Oldest written/recorded form of Celtic music

Talk to me about the history of Celtic music. What is the oldest evidence of Celtic music? Instrumentation? Dance? Song?

There is archaeological evidence of instruments going back to the Iron Age, but no record of what the tunes were played.

The “C” word isn’t used much on this site - I only consider it in terms of linguistics, not music or culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographia_Hibernica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_of_Wales

"Of the incomparable skill of the Irish in playing upon musical instruments)

The only thing to which I find that this people apply a commendable industry is playing upon musical instruments; in which they are incomparably more skilful than any other nation I have ever seen. For their modulation on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the harmony is both sweet and gay. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers, the musical proportions can be preserved…….. it must be remarked however, that both Scotland and Wales strive to rival Ireland in the art of music……"

The “C” word isn’t used much on this site - I only consider it in terms of linguistics, not music or culture.
# Posted by spencern

You may not be alone in your attitude, but I am at a loss to figure out a justification for it. Can you provide an explanation?

Some fella was kicked out of India for noodling. I think.

“You may not be alone in your attitude, but I am at a loss to figure out a justification for it. Can you provide an explanation?”

My opinion only, but what exactly is “Celtic” music?- something that is diddly sounding and a hint of a mandolin? Or perhaps a background synthesizer suggesting an emerging fog? I am very sure this topic has been thrashed to death many times over I don’t really have to explain it though.

Explain to me why Celtic is a relevant term to use

OP you might want to read this;

https://thesession.org/discussions/13720

Explain to me why Celtic is a relevant term to use.
# Posted by spencern

It handily includes all the music of the Celtic lands, primarily Ireland and Scotland. I don’t typically use the term, but I can’t understand any objection to it. Frankly, I find the term Irish Music means “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “My Wild Irish Rose” to most people, while saying “traditional” conveys nothing at all to anyone who doesn’t play it. For the purposes of the OP, it seems using Celtic is preferable to listing out every country that might be relevant, especially given that the earliest forms of the music may not have originated in Ireland at all.

The trouble about the use of the term, to me at any rate, is that it doesn’t conjure up anything real - well, maybe Celtic Woman and the like. Irish music is what it is; Scottish music is really very different; Welsh music is *very* different indeed, as is Breton music. (I’m aware I’ve left some out …) I don’t see the point of lumping them together. And, from a player’s point of view, trying to play “Celtic” music, as opposed to, say, Irish or Welsh music, leads to sounding like Celtic Woman, or possibly those peculiar European bands whose music is unintelligible to me.

IOW, I just think it’s easier to specify what you mean, rather than use a catch-all word that doesn’t mean any one particular thing.

Maybe I’m just naturally a splitter rather than a lumper, to use a taxonomical term. 🙂

Meanwhile, I don’t know the answer to the OP’s question. Hoping someone does …

I suppose it is a handy term to use for record store clerks and iTune categorizers. Within the actual tradition I am pretty sure it was always just called music, until fairly recently. The original OP asked a pretty general question with wide implications which I don’t really have the answers for - but here’s one anyway - the oldest evidence of Celtic music is 1980 in a Tower Music record bin.

With all due respect, if the term doesn’t conjure up anything real, you need to read more or not form opinions about something about which you admit to having no knowledge. I believe the OP took the most direct route towards asking the posted question. In another context, it might have seemed more odd, or at least, not preferred.

This site has some interesting stuff, and some reproductions of prehistoric instruments.
http://www.ancientmusicireland.com/

To me it usually conjures up something that seems, sort of, um, conjured up.

I’ve heard various explanations as to why American Old-Time, Jamaican Mento, Bluegrass, et al are really celtic in nature, and those arguments have interesting points to make, but still, is there really “Celtic” music to be heard and played? without wearing a utilikilt that is

Celtic isn’t a place. The music comes from people in a country or an area.
Celtic is a football team, or a lazy approximation of a musical genre, or a dream world literary form, or a a basketball team, an economic term with a tiger, a flirtation with edinburgh mysticism.

