The Musical Priest

Just about a year ago, I posted on s ome of the amazing things people sent me via YouTube . Well, over the course of the past eleven months, I've accumulated a few more doozies. Here are five more priceless gems. Believe me, I couldn't make these things up: Dear Father Ryan: I was wondering if your music is effective for exorcisms because you are a priest. Please let me know because I think the devil is inside me and I want him out. Hey, have you ever thought of becoming a Catholic? You'd make a nice priest if you weren't Jesuit. I couldn't tell if this was (1) because he doesn't know that Jesuits are Catholic or (2) because he denies that Jesuits are Catholic. U R the pyed piper of Satan who will lead many str8 2 hell with ur music. Repent and come 2 know Jesus Christ ur personal Lord and Savior. Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him...

Please excuse its length, but I can't find a link to the latest Inside Fordham which is carrying a column I wrote. Several weeks ago I was invited to contribute to the Sapientia et Doctrina section and I put this piece together. Passing on the Tradition When I was a little boy, I learned early that the best answer to the question, “Ryan, what do you want to be when you grow up?” was the enthusiastic reply, “A PRIEST!” Such a response earned me a pat on the head, a beaming glance and a couple of quarters from my grandfather. Secretly, however, I harbored another desire: I wanted to be a professional Irish musician. Fast-forward about 20 years. I am now a Jesuit studying for the priesthood at Fordham. I continue to travel the world playing accordion for Irish dancing competitions known as feiseanna. I even teach a course titled “Introduction to the Irish Tin Whistle” in Fordham’s Irish Studies program. It seems that the innocent response of an eager-to-please little boy turned out to...

I just wanted to take a moment to plug the new website for Brian Holleran's (my soon-to-be brother-in-law) music school Ciunas.org Located in Cleveland, Ohio this music school promises to be a great asset to Irish culture in the area. With instruction available on tin whistle, flute, and uilleann pipes and, starting in 2008, on the fiddle, banjo, and concertina this school of traditional Irish music will help to promote Irish music and culture in Cleveland. If you are interested in learning more, follow the link above or visit the Ciunas myspace page . As any reader of my blog knows, Irish music has been an integral part of my life's journey and I'm proud to know that a member of my family will be sharing his deep love of his culture with another generation of musicians who will, I pray, benefit as much as I have in being a part of traditional Irish music.

Before I head out for the week (workshop in Detroit) I want to plug a new Irish music school opening in Cleveland. Brian Holleran, a native of New Jersey (and my sister's fiancee) will be offering classes on Flute, Tin Whistle, and Uilleann Pipes here in Cleveland. Brian is a terrific musician and a gifted teacher. For more information, contact Brian at: brianholleran000 AT hotmail.com (substitute @ for AT).

Okay, so I've had a lot to think about tonight. As you may know, I posted earlier (a post I have since removed) that I had received several anonymous messages that completely misconstrued and misunderstood my post. Consequently, I disabled the "comment" features for fear of further escalation. As I thought about it, however, I just don't see such a move as helping things. People are entitled to have an opinion and I do welcome them to voice it. I just don't like anonymous posts - I reckon that I'm pretty much out in the open and that my interlocutor ought to be as well. As I said earlier, my friend Jane and I had lunch today to celebrate Valentine's Day. I had French toast and she had a grilled cheese and we drank coffee and spoke of Heidegger and Wittgenstein and Augustine. That's about as much fun as two celibate twenty-somethings get to have on an ersatz holiday intended to sell lots of candies, lingerie, and expensive jewelry. In other news, stay t...

Because I have nowhere else to put it, I'm posting this week's tune on my blog. "The Star of the County Down" is a commonly heard piece and, while not terrifically difficult, it does provide a good template on which to practice several important tin whistle movements. As I noted on the FaceBook page for the Fordham students, this is an imperfect rendering of the tune. The first "A" could well be a "G" and, on the video, I think I play both. Nevertheless, it's still a decent skeletal structure to work with.

Thanks to the labors of Drew Marquard, SJ I believe this video to be of a MUCH higher quality that the first video. I post it here more because I'd love to solicit feeback from people as to what I might do to improve on it. Note: I just couldn't resist putting at least a little reference to St. Ignatius in the video!

I can be candid in saying that this is one of the coolest tin whistle tricks I've seen. I mean, I'm lucky to be able to play with my own hands, but to switch hands? This is Michael and Brian, my two music students. Shot by Drew Marquard, SJ at the Duns Family St. Stephen's Day Extravaganza, this video is a quick testament to their talent. I uploaded another video to YouTube that shows us playing another jig together but, as this is by far the cooler of the two, I thought I'd post it here.

It's an odd phenomenon the Duns family faces: what to do with two Irish musicians in the house? Well, Brian Halloran and I are soon to be family: Brian is my sisters fiancee. Just before Christmas we recorded this little video (more out of silliness than anything else)!

I'm only going to post this first video on here (the rest will be stored on the YouTube group I've dedicated to the whistle) just to show the shape of the course I'm going to teach. I'm very excited about using the internet to teach Irish music and I think that this will open up a host of opportunities both for musical education and for evangelization (why should the two be separate?).

Yeah, I'm pretty much that guy: I finished my papers and, since I feel pretty confident for the one final I have on Monday, I've decided to spend the next few days concerned with leisurely pursuits. So today I had a leisurely breakfast, read for a spell, then I went to the Metropolitan Museum where I saw "Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 192 o's " and "Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall - An Artist's Country Estate". I also learned a new word that I would like to share: Demimonde - a noun describing the class of women considered to be of doubtful morality and social upstanding. I encountered the word as associated with the "Glitter and Doom" exhibit (it was used, I think, three times) and as a lover of fun words, I wrote it down and looked it up in the dictionary. I don't know how I'd ever incorporate that into my quotidian lexicon (Read: day-to-day speech) but I thought it a fun sounding word nonetheless. Followi...