More than buzzing bluebottles : new contexts for Irish céilí bands

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Curating and annotating a collection of traditional Irish flute recordings to facilitate stylistic analysis

This paper presents the curation and annotation of a collection of traditional Irish flute recordings to facilitate the analysis of stylistic characteristics. We introduce the structure of Irish tunes, types of tunes and the ornamentation, which is a decisive stylistic determinant in Irish traditional music. We identify seminal recordings of prominent flute players and provide information related to players and their style and geographical context. We describe the process of manual annotation of the audio data. The annotations consist of the onsets of notes, note frequency and identity of notes and ornaments. We also present initial stylistic analysis of individual players in terms of ornamentation and phrasing and provide a variety of statistics for the data. The ability to accurately represent and analyse stylistic features such as ornaments allow for the development of discourse related to several key ethnomusicological questions surrounding music making, musical heritage and cultural change

Reliving Island Life: Staging Stories of the Blasket Islands

The Blasket Islands are located off the south-west coast of Ireland. No longer inhabited, the Great Blasket Island and its distinctive culture have been documented by a variety of writers and are celebrated today in an interpretative centre on the mainland and in performances by Siamsa Tíre, The National Folk Theatre of Ireland. “Siamsa” developed from local initiatives in North Kerry during the early 1960s and is located today in Tralee, Co. Kerry. It aims to present Irish folklore and folk culture through the medium of theatre involving music, song, dance and mime but invariably no dialogue. In this paper, I focus on the production Oiléan, based loosely on the stories of the Blasket Islanders, which was initially devised as part of the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the departure of the last inhabitants of the islands in 2003

The World is our Oyster: The Benefits of International Experiences in Higher Education

COVID-19 imposed limitations on international travel for all of society. In academia, this has impacted on the ability of staff and students to participate in international conferences, Erasmus exchange and mobility programmes and other international activities that had been part of their Higher Education experience. In this paper, we critically reflect on two international activities that we were involved in with students and highlight how a number of benefits and experiences cannot be replicated in virtual contexts. To this end we draw from previous reflections by staff and students that formed part of a number of small research projects and presentations that resulted from international travel. This has informed the planning for and design of extra-curricular activities, as well as programme development in our institution. For music graduates seeking to develop a career in performance or engage in interdisciplinary teams, international experiences and cultural competencies prepare them for a career in the global industries. Despite the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on international travel this paper highlights the ongoing potential of international projects to impact positively on staff and students’ experience in Higher Education

A Forum for the Practice of Musicology in Ireland

With Mary Immaculate College’s long history of educating teachers setting an appropriate atmosphere, the fourth SMI annual conference sought to bring together the increasing number of music researchers in Ireland. While the emphasis was on delegates from the island itself, a healthy number of countries and universities were represented. Over one hundred delegates from twenty-five universities in Canada, England, France, Germany, Spain, the USA, and all over Ireland presented papers on a broad range of topics: from liturgy and chant to the structures, politics and aesthetics of twentieth century music, from musical analysis to explorations of music as performance, and opening up from individual Irish musical personalities and social values to the use of music in public broadcasting and wider national and ethnic identities. As Dr Gareth Cox, the conference organiser, noted, in the three years since the inaugural SMI conference the number of papers presented has doubled. With this expansion, the SMI has continued in its quest to be ‘a forum for the practice of musicology, reflecting the gamut of musical research in Ireland.’1 The seventy papers given utilized a wide range of sources, from the academic to the anecdotal and from original manuscripts to archival recordings, and the varied approaches to these presentations reflected the diversity of approaches to musicology in general in Ireland today. The 2006 SMI Conference was a celebration of the growth, diversity and good standing of research in music throughout the country. But, considering that these official gatherings of Irish musicologists are still in their infancy, what can one envision for their future

Studio Trad: Facilitating traditional music experiences for music production students

Many music production programmes in higher education institutions are heavily invested in popular music genres and production values in contrast to the diversity of musics often included in other music programmes and encountered in everyday life. Commenting on his 2017 album, Ed Sheeran highlights the potential for incorporating Irish traditional music into popular music. Over the past number of years, creative practice research projects at Dundalk Institute of Technology have provided opportunities for music production students to engage in the recording and production of Irish traditional music, broadening their experience beyond popular music genres and facilitating time for them to work collaboratively with Irish traditional musicians. Thus, an authentic and action-oriented mode of engagement in higher education is utilized to enhance the learning experience continuously aware of changes and attitudes in the music industry. This article focuses on three Summer Undergraduate Research Projects that provided students with the opportunity to research and record Irish traditional music during the summer months. The project not only provided the students with credible industry-like experience, it also provided the staff involved with an insight into the potential of collaborative project work to address multiple learning aims and objectives. In this article, a critical review of the projects is informed by feedback from the students involved, which can inform future development and structures of existing programmes in music production education

Towards the creation of digital library content to study aspects of style in Irish traditional music

This paper presents our initial work on collection of recordings and related metadata with a view to the creation of digital library content for analysis of stylistic characteristics in Irish traditional music. We focus on ornamentation as this is a decisive stylistic determinant in Irish traditional music. The digital library contains a collection of audio recordings of prominent Irish flute players and metadata related to these recordings, such as manual annotation of onsets and offsets, identity of notes and ornaments, information related to performers and performers' style and make and type of instrument used

New Perspectives on Irish Folklore, Estudios Irlandeses 12.2

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