sean nos - what is it?
From time to time on this site and others, sean nos singing is mentioned as if I really should know what is meant by it. I’ve tried, folks, but I don’t get it. So forgive my ignorance, please and … help!
I’ve tried looking it up on the net, but get varying dates of origin for the term itself, from ‘first used in competition in 1904’ to ‘invented around 1940-1941’, and both of those stating that the term comes from outside the tradition and has been imposed on it.
The implication of several sites is that what is now apparently accepted as sean nos singing is actually quite recent, and may even be an amalgam of several widely differing older regional styles.
I’m not going to go on, beacuse you can tell I don’t really understand this, and I’d have said it all a lot quicker if I had simply said ‘What is sean nos?’
So … ‘What is sean nos?’