Thursday 4 June 2020

Visiting Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies...


1.
Visiting Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies...
Colleagues who know the Irish Diaspora Studies parts of my life will know that I am not a career academic - I am a freelance writer and researcher.  But my kind of writer needs to maintain friendly and supportive relations with academia.  And I do.

Many thanks to those who have noticed that I have taken on a new role, as Visiting Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies, London Metropolitan University...

And have sent me good wishes...

I had hoped that, by now, we would be looking back at my first lecture as Visiting Professor - it would very likely have been a Digital Humanities approach to a critical historiography of the Irish Emigrant Letter, something fairly straightforward.  And I would, maybe, have my first seminar groups in place.  But, as we all know, the virus crisis intervened.

I am now in lockdown in my home in Yorkshire.  Words like 'visiting' and 'gathering' have, for the time being, dropped out of use.

Some background, below...

2.
A fond farewell to the Glucksman Ireland House, New York University...
As you know, I have in recent years had a long distance scholarly relationship with the Glucksman Ireland House, New York University.  Long distance but rather lovely.

In a report to Ireland House I said...

'It is not that I do not love you
But your house is so far away...'

(Confucius, Analects IX 30 - Arthur Waley's translation)

For a number of reasons - and health has been one reason - I have, in recent years not been as active as I would have liked, or as active as I should have been, in Irish Diaspora projects and within academia in these islands.  But I have made efforts.  Thus, I attended two major conferences in Ireland, the Global Irish Diaspora Congress, Dublin, August 2017, and the American Conference for Irish Studies, ACIS, Cork, June, 2018.  At both conferences I was able to confer with my NYU colleagues and other old friends.  And I attended a celebration of the career of Joe Lee at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, in April 2019.  A fascinating socio-cultural experience - Dublin does these things well.

3.
A warm embrace from London Metropolitan University...
Towards the  end of last year, 2019, conversations took place with London Metropolitan University - and I became their Visiting Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies.  I am grateful to London Metropolitan University for this interest and support - I especially thank Don MacRaild, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, and Lynn Dobbs, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of London Metropolitan University.   London Metropolitan University is the kind of university I believe in.  When the news was announced we received a lovely message of encouragement from President Higgins, and Áras an Uachtaráin - in fact, we had to ask him to tone it down a bit.  Too ebullient.

And so to London, the city where I last worked, many decades ago, as a young community worker, probation officer, and social worker, specialising in drug misuse.  I have long had a friendly relationship with London Metropolitan University, staff and students, past and present.  I have often visited the Archives of the Irish in Britain, London Metropolitan University - recently to discuss the final destination of my own archives, and my large research library.  In the longer term there might be synergy between the Archives of the Irish in Britain, at London Metropolitan University, and the Archives of Irish America, at New York University.

In the first months of this year, 2020, I had several meetings in London, rebuilding networks and rebuilding friendships, beginning to put structures and funding in place.  Looking at matters Irish in London and in England, within academia and outside.  Looking at ways to be useful.  I can see the problems, I can see solutions.  But, again, obviously the virus crisis intervened - at the time of writing, May 2020, structures and funding are not in place.

4.
Visit, Gather, Hug...
How we will go from here is not clear.  But we are all saying that. 

I have reached an age, and a stage, where I have to be careful about health and energy levels.  And we should all be saying that.  I will add that the easiest way for me to safeguard my health is to severely ration the amount of time I spend sitting at a computer.

As you will have gathered I was going to approach the new role in London, within London Metropolitan University, quite humbly, cautiously - it is a new role for me, and I wanted to be useful.  However my approach to key issues within Irish Diaspora Studies is...  I will not say, speculative - I will say, meditative.  And I would have liked, for example, to bring together a seminar group, to explore the issues, in a meditative sort of way.

I remain sure that our approach remains useful in the world - interdisciplinary, world-wide, comparative.  And is even more useful in a world that needs a better understanding of the ways in which evidence is constructed and policy developed.  I was looking forward to developing a guest speaker programme - indeed had already reached out to friends.  Visit the Visiting Professor. 

I am a fan of a certain rough and tumble approach to comparative Diaspora Studies - it is welcoming, it makes sense, especially in London - and already lining up were colleagues who study the Cabo Verde diaspora and the Armenian diaspora.

As I say, I was going to start cautiously, with a sensible lecture on the Irish Emigrant Letter.  But maybe I am being too sensible.  Could I go on, wildly, to give an entire week to our Holyhead Project?  And an entire term to our Doneraile Project?  Why not?

