The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1912-05-25

Roughly speaking there are two
kinds of music known and practiced
in Ireland today-our own and other
peoples.
r. Strange to say it is the other peo-
pies music that needs no further as
sistance or encouragement amongst
us. Royal and other academies.
schools of music, special Feiseanna,
and practically every convent, school
i and college in the country see to 1t
that. foreign or modern" music which,
ever You wish to call it, Is suitably
looked after. So much Is this the
case, and SO carefully is knowledge
of Irish music excluded from the cur
riculum of present day musical
education that the very use of the
description musician" with or with
out the qualifying cultured" ire
fined" or accomplished" connotes in
the vast majority of cases in Ireland
a person who knows nothing of Irish
music, and what is worse, wishes to
know nothing.
Thus it comes to pass that in any
effort that may be made to encourage
the very persons from whom no as
sistance may be expected are our
educated musicians certainly the
vast majority of them. That is not
the mere statement of one prejudiced
in favor of his own music and against
the modern variety. 1t is a statement
Of fact as one sees 1t. II it be not
true how comes it that in spite of
the thousands Of we'll trained, cap
able, educated musicians our country
has produced in the past hundred or
hundred and fifty years our own mu-
sic has been allowed to languish and
decay and that our own instruments,
designed and fitted to express 1t. have
practically passed into desuetude?
The harpers have gone. The pipers
are fast going. Our fddlers and our
country singers are being encouraged
to forget their musical methods and
to educate themselves to please mod
ern ears. To all of which may be
added the certainty that during those
years hundreds and thousands Of old
airs, marches and dance tunes have
faded into oblivion for want of a re-
corder. But, it may be objected, where
would we be today for airs but for
Bunting and Petrie and Joyce? The
objection answers itself, they were
only three men, three men in a CEN
fury. Only three men to contrast with
the thousands of others who did moth
ing!
No! let us expect nothing from the
"cultured" musicians around us to-
day. They did nothing in the past.
With few noble exceptions they will
do nothing now. Their pride or preju-
dice, their whole training or tradition
are against. Whatever we wish to
see done to keep what Is left to us
of our heritage we must do our
selves.
And let us remember that the mere
noting down of airs will not preserve
our music. In spite of all our learned
friends tell US. we - more especially
those of us who happen to be pipers
or fiddlers or singers cannot blind
ourselves to the fact that there is
something in Irish music which defies
notation, something intangible, inde-
y scribable which no signs we have yet
designed can commit to paper, some-
thing which denies itself to all but
those who approach 1t with love and
sympathy, which seems to deny itself
above all to those who approach it
from the heights, condescendingly,
grudgingly, patronizingly. And this
Is a thing which our great Irish ar
tists," vocalists; pianists, violinists
will not believe. Tell them that they
cannot, absolutely cannot, sing or
play Irish music! They are astound-
ed! None the less 1t is so. They may
question our Judgment but we, coun-
try singers. pipers fiddlers. know that
what We say is true. They cannot
sing or play Irish music. We have
heard them, heard them all. and we
know. They sing or they play the
cold notes, tunefully, correctly, in
proper order, but the spirit, the music
escapes. them. That is what we have
Inherited from our fathers who made
1t, and If they want it they must seek
/ 1t as we have sought it. Paper doc.
not hold it. Hear what DR.. Jamc.
Il mcdonnell, principal organizer of the
Gathering of the Harpers in Belfast
h in 1892. says in letter to Bunting
{!g In Or about 12AO.