Grey Larsen has been studying, performing, recording and teaching Irish music most of his life. As a teenager he was drawn to traditional music, even while studying classical flute at Oberlin College. He sought out traditional players and began learning Irish music by listening to them, studying their style and technique. He traveled to Ireland to listen to and study Irish players. Larsen himself is now a sought after teacher of traditional Irish music. Mel Bay Publications recently released his newest book The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle. He continues to perform and record and will soon release a second recording with French Canadian singer and guitarist Andrå€Marchand.

By Keith Quillen

www.greylarsen.com 

Keith Quillen: What is there about Irish music that attracts you?

Grey: That's a good question. It's a hard one to articulate because it really goes so deep into intuition. I first heard traditional Irish music when I was a teenager back in Cincinnati. The first time I really heard it up close and in person it just kinda sunk right into my chest and I felt like I had to learn how to play it. But there's nothing logical about it, nothing I can really explain very well.

KQ: I understand that at one point you were a student of classical music and then branched out to this.

Grey: It's not really that I branched out from classical music. I started taking piano lessons when I was four years old and started learning classical music. My father played recordings of classical music around the house. I grew up surrounded by that music and still do really love that music. At the same time I was interested in the popular music that was surrounding me, and on the radio, and folk music which I heard both on recordings that my parents played and the music that happened on the streets and in public places. There was a lot of bluegrass, old time music and Irish music. It was both the classical stream and the more popular and traditional musical streams. I had both of them going at that same time.

I haven't really done anything with classical per se since I graduated from music school. But I realize a lot of what I learned and soaked up during all those years of playing classical music has found it's expression in a the music I compose and arrangements that I do of traditional music. That can most clearly heard on a recording I did called The Gathering back in '86.

KQ: Your latest book, The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle, deals with Irish flute and tin whistle. Do you have any plans for doing books for other instruments?

Grey: No. Not for other instruments. I definitely have plans for other books dealing with the same area. This is the first one. The second book called The Essential Tin Whistle Toolbox is in production at Mel Bay Publications right now and hopefully will come out in March. That's a smaller book than this big one, just for tin whistle and aimed a bit more towards beginners.

There is one other book I've got in mind that I'm hoping to produce. A book of the music of a particular old time fiddle player who lives right here in Bloomington, Indiana. I've been playing with him for four years, or more, now. A guy named Joe Dawson. He's about 75 years old. He grew up playing traditional music of this area of Indiana. He has a repertoire of really beautiful stuff. I'd like to do a book of his music. I'm hoping some day to do that. Otherwise the Irish flute and tin whistle stuff is a very rich vein for me. It's probably what I know the most about so I feel the most qualified to write about.

KQ: You do some teaching as well. Do you ever teach other instruments besides flute and whistle?

Grey: I've taught old time fiddle and piano accompaniment for traditional music. There's a music camp called the Rocky Mountain Fiddle camp out in Colorado which I've taught at for four years. This summer will be my fifth year. In addition to teaching Irish flute I'll be teaching piano. I have taught some concertina, but there aren't very many players. So there's not as much demand for that.

KQ: One of the recordings I have is of Michael J. Kennedy playing melodeon (Michael J. Kennedy/Melodeon: 65 Years of Irish Music, June Appal, JA109, 1977).

Grey: You're one of the lucky few to have that. That went out of print rather quickly so not many people got their hands on that. Actually, that is another thing. I'd like to do a book about Michael. He was a big influence on me.

KQ: Most of the music you play and record is Irish. Do you work with music of other Celtic cultures like Scotland, Brittany, etc.?

Grey: Not too much. Some in my earlier days in Celtic music. Back then we didn't call it Celtic. It was Irish music, or Scottish music, or Briton music. I still think of them as very distinct from each other. People who come to those kinds of music from the outside tend to group them together. And that makes sense, but the deeper you get into it the more you realize that Irish music is fairly distinct from Scottish music, or music from the Shetland Islands, or the Isle of Mann. They are all fairly different looking once you get deep enough into them.