So, in lockdown in my home in Yorkshire, I am still writing my notes, tidying my bibliographies, mapping the research, collecting my thoughts.  Writing new songs, of course.  Visit, gather, hug.  We will.

Patrick O'Sullivan

May 30 2020

Visiting Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies, London Metropolitan University
Patrick O'Sullivan's Whole Life Blog http://www.fiddlersdog.com/
Personal Fax 0044 (0) 709 236 9050



Tuesday 18 February 2020

Hladowski sings O'Sullivan


My collaboration with Yorkshire folk singer Stephanie Hladowski is now becoming more visible...

Last year we started to put a structure in place.  Because...  I am not going to find a better interpreter of my work...

And now...

3 tracks have been released, and you can now see the shape of this project coming together...

Stephanie Hladowski
Spotify

Stephanie Hladowski
Apple Music and iTunes

Stephanie Hladowski
CdBaby

And so on...  Visible on a total of 38 music outlets - wherever and however you listen to music, or download music, it will be there....

Stephanie Hladowski's Polish heritage is acknowledged by our choice of typeface for the covers.

The distinctive cover designs are by Andrew Milne...

The typeface is by Brendan Ciecko - it is called Secesja, and is based on Young Poland/Art Nouveau styles of the early twentieth century.

The easiest way to get a feel for the sound and the look is to go to the 3 tracks visible on YouTube...

Papa Joachim Paris
One of my song translations...

The Crumble Song
One of my wedding songs...

Safe Harbour
One of my extended metaphors...

More will follow...

Patrick O'Sullivan
February 2020

Thursday 13 February 2020

Funding Applications: O'Sullivan's Rules


I find myself, once again, mentioning these rules, in negotiations and in informal conversations.  And find I am getting quoted, but never cited...

People ask me if I have in mind the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.  Not really - for one thing there are 285 Rules of Acquisition.  I make do with 3.

I quite like the First Rule of Acquisition - but I have broken it...

O'Sullivan's Rules belong in a different universe...

So, here they are...

Funding Applications:  O'Sullivan's 3 Rules

1.
You should apply for money to do only things that you really want to do...

The other 2 rules have to do with proportionality...

2.
There must be some sort of proportionality between the amount of work needed to get hold of the money and the amount of money achieved...

3.
There must be some sort of proportionality between the amount of money achieved and the amount of management work the money requires thereafter...

The interesting thing about these 3 rules is that they are broken all the time.

And I will leave you to reflect on the times you have broken O'Sullivan's Rules - and why you broke them...

Patrick O'Sullivan


Thursday 29 August 2019

Notes towards a performance of Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road

...this could be turned into a properly referenced research article, whose title might be...

'Towards a performance of Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road'...

But here we are...

Notes towards a performance of Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road

Practical people, like lyricists, musicians and singers, are reluctant to concede that there is such an entity as the 'folk' as envisaged by a variety of theorists - but we do acknowledge that there is a folk process, by which lyric and melody become common property.  This is a process of forgetting, half remembering, simplifying and reconstructing - perhaps best described by the Opies, in their study of Nursery Rhymes.

The story of how Patrick Kavanagh came to write a new lyric to a familiar melody, and how that song became part of the repertoire of the Dubliners, has entered the folk process - and typically of our world and its web, various versions of that story float around.  The history of the melody and the earlier lyric, Dawning of the Day, Fainne Geal an Lae, and that lyric's place in Irish traditions, can be established - for example, the song was recorded by John McCormack.  

Kavanagh's lyric is therefore what the musicologists call a contrafactum.   And his lyric is technically interesting, in its use of rhythm and rhyme to point the structure of the melody - in a way that the earlier lyric did not - and in its placing of itself in a relationship with that older lyric's vision poem tradition.

For a performer, the phrasing of Kavanagh's lyric can be difficult.  It is noteworthy that, in his version, Luke Kelly, of The Dubliners, at some points simply abandons Kavanagh's structured phrasing.  And it tends to be Luke Kelly's version that enters the folk process - unless performers make a conscious decision to return to the published version of Kavanagh's lyric, as established by Antoinette Quinn.  However, the web now allows us to track further changes, in text and in performance - and in some cases it can be argued that, for performance decisions, these half-remembered lines are better than the lines enshrined by Quinn.

