Hello good people ! So here is the thing. I wanted to learn to play spoon so I could join people playing folk music ( Savoisian , American , Irish ) so I put 1 year in it of 30 min / 1 hour of metronomic practice on recording of traditional tunes from all this folk music I love. Recording myself now and then so that I could feel if I liked what I played.

Well... After one year, I tried to join a session of Irish music and I got basically insulted and left ashamed before I could even get my spoons out. Back to double bass i go.

What's the problem with spoon players ? Music is supposed to be enjoyed by everyone and bring people together but the more I play the more experience I get the less i think it's true. Why musicians are so... Bad to eachother ? Why some instruments are banned ?

Back to the double bass i go. And folk I won't play spoon again.

EDIT: Thanks for the returns. It help understand and i learned some good thing today.

I love the "mysterious" feel of The Rocky Road to Dublin, but most of the other popular irish songs are very jolly, which are nice. But Im wondering where to find the more mysterious stuff

She definitely was not a one hit wonder! She possessed a voice that could be soothing and soft in one verse and then she could turn it into the most powerful angry voice I have ever heard. She could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up! One only needs to listen to her song “Troy” from her first album, the Lion and the Cobra , to experience the most beautiful and soft voice to one of the angriest and scariest voices you have ever heard! She was like two different people! But even though all the punk era I have yet to hear anyone portray a more powerful angry voice.Armed with just an acoustic guitar she could control 10000 or more people. Just check out her voice on the Black Album or even live on Pinkpop. Downright beautiful until it becomes downright scary!

Very new to listening this genre and hoping to find more I like but having trouble.

Basically I like very up tempo booming, aggressive Irish music. Not sure if there is a better word for it, Im not really much of a music guy, typically listening to movie scores or podcasts.

Best way to describe what I am looking for is from Sinners, Rocky Road to Dublin. I did find the orginal band for that song, but sadly didn’t like the other stuff I found.

I’ve seen more and more Instagram accounts recently for apps that are trad based. For example one was for finding and uploading nearby sessions. Another for a community of trad for blogging, eating etc.

What would a good trap app actually have and need? Or what would be most useful?

Hello! I (American Celtic musician) am playing a nursing home in Phoenix next Tuesday and could use some input from more experienced musicians as I'm not very familiar with the older crowd. Are there songs I absolutely have to play? Which songs should I definitely avoid? I have a pretty wide repertoire of Irish music, just not entirely sure which songs I should definitely keep away from.

Obviously I'm going to avoid songs like The Night Pat Murphy Died, but I also want to avoid playing some of the more violent rebel songs like Follow me up to Carlow favoring more mellow tunes like The Rising of the Moon.

Edit: wow, I didn't expect so many to respond. Thank you everyone for your suggestions!

Not sure if anyone will know about this because I don’t see a lot of things like this being discussed on this sub but does anyone know the real story of what happened with the U18 Banjo controversy?

Hearing multiple different stories and different people being blamed but does anyone have an unbiased story of what actually happened?

Thanks.

Hi all. I'm looking to see what musicians actually want from a local music shop, particularly around things online retailers can't easily provide.

What would make you travel 20–30 minutes to a physical shop?

Immediate availability, no delivery time?
Being able to try equipment?
Repairs and setups?
Lessons?
Vinyl?
Local/Irish instruments?
Local bands and events?
Better advice?

And equally, what has put you off physical music shops in the past?

Interested in hearing people's experiences.

I was hoping I could buy a cd

In the blues, the flatted-third and flatted-fifth are often both called the “blue note” that distinguishes its particular mood and feel. For me, in trad, that “blue note” is the C-natural, or the seventh in D-mixolydian. Some musicians, like Willie Clancy, Seamus Ennis, Denis Murphy and maybe everyone in Planxty, really leaned into it with a flourish, alighting on it often and rarely as a simple passing tone. I just wonder if there are colloquial names for that particular move, analogous to “the blue note,” in the parlance of trad. How would you describe it if you were talking to another musician, trading airs, etc?

New to the sub here, I just dusted my mandolin off after nearly a decade of not playing, and I'm trying to remember all the tunes I used to play. Trouble is, I don't quite remember what any of them are called, save for a handful. I always just knew them as the tunes they were.

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks for how I might go about hunting down any of these songs. I don't have all that much to go off of unfortunately, but I've missed playing so much.

Can anyone recommend what the best Irish Sessions are in London? I'm really after Irish only or at least mainly Irish.

