Guest: Colman Connolly
Estimated reading time: 18 minutes
Robin Lee: Welcome to the very first episode of Honors Spotlight, the podcast where we dive deep into the stories, passions, and projects of the remarkable individuals from the Honors College at MTSU. I’m your host Robin Lee, and I couldn’t be more excited to launch our series with a guest whose work blends tradition, technology, and personal heritage in a truly groundbreaking way. Today, we’re joined by Colman Connolly, an honors student, award-winning pianist, and lifelong devotee of traditional Irish music. Colman’s thesis project is more than an academic pursuit. It’s a deeply personal mission to preserve and revitalize the legacy of Michael Coleman, the renowned Irish fiddler, whose early 20th-century recordings defined a genre but were limited by the technology of the time. Through advanced AI audio techniques and his own artistic vision, Colman Connolly has re-imagined Michael Coleman’s iconic tracks, bringing new clarity and cultural depth to modern listeners. Grab your headphones and maybe a cup of tea, and join us for a conversation that spans continents, centuries, and the timeless power of music. Let’s start at the beginning. How did your upbringing in an Irish American musical family shape your relationship with traditional Irish music?
Colman Connolly: Well, it was basically everything. I don’t even think I would have been exposed to Irish music if not for my family. There was always Irish music playing around the house. My dad had a big collection, and my mom had vinyl, CDs, and cassettes. That was always playing, whether it’d be on our stereo in the living room or in the car. Whenever we went on a road trip, my dad played Irish music. My dad was also a recording artist, and he would be recording or mixing an album and would always be listening to the new mix, so I was constantly inundated with that music. For better or for worse, I always joke. But some of the most common artists would be the Puffy Band, De Dannan, which was an Irish group that was very popular in the ’70s. Frankie Gavin is the fiddler for De Dannan and is basically my dad’s favorite fiddle player. I am very familiar with that, and playing games with my family, which a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to do. I would be playing piano accompaniment. My mom would be on the flute, my dad would be on either the accordion or the fiddle, and we would play at local Irish spots, whether it was a pub or a Gaelic American club close to where I grew up. We had some regular gigs there on Sundays, and sometimes we would have traditional Irish Gaelic dances, which is a lot like line dancing. It would have influenced American country line dancing. I don’t know, I was always surrounded by the culture.
Was there a special resonance with your name, Colman, and how did that early association with Michael Coleman affect your musicalidentity?
Colman Connolly: Well, I think so. I joked about it in the introductory paragraph of my thesis a little, but I don’t think my dad, even though he was afiddle player, I don’t think he named me after Michael Coleman. My dad was a religion teacher, and he named me after some Irish St. Colman, something. But whenever I introduced myself as Colman, it was always assumed I was named after Michael Coleman, and when I was very little, I didn’t even know who that was. I was almost offended a little; I’m not Michael Coleman. But I think my father was obsessed with Michael Coleman when he was growing up. He told me stories of before we have the technology today where we can isolate the fiddle, he would slow down the cassettes so that it sounded like a funeral dirge, pretty much, and he was trying to discern whether he was playing with an upbow or a downbow, at any given timebased on how it sounded when it was slow, you could discern that. Maybe subconsciously, it affected a desire for musical greatness or something, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. It sounds fancy.
Was there a particular moment or track of Michael Coleman’s that first made you realize this is someone you want to study and honor withyour thesis?
Colman Connolly: I don’t think it’s necessarily a particular moment. I think it was just the totality of his body of work, because for anyone who isinterested in Irish music, it’s an oral tradition, and things are passed down through just hearing it in local pubs or whatnot, and a lot like pop music onthe radio, a lot of times, you don’t know what the name of the song is or what the artist is. Especially in traditional Irish tunes, they’re passed down much like nursery rhymes are here. A lot of the time, I didn’t even know the names of the tunes. These things would just seep into me subconsciously, and I would go to a pub to accompany some music, and then all of a sudden, I would notice I’ve actually heard this thing before. I think I wasn’t an active fan when I was younger; I just heard it in the background, but it definitely influenced me. I think a big reason why I wanted to do this is actually for my dad, who was a big fan of Michael Coleman, as a gift to him. Because he was amongst the people who joked, wouldn’t it be great if we could remove this terrible piano accompaniment? I feel that in doing so, it’s a little gift for him. He’s been very excited whenever I played it. He’s like, Oh my gosh.
For those who are less familiar, how would you describe Michael Coleman’s impact on traditional Irish music, and what made his sound so revolutionary at the time?
