What *is* Irish music?

First of all, just calm down. :)


I thought this would be a fun experiment:

To *you*, what are the most obvious defining features of Irish music? The sound of it, that is, not the culture or anything like that. What is it that differentiates Irish music from related genres such as Scottish or Cape Breton? What is it you’re missing when classical musicians try to play it? All I’m asking for is personal, subjective, non-technical opinions, though of course more technical or objective opinions, if anyone would like to take a shot at such a thing, would be interesting as well. And of course it may be easier to define what it *isn’t* than what it *is.*

This is actually based on stuff that we got into a bit on the harp thread about the characteristics that define Irish music. Sure, there are a million regional and personal styles, but even with all of the significant differences that there may be between these, what ties them together?

Another way to look at it might be, if a given instrument was to be introduced into Irish music from outside of the tradition, are there some minimum requirements for what the instrument (and the player) would have to be able to do in order for you to recognize the music as definitely and specifically Irish? We all agree that there’s more to it than just playing the notes of an Irish tune, but what?

As I put it in the other thread, it’s possible for different people to approach the same instrument with the goal of playing dance music on it and wind up with different end products, but are there certain minimum standards or characteristics that their playing should have in common if both musicians’ work is to be considered within the realm of Irish traditional music that would be recognized as such by the majority of traditional musicians? If so, what are they? I said in the other thread that what those minimum standards are, who or where they should come from, how they should relate to different instuments, and whether or not they are or should be universal for Irish music is a huge topic on its own, so here it is!

Yes, Ostrichfeathers I am still here, a lot to think about both here and in the most recent posts on the harp thread. I’m still thinking…

Irish music is, simply put, music that goes "diddly dai dai dum, diddly dai do day!"

You asked for a technical opinion…

Here’s few guesses:
1) When backed with "regular" diatonic triad/chord accompaniment, it sounds like crap?
2) Uses specific modes as the basis of harmonic relationship (Mixolydian & Dorian being biggies). Chromatcism = bad
3) Certain conventional forms for rhythms
4) Sounds good with a pint or two.

This list probably establishes nothing untrue of any other type of folk music, but it’s the best my poor brain can handle.

What if you hear "Diddly dai dai la lama?" Is that New Age ITM? I’m also still thinking. I am also drinking, since it rhymes with thinking, and therefore they must help each other. ;-)

The Rythmical feel and the ornamentation are for me what identifies The Music. A classical musician could play the same notes in perfect time but would be unlikely to be able to create that dance pulse that makes us tap the feet. Ornamentation is a similar problem in that it has to be done in such a way that it does not detract from the beat , but enhance it. If I knew how to tell someone how to do all this I’d probably be able to earn a living as a (The) music teacher :)
Interesting subject and I look forward to reading some in depth replies from our intelligentsia - we do have a few.

Donough, you’re part way to the answer. I can’t get any closer, but I would like to substitute a couple of words for your thoughts about ornamentation and not detracting. I think maybe ITM, in essence, is more about unity (unison playing) than symphony (sympathetic playing).

I think a non-ITM player coming in for a first try - however quickly and well they could master the notes and meter and ornamentation - would immediately try to create, as opposed to recreating and reverberating.

And those ITM players who do create and improvise, know specifically to avoid problematic ornamentation that detracts from that great, primal whatever-it-is.

As I was going on about in the other thread, it’s not too hard to list some things that sound wrong in ITM, but that doesn’t define what ITM is, just what it is not.

I think that the Irish-ness of trad music is very tough to define. The characteristic rhythms, ornamentation, melodic conventions (e.g., why some variations sound right and others don’t), IMHO all constitute a sort of accent that, just like linguistic accents, can only be learned by immersion, active listening, and practice.

Sometimes I’ve heard fellow students of ITM who’ve decided that they’ve "gotten it"—e.g., thinking all they need to do is play with some specific amount of "swing", degree of backbeat emphasis, or type of ornamentation—and it sure doesn’t sound right to me. I think they’re missing the point because characteristics like these can vary a lot between regional and individual styles. Good players can approach each tune differently based on what the tune "wants," the playing situation, and their mood, while still sounding appropriately traditional in any case.