Since the death of Luke Kelly the performance of the song by The Dubliners has acquired a reverential, hymn-like quality.  Two recent outings of the song, by Tradfest and in the Martin McDonagh movie, In Bruges, have located the song in a church.  This hymn-like approach, arguably, ignores the story behind the lyric, the story within the lyric, and the detail of Kavanagh's text - which is, after all, a song about a middle aged man falling for a beautiful young woman, a tale that we might today regard as a bit creepy.  

But which is, of course, a major theme in world literature.  In is a theme that scholars of literature find themselves having to defend, and transcend - as Ted Gioia does in his study of Love Songs.

So, as a performer approaches this song, there is much to consider...  In 2019, as a birthday present to myself, I spent some time in the recording studio, with guitarist Danny Yates, working on Kavanagh's song.  I now offer - not a performance of the song - but further Notes towards a performance...

The recording can be found here, on my Soundcloud...

I acknowledge the friendly support of Bent Sørensen, Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University...
Sørensen, Bent. 2014. “True Gods of Sound and Stone - The Many Crossings of Patrick Kavanagh’s On Raglan Road.” In The Crossings of Art in Ireland, edited by Ruben Moi, Brynhildur Boyce, and Charles Armstrong, 65–79. Bern: Peter Lang.

...and of Danny Yates, City Sound Studios...

Bent Sørensen commented on 'the complete avoidance of melisma...' in my performance.  I had to look it up.  Think, Whitney Houston and the 6 second first 'I' of I Will Always Love You...


Bent Sørensen is making an interesting point about Patrick Kavanagh, the lyricist.  And I Will Always...  sing like a writer...

Saturday 2 March 2019

Give us a song...


Give us a song...

When people learn that I write song lyrics, specifically people from certain specific cultural backgrounds, there is a tendency to say, at maybe specific times of the evening, Give us a song...

Whilst there are no theological objections to this, you do need to know...

I am a good lyricist.  I am a not a good singer.  I am a terrible musician.

It is true that I have attended singing lessons, for some years now - but that has mostly been about acquiring knowledge rather than acquiring skill.

The singing lessons are certainly good for my health, and my complex respiratory problems.

But mostly I use the lessons to explore song and lyric - my own work, of course.  But also, when I want to understand a Dowland song, I study and sing a Dowland song.  Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the same.  When I want to understand Brecht, I study and sing a Brecht/Weill song - and usually I have to tidy up the English language version of the Brecht lyric.

And, also, of course, I am learning how to talk to and listen to musicians.  And better understand their needs.

In turn, if you are asking me to Give us a song, you must understand my needs.

First of all, with my delicate nature, I need a properly structured warm up.  You cannot expect me to just launch into song, like a wild bird.

Then I will need some sort of instrumental intro - this vastly increases the chances of me starting on the right note.

But I will also need some sort of counting-in guy - I might start on the right note, but will I start on the right beat?

Musicians - I do need musicians, someone or something to keep me on track, something to help me with the melody...  I do tend to drift off, and dangerously find comfort in some generalised folkloric drone.

Ideally there should be a backing singer or maybe more than one backing singer, one for harmony, one for melody.  My friend Stephanie Hladowski is very good at this.  She finds a harmony or some sort of structure to whatever I happen to be singing, and almost makes it sound as if I know what am I doing.

Remember, musicians, that if you take some sort of instrumental break - whilst the singers stand around looking appreciative - I am going to need the counting-in guy again.  Do not let the counting-in guy think his job is done.  If it was hard to start on the right beat at the beginning, it is even more difficult to hit that beat in the welter of noise.

Now, all this musicians will understand, but be puzzled by - for are all these things not second nature?  No, dears, they are not second nature to me - I had to learn.

So, I am not saying that I will never Give us a song.  But you do need to know that when you ask me to Give us a song you are asking for something complex, difficult, needing forethought and planning.

Also, I am very shy.

Wednesday 20 February 2019

Lyricist


People who know my work will recall that I am a writer and researcher, based in Yorkshire, England.  My current academic affiliation is with New York University – I am Visiting Scholar at the Glucksman Ireland House, NYU.

My work is visible in a number of places, on the web and in the research literature – as is my CV.

Not that visible in the standard CVs is my work, over the years, as a working lyricist. 

Most relevant here is this version of my CV on the British Music Collection web site…

A song lyric selection is visible, in book form, on Amazon, and in many other places…
Love Death and Whiskey - 40 songs, by Patrick O'Sullivan
Read the Introduction to that book, for some first thoughts at that time...


