Music Essays | Traditional Irish Ireland

Music Essays Traditional Irish IrelandTraditional Irish IrelandBefore discussing the contexts crumb the development of handed- downhearted Irish melody and the resulting label, it is important to define what is actu eachy meant by the label handed-down. Naturally, as with just rough art forms the definition differs between performers/singers/writers. The prime factor come forward though is typically having few none of age. As with much medicament labelled conventional, Irish unison has much history behind it and the medicinal drug we identify today under this category takes its roots from a much older form of melody. Many references to Irish/Celtic music construct even been labelled as ancient. Again these footing alone would require an essay in themselves to define what the understanding of them is. As a historians definition of ancient history is a succession forward written records and communication it is almost impossible to determine how old accepted fini shs and their musical backgrounds are. Irish music could definitely fall into this discussion although umteen would argue this to be even excessively old to be tralatitious and that the real traditional music of Ireland is the music of the harpists. A tradition that has all but died out in much of what we class as traditional Irish music today.In retrospective, the music which ran along side this music is equally as traditional. This is music which was played amongst the general friendship in Ireland, music which was played in houses and pubs. These were the places where galore(postnominal) people could suffer to play amateur music on instruments such as Fiddles, Pipes, Flutes and whistles, which at the time did not deem the higher status of Harp players who in general played for the higher class of society. This is the music which has developed into what most consider as Irish traditional music today. In umteen respects, they are not wrong although it has been altered and developed in a way, which appeals to more people and could also be described as Irish bulgeular music, yet an opposite term that creates much discussion as to its true meanings. River bound and Lord of the Dance are prime examples of this. Although many would go as faraway as to say that they rescue no affinity of Irish traditional music at all, this is the music that has become know as traditional and Irish. The story behind Riverdance especially, does bare some resemblance to life in Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries. It revolves around the mundane life of Irish people and communities, and even the music does agree smashed connections to the music played at the time, although has been produced to appeal to a wider range of listeners and in particular, viewers.This leads me onto the History behind the music, and its impact on how the music developed to what is accepted today. The traditional music of Ireland dates back to mediaeval Europe. In previous(predicate) medi eval accomplishment Ireland, was not a unified country but instead, baffled into four families who shared equal rule of the country. This was also the cases in many countries of Medieval Europe. The people of Ireland were descended from many other cultures throughout Europe including England, Scotland, Wales, Gaelic Europe (France, Germany) and Scandinavia. It would seem though, that the music played today which we label as traditional emerged in the 1700s.The 1700s were a turbulent time for the Irish. This was the period when the old Gaelic aristocracy, who were for centuries the patrons of the poets and musicians of Ireland, were dispossessed of their influence and estates. The failure of the two Jacobite uprisings in Scotland marked the beginning of a period of intense persecution of Gaelic Scotland. It was at this time that the cultures of Gaelic Scotland and Gaelic Ireland were split apart, and henceforth regarded as fall in entities. Up to this time, they had been consider ed to be a single culture.It could be argued that traditional Irish music is re belatedlyd to music found elsewhere in Europe. A lot of Irish musicians would agree that today in that location sure as shooting is a relationship with the music of Scotland and the north of England. This indicates that such relationships whitethorn urinate existed preferably in history and possibly throughout the 1700s. This makes it feasible to look to other countries in Europe for an idea on what was happening at the time.Equally, in that location is the argument that the Gaels had their own indigenously derived music, which was unique and not connected to what was release on anywhere else in Europe. Both points, I suspect are a little extreme and that the actual answer lies somewhere in between the two.One event separates us from having little or no knowledge whatsoever. In 1792 Edward Bunting, was hired to transcribe the music of a fall of harpers who appeared at a festival in Belfast. This f estival had been sponsored by an early example of what we now call the antiquarian movement. These were people who believed that Gaelic culture was being destroyed, and wanted to save it before it may be too late.One of the harpers who turned up in Belfast was Denis Hempson. He, as far as we know was the last living traditional Gaelic harpist, playacting with fingernails on a wire-strung harp. All the other harpers, although their tunes were Irish, played gut-strung harps that were the same as those elsewhere in Europe, and their performing styles similarly were base on European styles. So its to the amazing determination of Hempson and the dedication of Bunting that we owe a large part of our knowledge about pre-1700s music in Ireland. However, we have to remember that this was all filtered through, first Hempson, and then, Bunting, who couldnt play the harp.Dance, of course now forms a large portion of what has become known as Irish traditional music. In Irish music, we wind up with a fewer traditional dance metres. The Hornpipe, the Jig and the Reel. Of course, these are wide considered to be the big 3 in terms of Irish traditional music. Others did and silent do exist, as we know, the music from Ireland takes its roots from many other cultures in Europe, there is no exception with the forms of dance.Lets take flounders first as they may be easiest to deal with. The typical statement is that The reel came to Ireland in the 1700-1800s from Scotland. This is based on the known fact that early Irish publications do not consequence very many reels compared to trip the light fantastics and we also know that thanks to the co-existence of the Scottish occupation system and affordable publishing costs there was an explosion of reel composition going on in Scotland at this time. Look at the current Irish reel repertoire and you will find it c left(a) through with Scottish compositions. Personally I accept that the reel in Irish music owes an enduring deb t to the Scottish tradition.The jig appears to have had a greater popularity in Ireland before the reel (which is very different to state it is older than