Wormdiet has some good points about the melodic content in ITM—many related dance music styles don’t have the same kind of "keyless" modal tunes with no clear tonal center. But then many Irish tunes are also in "regular" major keys, and some are even chromatic (I can think of a few hornpipes in that vein, like the Golden Eagle with its circle of fifths in the melody).

Polkas and slides. :D

Irish music is just about playing a few tunes with/ without a couple of friends. It’s soul music or to quote someone or other,"played from the heart and not the hole!" or played with feeling in a certain style.
I teach people (kids 2 adults (who aren’t skilled enough or old enough or don’t have enough bottle to sit in a session and become immersed!)) how to play the fiddle and find that it’s just about sheer imitation at the end of the day.
It also seems to be more or less personal to each individual on how they begin to crack that Irish thing ie. rhythm, ornamentation, phrasing and intonation (to ‘try’ and cap it all intellectually). Few realise at the start that it has nothing to do with anything academic…..(especially classical musicians)

Still that doesn’t answer the question does it???
I’ll go with the ‘sounds good to me’ hypothesis. Good Luck!!!

"…that great, primal whatever-it-is"… I like that!

Hello, Matt & Clare, by the way! See you at Wimborne? :o)

Hello there nell (or should I say Helen??)!
Yep I reckon you might well see us there, I hear on the malt vine that you’re gonna be playing there, is that true??

Can’t agree with all of Wormdiet points.

What’s the problem with diatonic triad accompaniment of a tune in D major (there are a few) (I don’t mean just three chord-trick - boom-chucka-chuck). The good guys (Brady, Doyle etc)
are guilty of it. If the melody features an F# shouldn’t the accompaniment.

That’s sometimes the drawback with DADGAD for example (and all tunings have their drawback)
It’s the whole non-committal thing, avoiding the issue of the third. I think that’s part of the problem with it, it can be easy to sound good, but also easy to sound like everyone else.

On what is Irish music, I think BarryM is spot on.

Apart from the mechanics, music is language,language has accent,
If you want to play music,then claim its irish,or played in an irish style,then it simply has to sound like someone playing it with an irish accent. or,you may not want to. there aint no rules when it comes down to just making music. Frankie gavin makes every sound irish,(jazz,classial etc.) because he uses the same kind of feel he learned when originally developing his style.
I’m playing Irirsh music all my life,and at this stage I don’t feel I play Irish music alot of the time any more,even though alot of it`s reel and jig based,but my accent is somewhat unorthadox because of the many other influences I`ve had,so I have to be a bit of a chameleon at times. innovation,stylisation and Innovation,in that order. Conservatism,lack of confidence and fear of unacceptance usually stops people going onto the 3rd stage,which is the most difficult actually.
Play whatever way you feel,wether its irish or not,just dont be OYRISH. That`s worse than anything,even if you’re brilliant at it.

Didileeidle, folk music, national music, bog music, Irish Gaelic music

(according to saps)

BarryM has a great point. The importance of unison isn’t exclusively Irish (American old-time music is another trad style where a good session has multiple melody players, everyone listening and trying to play together as closely as possible), but I agree that it’s key to the Irish style. The best lessons I’ve ever had in ITM have not been the formal or paid ones, but the times I’ve sat next to a great player in a session, trying to blend with their playing even though I’m playing a different instrument.

This may be part of the problem with learning and teaching ITM on the harp—technical issues can make it difficult (at least for people starting on the instrument) to pick up dance tunes by ear on on the fly, or to modify their playing to match the notes/ornaments/phrasing of the group in a session.

Mr Browne, when’s the next gig in Dublin ?

Matt&Clare, it’s not confirmed yet but I hope so, yes!

Dunno yet. was gona try n organise some sort of tour for us at the end of march beginning of april but we might just end up doing some recording for my own album and some for the group while we’re all about at once.shane’s is now doing some gigs with danu so it’s getting quite difficult to find windows of opportunity at this time of year ,but ,if anything comes up i’ll post it onto the site.
might do one in hollywood in wicklow soon enough,
regards,
P

Irish music is simply that music which the "protectors" (or stiff shirts who always worry about who plays what and how at sessions) go out and purchase Lunasa Cds in droves.

And this statement:

"1) When backed with "regular" diatonic triad/chord accompaniment, it sounds like crap?"