I feel that my expertise really lies in Irish music. Although I know a fair amount about Scottish music I haven't really studied the Scottish playing style nearly as deeply as I have the Irish. These days I'm sticking more to Irish because that's what I really know. I've spent so many years working on it. But having said that, I really do love the music from Brittany and Scotland and other Celtic cultures. 

KQ: You've spent time in Ireland collecting and listening. Did you go to both to the Republic and to Northern Ireland?

Grey: Yes, I did.

KQ: Since they have political differences, is there a difference in the music?

Grey: I was in Northern Ireland in 1979. I'm sure things have changed a lot there. I'm not sure I can speak to the contemporary situation as well as I can what it was like in the late 70's. There's always been some difference in the style of music between the north and the south. Partly that's because there is a stronger connection with Scotland up in the north and the music reflects that. There are certain types of Scottish tunes like strathspeys. It's a very Scottish form of music. Those are played in Northern Ireland but not very much at all in the south.

When I was in Belfast in 79 it was a very tense time politically. It was the first time I'd every experienced what it was like to be in an occupied country. The British tanks and soldiers were on the streets with their rifles ready to shoot. It was quite an oppressive feeling. To feel the threat of that all the time. It was quite a revelation. At that time, to play traditional Irish music was kind of a political statement. It was basically saying to the British, "Go home." It put you pretty squarely on the other side of the occupation there. It was very tense. In a way it gave a special energy to the music when you were gathering to play with people. It was a kind of rarified atmosphere there, where it's much more relaxed in other parts of the country. It's a complex situation.

KQ: Have you worked with other Irish instruments, for example the Uilleann pipes?

Grey: Back in the early 80's I got a set of Uilleann pipes. I have always loved the sound of that instrument. I worked pretty hard on it for about six months and was getting pretty proficient. But, I came to the realization that to play the Uilleann pipes really, really well, which was what I wanted to do, requires so much devotion and time and practice. It's really one of the most difficult instruments I've ever attempted, if not the most. I realized that in order to do what I wanted to with it, which was to really become an excellent piper, I would have to stop doing some other things that I also love doing. So I just couldn't spread myself that thin. I came to the difficult conclusion that I had to give up the pipes. There just weren't enough hours in the day-in the year-to do that plus flute, fiddle and concertina.

KQ: Is it because of the complex bodily movement you have to make with elbow, etc.?

Grey: That's definitely part of it. There is so much involved in learning the technical command of the instrument. To become a really great player you have to get to the point where the technical aspects are second nature. So you can put your creative self into being musical and not have to be thinking about pressure on the bag, letting out the pressure, when you push more on the bellows, getting all the reeds balanced with each other. It's really a quite difficult instrument to play. So I could see that getting to that point would take many years. One person just can't play the pipes and four or five other instruments and do them all really well. I don't think it's possible.

KQ: I've never been good with flute or other instruments that require air. I've thought that with the Uilleann pipes, because the air comes from a bellows and I wouldn't have to "huff and puff." I guess it would be much harder than it looks.

Grey: You have to be patient and practice. But eventually what happens when playing the flute is you learn to user your air in a very efficient manner. Probably all beginners experience what you're talking about. But as you learn to focus the stream of air that you're blowing you use it more efficiently. You're probably using one-fourth the air that you do as a beginner. I don't ever get winded when I'm playing. I don't have unusually large lungs. I have learned how to use the air efficiently.

KQ: It's part of the technicality you have to learn, not of the instrument you're playing, but of your body.

Grey: Right, right.

KQ: A lot of the tunes you record are your own. How do you approach creating new tunes? Do you try to keep them within the style of the rest of the music that you play and record?

Grey: I've worked with other genres of music other than traditional Irish music. So, not all the tunes that I write come out sounding like they fit into the traditional versions. Most of them these days do. When I sit down to do some writing I try not to think in a logical, conceptual way. I try to just let the deeper aspects of my being, or mind, speak to me and see what turns out. Sometimes I write tunes just in my head without using an instrument, and write them down on paper. Other times I'll pick up my flute. If it's something I'm making up using a particular instrument, like the flute or piano, or fiddle, that will have a big influence obviously on what comes out. I like to write just hearing the music in my heard and not using an instrument, and writing it down on paper. Then when I take that and play it on an instrument the instrument certainly has to be thrown into it. But I really don't sit down and say, "OK. I'm going to write an Irish sounding reel in the key of B minor." I try not to think that way at all. I like to let the deeper part of my intuition express itself. And that means I often will write something that I don't finish. I've plenty of notebooks full of stuff like that.

