Linda & Mike, at the Catskills Irish Arts Festival in July, 2004.
NEWS FLASH: My Irish flute teacher, Mike Rafferty, is the subject of today's Comhaltas Video Clip of the Day! (Comhaltas is a non-profit Irish organization, with local chapters around the world, dedicated to the preservation of traditional Irish music.) In the video Mike performs with his daughter, Mary Rafferty Clancy, and his son-in-law, Donal Clancy. They play two jigs, The Lilting Banshee and another tune he learned from his father, Tom "Barrel" Rafferty. Click on the link below, then sit back and enjoy!
Mike Rafferty: Comhaltas Video Clip #242-5
In his introduction Mike said he had never heard the banshee lilt, but once he heard her sing. If you felt a little lost at that point, let me explain. The banshee is well known in Irish folklore. It is said that she cries in mournful, wailing tones when someone in a household is about to die. Lilting is a form of singing used to supply dance music when instrumental players were unavailable. Similar to jazz scat singing, Irish lilters make up nonsense syllables to fit the musical inflections of jigs and reels. As an example of lilting, click on the link below.
(Comhaltas Video Clips are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 License. )
Mike Rafferty (flute), Mary Rafferty (button accordian), and Donal Clancy (guitar) at the Catskills Irish Arts Festival in July, 2004.
© 2008, Linda Mason Hood
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1 comment:
Lovely post on Mike. There's also a thread on Chiff n Fippple about this because of Mike's emphasis on playing slowly. Always like seeing him get attention.
I forgot you had longer hair once.
Gail
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