THERE has always been something more appealing to me than the mere playing of notes and tunes in traditional Irish music. Sometimes people associate that with the craic and enjoyment surrounding the playing of it, listening to it or dancing to it and that certainly adds to its aura and enduring charm.

To me, it is the heart of the musician who is playing, whether it is to a crowd of a thousand or more or just for themselves and a few friends where the intensity never varies.

I think of that now when I consider two long-friends and heroes in Irish music who need our prayers and thoughts this week as they deal with their own serious medical conditions. Each in their own way has enriched my life with their music, and helped shape my appreciation for it and countless others for many years after making America their home.

I am talking about two veteran accordion players, James Keane and Joe Madden, whose mastery of the instrument and their hard-core allegiance to playing Irish music on the box the way it was passed onto them that has inspired so many musicians in their own generations and afterwards.

Both are fierce guardians of the music who, though very different in style, always arrive at the same place where the music and old ways that bore it into their very marrow and every fiber of their being was there for all to see and hear.

Keane plays with a steady calm as natural as the blood flowing inside of him belying his intensity and command of the keys, and a rich repertoire of tunes that cut to the very heart of Irish dance music.

Madden, with the skilled hands of a carpenter and a driven personality, oozes perspiration as he plays, as if producing tunes that literally propel people to seek timber turf for dancing were as much hard work as much of the laboring he has done to support his large family which includes daughter Joanie, one of the brightest lights in Irish music.

Keane, a native of Drimnagh, Co. Dublin has been battling throat cancer this year and is about to undergo a more intensive treatment regimen this week which will consume most of his energies and limit his availability for his current musical ensemble Fingal.

James and his older brother Sean (of the Chieftains) combined the street-smart ingenuity of the city with the cultural softness and commitment of the country at a time in the fifties and sixties thanks to their parents who came from Longford and Clare.

It was a time when trad music was being transformed in Ireland into a national treasure from its humble roots as the general folk music revival, technology and commercialization rescued it from obscurity.

Part of the generational nexus that elevated the older musicians who came to Dublin for work but held onto their music from their native counties, Keane rode the folk wave across Dublin and Ireland and across the Atlantic where he emigrated four decades ago. His music never wavered nor lost it power to connect with the audience on either side of the Atlantic.

In fact, Keane is just back for a brief but uplifting trip to Ireland where he was invited to perform at the Feile Frank McGann in Strokestown, Co. Roscommon in October where he performed solo and also sat in with the Kilfenora Ceili Band. He also paid a visit to his native Dublin area with a special concert at the Seamus Ennis Center in Naul, and to RTE radio where he recorded interviews with producer Peter Browne for his Rolling Wave program and Aine Hensey's The Late Session (www.rte.ie/radio1).

When he returns to Dublin these days, the reception seems greater and greater. Not only can he go home again, but so huge is the welcome and the tunes so plentiful it seems like he never left.

This past weekend, Galway favorite Joe Madden suffered a bad fall on the stairs at home, severing his neck and spinal column according to an e-mail from his daughter Joanie, who was in Iowa with her performing group Cherish the Ladies before being summoned home.

Sunday surgery at Westchester Medical Center stabilized his condition, but more surgery is anticipated this week along with a lengthy recovery period after the awful accident.

In recent years, Madden is usually referred to as the daughter's father whose music and stubborn adherence to tempo and tunes-along with all the other father figures like Mike Rafferty, Mattie Connolly and the late Jim Coogan- has been a huge influence on the Cherish the Ladies canon of tunes.

He recently appeared with them at Symphony Space for the Mercy Center benefit last month, though I had the pleasure of listening to Madden two weeks ago holding court in Joanie Madden's fabulous music room fashioned in part by the old man who expanded the kitchen upward and outward, and also found just the right piano to fit a corner of stylish room.

The setting for a "kitchen session" like their old days in nearby Woodlawn may have been updated, but watching Madden square off against John Nolan, the first Irish American to win the senior All-Ireland accordion championship was music for the ages, played in that timeless fashion for the love of it.

In his earlier years Naddeb put together an orchestra for many of the Irish society dances that played all sorts of music for the dancers' pleasure but he excelled when it came to traditional music for the sets, the reel thing.

The Clare clubs especially loved his music for their dances. He also was part of that that exceptional group of Galway musicians who kept the New York City traditional music scene going along with the Coen Brothers (Jack and Father Charlie), Pete Kelly, Martin Mulhaire, Mike Rafferty and the late Sean McGlynn that offered so much inspiration and encouragement to the musicians who are flying the banner now.

To both of these gentlemen go the best wishes of so many people who have enjoyed their music over the years, along with fervent hopes for a full recovery for each of them. We wouldn't have the solid traditional music scene in New York City without their mighty contributions.