Irish traditional music
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Transcript of Irish traditional music
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Irish traditional music
Structures and Contexts
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Lecture Plan:
– History and social context– Musical structures– Performance contexts– Australian contexts
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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
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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
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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
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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”
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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
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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
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Instrumental resources
• Melodic instruments:– Uilleann Pipes: (pron “illun”)– Bellows blown bagpipe, drones, Keys drones
called “regulators”– Possibility of staccato playing by “closed
fingering”
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•
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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
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Flute and Whistle
• Flute: baroque wooden flute: 6 primary finger holes,
• Whistle: 6 holes, 2 octaves
• Almost no tonguing, articulation through ornamentation
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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”
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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
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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
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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
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The Silver spear: Typical reel
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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:
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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
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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-
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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”
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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”?
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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”
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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
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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,