to. I was metamorphosising, slowly adopting an “Adele mode” of playing, and I must admit I enjoyed it. I would go so far as to say I learned a lot from just playing along with her. It’s to do with chords, emphasis, accentuating either the first beat of the bar or the second, when one instinctively feels that some syncopation is called for. She’s just a great player.

Steve Prosol showed an amusing aptitude for the concertina, having never touched one before, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he didn’t buy one before the next time we meet. Jules very quickly showed the others how to start playing an instrument she’s never played. She would definitely make a concertina player. Adele and Steve seem to play very well together and they just seem to know every tune one comes up with. Frances’ talents are very well known around Manchester and I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to play along with her in an intimate little session. I’ve recently become well-accustomed to playing along with fellow piper Jules now and I always love it. I’ve also met a lot of friends through Jules (who I love to bits) and the rest of the Irish Language Group.

The night was very enjoyable and I even seemed to have attracted a little fan club, at least one would think so upon hearing Miranda, one of the Irish Language students, chanting “Terry!, Terry!” from the ranks of the listeners, on a plurality of occasions. All this did wonders for my confidence and I had a terrific time. Many thanks to all these musicians and, of course, Eamonn, Patrick, Tom and the other organisers of the group for an all-round, jolly good time.

Manchester Irish Language Festival

Film Morning 10.30 a.m. – 1.00 p.m. Cornerhouse

I was honoured to be asked to play the pipes and concertina in the foyer of the Cornerhouse Theatre, on Saturday 19 September, as guests were arriving for the showing of the Irish Language Film "Cré na Cille" followed by post-film discussion and social gathering.

The Manchester Irish Language Group have been very busy of late and their activities have persuaded me to take up Irish Language lesssons once a week. The language itself is intriguing and, to be honest, I quite fancy the idea of introducing myself and the tunes I play at gigs in both Irish and English, much like Paddy Maloney used to do at Cheiftains' concerts. I guess I secretly always wanted to be a Eurovision Song Contest presenter, you know, saying everything in 2 or 3 languages - great fun!

I turned up with the instruments and I was warmly welcomed by Eamonn Coleman and other members of the group and a nice lady called Rachel Hayward, a manager at the Cornerhouse. After a cup of coffee and much hospitality I got the pipes out, quickly tuned up and played a couple of jigs and, to my delight, my efforts were much appreciate by the gathering audience, which included the Lord Mayor Of Manchester, Councillor Alison Firth. She was interested to know a little about the pipes so I had the opportunity, in a photo opp', of telling her what an extraordinary instrument this was and of course that one has to be quite mad to take up the playing as an endeavour.

A good friend of mine, and a language teacher with the Machester Irish Language Group, Julia Ní Choncobhair, also arrived with pipes in hand so we played a few tunes together, and we also, quite ceremoniously it seemed, "piped" the Mayor in and out of the building.

The morning was very enjoyable and I made many new friends, as is commonplace when one is involved with this most hospitable group of Celtic derivatives, the Manchester Irish Crowd.

How's the language going? - well, I've attended three classes so far, so ask me again in about 12 months! In the meantime,

Slán, agus tóg go bog é. (take it easy).

South Wales Tionol

Well, I've been a bit busy recently, so I've not had much opportunity to post recently. It didn't help having my laptop infected with a virus that did a lot of damage and I had to reinstall windows and all my programs last week. Anyway, it's fixed now so I thought I'd take the opportunity to report on how the SWUP Tionol went.

In short, it was nothing short of great. It was again very well organised and it turned into a veritably joyous weekend of celtic sessions, piping workshops and a terrific concert, in which I was honoured to have the chance to play a couple of tunes with Tiarnan O'Duichinn on stage. Tiarnan was the Tionol's guest piper. I attended his intermediate piping workshop, along with other pipers I have come to know well in Tylorstown. I really enjoy these masterclass sessions with Tiarnan, who has a habit of stimulating one's interest in new tunes and new techniques. My piping enthusiam is always rekindled after meeting up with Tiarnan again. He's also a great bloke. I'm pictured on the far right of the group photo above.

