Sligo Flute Controversy!

[@carlosflanders518]

Grew up knowing James and his family. Total gent and wonderful musician and artist.

[@denisloughman1067]

i play this beatiful video often and then when i listened to this beaifull real ltraditional player i realaise how precious and unique our beatifull irish music is tansey is what i would call pure genious and this other guy is up there whit him music could not get better i am still listening to these great flute players and how could anybody not love both there lovely music

[@adrianmccarron4909]

In a interview that Seamus did with Barry Kerr last year he explained how he was introduced to those high and low octaves from Whistle player Jim Donoghue and not by flute players in his area of Sligo. These tunes were passed down by the travelling pipers to the Gormans etc...

[@Snijlea]

Wonderful playing. The touches of the fine art. Thanks for posting

[@j.p.kennedy2557]

Great stuff Harry ,Keep up the good work. Up Sligo

[@danielopdenakker3010]

Love the different styles..! 🙏❤️🌲

[@Folkerman66]

A wonderful exchange between Seámus and nephew... I could watch and listen to hours of them both playing. But it also makes me want to break my flute in half!

[@Lisnageeragh]

What a wonderful tone and fluidity....another great Sligo player was the late Sonny McDonagh of whom little is heard nowadays ...no one had the melodic sense of Tansey. Your man is correct about the low/high thing.

[@RonanBrowneMusic]

Mighty music from two wonderful players. Yum yum yum...!!!

[@theeaskey]

Sligo just lost a fine flute player in pat mahon, may he rest in peace

[@dazpatreg]

Very true

[@williefinn4932]

seamus makes a good point and his playing is so imaginitive but hard to see how this high note style could be played on the pipes....maybe he`s thinking of johnny doran, who had a unique fast style, not unlike a flute player but most great pipers are very controlled...james murray is also great here, with typical sligo humour.

[@untonsured]

Willie Finn no Johnny Gorman. Doran was a generation or two after the coleman's. Michael Coleman and James Morrison cited Gorman as an influence.

[@user-jq1ie7iy6s]

@@untonsured he’s thinking felix doran

[@untonsured]

@@user-jq1ie7iy6s Felix doran was johnny dorans brother as far as I know so they're the same generation.

[@sayurikitamura7109]

This was so good and hilarious! Thanks for sharing. Go raibh míle maith agat!

[@stuartcoey6916]

Love listening to Murray

[@eileennestor9274]

Fabelous he has a unique style...Love the Copper plate...When I was young & we had a gramophone & records i knew all the names of the tunes..

[@michaeldevaney5728]

Sligo are extremely proud of tansey may he rest in peace

[@cerimccoy]

Master at work!

[@martinlaird4738]

RIP Seamus

[@UISTMAN59]

Great posting :)

[@eamonmacdonnell2627]

Great playing from fine flute players esp the great Seamus Tansey... but very little need for all the shoplifting its like singing a matter of taste or interpretation.. just enjoy the splendid music of our country.

[@edainnidhomhnaill1135]

wonderful

[@chrishinderyckx]

Up Sligo! Thats the stuff Seamus!

[@eamonmacdonnell2627]

Great playing from fine flute players esp the great Seamus Tansey... but very little need for all the hair splitting.. its like singing a matter of taste or interpretation.. just enjoy the splendid music of our country.

[@NeilGerstenberg]

What year was this? Great clip, and I love James Murray's sense of humour!

[@PeterOzanne]

Another Sligo question: I've listened to the "McDonaghs of Ballinafad" a fair bit, and now, listening to Tansey play "The Maid behind the Bar", I have noticed a common oddity in the scale they use when playing tunes in G, namely: particularly on descending passages, they always seem to play a C# instead of C natural. That's unusual in western Europe: the key with the raised 4th might be heard more often in Greece or Bulgaria, or Eastern Europe generally. Any musicologist out there know how this came to be in Sligo?

[@brennan93]

Caught it from the breeze

[@lavernesargnet1075]

I have learned that is just an instrument traditional convention to avoid the c natural fingering to keep facility for all those fast finger embellishment

[@eldricgrubbidge6465]

There’s a lot of messing around with the c in Irish grad. There’s lots of tunes in d major and others in d mixolydian and you’d occasionally find confusion between them. Tunes that switch from one to he other. Or where there’s a major version and a mixolydian version. I think in the old days some melodeon players especially converted c naturals into c sharps. There’s the pipers c that sits somewhere between c natural and C sharp, and other instruments sometimes emulate it. You’ll often find that the note when it appears in the tune is a c but when someone is just ornamenting a d note they play c sharps to get that sort of tension and release, or indeed for ease of fingering maybe. It’s all about that seventh degree. C on a d scale which is sort of the default for Irish music. Where the fiddle has a lot of influence, say donegal or those east Clare and east Galway tunes alla paddy fahey etc... you’ll notice similar things happening with g and g sharp for example where a major is the basic scale. Or with f and f sharp where g is the basic scale. But it’s usually the seventh. Very occasionally the third.