Colman Connolly: That’s a great question. Michael Coleman was originally from County Sligo in Ireland, but he emigrated to the Americas. I think it was the late 1910s or something? I forget. If you want to read my thesis, you can find out there. But he ended up getting work; he had to play on the vaudeville circuit, and that’s very show-tuney, and it would be characterized by basically what the Irish would consider being a show-off player. Playing a lot of ornamentation, sliding up and down the fiddle. Another characteristic of his playing was the Sligo style of fiddling, which is very influenced by the pipers of the day and is very upbeat. They call it a lilting or a lift in the playing, and it’s something you can’t really describe unless you listen to it. When you hear it, you’re like, I understand why that might be called a lift. But anyway, when these first recordings came out, they were shipped back to Ireland. It had two effects. People had different reactions. One was like, what is this Coleman guy playing? All these vaudevillian crazy ornament stuff. This isn’t real Irish music. But it ended up influencing a lot of the style and techniques of the fiddlers. The other effect it had was to homogenize the sound of fiddle music. Because fiddle music was very regional back then, as you can imagine, from any oral tradition. In different areas of Ireland, the fiddling style developed differently. But now you have one reference recording that all these younger fiddle players are listening to, and in effect, it standardized some fiddle styles, but sadly, it also led to the demise of some regional styles, so pros and cons there.
Robin Lee: Almost sounds like an Irish fiddle version of Elvis.
Colman Connolly: I guess. That’s a good way to put it, I think.
Robin Lee: He recorded in an era of limited technology.
In your view, what are some of the most misunderstood or overlooked aspects of his recordings?
Colman Connolly: That’s a great question. Well, something I think that struck me when I first started this project and listened to all these recordings for the first time in a while again, is that some of the tunes end very abruptly. It’ll be very weird. Because normally, you would imagine, let’s say, you have four minutes allotted for two tunes to play. One would imagine that you would play each tune for around the same amount of time. If you have four minutes, you might play the first tune for two minutes, transition to the other one, play that for another two minutes, and then be over. But what would happen with Coleman’s recordings is, let’s say, he had three minutes. He would play the first tune for two minutes 15 seconds, or two minutes 30seconds, then transition to the next tune, and play that for only 30 seconds, and the recording would be over. Now the reason for that is because unlike digital technology, or even more advanced analog recording technology, he was recording onto 78 RPM discs, and that had a finite time within which you can record. I don’t know for sure, but I’d like to imagine that he would be playing, and then there’s someone in the studio with a big X, you better stop, or this needle is going to run out, or whatnot. I think that would be something that’s maybe misunderstood, or if not misunderstood, people don’t know about it, at least. But it’s funny hearing some of the improvised endings to these recordings. They’re a little ridiculous. It’s like, where the heck did that come out? That doesn’t even sound like the tune. But necessity is the mother of invention, I suppose.
Do you think he was aware at the time of the legacy that he was creating?
Colman Connolly: That’s a great question. Obviously, there’s no way of knowing, but I would almost certainly surmise no being the answer. If I had to guess, it was just his way to make a living, just like any number of the immigrants over; he probably didn’t have much money. He knew he was talented as a musician. This is a great way to make money, and that was probably all he thought about it at the time, obviously. Putting words in his mouth, maybe he thought completely differently. But I don’t think like any artist; he could have possibly imagined how widespread the technology would be and how available it is. Because even then, you had to buy the records for what would have been maybe $10$15 in today’s US dollars. But now you can listen to any of these things for free on YouTube, or Spotify, or stream them at any time on a whim. They’re very accessible, and they’ve been very influential to generations. It’s been 100 years since, hence he’s influenced people, who’ve influenced people, who’ve influenced people, who’ve influenced people. In the genealogy of Irish folk instrumentation, he’s pretty important. So I don’t know.
Robin Lee: Well, to give you a sense of just how powerful Coleman’s work is, we’re going to listen to one of his remastered recordings. This is a Trip to Sligo, a piece originally performed by Michael Coleman, now brought to life with renewed clarity and spirit through Colman’s innovative process.
[MUSIC]
Robin Lee: That was really stunning, Colman. Let’s talk about how you made it happen. Can you walk us through the process of using AI Stem separation and how you approached re-imagining the accompaniment while staying true to the spirit of the original?