Not sure how relevant it is to the OP’s question, but the following book is available on Amazon.com. It claims to explore the ancient music of Ireland based upon archaeological finds.

‘Prehistoric Music of Ireland’ by Simon O’Dwyer,

Celtic is a linguistic term, first coined by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, to denote a group of interrelated languages that were, at one time, spoken all over Europe and parts of Asia. Only a very small number of those languages survived, and the countries where one of those languages is still spoken, can be referred to as Celtic.

The following is the description of Simon O’Dwyer’s book, Prehistoric Music of Ireland, as it appears on Amazon.com.

“The basis of this book is the beautiful prehistoric musical instrument collection of Ireland, which is introduced with detailed descriptions and photographs. The full story of Irish music from 8000 BC to AD 600 is discussed, starting from the origins and the oldest surviving instruments. A vivid picture of the way in which music enriched Irish culture is built up from references in Gaelic mythology and evidence from Western Europe and Scandinavia.”

There has been a great deal of scholarship published on the problematic nature of modern “Celtic” identity for the peoples of Britain, Brittany, and Ireland. The most useful is Simon James’ The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999). Less useful because of its tendency to degenerate into polemic is Malcolm K. Chapman’s The Celts: the Construction of a Myth (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). Nonetheless, Chapman’s work makes a strong case for questioning the Celtic moniker. Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe has also probed the question of modern “Celtic” identity in several publications, the most accessible of which is The Celts: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Celtics is also a basketball team…

Seltics Al?

Edward Bunting’s transcriptions of the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival may be among the first instances of notation of tunes that were even then considered ancient. Bunting’s work “The Ancient Music of Ireland” was published in 1840.

I think the term “Celtic” is such a vague and misused term as to be useless. You could call it Predominantly Blood Type O Rh Negative Music with the same amount of precision.

I thought Celtic was those repetitively unconscious behaviors that occurred from being incarcerated.

COTD ^^^^

Just kidding. COTD belongs to the OP

“Celtic is a linguistic term, first coined by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, to denote a group of interrelated languages that were, at one time, spoken all over Europe and parts of Asia. ”

“Celtic”as an adjective can also be an archaeological term meaning “of or belonging to the ancient Celtæ and their presumed congeners” (OED). The earliest recorded entry in the OED is spelled “Celtique,” and is from Thomas Blount’s “Glossographia; or, A dictionary interpreting all such hard words, whether Hebrew, Greek or Latin… as are now used in our refined English tongue · 1st edition, 1656. The word is defined as ”pertaining to the people of Gaul“. Also, Milton’s ”Paradise Lost“ (1667) refers to ”Celtic":

So Jove usurping reign’d: these first in Creet
And Ida known, thence on the Snowy top
Of cold Olympus rul’d the middle Air
Thir highest Heav’n; or on the Delphian Cliff,
Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
Of Doric Land; or who with Saturn old
Fled over Adria to th’ Hesperian Fields,
And ore the Celtic roam’d the utmost Isles.

Around here, “Celtic” generally means the same thing as “Scottish”
and the tunes get played like Mozart.

Not counting the pipes of course - all due respect to the pipers

Here are some facts of the case regarding the use of the term “Celtic.” Several ancient Greek writers, including the man who arguably constitutes the first historian, Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BCE, applied the label “Keltoi” to non-Hellenes who lived somewhere to the northwest, whom they regarded as uncivilized barbarians (It might be useful to note that Herodotus wrote in the 400s BCE, and Ireland was probably first populated 6,300 years before that, over six millennia before anyone was described as a “Celt”). There is no evidence that the people to whom the ancient Greeks referred to as “Celts” applied the same name to themselves. When the Romans applied the Latin “Celtae” to denote people who also lived somewhere to the northwest and were not Roman, the tradition continued (Chapman, 30-31; 33).