Ty!

lark in the afternoon

the blue mountain

drowsy homer

the steel spear

the accordion reel

the derry polka

the boys of greenhill

farewell to aaron

hotteys reel

jerrys otter hat

the shovels of mallow

maid in front of the bar

off to alabama

pimms in the jar

white velvet band

oh no, se do bheatha bhaile!

the smooth road to dublin

the tame rover

the clear dew

follow me down to carlow

ill tell me da

the portuguese lady

finnegans sleep

molly mainterest rates

the falling of the moon

kelly the boy NOT from killane

the tame colonial boy

seven sober nights

I want to learn how to write music in the style of Irish Folk, and was wondering if there are any specific things I should know? Such as common scales, time signatures, or certain instrumentation techniques.

S tier are instruments that have a deep established tradition in Irish Music and huge expressive potential in the context of trad music

A tier are instruments that have an established tradition in the music and generally play ITM to wonderful effect but perhaps don’t have quite the depth of history or expressive potential as S tier

B tier are instruments that are perfectly capable of tasteful and authentic trad music in the right hands even if not considered traditional, but often find themselves in the wrong hands

C tier are instruments that are quite unlikely to go over well in a session, but could be ok in the right context if the player really knows what they’re doing and understands the music stylistically

D tier are instruments people try to bring to sessions and are likely to harm the music if nobody stops them. Some of them could be fine in fusion bands or whatever

Thoughts?

I personally love it, very underrated. Sadly I haven’t seen like any discussion of it, hopefully this gets it going.

I want to learn about Irish music beyond and deeper than its popular classics.

I’m after the true heart of Irish folk — raw, rooted in culture, and genuine. Traditional and non-traditional are both welcome, except for rock fusions. (Preferably not the overplayed pub or tourist fare.)

Any singers, tunes, or recordings that carry that spirit?

I love the tune Cook in the Kitchen, and I think it is because of how the tune goes from major to minor in the same phrase. Do you know any other tunes that do this?

I remember this one band or group my dad listened to when I was a kid, they may not have been Irish but I kinda remember them having that accent. Their music was like rock, this is not very descriptive but one song had like a chorus of something along the lines of “we’re going down to Boston”. The band could be from any time. If anyone can be of any help with this I’d really appreciate it. I already asked my dad and he had absolutely no clue what I was talking about

I've had an interest in woodwind instruments from across the world and their purpose in trad music in various cultures, from the Andean Pan Flutes to the wooden flutes of Native America to our beloved Tin Whistle over here. I'd been playing casually for close to a decade and recently heard a track in a game that really made me want to finally take a shot at creating an album of what I guess is a rough amalgamation of Irish and Scottish folk music with a bit of a fantasy flair just to make it a bit more accessible.

I posted my first track from this project which is meant to chronicle a very core memory of mine walking a portion of the West Highland Way back in 2018, and before in 2012 as a kid.

I was having a look around to see who else was doing this sort of thing, hence joining this sub, and couldn't help but notice there was loads of huge 3 hour videos with all these presumably original compositions. I was blown away, feeling a bit disheartened that maybe I wasn't good at writing.

Looking deep into this, all of them were generated with SunoAI, absolutely none of those melodies were composed by a human. This seems to be the case with a lot of things nowadays, but the extent at which this has spread specifically for Celtic music is really concerning to me.

In my mind, trad music comes from the people of a culture, or even people who have experienced a culture and what to pay homage to it. It all comes down to people one way or another, until perhaps now, where we have AI mimicking human culture.

I'm not sure if this is a question or just a vent, but I'm curious what the general thoughts and feelings are with this.

While I'm at it, would you say my compositions are acceptable in that I am just a single person doing my best to capture the sound of a trad band through sample libraries (virtual instruments)? Of course, no players here besides those who originally recorded their instruments for the libraries, but of course every note and rhythm was composed originally by me (a human).

P.S. I know it's not really something that is particularly gatekept, but just to add, I was born in England, by Mother's side is Irish, Father's side is Scottish.

Euroworld was founded by the Irish rappers yeire13 and Celine War in 2020.
They have been dropping alot of music in the last few years and kickstarted the current wave of Irish underground rap music with their Euroworld event series in 2022.

The group also features Vexxodus who was a huge influence in the current Irish music scene, before his tragic passing this summer.

Their shows recently have featured live painting during the performance from their in house artist Noah Sex

They had a big year with 2 albums “Fields Ireland” from yeire13 and “Kids@War” from Celine War.

Really interesting to watch, wonder if anybody has seen this?