Not That Sane. V Lakshman. Every Wednesday.

Jigs, Folk and Composed (Dec. 10, '97)

One of the advantages of living in a university town is that the university often arranges "learning experiences". Most of the undergraduates would rather get drunk on cheap beer, but it gives us town residents an opportunity to sample exotic things. Of course, what is exotic to one person is trite to another -- to me, Irish folk music is exotica. The School of Music at the university here in town flew in a flautist and a fiddler to lecture in some classes and the nice folk put up a concert for us plainsmen.

If you have never heard Irish folk music, I strongly recommend it to you. We were treated to medley after medley, most of them fast-paced jigs and reels. At times, it was sheer torture to have to sit firmly in the seat as they played wonderfully rythmic tunes, stuff I would have dearly loved to dance to.

Of course, you can't do that in a formal auditorium with thirty seats in a square yard. "Why don't we get their CD?," whispered my wife to me. To those of you who don't know me personally, I'm a bit of a skin-flint. But the music was too good and even I know value when I see it. We bought their CD.

And went home and played it. There was no folk music. Just music that one of the fellows on stage had composed. It sucked. No fast-paced jigs, no reels. Instead, we had tinkling elevator music played by a superb flautist.

It seems that while they played Irish folk music for us, it is the undistinguished drivel that they play most of the time. Sad that any one would downplay such wonderful music for the dubious honor of being a "composer".


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