This is one of my song translations on Soundcloud - this is an English language version of the much loved Cabo Verde song, almost a second Cabo Verde national anthem, Papa Joachim Paris…

Blog entry about that here...

And this, on YouTube, is a lyric I wrote for a much loved melody, Jill's Theme by Ennio Morricone, from the Sergio Leone move, Once Upon a  Time in the West…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt29GzVKGRU

Blog entry here...

I have been able to give more time and thought to the song lyric part of my output, and to the lyricist part of me, over the past decade, since the publication of Love Death and Whiskey - and have gathered a little team of musicians and singers, just to make sure that I have resources to illustrate the material.  As we say in the industry, make a demo...

And I have gathered research material, to place my own practice within the research record - specifically, I am developing research projects on traditional verse forms, especially the use of rhyme.  And on song translation.

Patrick O'Sullivan
February 2019

Monday 26 November 2018

The Train (Jill's Theme)


The Train (Jill's Theme)

A lyric response to Ennio Morricone's melody...

If we are to embrace cinema as an art, well, that means that we must wrestle with westerns...

My own view is that a critique of western movies starts with the western as a 'version of pastoral...'  But that is by the by...

My generation watched SO many westerns, as we grew up.  I have seen so many westerns and I have seen some westerns so many times that often I can recognise the horses.

Of course we were intrigued as we watched the Italian film maker Sergio Leone wrestle with the western.  We can leave, for elsewhere, comment on the 'spaghetti western', the critics' readiness to sneer and the simple cineaste's willingness to marvel.

We immediately knew, in 1968, that Sergio Leone's Once Upon A time in the West was an outsider's meditation on the western.  We spotted the citations.

And we still remember that moment when that crane shot introduced Jill's Theme.

And we realised that we were also exploring the power of melody...

So, some 50 years of meditation later, I have put my lyric for Ennio Morricone's melody on my Soundcloud, and I have put a version of my vision on Youtube...

Youtube

Soundcloud

Before I start work on a lyric for a pre-existing melody I need to do a lot of thinking - thinking and, let us call it, research.

I need to be convinced that I can bring something to this, that there is something for me to do and say.

Even if the work is a song translation - like my version of Papa Joachim Paris - I still need to be convinced that the new entity in the English language is good, that we have brought something worthwhile into the world.

So...  Let us call it research...

1.
I remember asking Heather Farrell-Roberts, our autoharp star, some time ago, if Morricone, Jill's Theme, might be autoharp friendly.

The chords are simple, but the range is great.

There is some musicology, giving the chords, I-IV-V-I here...


Ennio Morricone’s Score for Once Upon a Time in the West (Part 1 of 3): Jill’s Theme (Main Theme) by Mark Richards
  
In the movie Jill's Theme is one of the leitmotifs.  Unusually for film music, Morricone's music for THIS movie was written before the film was made...

So, the melody is used in the movie in a rather scrappy way - the leitmotif floats in and out.

When we were working on my lyric for the melody Stephanie Hladowski and I had to find a song structure.

2.
It has become a bravura piece for sopranos in posh frocks...

Patricia Janeckova - Once Upon A Time In The West (Miss Reneta 2012)

Don't you feel sorry for all the other pretty ladies in posh frocks - who have to stand around looking interested?

Steffi Vertriest

This version is really worth looking at - simple piano and voice.  The structure is odd.  But there is a structure.
(The Chords are in Chordify...)

Susanna Rigacci - Once Upon a Time in The West Ennio Morricone 2002 Arena Concert 1

André Vásáry - male

etc....

3.
The melody is so attractive - there have been attempts to write words to the melody...
Two examples on same Youtube video
Mireille Mathieu and Dulce Pontes ...

Once Upon A Time In The West
Mireille Mathieu Starts at 1.44
Dulce Pontes starts at 6.05

Text Mireille Mathieu at

In French

Text Dulce Pontes at

Andrea Bocelli Your Love (Once Upon a Time in The West)

Standard love songs that do not engage with the narrative of the movie, and the melody as it appears in the movie.

But they do show how a text might be structured.

4.
My words engage with the film's narrative.  It is a response to what we hear, and what we see on screen. 

It is very existentialist.

Of course.

I did ask Danny Yates for some electric guitar at the beginning of our recording, to reference that distinctive Morricone guitar sound from A Fistful Of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More...

I have emailed Ennio Morricone's office saying:  'It might interest the Maestro that the emotion I hear when I listen to the melody is, above all else, compassion...'

Patrick O'Sullivan
November 2018