Just me but -that being a relatively new thing, there are some who don’t like that whole dagaddy thing at all. I like both, but would not use that as an identifying characteristic of ITM.

hello peter browne,

are you the one who played these great "barking"
pipes on hunters purse on kevin burkes first album?

ive never stopped to be really delighted when listening to it….

kind regards

günther zimmermann

"…The importance of unison isn’t exclusively Irish (American Old-Time music is another trad style…"

Where do you think American Old-Time music came from?
The similarities can’t be just a coincidence…

Peter’s a box player I believe. If he’s who I think he is, I met him in the Cobblestone and talked to him about a mutual friend. I also listened to him and a fiddler friend of his play a bunch of brilliant and unique tunes the fiddler wrote, and then played a few tunes with him , Michelle, Barry, and the fiddler (Sean maybe) for a while, and I didn’t realize he was the Peter from this site until I was back at the hotel room laying in bed. Peter’s a virtuoso and if you ever get a chance to hear him, don’t pass it up.

"Where do you think American Old-Time music came from?"

Well, Irish and Scottish dance music, with a large infusion of African-American styles (blues, ragtime, etc.). So yes, some of the similarities in approach must be from the direct influence of Irish music. It makes me wonder whether Applachian fiddle music, minus the African influences, might sound the way tunes were played in Ireland 200 or 300 years ago …

Irish music is any music which comes out of and is informed by the Irish musical tradition, surely(?)
As PeteB says, it’s music with an Irish accent.
All the technical definitions regarding harmony, instruments, modes, keys, rhythms etc are going to be subject to exceptions.
As someone said somewhere else:
"It’s called traditional music because that’s what the traditional players call it…"
(Or words to that effect).
Mark

I was pobably a bit hasty on my "chordal" analysis - which must be personal reference more than anything else. I find minor ITM far more compelling, usually, than major tunes.… which dont sound teribly distinctive to my ear. But that’s just me.

I think i was meant’t to say immitation,stylisation and innovation.
Hi jack,you’ve got a beard right?

That’s me… the big ugly hairy guy. It was nice to meet you, probably a good thing I didn’t connect you with this site though — I hate gossip. ;-)

Lots of interesting stuff…keep it coming!

My original intention was to talk more about what Irish musicians have in common as far as how they put that “Irish accent” into the tunes that they play, and less about the features of the tunes themselves (modality, for example.) I was also less interested in how the tunes might be arranged or accompanied; that’s a separate issue. I’m curious to hear more thoughts on the tangible aspects of the melody playing. Maybe a more specific question would be, what might the Irish accent consist of, and what are its most important features? What might be the most important things that a person attempting to learn the style would need to master?

Here’s a brief list of possibilities that I’ve heard from various sources, in no particular order. Obviously I want to know what y’all think of these:

Ability to do melodic variations

Ability to do ornaments and play them at the right times; for example, could someone play too many or too few ornaments to the point where most trad musicians would think it had the wrong feel?

Rhythm of melody notes, including whether some notes are more emphasized than others and whether some are held longer or shorter

Tone (For example, on the fiddle, scratchy or smooth)

Ability to blend with other melody players; not to play too many variations when playing with a group, to play at a good volume level, etc.

Ability to use subtle changes, never playing the same way twice

Any theories? Is there really nothing that Irish musicians have in common about the way they play that there is little or no exception to? Of course, in classical music, musicians would play a page consisting solely of eighth notes perfectly evenly, each note being held for the same length of time and played at the same volume. Could this ever be acceptable in Irish music, provided other elements of the style, such as ornamentation, were there? If there are always exceptions, what might some of them be?

Actually, I’d be especially interested to hear about exceptions to *any* common definitions of what might sound "Irish."

Thanks!

Irish music, sets your feet tapping or fingers drumming, it’s a "feel" thing like good bluesy/jazz.

And don’t forget those haunting airs. The whole thing possibly does reflect Ireland, a manic depressive, jigging about one minute and then deep melancholy the next.

I’ll have to stop smoking.

"The Big Ugly Hairy Guy". Oops.

I agree with anything Jack says, and don’t anyone disagree or you will have me to deal with. (Smiley)

I’ll use your bloody bodhran for a seat cusion if you don’t! :-D hahaha

What about O’ Carolan???? Where does his music fall in all of this?
He used to hang out with composers like Geminiani and there are even myths that he knew Vivaldi. I think that he probably played his music in what would have been a ‘classical style’ at that time as he played for courts of nobility etc.
Yet you still find his tunes in the o’ neil’s and it’s generally accepted as being ‘original Irish music’.