KQ: Do you ever find that a few unfinished pieces later come together to form a new tune?

Grey: No. I haven't had that experience too often. But sometimes I'll come back to an unfinished piece that I started writing years and years ago. Come to it fresh and complete it, or change it into something new. On my bookshelf I have a bunch of music notebooks dating back to the 70's. It's amazing to go back to 20 years ago and see what I was working with then that I've totally forgotten about. Sometimes I like doing it.

KQ: There is a note in your book encouraging students to seek out older players, people who have been playing for awhile. To listen to them and learn from them.

Grey: That's one the most important things with any kind of traditional music. To learn music from someone who has had that music at the center of their life for 50 or 60 years. There is something about being in the presence of a person like that and learning music from them. You learn way more than just music. It takes effort to find them, but there are more of them around than we realize. Those kinds of people usually aren't in the spotlight. But you can find them. I mentioned my friend Joe Dawson. He's been playing fiddle music from this part of Indiana for over 65 years. I get together with him as much as I possibly can. It's such a precious treasure to find someone like that. There is so much musical depth and meaning conveyed by people like that. Even if they might play in a scratchy way or they may have arthritis and not be able to play as long as they used to. But it doesn't matter.

KQ: You may not have played quite that long, but how do you feel about becoming one of those people that others seek out?

Grey: Yeah, I just turned 49. Reaching the second half of a century. Yeah, younger people are coming to me. I'm realizing I am becoming one of those people. It's funny. In my mind I think I'm young at heart. I think of myself as a young person. But, it's great. I really do love to pass along knowledge. I do have a number of students. It seems like I've always got three or four students here in my hometown. I do love to teach.

Writing this book I discovered a lot of things about this music that I'd never thought of in an analytic way. But I had to try to figure our how to convey the information to people about what the music is about and how it works, I really had to think about that. It's a fascinating activity to discover how you can explain something to someone else.

For instance, if you are playing music on the Irish flute or tin whistle, where do you breathe? That's something that I learned just intuitively just by being around the music so much. It's like learning a second language by being immersed in it. That's how I learned much of what I know about Irish music. But many people don't have that opportunity to immerse themselves in it. A lot of people have no idea how to breath. This music never seems to stop. You don't have a chance to take a breath. You have to learn to leave out notes. Especially if people come from a classical frame of reference, leaving out a note is taboo. You don't do that. But in Irish music that's what you do. So when I was trying to figure out how to convey to people how to know what notes to leave out it led me to think about it in an analytical fashion. I discovered there really are some strategies and rules that work quite well. I wrote about it quite a bit in my book. Until I started teaching a lot I never gave it a second thought.

When someone can listen to my flute playing and not notice when I'm taking a breath, that's great. I'm always happy at a concert when someone comes up to me at the end and says, "I don't understand. It looks like you never breathe." That's quite a compliment. I'm actually breathing all over the place. It's built into the phrasing of the music. The attention of the listener is not drawn to my breathing.

KQ: Is there anything else you'd like the readers of 1340mag.com to know about you or your work?

Grey: On my web site I have a pretty innovative way for people for to learn traditional Irish music call the Irish Tune Bank. That's something I'm hoping that people who are interested in playing Irish music will discover. It's a way to learn tunes with some personal guidance from me without being the same physical locality. Some people from Sweden, Germany, South Africa, England, Australia have used that resource. It's pretty exciting.

I'm going to be doing a recording with a French Canadian singer and guitarist AndríŸarchand with whom I recorded The Orange Tree. AndrîRnd I are currently working on a new project that should be out this summer, a sequel to The Orange Tree. I'm very excited about that collaboration. I just spent some time up in Quebec in the recording studio and will be doing some more in the spring. It should be out in July.

Anyone who wants to keep up with what I'm doing can join my email list.