Re: [Harp-L] Irish Music on the Harp

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

People to listen to would include

Brendan Power (CD: New Irish Harmonica)
Eddie Clarke (Sailing into Walpole;'s Marsh)
Mick Kinsella    
The Murphy Family (CD: Trip to Cullenstown)
Open House (Fiddler Kevin Burke with harmonica player Mark Graham)
Donald Black (fantastic Scottish player)
Tommy Basker (fantastic Nova Scotia player with Irish influence)

More here: http://www.irishmusicreview.com/harmonicadiscography.htm

Jigs have two beats, with each beat dividing into three parts. The irish Washerwoman is a jig.

A reel keeps up a fairly steady 8 notes to the bar, which can be seen as two longer beats or four shorter ones. Turkey in the Straw and Arkansas Traveller are both reels (American ones).

Celtic music is all about melody - after all, it comes largely from vocal melodies and unaccompanied bagpipes. So whatever the pipes, fiddle, flute, etc. play are what the harmonica plays.

That said, a harmonica player can "feather" chords in around the melody and support it. Here's an ullistration of what I mean, though the tune is not Irish (it's French Canadian):

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/m2/f7/13286.mp3

Listen to how the fiddle and harmonica (Mary Bolduc) play the melody together, with harmonica adding little rhythmic chords that give bounce to the sound. This is what the harmonica was designed to do.

Attacking notes via chords is one way a harmonica player can ornament a melody; one of the things you run into is that a lot of the melodic ornaments on other instruments are hard to play and often don't sound very good on harmonica - the rapid changes of breath direction can make them sound choppy and hard to play accurately at speed.

For the forms of different types of tunes (jig, reel, hornpipe, polka, march, slide, slip jig, strathspey, etc.) use these as search words; there's a lot out there.

One place to ask questions on the net about ITM (Irish traditional music)  itself is The Session:

http://www.thesession.org/

There's a lot of horseplay and nonsense, but also a lot of excellent knowledge. Just search their archives like you would search the harp-l archives.

Winslow

Todd Dahl <lucidmonk@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: I am a complete newbie to Irish music. At this point I don't know the
difference between the different forms. For example I don't know the
difference between a reel and a jig. Anyway I want to learn about how to
play it on my new Paddy tuned harp. <>

So I was wondering where does the harmonica fit into the Irish music scene.
>From a newbies standpoint does anyone have any pointers or links to any
websites that will help me learn the forms and structure of this music?

Also from a traditional standpoint does the harmonica imitate melodies of
the other instruments like the tin whistle, flute, or fiddle? Or are there
standards on the harp?

Lastly, is there any CDs that can be recommended that a person must listen
to?

Any input would be appreciated.
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