During the day I was tickling around on a Yamaha keyboard, much like my own (the venue was a lovely little village church and the Yamaha is the modern day equivalent of a church organ. Tiarnan heard me playing and seemed to like what I was doing. He came over and invited me to play with him at the evening concert. We chose two tunes, "Si Beag Si Mor" and "Lord Inchiquin". I had played the first one before on the pipes at home but had only ever played the other tune once before on the keyboard. Anyway, I didn't let that stop me. After all I had been invited to play with one of my piping heroes.

We hummed through the tune together a coupple of times and, to be honest, that was the sum total of our rehearsal. Later, as I sat in the audience listening to this great virtuoso piper, it struck me that perhaps I must be mad. Nevertheless the time came for Tiarnan to invite me onto the stage and I sat at the keyboard. He firstly introduced me and then tunes and away we went. I set the Yamaha to its best piano voice and we both improvised our way through the playing. All in all it went very well at least it seemed so judging by the rewarding level of applause we got. I have a suspicion that most of that came from the Manchester gang who accompanied me to South Wales, namely the very talented Emma Sweeney, who played masterfully at the concert, as usual, Emma's mum Maura and Julia, a fellow piper and mate from the NWUP in Manchester. I really enjoyed the experience and I was pleased with our unrehearse gig.

The organiser, Meirion Williams, was kind enough to book me to do a spot with my concertina at next year's event. Incidentally I purchased a new (well better) concertina last week. It's a Lachanal, 48 button English. It's far better in tone, speed and response that the old one and makes for far better playing for me.

The concert was excellent, featuring: Nathan Treadgold, a brilliant solo guitarist, John and Elizabeth Baxter on Scottish pipes and Bodhran, Emma Sweeney on fiddle and piper Tiarnan O'Duichinn (and my good self). The acoustics in the church negated the need for any sound system and the audience were quiet, attentive and appreciative - perfect!

In Tylorstown, there was a session at the local rugby club on the Friday night, more or less as soon as we arrived, led by Tiarnan and another at the local pub on the Saturday night after the concert. The celebrated, local, male voice choir was in attendance to delight us with their lovely, deep harmonic tones, and I even had the chance to informally accompany a choir member on his Balalaika, whilst the choir sang a Russian folk song.

Meirion and his better half, Chris, we very welcoming hosts, as were everyone we met and, although it's a long way to go for a Tionol, it's well worth it. Emma has also said she will go again next year. Emma is one of my favourite Irish Musicians, by the way. She has a great depth of playing and a very deep and mature understanding of the music. All credit is also to student piper, Julia, who simply cannot pass up any opportunity to get her pipes out. She started off many a tune at the sessions and, along with the other girls, was great company for me thoroughout the event. Her piping is really coming on and I think Julia rocks!

Alan Burton was also teaching pipes and I attended his very interesting lesson as well. Alan Moller took the reed-making classes.

This Tionol has become an important annual event in my and many others' piping calendar. Despite the travelling distance and the expense of a full weekend venture outside familiar counties, it's one worth doing. Well done to Mei, Chris and all the others who played a part in its organisation. For more information about the SWUP group and this Tionol go to their website at: http://www.swalespipers.com/

The Blackbird Hornpipe

This is a version best represented by Mick O'Brien and Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh on their CD entitled "Kitty Lie Over". Here I'm playing it on one track on concertina, having recorded it on another track on accordian and a pipes drone.

The interesting thing I find about these hornpipes is the rhythm. It's always a quandry, do you play it straight, like a reel, perhaps with a feeling of the odd dotted quaver and semiquaver, which many do, or do you play it more rhythmically, as a hornpipe is really meant to be played and would be played in other disciplines, ie so you could actually dance the hornpipe to it. I play it both ways depending on who I'm playing it with. I'm playing quite slowly here until I've learnt to play it properly on the pipes and then I'll record that version as well.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/5/19/2447726/blackbird.mp3

Anji

Just digressing from Pipes and concertina for a while, here's a clip of me playing "Anji", the jazz/blues classic from Davy Graham, on my folk guitar.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/5/19/2447726/anji.mp3

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New Tune

I was in a jolly mood today and ended up composing a little tune (hornpipe-ish). I didn't know what to call it but since I had in mind that Brian McNamara and his wife recently welcomed a new daughter into their family I thought I'd name it after her, in his honour. So here is "Róisín".

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/5/19/2447726/roisin.mp3

It's on accordian and concertina.