Tune Collection
Artistic Statement
Updated
11/25/2008
Descriptive
overview of my work:
I was
born and spent the first 33 years
of my life in Ireland. I think of the music I play
as what we would call in Irish sean nós,
or the old style of playing
traditional music. Many of the melodies come from ancient forms of pipe
tunes
and harp music. I’ve been a serious player and collector of Irish
traditional
music for more than fifty years, and during that span have collected
more than
3,000 compositions—jigs, reels, hornpipes, airs, and marches, including
many
rare and unusual tunes. Since I don’t read written music, I learn by
ear and
keep all these tunes in memory. I’ve built up this repertoire by
seeking out
certain players, not just for the tunes or virtuoso playing, but for
their
settings of the tunes, particular notes and phrasings that seem to
bring out
the life and the character of the music. I’m also interested in
traditional
musicians whose playing reflects regional or local styles.
Irish
traditional music is now played in
all kinds of venues: community festivals, house concerts and dances,
concert
venues, colleges and universities, elementary and secondary schools,
folk
clubs, and pubs. Apart from public settings, the heart of Irish
traditional
music is the session, in which tunes are played and traded, and
conversation
about music is the central theme. Much of my time is spent touring and
performing, teaching, and playing in sessions with local Irish
musicians
wherever I travel, sharing stories about the older musicians I used to
know in
Ireland.
When
I meet fellow musicians, I like to
recreate the old traditional sessions which were the foundation of my
own
experience in Ireland. There was a great social connection, a wonderful
communication about the music and its history. I didn’t even realize at
the
time how much of a cultural experience it was, and now I’m working on
bringing
that experience to the local musicians in the Twin Cities and in other
places I
visit as I tour around the country. We talk about where the tunes came
from,
how they got their titles, the way certain players played them, the
importance
of different notes and emphasis in our interpretation.
Creativity,
for me, comes from digging up
really great settings of tunes, and working to add my own subtle
variations and
interpretations. Another important part of the creativity comes in
putting
together selections. In all the groups with which I’ve played over the
years, I
have often been the person to organize selections, or to suggest tunes
that the
group might play. There’s a lot of sensitive selection involved; it’s
an
elusive art, and very time-consuming, to select the right kinds of tune
selections to put together. I’ve also been active as a composer. Many
of my
compositions have been accepted into the tradition and recorded by
Irish music
groups such as Solas and Danú, and by individual players such as
James Kelly,
Liz Carroll, and Billy McComiskey.
Whenever
I perform in public, I tell the
stories behind each piece, helping audiences to grasp the tunes better
by
understanding their historical and cultural context. Talking with
people and
playing music with them is the traditional way of collecting this
information,
and it’s something I do all the time. In the last several years,
there’s been a
great demand for the lecture/workshop I’ve developed, called “Reaching
for the Draíocht: Exploring Irish Traditional
Music.” Draíocht is a Gaelic word
meaning ‘spiritual power’ or ‘soul.’
Most recently I’ve been asked to talk at the University of Saint Thomas
in
Saint Paul, under the auspices of the Irish Studies Program at Boston
College,
and at the Minnesota Irish Fair.
Current
activities:
As a
professional musician, I’ve recorded
and toured nationally and internationally since 1995 with the
three-piece
ensemble Chulrua. I’ve also been rehearsing, performing, and recording
since
2003 with The Doon Céilí Band, an eight-piece band made
up of musicians from
the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. More recently (since 2006), I’ve put
together
a new ensemble (with a working name of O’Rourke’s Feast) which meets
weekly at
my house to play and work out arrangements of traditional and
newly-composed
tunes in what might be called the ‘folk orchestra’ tradition.
I
also spend a lot of time at home on my
own, learning new tunes, putting together selections, and searching out
new
material by corresponding with fellow musicians and trading tapes and
CDs of
tunes. Learning tunes—and especially getting deeper and deeper into
intricacies
of Irish music—has always been a rejuvenating, regenerating process for
me. I
am generally looking for old Gaelic melody structures that give
expression and
warmth, and spiritual energy to the music. I try to delve deeply into
the
tunes, absorbing them into my mind and body, and then reinterpreting,
even
restructuring the melodies, sometimes bringing out specific phrases,
sometimes
adding extra notes or even extra parts of my own making. For example,
there’s a
tune called “The Wheels of the World,” that has always fascinated me;
I’ve been
playing this tune for more than thirty years, and yet I feel as though
I’m only
beginning to crack its code. My intention in presenting Irish
traditional music—in
performance, in recordings, and in teaching—has always been to
concentrate on
the artistic, expressive power of Irish traditional music, and to
counter the
commercialism that has crept into it because of attention from the
recording
industry.
I
also spend time making and sharing
music with people who are interested in learning Irish traditional
tunes, but
who have no access to master musicians in their own localities. I offer
lessons
and workshops at home and on the road.
Artistic
fellowships have allowed me some
concentrated periods of artistic development, and have helped to fuel
creative
bursts that I hope have sent some ripples throughout the Irish
traditional
music community here in Minnesota, across the U.S., and in Ireland.
One
of the things I’ve naturally
concentrated on since my early days has been trying to meet and talk
with and
learn tunes from older musicians. Over the past several years, I’ve
been making
trips to visit with and make field recordings with older musicians—in
the
United States, I’m working on recording interviews with a generation of
lesser-known
Irish and Irish-American players like Brendan Tonra, Jack Coen, Mike
Flynn,
Kevin Henry, Noel Rice, Mike Preston, and P.V. O’Donnell. In Ireland,
I’m
working to arrange interviews with fiddler and composer Paddy Fahy of
Galway;
Donegal fiddlers Jamsie O’Beirne and Vincent Campbell; Donegal fiddler
Danny
Meehan who now lives in London and has a store of rare old-time Donegal
fiddle
music; and local players in the hornpipe tradition of County Wexford.
Much
of my own work as an artist is about
finding and bringing greater recognition to some older (and perhaps
somewhat
obscure) but wonderful traditional tunes. To that end, I hope for time
to conduct
music research at places like Boston College, the Irish Traditional
Music
Archive in Dublin, and the Leitrim Musical Society, among others.
I am
continuing a multi-year project begun
in the mid-1990s, called the Paddy O’Brien
Tune Collection. In
the first volume of the collection, I recorded 400 reels and 100 double
jigs
from my current repertoire, specifically as an artistic resource for
players
and learners of Irish traditional music, so that many of the great
versions of
tunes I’ve been given down through the years could be carried on and
passed
along to others. In the next volume of the collection, I’ve recorded
another
500 tunes, this time including hornpipes, set dances, clan marches
(including
several of my own compositions), polkas, slip jigs, harp tunes, along
with a
few more reels and double jigs.
In
addition to Volume Two of the Tune
Collection, I am currently working on several other recording projects,
including a CD entitled The Sailor’s Cravat,
with fiddler
Tom Schaefer, Paul Wehling on bouzouki and guitar, and my wife, Erin
Hart,
providing vocals. The recording is completed, and I am currently
seeking a
record label for distribution. Plans are also in the works for public
performances and a debut recording with O’Rourke’s Feast, for a second
Doon
Céilí Band CD, and a new recording with Chulrua.