| Irish Music on the Mandolin |
Irish Music on the Mandolin
Marla talks about the role of the mandolin in Irish music, its evolution as a traditional Irish instrument, and her own approach to playing Irish music on the mandolin. Mandolin is a relatively new instrument in Irish music, appearing during the 1960s folk revival and played by great musicians like Mick Moloney and Andy Irvine, with bands like Planxty and the Johnstons, and it has grown since then. Irish dance music has primarily developed on instruments that produce a sustained tone, such as the fiddle, Uilleann pipes, flute, etc., as opposed to instruments like the mandolin with more of an “attack and decay” approach to creating sound. Marla explains that, as plectrum players, mandolinists face a unique challenge to figure out how to get the same feel as instruments that produce a sustained tone. And she talks about creating a different rhythmic feel with the picking hand for each kind of dance rhythm, and the importance of listening to a lot of music to understand the feel of the music.