Colman Connolly: Sure. That’s a great question. There was this company, AudioShake, that my thesis advisor, Daniel Roland, introduced me to, and he was able to make a deal with their CEO to give me about $200 of free stem separation. How it works is it’s an artificial intelligence model. For those who don’t know what that means, a model is basically an algorithm that’s designed to detect certain patterns and glean certain results. For example, to detect the piano sound within this archaic recording and isolate it. Basically, it was pretty simple. I had to upload just all of the recordings I could get, which I sourced from some guy that ironically, I found on YouTube, who’s a master’s student at Michigan State University. I sourced the audio from him, uploaded it through this program AudioShake, and then had to comb through one by one, figure out which ones were sufficient, which ones weren’t. Because sometimes you’d have some problems, like the piano would bleed through, which means that basically, if you’re listening to the isolated fiddle track, for example, you might have the piano come up when it’s not supposed to be. That was a challenge that we encountered. But AudioShake wasn’t the only one that we tried; we tried several different ones. There was this one called Moises, and there was this one called Lala.ai, and all these things have ridiculous names. As my thesis advisor and I were joking about how ridiculous all the names were. But I would just upload the audio into a bunch of different ones, test out the different algorithms. They had algorithms to isolate the strings, for example, or isolate the piano, or isolate the guitar, or isolate others, whatever that means, depending on the context, and you just have to listen through and see which came out with the best result.
Robin Lee: You said that was simple, but I appreciate you breaking that down in layman’s terms for us.
You didn’t stop at separation. You overlaid historically informed piano accompaniments of your own, so how did you approach balancing authenticity with creativity?
Colman Connolly: That’s a great question. I think I just use the same approach I would at any Irish session or whenever I record with anyone else, just approaching it from the ground up. You start listening through, and you start from the technical aspect, and that is making sure you get the rhythm right and the structure of the tune right. Most importantly, the chords are right because, as an accompanist, you’re creating the harmonic layout of the tune. I listen through and notate the chords by ear, and then, as an accompanist, you’ve got to remember that you’re not the solo instrument. The focus shouldn’t be on you. If you’re listening to these recordings, and you’re primarily hearing the piano or listening to the piano, that means I’m not doing my job correctly, because the focus should be on the fiddle playing. I’m just literally accompanying it. I want to make sure it’s not too conspicuous. I thinkpartly stylistically, I was informed by some of the original piano recordings because I didn’t want to go too far off from the vaudevillian style. That would be characterized by using some chromaticism for people who are into music theory. For example, Irish music is very modal, and it would be all diatonic. But for people who are interested, like if you’re in the key of E minor, it would be using a B major or B seven, instead of a B minor, something like that, or using augmented chords and using some syncopation. Those are some characteristics of the vaudevillian style. But other than that, I’m influenced by piano players, especially like Charlie Lennon, who came later. A lot of his recordings are from the ’70s and ’80s. He’s a big influence on mine. I think it’s the culmination of all that.
Robin Lee: It’s fascinating to hear how much thought and care went into every detail of the restoration process. To really appreciate the transformation. We want to play a short comparison for our listeners. First, here’s a clip from the original 1920 recording of Paddy Ryan’s Dream, complete with all the crackle and quirks of early recording technology.
[MUSIC]
Colman Connolly: Now Colman’s remastered version of the same tune highlights Michael Coleman’s brilliance with new clarity and carefully reimagined accompaniment.
[MUSIC]
Robin Lee: What a difference! Colman, beyond the sound itself, this work carries deep cultural meaning. Let’s talk about the impact of these recordings, not just for musicians, but for Irish heritage and identity. In your thesis, you talk about rekindling Michael Coleman’s legacy for today’s listeners.
How do you think this project changes how people, especially younger musicians, engage with traditional Irish music?
Colman Connolly: It’s a great question. Well, I think our generation is really used to music that sounds pristine, sonically pleasing across the stereospectrum. I like to use the example of the fact that, unrelated to Irish music, I’m a big Beatles fan. But whenever I listen to their music on Spotify with other songs in a playlist, it sounds very off because of how badly the originals were mixed, the panning of them. There might be a bass guitar, one headphone, a vocal, and another, and it sounds weird. Whereas, in most pop tunes now, things are mostly all down the center, where it’s very grounded. I think in the same way, hearing the tiny Michael Coleman original recordings can be jarring for many modern listeners, especially young listeners. The piano component is very discordant. My worry is that the younger generation, instead of taking the chance and listening to it, will just be more inclined to turn it off. My goal is to remix the tracks so that they’re more appropriate for modern listeners. This reminds me, I was just at a dinner with my friend Dylan Foley yesterday, and he’s an All-Ireland world champion fiddle player. I played him some of these recordings, and he remarked that, man, the originals are just so lousy and the sound quality is terrible, that I just don’t even want to listen to them. But listening to these new ones, he said, you just really breathe new life into this. I would actually want to put this on in the background and listen to it. I think that’s the real goal of what I’m trying to do, just making these more accessible for the new generation.
Irish music has deep ties to identity and resilience. What does this project mean to you personally, in terms of cultural preservation?