The only evidence that those non-Hellenic, non-Roman people employed “Celt” themselves comes from Julius Caesar’s writings, collectively assembled as The Conquest of Gaul, in which Caesar wrote, “Gaul comprises three areas, inhabited respectively by Belgae, the Aquitani, and a people who call themselves Celts, though we call them Gauls” (Caesar, 28). It is unlikely that we can take Caesar at face value; he was well known to be someone who would make assumptions and he was often given to falsehood. In addition, Caesar claimed that the Gauls called themselves Celts, not the Britons, and not the people that he never encountered on the island that the Romans called Hibernia (in other words, Ireland). While Caesar did note some cultural similarities between Gauls and Britons, he made no claim that the Britons referred to themselves as Celts, and he never traveled to Ireland. As archaeologist Barry Cunliffe stated, “It is a well-known, and often repeated, fact that no classical writer whose work survives ever referred to the inhabitants of Britain or Ireland as Celts” (Cunliffe, 84).

No one called anyone in Britain or Ireland’s history Celts until 1582, when the Scottish writer George Buchanan argued that the original settlers of Ireland were Celts from the Iberian peninsula, and then an Irish tribe called the Scotti invaded present-day Scotland. There is no evidence to support Buchanan’s assertion of Celts settling Ireland (the issue of Scotti has been much debated, and quite complicated). From Buchanan’s unsupported assumption, a Cistercian monk, Paul-Yves Pezron, and Edward Lhuyd, a Welsh botanist whose hobby was philology, took the Celtic ball and ran with it, constructing a story of continuous insular Celtic language, culture, and people (Cunliffe, 112). The current consensus among archaeologists is “…the widespread abandonment of the idea that the pre-Roman centuries in Britain and Ireland (and perhaps elsewhere) should be thought of as Celtic” (James 9).

Naturally, the above constitutes at most a thumbnail sketch and the tip of the iceberg on the subject. Nevertheless, it is quite apparent that there are many people who study the subject of ancient Britain and Ireland, as well as the people to whom the ancient Greeks and Romans called Celts, that when it comes to Britain and Ireland, “Celt” has been employed as a modern ethnonym to describe the non-English peoples of Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, as well as Bretons, but that they have no continuous cultural or ethnic connection to the people that ancient Greek and Roman writers called Celts, or those whom Caesar claimed called themselves Celts (James 17).

References
Caesar, Julius. The Conquest of Gaul. Trans. S.A. Handford. Mattituck, NY: Amereon House, 1958.
Chapman, Malcolm Kenneth. The Celts: The Construction of a Myth. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
Cunliffe, Barry. The Celts: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
James, Simon. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

"Here are some facts of the case regarding the use of the term “Celtic.”

This is really the etymology of the word “Celt”.
Once you decide who you want to call “Celts”, the adjective is pertinent to that classification.
As regards “Celtic music”, whatever the origin of the term (be it EMI, Decca, Polydor et al), it’s quite plain what is meant. It’s much like using “song” for “tune”. No point throwing a wobbly over it.

Monicker semantics aside.

The Campbell Canntaireachd manuscript has elements recorded as early as 1782, not in notation as we know it, rather canternach written in narrative form. The music was “traditional” by the time it was committed to writing.

The Skene manuscript from around the 1620’s is older still, but the body of work contained in the Campbell Canntaireachd Manuscript has none of the broader european influence or contemporary popularity of that collected and recorded by Skene, and is therefore entirely insular in character.

If I were to go to a selection of music labelled ‘Celtic’ and find traditional music from the areas shown by the two darkest green on the little map here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts I would be happy.

However, I would usually find other music in there as well.

But the map leaves me wondering if some might regard the tunes in the following clips as ‘not Irish’ and/or ‘not Celtic’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn12ns2XzwQ

play video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwnxaDHi2nY

play video

I’m with spencern on this one.

The word: “Celtic” should only by used in reference to the language grouping - never when referring to traditional music of the countries that speak those languages.

The Celts certainly played music - but given the instruments that they used, it couldn’t have born any resemblance to ITM or STM as we know it.