Pbrowne more or less summed it up; it’s like a dialect/accent in the musical language.
You can play a mozart concerto or a bulgarian horo or a jazz standard all with an irish flavour to it.

I’m also looking forward to seeing more feedback!

Matt

Carolan’s music falls into a variety of styles, and much of it is indeed influenced by the Italian baroque music that was in vogue with his wealthy patrons at the time. Some of his music is thought to have been composed in an older, more quintessentially Irish style, meant to be performed in the style of a traditional song; Blind Mary, Bridget Cruise, and Eleanor Plunkett are cited as examples of this. And Carolan’s Farewell to Music is often considered to be a link with an even earlier musical tradition, showing the influence of the old harp repertoire and pieces like Limerick’s Lamentation.

Some of Carolan’s more uptempo pieces are evocative of Baroque gigas, while some seem much more akin to Irish jigs. Then there are the pure baroque pieces like Mrs. Power, commonly known as Carolan’s Concerto, and supposedly improvised on the spot in response to a challenge from Geminiani. So it really depends on the piece as far as whether it is even meant to sound like what we think of as traditional music, and whether it be more closely related to dance music, song, or the older harp tradition, and performers can choose to interpret different pieces in different ways. Some of Carolan’s pieces have entered the tradition as set dances, such as Planxty Drury, and these are a separate issue again. Until this year, the fleadh did not allow Carolan pieces because they were considered an important part of Irish musical hsitory, but are problematic in terms of being "traditional." This year, a change has been made to allow "planxties" as an acceptable tune type, but this actually is quite confusing, since it is open to discussion what the definition of a "planxty" is. Is Carolan’s concerto a planxty? It seems as out of place in the Irish tradition as a Corelli or Geminiani sonata. Carolan’s Farewell to Music certainly seems acceptable from a traditional point of view, but it is not considered a planxty, if a planxty is a praise piece written in honor of a patron. So it’s quite confusing.

…There was just one sweet potato.
He was golden brown and slim.
The lady loved his dancing,
The lady loved his dancing,
The lady loved his dancing,
She danced all night with him,
She danced all night with him.
Alas, he wasn’t Irish.
So when she flew away,
They threw him in the coal-bin,
And there he is today,
Where they cannot hear his sighs
And his weeping for the lady,
The glorious Irish lady,
The beauteous Irish lady,
Who
Gives
Potatoes
Eyes.

Vachel Lindsay

When I ask people if they think my Irsh music playing sounds like the real thing — they always say it does. Keep in mind that I’m 6’ 4", big, hairy, ugly and scary looking… it comes in handy sometimes. ;-)

One aspect of Irish music that sets it apart from any other form I know anything about is that it almost never has a rest anywhere in a piece. Besides making for a distinctive sound, it makes ITM one of the most self-contained musical forms in that it can be played by one musician or singer without accompaniment. Of course, there are other musical forms where that can be done, but probably not consistently throughout the repertoire, nor to such good effect. (I do not include guitar or piano music because those instruments have the ability to speak in multiple voices despite being only one instrument.)

I love vachel lindsay! I memorized "the congo" for a speech and debate poetry tournament once.

Music played by Irish people, and sometimes by people who want to be Irish. -Shawn

Hmm, noone seems to be answering ostrichfeathers’ questions, and I’m interested in hearing answers to those as well.

So, to make things a little less abstract, how about the following thought experiment: let’s say you have a friend who’s a talented vibraphonist, technically proficient and competent in playing several styles (jazz, classical). He’s now learning ITM on the vibraphone.

Say this player demonstrates a few jigs/reels/hornpipes to you on the vibraphone, and asks you whether his playing sounds right for ITM. Please assume you are open-minded enough to accept that playing ITM on the vibraphone is possible. :) You are pleasantly surprised by his playing, and impressed with how traditional it sounds, even though he’s playing an instrument uncommon to ITM . What could be some of the concrete things you heard in his playing that gave you such a positive impression? Would you have been listening for rhythm, phrasing, tempo, choice of notes, or what?