[@KevinElamMusic]

Yeah from what I understand it's basically just a habit that arose out of the convenience of fingering. C natural is very cumbersome to do in such passages

[@thomasmartin3832]

Magic playing! What's he playing? Rudall or a Metzler?

[@padraigtansey]

Seamus has always played a rudall rose flute that my grandmother bought for him.

[@briancrehan9757]

Thomas Martin jaysus lads broken Caps key? 😂

[@briancrehan9757]

Reagan Byrne do you not reckon that's a nephew or niece your talkin to there? 😂

[@Lisnageeragh]

I feel that Seamus had the best tone of any trad player...the Rudall &Rose flutes were beautiful instruments ...I never had a simple system model but have had one or two R &R Radcliff models and they had beautiful key mechanisms and were very even in tone and projection between the registers.

[@Samsonelles1]

He picked the right tune to demonstrate with. The Copper Plate can be an awful boring tune in the hands of the wrong person.

[@marthaguiney7349]

Couldn't agree with Seamus more... breaks up the monotony of the tune

[@mikeneylon1843]

love his playing..think he played this too quickly though

[@michaeldevaney5728]

Seriously man tansey was a genius definitely dont think he played it too quickly he knows exactly what he is about

[@michaeldevaney5728]

An amazing musician

[@AndrewWhiteKhanty]

Are they playing their Flute on the left side? What?

[@martinlaird4738]

Andrew White yeah many do! Myself included

[@Legacyrxawd]

It usually comes about when people start off playing on the tin whistle, before taking up the flute, and if nobody tells you differently (or you learn playing the "mirror image" of somebody teaching you) it's very easy to get into the habit of playing with your left hand fingering the lower notes - so that when you pick up a flute, you do so left-handedly...

[@michaeldevaney5728]

Sligo is steeped in irish tradional music

[@sbreheny]

James Murray plays beautifully but it is puzzling why he downplays ornamentation so much - he is using plenty of it (rolls, crans, tonguing certain notes for emphasis, and even a few instances of playing a higher note than is in the straight tune - although not a whole octave higher). Of the two, I prefer Tansey but they are both very good.

[@michaelmccauley4798]

He's not disparaging those techniques and such. He's saying people *talk* about ornaments too much. Either a roll (or whatever) came naturally or it didn't. I tend to agree somewhat. Some people get very hung up on the idea of ornamention and it can be limiting. It's better to stop overthinking and over analyzing the music and just listen and play.

[@lukeowens8376]

Two lefties

[@denisbudbud]

Stupid but funny remark 😁🤣in fact normal guys. Today's guys are empty industrialized 🧟‍♂️ zombies.

[@antq123]

@@denisbudbud Why is noticing both players are playing left handed stupid?

[@nedohamilli]

i'd have the second boy anytime over Tansey, but having said that the flute on it's own is too bare a sound needs a fiddle to fill it out ,or even a bodhran god forbid .

[@seanmcginnis7865]

Mr. Murray is a superb fluter no doubt. I can't say I didn't enjoy Séamus's playing though...

[@Kitiwake]

The flue has the best tone of all of the Irish traditional instruments and in it's basic form is the oldest melodic instrument known to humanity.

[@liammacgraith26]

This video demonstrates that there is a lot of nonsense spoken and written about Irish traditional regional styles. Anyone who is experienced in listening to Irish flute playing will know that nobody else plays quite like Seamus Tansey. There is frequently more difference between individuals (of the same region) than there is between individuals of widely different regions, as is clearly demonstrated here by these two Sligo flute players. They are as different from each other as chalk and cheese are.

[@tomgreene6579]

Here here ...and there are/were good ones and bad ones...also a conflation of the word ''style'' just to avoid saying the obvious. Your man is correct about the low / high nonsense ...it was not part of the conversation until guys started to overblow the low notes often reflecting an inability to keep tho notes from jumping as they tried to lend emphasis or just ran out of breath at an ending.

[@yas2802]

Bad air flow