So let’s ban the “C” word - along with the “S” word (i.e. calling tunes “songs”) 😉

“ The Campbell Canntaireachd manuscript has elements recorded as early as 1782, not in notation as we know it, rather canternach written in narrative form. The music was ”traditional" by the time it was committed to writing.

The Skene manuscript from around the 1620’s is older still, but the body of work contained in the Campbell Canntaireachd Manuscript has none of the broader european influence or contemporary popularity of that collected and recorded by Skene, and is therefore entirely insular in character."

And don’t forget the William Dixon manuscript, 1733, containing border tunes consistent with the pipe scale.

Semantics aside, the oldest source of written Irish music would be the “Irish Hay” from the Dallas Lute Book at Trinity c.1583. There is also the “Irishe March” from My Lady Nevells Booke c.1591. It’s privately owned. You can
find these tunes along with a treasure trove of others in“Sources Of Irish Traditional Music c.1600-1855” by
Aloys Fleischmann. It is a remarkable resource but unfortunately hard to come by and REALLY expensive.
Good luck.


Robert Mouland
www.wireharp.com

Callino Casturame (Cailin o Chois tSiuire Me, or, I am a girl from beside the [river] Suir) is contemporary in print with the tunes noted by Wireharp above.

It is a song air, but any Gaelic lyrics have been lost. In my opinion, it does not sound distinctly Irish, but rather sounds a lot like contemporary English tunes, particularly in these 16-17c English arrangements. I tend to play it more sprightly, at danceable galliard or [English] country dance tempo, depending on my mood. YMMV.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FvyYT_Ra8gM

play video

“ The earliest known song associated with the tune is an English one that was entered in the Stationer’s Register on March 10, 1582 as a broadside ballad with the title ”Callin o custure me.“ No broadside copy of this song has survived, but the song was reprinted in 1584 in A Handefull of pleasant delites. In this songbook the song is entitled ”A Sonet of a Louer in the praise of his lady. To Calen o Custure me: sung at euerie lines end." http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/Olson/BMADD.HTM#SUMMER

spencern and Mix O‘Lydian nailed it. “Celtic” as applied to music is a marketing term from the early ’90s when it became popular. I was working in the “World Beat” (ugh) section of Vancouver’s biggest record store at the time and saw it happen, and know whereof I speak. Now New Age synth players claim to be making “Celtic music”, so I think it really is time to let them have it and abuse it all they like, and let those of us who play trad drop it.

Frankly I don’t even know where the Asturians and Galicians get off calling themselves Celts - those regions were thoroughly Latinized before the time of Christ. But whatever gets brass from punters’ pockets I guess.

Also, Nobilis Humilis (Hymn to St. Magnus), 13th, possibly 12th century.
http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/imagelibrary/picture/number900.asp

This illustrates a danger of the indiscriminate use of the term “Celtic music”. This music came from the Orkney Islands, which are sometimes considered part of Scotland, which is sometimes lumped together with Ireland, Wales, Brittany, etc. as “Celtic.” However, the song is not Scottish, nor Celtic. At the time, Norway owned the Orkneys. Also, calling it “Viking” music is about as appropriate as calling ITM “Celtic.” Nevertheless, it’s a cool song, and it’s early polyphony.

This is a “straight” version.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KIFTeh7lsRc

play video

Anuna does it more ethereal and arranged:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kh4PR4atAs

play video

Astonishing scholarship displayed on this thread! It could be a series of lectures at the Open University.

But perplexed as to how the learning can help a student of Irtrad perfect the art. I imagine that to most folks who, like myself, have lived in various parts of Britain where Celtic languages are spoken, the answer to the question is there such a thing as ‘Celtic’ begs a strong affirmation.

Of course there is! From shared words between Gaelic and Cwmraig, presumably long predating any sort of Latin or English influence, to reverence for the performing arts, Eistedfodd, and the attempt to revive a Gealic version Fleadheanna - hope I spelled that correctly, one would have to have wood instead of brains to not perceive it.

