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    01 Collectors of Irish Music

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    Sally Moynihan
    Collectors of Irish music strive to preserve Ireland's musical heritage by recording traditional music and performance styles. Edward Bunting was a significant early collector in the late 18th century, notating tunes at the Belfast Harp Festival. Later critics argued he altered the traditional modes in his arrangements. Francis O'Neill also made important contributions as a collector while living in Chicago, compiling tunes he learned from Irish musicians in publications that contained rare dances. Modern collectors like Nicholas O'Carolan continue to archive Irish traditional music through written records and audiovisual means to ensure the traditions survive.

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    01 Collectors of Irish Music

    Uploaded by

    Sally Moynihan
    281 views1 page
    Collectors of Irish music strive to preserve Ireland's musical heritage by recording traditional music and performance styles. Edward Bunting was a significant early collector in the late 18th century, notating tunes at the Belfast Harp Festival. Later critics argued he altered the traditional modes in his arrangements. Francis O'Neill also made important contributions as a collector while living in Chicago, compiling tunes he learned from Irish musicians in publications that contained rare dances. Modern collectors like Nicholas O'Carolan continue to archive Irish traditional music through written records and audiovisual means to ensure the traditions survive.

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    Everything you need to know about the collectors of Irish Music

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    Collectors of Irish music strive to preserve Ireland's musical heritage by recording traditional music and performance styles. Edward Bunting was a significant early collector in the late 18th century, notating tunes at the Belfast Harp Festival. Later critics argued he altered the traditional modes in his arrangements. Francis O'Neill also made important contributions as a collector while living in Chicago, compiling tunes he learned from Irish musicians in publications that contained rare dances. Modern collectors like Nicholas O'Carolan continue to archive Irish traditional music through written records and audiovisual means to ensure the traditions survive.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    281 views1 page

    01 Collectors of Irish Music

    Uploaded by

    Sally Moynihan
    Collectors of Irish music strive to preserve Ireland's musical heritage by recording traditional music and performance styles. Edward Bunting was a significant early collector in the late 18th century, notating tunes at the Belfast Harp Festival. Later critics argued he altered the traditional modes in his arrangements. Francis O'Neill also made important contributions as a collector while living in Chicago, compiling tunes he learned from Irish musicians in publications that contained rare dances. Modern collectors like Nicholas O'Carolan continue to archive Irish traditional music through written records and audiovisual means to ensure the traditions survive.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 1

    Collectors of Irish Music

    A ‘collector’ is a musician who strives to preserve musical heritage by recording music and the
    manner in which it is performed for the benefit of all future music scholars. Collecting Irish
    traditional music began to grow in the 18th century and still goes on today.

    In the late 18th century, the first significant collector to work in the field of Irish music was Edward
    Bunting. He was an organist from County Armagh who was employed to notate the music played by
    the harpers at the Belfast harp festival of 1792. On witnessing each performance only once, Bunting
    took notes in his pocket book of the music played and his general observations about the harpers. He
    later attempted to piece together what he had seen and heard. Many of these tunes, such as ‘Planxty
    Maxwell’ were compositions by Turlough O’Carolan, commissioned by wealthy patrons in exchange
    for food, lodgings or money. Bunting published his notes from the Harp Festival in his third book,
    ‘The Ancient Music of Ireland’ as classical piano arrangements. He was later criticised for this, as he
    had lost much of what was traditional in the music, such as the old modes. Bunting replaced these
    with his own classical interpretations using only major and minor keys, accompanied by chords in
    the Left Hand of the piano. However, in this book, he also presented valuable information about the
    instruments and the techniques used by the harpers when playing their harps: techniques such as
    playing with long fingernails and dampening the strings with the palms of the hands to stop the wire
    strings from resonating for too long. Bunting continued this work into the 19th century, travelling
    around Ulster with his companion, Patrick Lynch, notating Irish songs and tunes as they travelled
    mainly around the six counties.

    Since then, Bunting’s work has been used by many Irish musicians, such as Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin,
    in his piano arrangement of ‘O’Carolan’s Concerto,’ and Gerald Barry, in his ‘Piano Quartet no.1.’
    in his use of ‘Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór.’

    Francis O’Neill was a traditional flute player from Co Cork. He emigrated


    to Chicago towards the end of the 18th century, where he joined the police
    force. His greatest contribution to Irish traditional music was as a collector.
    He gathered songs and dance tunes from musicians he met and compiled
    them in two books, ‘The Music of Ireland,’ and ‘The Dance Music of
    Ireland.’ These publications were better than anything that had appeared
    before, as they contained tunes rarely heard in Ireland such as ‘Out on the
    Ocean’ and ‘The Fisherman’s Widow,’ two double jigs, which he heard
    from Clare policeman, Big Pat O’Mahony.

    Nowadays, the work of collecting continues with people like Nicholas O’Carolan in the National
    Archive of Ireland. O’Carolan’s work is not only found in paper archives. TV documentaries such
    as ‘Come West Along the Road’ provide audio and visual accounts of our traditional heritage, as
    well as valuable information about the music by O’Carolan himself.

    Thanks to the work of the great collectors, Irish music will live on forever.

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