Irish traditional flute music on video

December 18, 2007 11:23 PM

Everything you want to know about Irish traditional music played on flute, including a guide to the instrument, a guide to styles and a rather comprehensive collection of the best Irish traditional flute videos on the web. And if you like these, perhaps you'd like to learn how to play too.

Matt Molloy and Donal Lunny - Bucks of Oranmore
Seamus Tansey - The Skaskeen Reel/The New Copperplate
Seamus Egan - Emily's Reel
Kevin Crawford - The Leading Role
Liam O Riain - Jigs
Danu (Tom Doorley) - Are You Ready Yet?
Fred Finn and Peter Horan - Martin Mulhaire's, The Music in the Glen and McFadden's
Brian Owens - Se Fath mo Buartha
Orla McAuliffe - The Moving Cloud
Mike Rafferty - Reel of Mulnavesh/Father John's Jubilee
Christina Dolphin and friends - Fred Finn's Reel/The Laurel Tree
Padraig Swift - Two Jigs
Sinead Fahey - Slow Air
James Mahon - Reel
Tim Dowd - Jigs
Gary Shannon - The Independance Hornpipe/The Sligo Polka
Sinead Fleming - An Feochan
Francis O' Connor - Two Sligo Reels
Siobhán Ní Chonaráin and Niall Keegan - Jig and Jimmy Duffy's Barndances

Enjoy!

posted by salishsea (14 comments total)

Go maire tú!
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:35 PM on December 18, 2007

Lots of names that are new to me here. Thanks muchly, salishsea.
posted by Abiezer at 12:38 AM on December 19, 2007

Absolutely brilliant. I'm going to buy me a lathe and a piece of wood...
posted by nicolin at 2:07 AM on December 19, 2007

I think Astro Zombie just called you a wuusie (or at very least a Mary, which in rural Ireland is very much the same thing!)
Joking, for non-Irish speakers it's actually a lovely congratulations and I add mine.

Go raibh maith agat. Ar fheabhas. Go hiontach even.
posted by Wilder at 2:46 AM on December 19, 2007

Hey, cracking post, salishea! Thanks!

One thing, though, about a lot of Irish trad, is that I wish they'd slow those tempos down just a bit, a little more often. It sometimes gets a little too busily hectic for me, especially after about the 5th or 6th tune. There's a tune on this fellow Josh Dukes' MySpace page that's played at a tempo that suits me real nicely, called "The Honey Bee". Just lovely.

You've linked to Kevin Crawford, here's his MySpace page.

Also:
Kelly Criscuolo-DeButts and Harry Bradley
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:21 AM on December 19, 2007

No vid, but a fine resource : the session.
posted by nicolin at 5:20 AM on December 19, 2007

Ian Anderson hangs his codpiece in shame for being left off that list.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:22 AM on December 19, 2007

I've been lucky enough to take classes from some great players over the past few years. This summer it was Catherine McEvoy, a wonderful player and first class lady. All of them seem happy to share their music with everyone, even wannabe Americans who didn't grow up with the music like me.

Turlach Boylan is another great player with two solo CDs and a couple with his band Glen Road, but unfortunately nothing recently.

Recently I've been listening to a lot of June McCormack, she has a wonderfully powerful and crisp sound. I hope to take her advanced class at East Durham's Irish Arts Week one day.

Michael Flately of Riverdance, here with Matt Molloy, is a fine player. Yeah, really, he is.
posted by beowulf573 at 5:47 AM on December 19, 2007

As much as I love Ian Anderson, he doesn't really belong in this group. He plays his own style of folk/rock, not Irish traditional music, and he plays a Boehm instead of the older Simple System flute. Although you can play irish trad on a silver flute, it's more difficult because of the ornamentation and style. Although, Joannie Madden pulls it off. (It's a whistle video, couldn't find one one flute.)
posted by beowulf573 at 5:55 AM on December 19, 2007

As much as I love Ian Anderson, he doesn't really belong in this group.

Rubbing it in is not going to bring the perk back to his codpiece.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:58 AM on December 19, 2007

One more site, Michael Clarkson has been recording and posting tunes for a while now. A wonderful resource if you want to learn new tunes.
posted by beowulf573 at 6:00 AM on December 19, 2007

IA's left the codpiece in a drawer for many years now, and his folkier days are far behind him.
posted by cookie-k at 6:49 AM on December 19, 2007

How could you leave off Wooden Flute Obsession? Volume 1 is back in print, btw!

The prime hub for Irish flute discussion is the Chiff & Fipple flute forum.

Finally, no discussion is complete with pointers to help you build your own PVC flute.

If you prefer to buy, you could start with one of Doug Tipple's PVC flutes. For less than $100 you'll get a quality instrument that you can take to any session. For those with a bigger budget, I recommend the Irish Flute Store. (The proprietor has thirteen kids so he could probably use the business :-).
posted by srt19170 at 6:52 AM on December 19, 2007

Well as an IRTRAD woodenflute player myself, all I wanted to do was seed a little post with a decent collection of good quality videos to get you all started. The Molloy/Flatley duet just missed the cut, so thanks for posting it. (And as for WFO vol 1, it's cool to see that coming around again...I helped scout talent for that one and was responsible for Hanz Araki, Loretto Reid and Mark Roberts appearing therein.)

What a great collection of links, various and sundry, are starting to flow in from all corners of the Mefi IRTRAD universe! Perhaps we need a little session...we should record some tunes for MefiMusic...maybe make a little Mefi tunebook...

As for Ian Anderson, he SHOULD hang his head in shame With a great tone like that, he should have played real music on the feadnach and not that fancy pants silver thing he growls into.

Anyway, good craic here...keep it up.
posted by salishsea at 8:27 AM on December 19, 2007