Nevertheless, the actual intricacies of each of these cultural zones is not shared! Nor could one expect it to be. Thus while, in the most obvious case, there are similarities between Scottish and Irish tunes and dances, on closer inspection the similarities soon fade, in some cases to where there is nearly nothing left to compare. For example the tune ‘Johnny Cope’ still performed in both traditions. There are some bridging areas such as Donegal where tunes are shared, but each side has a different slant on them and the Irish put into the music another dimension entirely unique with the use of embellishment that defies description or notation.

So I don’t agree with the conclusion that there isn’t a Celtic culture, but I do agree that there is a marked difference between geographically, and/or temporarily, disparate Celtic communities.

As to the OP question, there are many very old fragments of British music kept in various libraries and museums across the Islands, it is almost impossible today to re-create the sound of such performance except for the few choral songs among them. For example ‘The Cuckoo’, ‘Summer Is A Cumming In’ and so on.

As to the Irish oral bardic tradition, I understand that some of it is preserved in works available through Universities across the British Isles and some also overseas. Search for Irish Harp yields a good dose of material. Indeed when we do actually hear some of these pieces it very soon becomes apparent that even in those far off remote times, tunes were shared across the British Isles, some of them claimed in one, or other, part of it.

The oldest recorded written form of Celtic music is that taken from the oral tradition and written out in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.

Oh dear. Before the Romans invaded what is now England, English culture involved living in round wattle and daub houses(?) and going to war with two wheeled chariots. That culture no longer exists. I’m willing to bet that similar statements can be made regarding Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Cornwall, as well as the western coasts of France, Spain and Portugal. That was 2000 years ago and a lot of stuff has changed since then and a lot of that stuff was ‘Culture’.

To say that what passes as traditional music from those areas is Celtic cannot be supported by any evidence. It is at best speculation.

It was, no doubt, an attractive and romantic idea for expatriated Scots and Irish in America but that’s all it was, a conceit. If the word offends you look it up.

The distance between Ireland and Scotland is little more than 15 miles at it’s closest. By the 9th Century the Vikings had the technology to sail from Norway to the East coast of England on raids every summer and go back home with their loot for the winter. They were soon going a lot farther afield than that. Apart from them settling in Ireland in Dublin, settling in Northen France as the Normans and trading as far afield as Constantinople, another good earner for them was the capturing of remote coastal villages for sale in the slave markets of Europe and who knows where else. 15 miles between Ireland and Scotland would have been no barrier to travel at all. Music would have travelled as easily as people. A good tune or song on either side would have made the crossing to the other. Not as fast as music travels today but fast enough. Sure there are ‘accents’ in music. But a good tune in England would soon enough have it’s equivalent in Ireland and vice versa.

There has probably been ‘Big Houses’ in Ireland for over a thousand years. Before they were Engish/Norman aristocracy they would have been Viking. They would have been centres of wealth and it’s not unlikely they set the cultural tone. This new cultural tone would not have been Celtic. The music they played would not have been Celtic. There probably hasn’t been any Celtic music for over a thousand years.

Baroque music, 1600 onwards to the mid 1700s seems very close to the Irish traditional music that has come down to us today, The Baroque started in Italy and soon Germany was also a major contributor. There may be a connection to the music and the development of instruments such as the violin family and the journey from the clavier and virginals to the harspicord, forte piano to the grand piano of today. Keeping in mind that instrument development has to happen before it’s best music can be played, music played 1600 years earlier would probably have to have been much simpler.

“Before the Romans invaded what is now England, English culture involved living in round wattle and daub houses(?) and going to war with two wheeled chariots.”

Before the Romans invaded what is now England, ‘English’ culture, language and nationality were not even twinkles in their fathers’ eyes.

And neither did “Italy” or “Germany” exist as distinct political entities even in the mid 1700’s.

The Anglo-Saxons seem to have lived determinedly in rectangular houses from the beginning of their appearance in England onwards, and to have done the same in their NW German lands of origin.

