’Tis the Company

Abstract

This chapter presents a series of vignettes concerning contemporary uilleann piping, the social nature of tune transmission, the persistence of personal style, and tradition as conversation. It starts from the premise that Irish traditional music offers the possibility of enacting the value of neighbourliness through musical and social grooves, and considers how this plays out in a world of electronic devices, externalized memory, virtual communities, and commodified sound. How do players of Irish traditional music create sustainable local community in the digital age? How does conversation survive being stuffed down a wire?