November’s workshop in The Wash House in Portobello, Edinburgh saw us look at a couple of reels from County Fermanagh that are popular in the north of Ireland. The Three Scones of Boxtie (also spelled Boxty) and Jig Away the Donkey (one of two tunes with that name) come from Hidden Fermanagh, a book of interviews and accounts exploring the lesser-known music and song from County Fermanagh, with accompanying CDs. The music was transcribed by fellow FluteFling tutor Sharon Creasey from original recordings.
Eddie Duffy (flute) and Mick Hoy (fiddle)
It will come as no surprise to many that Cathal McConnell was very central to the project and helped introduce the music and musicians to a wider audience, Eddie Duffy (flute) and Mick Hoy (fiddle) in particular. They hailed from Derrygonnelly, which now hosts an annual festival. Altan recorded The Three Scones, but these unusual tunes were recorded together by Desi Wilkinson on his Shady Woods album and are often played by Rebecca Knorr in Edinburgh sessions. Rebecca is no stranger to Northern Irish sessions herself and taught at FluteFling’s Edinburgh Weekend earlier this year.
We focused on The Three Scones, which we learned by first singing them to Desi Wilkinson’s recording, which is in a different key to the manuscript version. This can often happen in traditional music and having an existing internal sense of a tune can help to create a shortcut when then referring to the manuscript. By retaining a strong sense of the reference performance, we can fast-track the melody, breathing and phrasing of the tune and get it “under the fingers”.
We then looked at creating rhythm and swing through breath, emphasising Beats 1 (more) and 3 (less) and also how this happens against a backdrop of the flow and phrasing of the tune. Different styles do this differently, but in Ireland it is better established on the flute than in Scotland. It so happened that the class was all flute players, so we listened to and compared Matt Molloy (Ireland) and Calum Stewart (Scotland), who have very different approaches to very different repertoires, both with inspiring results.
The resources for the workshop can be found on the Resources page.
The next workshop will take place on Saturday December 14th and will continue the themes. The workshop is filling up but there are still some places available.