I can’t think of any find of an Anglo-Saxon chariot or any ancient reference to their using these (I did this stuff once…). Their militias seem mainly to have fought as infantry spearmen. The British in the post-Roman period seem to have been dominated in various places by local warlords who had cavalry retinues; they would base themselves in stockades on raised ground - Dunedin / Edinburgh being an example - from which they could sally, and to which they could return, at speed. Their skills may well have been passed on from those of the Roman army. If they panicked or broke an infantry formation they could carve it up, but if they failed to do this they were likely to be stymied.

I am 1600. I was there🙂

The Anglo Saxons were after the Romans. Julius Caesar’s unsuccessful attempt at invasion was thwarted, in part, by British(?) chariot technology.

“This music came from the Orkney Islands, which are sometimes considered part of Scotland, which is sometimes lumped together with Ireland, Wales, Brittany, etc. as ”Celtic.“ ”

I have never heard Orkney described as “Celtic”. The islands are officially part of Scotland now. However, they are generally, along with Shetland, regarded as “Norse”, historically.

“Before the Romans invaded what is now England, ‘English’ culture, language and nationality were not even twinkles in their fathers’ eyes.”

OK, replace ‘English’ with indigenous.

“And neither did ”Italy“ or ”Germany“ exist as distinct political entities even in the mid 1700’s.”

OK, insert ‘areas now known as’ before country names.
Thanks guys for the edit notes.

“I have never heard Orkney described as ”Celtic“. The islands are officially part of Scotland now. However, they are generally, along with Shetland, regarded as ”Norse“, historically.”

I fully agree. The oceans and seas were the motorways of the day for the Vikings. Small islands they invaded, larger islands they raided. Powerful larger land masses were opportunities for trade. They were flexible. intelligent and adaptable. What’s not to like?

Orkney and Shetland certainly came to be dominated by Norwegian settlers from the c9 or so, but up to then their population and culture were Pictish. Still not that much seems to be known about the Picts, but they are recorded to have been converted to Christianity by St. Columba (c6) and they produced artworks very much of a kind with those of Ireland, the Dalriada (Irish) Scots and Northumbria. The St. Ninian’s Isle Hoard from Shetland is a cache of - I think - Pictish ecclesiastical treasure. I think it’s always been taken that it was buried by its Pictish owners, not by Viking robbers. For one thing the latter very generally cut such spoils into small pieces, valuing them purely as means of exchange and not intrinsically.

I believe it is assumed that though there may have been more than one language spoken in Pictish Scotland, the dominant one was probably akin to Early Welsh, the language spoken by the indigenous British further South. For all that, one churchman referred to four languages being spoken in Britain in his time - English, Welsh, Gaelic and Pictish, with Latin as a fifth to enable all these groups to communicate.

I’ll repeat. Historically, Orkney and Shetland is Norse. That the Pictish peoples who inhabited the islands were not in the habit of keeping records of their societies, their presence could be regarded as prehistory.

“and they produced artworks very much of a kind with those of Ireland, the Dalriada (Irish) Scots and Northumbria. ”

Not too dissimilar with some of the stavkyrkje carvings found in Norway btw. Looks like the designs were copied here and there.

I think historically Orkney is both Celtic and Norse. Just at different periods in history.

But does any of that matter? If we’re talking about traditional music we’re really talking about what happened from the C18 onwards, and both the Picts and Vikings were long dead by then. And we’re talking about social influences amongst the ordinary people. Influences that came from trade and migration with their nearest neighbours, not through the ruling elite. To my ear the music of the Orkneys has far more to do with the West coast of Scotland than Scandinavia, and I’m quite happy to class it as ‘Celtic’.

“I think historically Orkney is both Celtic and Norse. ”

If you’d care to provide some “Celtic” records to back that up.


“From the outset, they were regarded as savage warriors but by the time the Norsemen were compiling their sagas and histories, the memory of the Picts had degenerated into a semi-mythical race of fairies. ”

http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/picts/

I like that one.

“History” implies written records. Whoever these “Picts” were, it doesn’t give Orkney a “Celtic” history. It does, however, have a Pictish, and very much a Neolithic prehistorical significance.
It is now thought that Orkney was a virtual epicentre in Neolithic times. That the “Picts” were just descendants of those people has some merit.

