THE HEALTH of traditional music in both Ireland and Britain is increasingly coming under threat because of modern technology, coupled with changes in the demography of communities.
Despite a wider range than ever in ways of accessing music, diversity in the range of music available is decreasing.
Professor Sue Hallam and Dr Andrea Creech of the Institute of Education, University of London radio stations, believe that TV channels and websites that offer teenagers nothing but pop, rock, hip hop and rap could eventually help to kill folk music.
A wider range of music used to be played by radio stations, say the two educationalists. However, over the past 20 years there has been a marked increase in the number of radio stations and TV channels that target young listeners using very restricted playlists.
Professor Hallam and Dr Creech predict in a book just published that, ironically, playlists aimed at the young have become less varied at a time when the likes of the iPod make it possible to listen to a wider range of music.
“In practice this doesn’t always happen, of course, because young people, unless they are introduced to a range of different musical traditions early, when they are still open-eared, can refuse to engage with any music other than their preferred genre,” they say.
There are no easy solutions, partly because folk music has been affected by huge demographic changes here and in Ireland.
In Britain, traditional music — including brass bands — have been detrimentally affected by the decline of mining and community industries.
Professor Hallam and Dr Creech acknowledge that instruments do not go out of fashion as quickly as styles of music do. “Cave paintings from 33,000 BC show flutes being played.
But that is no reason to be complacent,” they say. “The impact of technology on music education has been profound, with some instruments becoming ‘endangered’ in schools while requests to play others, such as the electric guitar, electronic keyboards and kit drums, have increased dramatically.
“Music has the potential to develop a wide range of transferable skills including those which are particularly desired by employers — for instance, teamwork, leadership, independent working and creativity,” the Institute of Education researchers say.
“Despite this, music is still perceived by many people as lacking in relevance for future employment. The music community needs to challenge that notion very vigorously.”
Within the Irish community, a similar story has developed. Irish traditional music was greatly invigorated by the Diaspora, both in Britain and America.
It is widely accepted that the recording of Irish music in the early 1900s in America helped save the entire genre.
A few decades later the traditional ‘session’ was developed in Britain in an attempt to remind the emigrant community of home.
The evolution of ‘the session’ is a complex subject, as the doctoral thesis of Englishman Reg Hall, a regular performer at the now defunct Favourite in Holloway Road, explains.
He point out that the pub session is considerably less than 100 years old, and almost certainly a product of London immigrant life — it was a spontaneous response to alienation in a strange country.
“Historically, people might have played in each other’s houses, particularly in the west of Ireland — but never in pubs,” said Hall.
“However in the ’40s, when there was an influx of immigrants to Britain, these people lived in hostels, B&Bs and so on. So they took their music to the pubs. The culture of the west of Ireland was transplanted into English pubs.”
The first known pub to feature traditional Irish music in London opened for business in 1946; by 1950 there were half-a-dozen — and the pub session was on its way.
The conditions for the Irish in Britain community has completely changed over the last few decades, but the implications for the future of Irish music are not altogether clear. What our young people will be playing, whether Irish or British, for the rest of this century remains to be seen.
What we do know is that Irish music has always proved itself to be resilient, and is likely to be with us for a long time to come.
■Music Education In The 21st Century In The United Kingdom: Achievements, Analysis And Aspirations, edited by Sue Hallam and Andrea Creech, was published by the Institute of Education on Thursday, July 15.
■Reg Hall’s doctorate on Irish music, A Socio-economic History Of Music And Dance In London (1890-1970), can be read in the Cecil Sharp House Library in Camden Town, London NW1.