root salad Cormac Begley
The remarkable Irish concertina player explains to Tim Chipping why he has eleven of them
ormac Begley sits on stage, sur- rounded by concertinas of every size and musical range, and in a hushed, warm, West Kerry accent explains to the audience how the squeeze- box evolved. He does this while pulling apart the ingeniously designed hexagonal sleeve of his debut solo album to reveal the inner workings of the instrument. Because the way Cormac plays traditional Irish music is about what happens on the inside.
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Every bellows gasp, each squeak and click is integral to his performance. The unearthly wheezes he pushes and pulls from the concertina in the accompaniment to Lisa O’Neill’s Along The North Strand led BBC Radio presenter Verity Sharp to wonder aloud if he had a hole in it.
“I don’t think any of this stuff I’m doing
is that different,” Cormac tells me about the remarkably different stuff he does. “Like, if I’m emphasising certain bits with the breath of the instrument, other people do that with a bow stroke. The clack of the buttons could be just like when people knock on the body of a guitar.”
Cormac has thought a lot about the music he plays. He thinks a lot about a lot of things (he’s a research psychologist.) But would it be fair to say he’s obsessed with concertinas?
“I have eleven. I lived in a campervan in college doing a PhD, no funding, no money, so I spent three or four years buying and selling concertinas and any profit I’d make I’d buy a better instrument. And I’d learn about it, where it came from, what it evolved from, the mechanics… What would improve it, what made good playability, what could ultimately let you explore differ- ent sounds and express yourself to the maxi- mum capacity. So I am to some degree very interested in them.”
Cormac’s father is the celebrated accordeon and melodeon player Brendan Begley, which means his uncle is the singer and accordeonist Seamus Begley. Does there come a time in every Begley child’s life where you have to choose your instrument?
“Well, there was always instruments around. When I was eleven I wanted a flute, and I wanted the flute because I liked the case; just the aesthetic, the way that it opened up and everything fitted nicely. No interest in the instrument, but I got a flute and didn’t really play it. My brother and I went to fiddle lessons when we were small. We only went to two lessons because the second time my brother farted in the class and we couldn’t stop laughing and the fid- dle teacher didn’t want us back.”
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“For years we didn’t play. I was maybe sixteen when I took up the concertina. I liked the shape of it. I had a cousin, Aogán Lynch, who inspired me, and a great con- certina player named Mary MacNamara was one of my main inspirations; I loved her music.”
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as it one of those instances where you found you had a natural affinity with the instrument or are we hearing
the result of years of study and practice? “I went to a few workshops starting
off, and felt completely out of my depth. And for years I felt very insecure about play- ing because I wasn’t confident; I wasn’t very good. And there was probably an expecta- tion as well because both sides of my family play and sometimes pubs would go quiet and be like, ‘Oh, Brendan Begley’s son’s gonna play a tune.’ And I’d be like, ‘Fuck that!’ There are positives and negatives about being a Begley. That’s a definite neg- ative; an expectation that there’s a natural ability. I’ve crumbled more times than you can imagine.”
“I’m more interested in what I call the macro things: rhythm, tempo, feel. The last thing for me to learn was the technical side – like cuts, rolls and crans. Ornamentation is the icing on the cake. So I spent years and years playing, practising. I listened to the East Clare musicians like Paddy Canny, Mar- tin Hayes, Kitty Hayes, and people from West Kerry. It’s like I could feel what they were feeling. Studying the old musicians and the sounds, rhythms and nuances, and how it’s been done for a hundred years… If I didn’t know any of this stuff, and I just start- ed going with my instincts I could be copy- ing something that somebody did 30 years ago. You’re not really contributing if you don’t know what’s gone before you.”
“It’s important that you learn from other people and maybe you copy what other people do. But there comes a point where you have to step outside of that and find your own voice; to be yourself and to express yourself. When I’m playing I try to connect to how I’m feeling as hon- estly as I can.”
cormacbegley.com F
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