the reel). OFarrells 1804 collection ( self-evidently derived on a repertoire from at least(prenominal) the late 1700s) features a good number of jigs, many of which are still actively played today. There are arguments for placing the slip jig as an older form. The Single Jig and Slide are timing violence variants of the double jig, and there is some evidence to show that they may have derived from the latter(prenominal) and thus be more recent. As for the double jig and its emergence in its modern form, this argument was carried out in a printed exchange between Breandn Breathnach and De class Townsend in the early 1970s. The latter kept up(p) that the meter derived from Carolans compositions of Gigas, the form of which he learned from the Italian composer Correlli. Townsend cited supporting evidence on the jig murder of Do negal fiddlers, which few today would support. The former, writing in the article Ts an Poirt in ireann (the origin of the jig in Ireland appearing in Irish Folk Music Studies, Vol. 1) contests this and suggests amongst other things they may be based on older tunes such as clan marches which have had their stop number altered slightly. In an English vocabulary summary, Breandan writes The jig most probably came to Ireland from England, mayhap as early as the 16th Century. Native marches were adapted for dancing, some tunes borrowed from England and a go made on composing those tunes which constituted the greatest single sectionalization of the dance music until reels began to catch up on them in the help half of the last blow.Certainly, I have discovered, by playing and listen to much traditional music from Ireland that I have found myself discriminating the tune either in a different time signature, speed or a slightly altered form. Even to the extent of wise to(p) words t o the tune, which almost certainly are not Irish. Whether or not they were tranquil in England, Ireland or Scotland first, we do not know and I would not like to put forward a theory as to which it could possibly be.The hornpipes have been argued as a more recent arrival with some indications of England as a source. More recently it is being argued that this rhythm in particular has been popularly spread through publications with a in force(p) amount of evidence in the tradition to support this. The notion of the performance timing of the hornpipe-the question of dotted or un-dotted playing appears to be only a local matter based on the local dance tradition requirements. Its slower speed gives the player much more time to attempt more technically challenging performances of this type piece, thus the bunches of triplets and the unenviable (flat) keys. As such hornpipes were sometimes played away from the dancing surroundings as a show of virtuosity. In an effort to establish v irtuosity line reading players (usually the more formally trained and adapted to classical based techniques) were anxious to purchase books and learn new virtuoso hornpipes. Examples of this are the popularity of crowd together Hill (a Lowland Scot who came to settle in Newcastle in the north of England), who certainly had a big impact on Irish fiddle playing up to today.As with all cultures, political and social changes within a community and in Irelands case, a whole country have a knock-on effect to all aspects of their traditions.In Ireland in the seventeenth century the pattern of society was changing drastically. The old patrons of poetry and music were exiled or reduced in power and wealth. The poorer Gaelic-speaking people had less to tolerate from the disruption of the older Irish society. They allied themselves to and intermarried with the English and Scottish settlers and organize the beginnings of a middle class, prosperous bountiful but lacking the viscous traditi ons, grandeur and of pre-Cromwellian Ireland. We cannot be sure how much of the old truly Irish musical tradition survived the seventeenth century. Just as elaborate syllabic court poetry disappeared and simpler verse was composed, so it seems likely that much of the abstruse high art of the earlier Irish harpers was lost. We know more about the Irish harpers of the eighteenth century than about any earlier players and it is obvious that their instruments, technique and musical style were subject to many non-Irish influences. Their repertoire consisted in the first place of tunes of Irish association, simply but movingly played on harps which retain enough of the tonal charm of the older Irish harp to have still a special character and quality. Judging from material promulgated first in the eighteenth century, some of the tunes were probably very ancient, perhaps drawn from the old aristocratic repertory and from popular usage. A few were of Scottish, English or Italian derivatio n. But it is probable that the style of some of what we now consider traditional Irish music evolved in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as a hybrid of for the most part unrecorded indigenous music and imported foreign styles. This phenomenon has been common enough in other art forms throughout Irish history.In finding it is apparent that much of what we know as Irish traditional music today actually still bares a strong resemblance to the music of the 17th, 18th and 19th centurys. Yes, there are also many features of that music which have been altered or all but died out in many parts but the fact that we know of them and recognise them as being the traditional music of Ireland at the time for sure makes them the traditional music we recognise today. Its popularity today takes accreditation from the fact that it has been so widely spread throughout the world. The Napoleonic wars saw much of the Irish universe join the British army fighting against the French i n the latter 18th and early 19th centurys. This of course leads to the distribution of at least some of the music of Ireland throughout Napoleonic Spain, Portugal and France and of course much of Europe.Similarly, the spread of this music to America has had great influence on what we roll in the hay about Irish music. During the potato famine in Ireland, many upped sticks and left for North America. Now, in the 21st Century, what better way to advertise the popularity of anything, including music, than to have roots in what is one of the worlds superpowers? It is largely down to the commercialisation of the music today that it has reached such a high storey of popularity throughout the world. Of course it would seem that it takes most of its regard and recognition in the British Isles at it naturally holds historical and patriotic qualities, which of course makes anything holding these merits popular. Traditional Irish music is that of the people and communities of Ireland. Wheth er it is music composed 300 years ago which only exists through word of mouth, or the modern takes on this music introducing the popular world of rock and pop and merging the two disciplines with each other. It is music which is played, written or interpret to evoke a response about the country, however controversial it may sometimes be.