Who are the better Celtic mandolin players these days that I should be listening to?
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Who are the better Celtic mandolin players these days that I should be listening to?
Marla Fibish. David Surette. Seamus Egan. You might also listen to tenor banjo players like Gerry O’Conner, John Carty. There’s also Simon Mayor, Andy Irvine, and fiddlers like Kevin Burke, Liz Carroll, Liz Knowles, Martin Hayes, etc. I missed a ton of influential players, but it will give you a start.
If you're listening to tenor banjo players add these folks to the list: Angela Usher, Angelina Carberry, Theresa O'Grady, Pauline Conneely, Shane Mulchrone, Páraic MacDonnchadha, oh, and Mick Moloney plays tenor banjo and mandolin.
Marla Fibish has a Peghead Nation course that is good value for money and and a great way to get started learning jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, ornamentation etc.
I must apologise in advance for not directly answering the question asked - and I certainly do not mean to be negative about the mandolin (a forum dedicated to the mandolin would be the worst place to do so). However, if you want to get right to the heart of Irish (Scottish etc....) traditional music, I would strongly recommend listening to players of other instruments. There are some very fine interpreters of the music on mandolin and other plectrum instruments (such as all those listed so far), and there is plenty you can learn from them in terms of style and technique (not to mention the enjoyment of listening to them) but I would wager that they all learned their art through listening to and playing with fiddlers, pipers, flute players, concertina players etc.
Don’t leave out Brona Graham. She is a fantastic tenor banjo player from Ireland.
Technique is very different between fiddle, accordion, and mandolin/banjo. The approach to triplets and other mechanics needs to be learned from those who play plucked instruments. It’s very hard to perform rolls on a mandolin, and on fiddle picking down-up, down-up on jigs is the wrong approach, so yes, you can learn how the music sounds listening to all kinds of players, the mechanics need to be learned by listening to folks “picking techniques”. Mandolin is relative new in Celtic music, compared to fiddle, accordion, concertina, etc. But you there are some really good players out there these days, and technology makes it easier to gain exposure to them via You Tube, Spotify, etc.
Ditto what Whistler said above. Don't listen to just mandolin or tenor banjo players. You can pick up some ideas about technique that way, but there is really no established technique for playing Irish or Scottish trad on mandolin in this music. We're all sort of making things up as we go along.
The "precursor instruments" like pipes, whistles, flutes and fiddles laid the groundwork for Irish and Scottish instrumental dance tunes. They're all sustaining instruments, which means you have to figure out how you'll approach the music on a non-sustaining instrument like mandolin. The "treble" ornament used by tenor banjo players is a good thing to have under your fingers, but there are many more things you can do with hammer-on, pull-off, slides, and partial chords within the melody line. I've spent the vast majority of my time listening to Irish fiddlers, flute players and pipers. Not just to learn the tunes, but to figure out the rhythm pulse and how to translate or simulate the articulations on mandolin.
To be clear, I greatly value the contributions of mandolin players like Simon Mayor and Marla Fibish, but there is so much more to listen to from the fiddlers, fluters, and pipers that can inform your playing.
There is a very nice irish trad album by Michael Kerry called The Rocky Road with some fine mandolin playing.
There is a very nice irish trad album by Michael Kerry called The Rocky Road with some fine mandolin playing.
All of the above! The Cafe colleagues covered it. Nothing more to add!
Anyone with an interest in Irish trad should have this one, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aKCfDLLXG4
Who are the better Celtic mandolin players"
"Celtic'' or Irish Traditional?
I’d add diatonic accordion and concertina to the list of musicians to listen to.
The metronome or drum machine can be pretty good too.
Also check out the Song A Week Social group here on the Cafe.
-you can learn a lot by listening to the people you are learning with.
"I’d add diatonic accordion"
B/C and C#/D accordeon players and perhaps some one row melodeon players.
This would be for IRTRAD or modern interpretations of IRTRAD.
List on request.
A few online resources worth checking out:
TG4 website has quite a few videos of their music shows online, but only for a limited time. Here's the recent TG4 awards (which features quite a bit of mandolin!)
https://www.tg4.ie/en/player/home/?p...l&pcode=062520
The Irish Traditional Music Archive has a lot of material in their digital library:
https://www.itma.ie/digital-library
NPU's site has a massive amount of videos and audio recordings. Their monthly concert 'Session with the Pipers' is video'd and available online
http://pipers.ie/source/media/?galle...&mediaId=30658
A couple of channels on youtube with lots of good music:
https://www.youtube.com/user/clarebannerman
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgf...V1qX8YVFj8N4TQ
https://www.youtube.com/user/TCZ60/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/k4hx1/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/GravelWalks/videos
There's a lot of good music here as well....
https://ceolalainn.breqwas.net/
GREAT music here as well, TG4's "Hup" programme:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2...Njm3MiSAYTxFTA
THANK YOU SO MUCH for that, Jill!! Holy cow! Not only is it great music (as you said) but the list of videos seems to go on endlessly. Hours and hours of really fine Irish trad.
MikeyG
Keep in mind too, that mandolin in Celtic/Irish settings is relatively new compared to other instruments. But as learning any genre, you'll have a better base if you use a variety of sources.
Thanks again for the links above.
And there are some very good Scottish and English 'celtic' mandolin players. for instance Ian Stephenson and Tom Kimber, here
This website is also very useful for Irish traditional music: https://thesession.org/
You can look up tunes, check out events and recordings or engage in discussions.