Imagine a complete stranger* comes up to you and starts complaining that you haven’t answered someone elses question adequately, and demands that you consider a completely facile question of their own devising? Why would you bother wasting your time answering them?

* Or indeed, someone who can’t be arsed to put anything in their bio details(!)

;-)

Sorry if my hypothetical question seems stupid, but I really am interested in the question of how you might determine whether ITM played on a non-traditional instrument sounds truly "Irish", or "traditional." Is it just a matter of "I know it when I hear it", or are there some tangible qualities that are necessary for any instrument to play recognizable ITM?

If you or anyone else is also interested in that question, I’d love to hear what you think. If not, feel free to ignore!

I’ll try and put up some bio information Real Soon Now.

Rhythm and ornamentation, too tough to define with my lack of musical education. I think it’s *interesting* to hear classical players get bored after playing jigs and reels for a while, and start to do "classical-type" arranging of them. Baroque-style counterpoint, gypsy music - type embellishments. and so on.

I wonder did the traditional players in Norway and Hungary get upset when they heard the stuff Grieg and Liszt were doing with their tunes?

It’s the music played by Danú, Téada, Altan, Four Men and a Dog, ……….

Does any other traditional music in the world even remotely sound like it???

What makes me want to scream is all those damn smily faces. Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ottery - that’s 2 bios unfilled in (the author’s and hijacker’s of this thread - that’s why I haven’t bothered answering till now—-ye have to be so-o-o careful these days, ye just don’t know who yer talking to).
The last person who came up to my face who didn’t tell me anything about himself was a bloke today trying sell me the Big Issue.
And the last time I bought one of them the guy spent the next 29 minutes (I’d just missed the half-hourly train) telling me about his struggles through giving up being a junkie, living in squats, and in the end, effectively telling me that many people who sell the big issue are still bigtime users.
So I have an aversion to people without a name of some kind.

exactly, Danny(!)

I really like ITM songs that I can research as to its history, lyrics in Gaelic, find out about different recordings of the same song, etc… I suppose it meets the definition for ethnic music, as it is rooted in the culture and history.

One reason I’m wary about this type of discussion is creativity being disallowed. Music is also a "creative, living process." For example, the mixed reactions I heard about Flook and then enjoying "Rubai" album as a refreshing new way of arranging and playing the music. Why not enjoy and respect the "creative living process" of the older music and current composing and new arrangements?

I wonder what they said when the bouzouki was first introduced to ITM?

ostrichfeathers, I appreciate you trying to keep this discussion going (from the previous harp thread and then onto this one), but I have a feeling it’s dying out now.

Maybe because it’s just too hard to put words around what is just so intangible. Kind of like asking "what *is* (xyz) language?" At some point, words simply cannot define a language or music, which really is very similar to a language.

It just has to be experienced, soaked in, and if we are lucky, absorbed at the cellular level—it’s beyond clumsy words and definitions.

(Don’t mean to sound like a freak, but oh, well.)

To go back to the original question;
"Oh, the hard ones first, eh ?"o

Hey all, I’m new here. I’ve been enjoying reading the discussions! I think there are definitely some concrete distinguishing features about Irish music playing. It would be somewhat difficult to compare it to its close relative, Scottish music, so for starters I’ll just compare it to classical music. Before I say anything more, I’d like to make some disclaimers. I’m not trying to be overly academic, just trying to describe the music as best I can, which is what I think the post asks for. I am also not trying to put restrictions on the music in any way. These are just my observations. To CeolCardeas, I also want to mention that I think it’s very possible to play the tunes with a traditional feel while still being very creative with the arrangements, like Lunasa or Flook. Even though they play innovative arrangements, the tunes themselves are played with the Irish accent, as it has been called, and as I’ve tried to describe below.

When a classical musician first tries to play Irish music, the most obvious thing that is off is the rhythm. They tend to play each note at the same volume level, and all the notes are held for the same amount of time, in other words it’s played very evenly. A good trad player playing a jig plays the second note in every group of three notes much shorter than the first and third notes. This is an oversimplified description, and I could go into more detail, but I don’t want to get too wordy right off the bat! In a reel, a good player plays in a long-short-long-short pattern instead of all notes being even. I think the best way to learn these rhythms is through listening to good players and guidance from good teachers. The exact length of the notes is too complex to be written out in a way that could be useful to most performers, but there are specific note lengths that create a good trad sound. There is a range of variation between different players on these exact rhythms, but going outside of that range takes away from the Irish accent. For example, straight eighth notes sounds untrad, and dotted-eighth/sixteenth would sound too extreme for a reel or hornpipe. If anyone knows of a great trad player who does not do these rhythms, I’d be interested to check out a sound clip.