“If we’re talking about traditional music we’re really talking about what happened from the C18 onwards, and both the Picts and Vikings were long dead by then. ”

Bye, you don’t ken some of the fowk I ken fae Orkney, obviously.

“To my ear the music of the Orkneys has far more to do with the West coast of Scotland than Scandinavia, and I’m quite happy to class it as ‘Celtic’.”

The west coast of Scotland has a considerable Norse history too. See Somerled etc.
What’s this “Orkneys” business? To Orcadians, it’s “Orkney”. Listen to “Peter Pratt’s Polka”, or “The Old Polka”. You’ll find counterparts in Norwegian reinlenders, and “The Norwegian Polka” IS “Ringnesen” - a reinlender from Nord-Gudbrandsdal. There is, like in Shetland, a mish-mash of influences in Orkney, and “Celtic” doesn’t hack it.

The Q-Celtic speakers are the westernmost extension of the Indo-Europeans (leaving out more recent colonisations) and the Sanskrit speakers amongst the easternmost surviving (leaving out Tochrian) and comparisons have been made between Piobaireachd and the ancient classical music of northern India.

I think it’s in such comparisons (as have been done in language, mythology, song, etc) that we can get glimpses of what the original Indo-European music might have been like. That’s going back around 10,000 years and is probably as far back as we can know very much.

Listen to several Piobaireachd, especially being sung (several CDs of such are available) and listen to several examples of North Indian classical music and let the millennia slip away.

About Celts and the Romans, with the classical writers it’s often unclear whether Celtic or Germanic people are being referred to, and “tuath” and “deutsch” being cognate doesn’t help.

I am dead serious when I say that I love how on this board a simple question wanders off and becomes a far deeper discussion than anyone could imagine from the original post.

I just as seriously agree! It’s my early morning entertainment to read all this stuff. And best of all, everything you read on thisn site is true.

Gobby, I have a bridge in Brooklyn, NY that I think you would be interested in owning. Put some toll booths on it, and it could generate quite a bit of income for you. 😉

WireHarp said:

“You can find these tunes along with a treasure trove of others in”Sources Of Irish Traditional Music c.1600-1855“ by Aloys Fleischmann. It is a remarkable resource but unfortunately hard to come by and REALLY expensive. ”

My wife found both (hardbound) volumes on ebay fairly reasonably and bought them for my birthday this year. Wonderful Stuff.

Now a dear music book is “Hidden Fermanagh”, out-of-print and used copies on Amazon.com for US$350. Ultimately I think I will have to buy it though.

The trouble, there is no way of knowing how far traditional “Celtic” music. . .or any music for that matter, goes. The earliest music was finally etched on parchment a thousand years ago. Were Saxon, or Welsh, or Irish, poems and songs actually sung? Or spoken? No one knows for sure. We know they had instruments. We know they had music. But with a complete lack of any written records, there’s no chance anyone can discover what the music sounded like before medieval times. And by then, most of the Celtic world was deep in Saxon/Norman/English control. . and they concentrated on THEIR songs. . . not Celtic ones.

Some of the earliest written harp music comes from Wales. The Robert Ap Huw manuscripts, from the early 1600’s can be seen on the Bangor University website.

I’d theorize that the earliest recognizable songs in the “Celtic” genre are lullabies and seasonal songs. . .ones that are passed from one generation from another.

According to the Bangor U. website, Robert Ap Huw referenced earlier works from a century earlier (such as Caniad Y Gwyn Bibydd - recently recorded by Catrin Finch), which places the music to at least the early 16th century. And there is traditional Welsh Christmas music called Plygain that has been passed down generations as well.

In all seriousness the oldest piece of written celtic music is Pais Dinogad from Y Goddodin. It was written around 650AD and is a lullaby from Cumbric Scotland, around the area Edinburgh is today (the Edin part of Edinburgh also comes from this time).