Irish traditional music

Structures and Contexts

Lecture Plan:

– History and social context– Musical structures– Performance contexts– Australian contexts

Irish music

• Irish history– English/British colony : English control

gradually developed from 1100’s onwards– After reformation most of Ireland maintained

Catholic religion and political allegiance– Series of national movements from 1798

uprising, – National movement continues through 1800s,

war of independence 1917-1922

Independent Ireland

• New state established in Southern part of Ireland, protestant northern province of Ulster remains within United Kingdom

• Sense of national unity continues in South and with Northern catholic “republicans”

• Nationalist ideology and politics receding with incorporation into Europe and transnationl politics

Socio-political place of Irish traditional music

• Irish traditional music key symbol of Irish nationalism.

• Large group of aficionados and enthusiasts in Ireland, supported in principle by the population

• Combination of conservative social tradtion and musical innovation and adventurousness

• Cf “Country and Irish”• Cf Irish rock, boy bands, Corrs, etc

Irish traditional music in the Irish soundscape

• Minority interest of enthusiasts

• Given high social and national status by larger group: perhaps majority

• Often claimed by many musicians as “basis” or “influence”

Genres of “traditional music”

• Irish traditional dance tunes– Reels, jigs,hornpipes, set dances etc

• Songs– Irish language songs : “sean nos” = old style– English language: traditional narrative ballads:

• Local songs, comic songs, love songs, political and topical historical songs

– Modern “folk” songs in this format

Irish dance music

• Repetoire of “tunes”• Binary structure:

– A=“tune”– B=“turn”

• Rhythmic forms:– Reel: 4/4, AABB, 32 bars, qqqq qqqq – Jig: 6/8, AABB, 32 bars, qqq qqq– Hornpipe: as for reel but slower and more unequal– Slip jigs 9/8 qqq qqq qqq– Set dances: various rhythms with unequal section lengths: eg 16

bars + 20 bars

Instrumental resources

• Melodic instruments:– Uilleann Pipes: (pron “illun”)– Bellows blown bagpipe, drones, Keys drones

called “regulators”– Possibility of staccato playing by “closed

fingering”

•

Fiddle: Playing style

• Fiddle: =violin , seldom retuned– Playing mainly first position, hence G-b’ range– Loose shoulder support, bowed “on the string”,

some “trebling”, much slurred playing, usually offbeat phrasing, some finger slides, much finger ornamentation

Flute and Whistle

• Flute: baroque wooden flute: 6 primary finger holes,

• Whistle: 6 holes, 2 octaves

• Almost no tonguing, articulation through ornamentation

Secondary instruments

• Accordion: button “single action” accordion (different note press and draw, hence phrasing implications)

• Plectrum stringed instruments:– Tenor banjo– Mandolin: imitate fiddle tuning and

ornamentation, especially “trebling”

Accompanying instruments

• Piano (now “old fashioned” sound) vamped bass chord alternation

• Guitar: modern style often in modal DADGAD tuning: open chords, sus chords, open drones etc

• Bodhran: (pron bow’-rawn): circular frame drum, played with short two-ended stick

Melodic style

Tune range; generally d-b’

D or G major scales, finals of D,E,G,A,B

“Modal” melodies: eg notes c(#),f(#) variable

“dorian” with major 6 more common than “natural minor”

D drone often retains a presence against other modal finals

Ornamentation

• “Style” as most valued characteristic– Phrasing, ornamentation– Ornaments:

• Pipes and flute influenced– Cuts =interrupting upper grace note– Rolls = combination of upper and lower grace notes,

rhythmically executed– Trebles: based on stringed instrunment techniques

– Principle of imitating other instruments: especially Pipes

The Silver spear: Typical reel

Variation

• Highly valued, but controlled

• Integrity of tune must be maintained

• Substitution of longer notes, neighbour groups, filling in scalar gaps etc

• Tunes sometimes in extended “theme and variation” form:

Social and performing contexts

• Historically: rural Ireland social dancing:– Much solo step dancing– Group dancing– Crossroads dances– Post independence: national symbolic

education and display– Emigration esp USA: social dances, nostalgia,

cultural maintenance

Modern developments

– Recording of emigrant players esp in 1920s-1930s in USA

– Vigorous revival movement in Ireland in 1950s-1960s greatly expands social reach.

– Breakthrough groups form in 1970s, typical small instrumental folk group, inspires Irish music performance globally

– “Session” playing develops esp from 1960s-

Global Irish

• Session: – Model of cooperative social music making

– Leaderless individualism, but strict musico-social control

– Rounds of tunes, 2-3 times each

– Depends on shared repertoire

– Performance without audience, practice, sociability, sub-cultural status

– Cf Jazz “jam session”

1990s: Irish goes Global

• Irish Pubs , Guinness promotion from early 1990s. Imitates “real” immigrant community Pubs, local rural and Dublin Pubs

• Popular Culture:– Riverdance: from 1996– Film music: Titanic, Lord of the Rings

• Irish or “Celtic”?

Australia

• Irish immigration to Australia in 19th C approx 25%

• Influences on vernacular popular song (traditional folk music)

• Folk movement in 1970s bases Australian group performance on contemporary Irish performance >> “Bush Band”

Irish trad music playing in Australia

• Players in Irish immigrant communities, national organisations, dancing classes

• Irish emigrants for 1960s immigration “discovered” by Australian folk and roots enthusiasts

• Bands and session scenes develop in Australia

Current bands and sessions in Melbourne

• Sessions:– Father Flanagan's (Nth Fitzroy)– Railway Hotel (Nth Fitzroy)– The Quiet Man (Flemington)– Bands- eg Triskel, Conundrum, The Beanies,

Trouble in the Kitchen and others– Extension of repertoire: asymmetric “Balkan

style” tunes,