Transcript Irish traditional music

Irish traditional music
Structures and Contexts
Lecture Plan:
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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:
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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”
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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
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:
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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 1920s1930s 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:
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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,