Ríona Sally Hartman
  • Home
  • Listen
    • LISTEN
    • Videos >
      • An Seisiún with Kíla and Aindrias de Staic
      • Show Me
      • BAN BAM live on Arena
      • The Selfish Sister - in a parked car
      • Show Me live in my garden
      • Song For The Dead, Song For The Living
      • Seed
      • Big Starving Thing vlogs
      • Interview & Daisies TG4
      • Big Starving Thing in Bewleys
      • Frida Kahlo's Delight
      • "Oh Rapunzel!"
      • Seasnail on Balcony TV
      • Seasnail Slideshow Vid
    • Lyrics >
      • Frida Kahlo's Delight
      • Big Starving Thing
      • HandHolding
      • Same But Better
      • Show Me
      • Screamer
      • Daisies
      • Broken Woman
      • Seasnail
      • Made of Moon
      • Kamikaze
      • "Oh Rapunzel!"
      • Song for the Dead, Song for the Living
    • Galleries >
      • Poster Gallery
      • Live Gallery
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Projects
  • Press
    • Press Pack
    • FAQ
  • Contact

West Pier Song Cycle Update - FÓD

12/5/2016

1 Comment

 

FÓD

I had been saying for a while that I would come up with a better name for The West Pier Song Cycle and at last I have!
You might know from my previous blog posts (or if you follow me on twitter, Facebook, instagram…etc.) that I’m currently composing two song cycles; The West pier Song Cycle and The Telepathic Two Song Cycle. The west pier one accompanies a walk along the west pier in Dun Laoghaire (well I’d call it Monkstown but I think on google maps they call it Dun Laoghaire and who am I to argue with our google overlord!) and the Telepathic Two one follows the story of the telepathic mother and son taking a trip on the DART. Well I’ve decided to name the project FÓD.
Picture
FÓD is an Irish word that means sod, layer of soil or a strip of grass along a road. Depending on it's context it can mean a place or a spot of land. I had a few reasons for choosing the name not least amongst them it’s a really satisfying sounding word! Everyone has words they love and words they irrationally hate. My favourites are ‘bloom’ and ‘béim’*.

There’s an old Irish tradition of taking a lit sod of turf, ‘fód móna’, from the hearth of your family home when you leave to light the fire in your new home. Obviously this tradition made much more sense in small rural villages where your family home would be a literal stone's throw from your new home! There's a few lovely Irish traditions to do with home building like the one where you'd invite all your neighbours over to dance in your new home to stamp down the earth to create a solid rammed earth floor. 
 
I visited a lovely little museum in Donegal called Gelncolmcille Folk Village and the tour guide was a young guy who happened to be heading to Dublin to start studying songwriting in BIMM the following month, anyway he had great anecdotes about traditional home building in Ireland. I'm pretty sure the tourists visiting from abroad couldn't understand a word of his accent but I enjoyed it. 
So to me the word fód is this beautiful symbol of leaving home, the road to your new home, new beginnings...it ties together so much of what I want this music to say. 

On a side note I think this tradition might be where the idea for those awful tacky souvenirs that they used to sell in the airport come from. You know the ones of tiny ceramic cottages with tiny pieces of turf in them. They definitely weren’t made in Ireland and that ‘turf’ never came from anyone’s family home! My FÓD will hopefully be a more genuine and heartfelt interpretation of the tradition!



Picture
*that second one is an Irish word pronounced bame. To put béím on something means to to emphasise it which just sounds exactly like what it means!
1 Comment
Bucketlist Becky link
29/11/2020 07:02:07 pm

Thanks for the poost

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Ríona Sally Hartman

    A blog about all sorts of things like music, books, storytelling and paper art. From time to time I'll interview a fellow musician or review a gig. 

    Archives

    July 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    January 2014
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Artist
    BAN BAM
    Betty Carter
    Big Starving Thing
    Bookclub
    Bookmaking
    Cécil McLorin
    Collabs
    Driving Me Crazy
    Emily Portman
    FÓD
    Gig Reviews
    Heroes
    Improvised Music Company
    Instagram
    Japan
    Jazz
    Jeanne Lee
    Kate And Anna McGarrigle
    Let's Chat
    Lisbon
    Lydia Davis
    Microstories
    New Music
    Nina Simone
    Paper
    Photo Diary
    Playlist
    Pop
    Punk
    Radio
    Sculture
    Short Stories
    Show Me
    Something Old Something New
    Storytelling
    Telepathy
    The Telepathic Two Song Cycle
    Tillery
    Umiuma
    Venn Diagram
    Vocal Harmonies
    West Pier Song Cycle
    West Side Story
    What's With The Lyrics!
    Yo Teach!

    RSS Feed


    FIND ME HERE! INSTAGRAM

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.