Colman Connolly: That’s definitely a deep question, and I don’t think I want to get too pretentious with this answer or feel I have some self-importance in this project, because at the end of the day, this is really just a passion project for something I love. But about resilience, I think Ireland has always been resilient because its culture really survived through centuries of British suppression. When Coleman was making his recordings, albeit in America, Ireland was still going through independence from the British. There was the transition from the Irish Republic to the Irish Free State, and now we’re at the current Republic of Ireland. But he was offshore while a lot of this stuff was happening. I would imagine maybe some of the social unrest is why he left for America in the first place, though. If you’re a Coleman expert, you can be free to correct me if you’re listening. But for a period, Irish language and culture and music were really dying because the British had outlawed Irish dance, Irish language, and Irish religion, all these things. I think the Coleman recordings, along with the Feakle Music Festival, which came a few years later, had a big part in revitalizing national interest in Irish music and the national identity. Again, obviously, this is not going to have nearly as much of an impact as he, but I hope, in a small way, these recordings can help further his legacy.
Do you think that AI could be used similarly to restore other cultural audio artifacts? Are there any ethical or artistic lines to consider indoing that?
Colman Connolly: Absolutely. I think this project really proves that fact because a lot of people, especially in the creative realms, look at AI with this doomsday mentality. It’s coming for our jobs. It’s going to be the end of everything. But I think this project proves that it can be a constructive tool. As a matter of fact, pertaining to old recordings, the company I mentioned earlier, AudioShake, is training the algorithm to accurately separate out stems from very old Disney recordings, like Snow White, for example. Disney might ask AudioShake: We want to remix this old recording from the originalSnow White. But in order to do that, we need to separate the stems. They trained their algorithm on this. I think maybe that was a part of why this worked so well, because it had already been trained on the recordings. As far as ethical lines, I think primarily there’s the legality of things, whether or not the recordings are in the public domain. I’m sure there are other ethical considerations. Just asking the estate, the people who own the rights to the music, what they think is appropriate would be nice. I’m reminded of a Freddie Mercury quote. It’s, “Do whatever you want with my music, dear. Just don’t make it boring.” Hopefully, that’s what I did in effect here.
Robin Lee: For those who don’t know, because they’re not familiar with all of this, what exactly is a stem?
Colman Connolly: Sure. A stem is just one constituent part of a recording in a multi-track recording. For example, let’s say I’m recording a band. For clarity, instead of just having one microphone in a room and recording the whole thing at one time, that’s not going to be very clear. Some instruments might be louder than others. If you’re in one room, the drums are going to be really loud. What we do to fix this problem is we put at least one microphone on each of the sound sources. You have, let’s say, just in a very simple setup, one microphone on the drums, one microphone on a guitar amplifier, and one microphone on the singer. In doing it this way, you can now control the volumes of the individual elements. You can turn up the singer or turn down the drums. Stems is the same idea, the constituent elements. In these recordings, where either the guitar or the piano is a complement, the stems would just be the isolated piano and the isolated fiddle.
What’s next for you? Are there more recordings that you’d like to rework or perhaps new ways to bring traditional Irish music to modernplatforms?
Colman Connolly: That’s a great question. Michael Coleman himself has around 60 more recordings that I haven’t touched. I did the minority, not the minority, but a small part of his work. That could be a direction I could go in. Another thing, I thought about, I could work with the Coleman Estate, see if I could issue some remixes in some way that they would agree to. Then there are a lot of other traditional Irish artists from back in the day, JamesMorrison, Paddy Killoran, other fiddle players, and Pipers from the early 1900s. There are definitely a lot of different paths I could take.
Robin Lee: Have you reached out to the Coleman Estate at all while you were working on your thesis?
Colman Connolly: No. I haven’t, but I’m going to soon, because I really would like to put this out there in some capacity. At least from myconversation with Dylan yesterday, my friend Dylan Foley, the Irish fiddle player, said they would be very interested in this. Hopefully soon.
Lastly, if Michael Coleman could somehow hear these reimagined versions of his work, what do you hope he’d say?
Colman Connolly: Well, I don’t know. Well, I hope he’d like it. I hope he’d be impressed. I would imagine back in the day, they would just be happy with whatever audio quality. Recording still seems magic now. None of us here can actually explain how it works. Back 100 years ago, it would have been basically magic. I can hear myself at all. He would probably be happy. But to hear it in this renewed clarity, I think he would be hopefully impressed. But maybe he’d hate it. I’d have no way of knowing. But hopefully, he’d say, slainte, which is Irish for cheers. There you go.
Robin Lee: Well, thank you very much.
Colman Connolly: Of course. It was a pleasure.