Maybe the next most important element would be ornamentation. Each type of ornament has its own unique rhythm, so we’re back to rhythm again! Also, the placement of the ornaments is important.

What do you guys think?

Fiddleplayer, then we are in agreement about Lunasa, Flook and ITM creativity. Your explanation of the characteristic rhythm of Irish fiddlers makes me want to go dig up some old Kevin Burke recordings (Sweeney’s Dream, If the Cap Fits) for what he calls "naked fiddle" (solo fiddle). Best Wishes.

Fiddleplayer, I think you’re right on about the note length issue—perfectly even or dotted notes will sound un-trad. (I think perfectly divided quarter note + eighth note rhythms, e.g. on a hornpipe, would be similarly wrong-sounding). On another thread somebody made some computer measurements of eighth-note length ratios for reels and hornpipes among some different fiddlers, and as you say there was a range of variation in the relative lengths. I think this would depend on tempo as well as on individual style and whatever else.

Doug.

For thoughts on the structure of the music, you can do worse than read Tomás O’Canainn’s "Traditional Music In Ireland."

in the words of Kevin Burke and others it is what you play with "nyah"!…that nyah thing that is a rhythm/ornament thing that some musicians possess and some don’t (and it doesn’t make them bad musicians, just bad ITM musicians)…you can learn nyah but most people that have it (the good ones) are born with it (I think)….

Hi guys,

Fiddleplayer, thanks for responding. I totally agree about the creativity thing as well, by the way. I never meant to make this a polarizing discussion in that sense, and I’m sorry if it sounded like that. I’m kind of surprised that there hasn’t seemed to be that much that people have mentioned that we can all agree on, but I suppose that can be an answer in itself.

Doug, that was actually me that did the rhythm analysis a while back. I guess if I post it that will probably make it more clear what my opinions on this might be, which I wanted to leave out of this for now in favor of learning about other points of view, but I’ll post the link here in case anyone’s interested. You’ll have to scroll down to get to it:

https://thesession.org/discussions/5608/comments#comment5608


Will, I’ve definitely found the O Canainn book interesting. I’m not sure if I agree with everything in it, but I wish there were more works that attempted what this book does, and go even further. If anyone can point me in that direction, I’d appreciate it as well.

Zoukmike, I’m curious if by "born with it" you mean learning by cultural immersion, or something to do with talent. I think you’re right that the vast majority of good musicians haven’t really been "taught" in any conventional way, but as I’ve said in the past, I think one reason for that is simply that so little actual teaching has ever been attempted. In the past, Irish music has been transmitted rather than taught, but relatively few people now ever have the opportunity to have it transmitted through their community. There may never have been much of a demand for teaching before, but now that there is, I think that effective specific *methods* of teaching all of this hard-to-define stuff are largely only now being developed. Bui I’ve talked about all that in more detail elsewhere. I will say that while some people might fear that more teaching will produce homogenized robots, I think with good teaching, there is actually less of this, because instead of amateurs having to pick and choose what commercial trends (modern or historical) to follow and copy in isolation, good teachers will be able to give them good enough boundaries for traditional style that the students’ individuality can be nurtured and inspired as well. I think that students sometimes can become stunted in developing their individuality because they lack confidence in their understanding of the basics of Irish music and want to be very careful that they’re not "stepping out of bounds."

I take back what I said about not being able to really define the music. Also, I have the Tomas O’Canainn book and I am going to re-read it.

I’ve just realised that I must have the Tomas O’Canainn book squirreled away somewhere, and should re-read it after all these years ( I think a friend of mine edited it - was it published by RKP originally ? )
I also more recently read and much enjoyed " Last Night’s Fun ", although I couldn’t quote you a line of it now ( late-night bedtime reading ).
Also, lastly, I looked up zoukmike, and he has no history !
Sir, tell us of yourself, tell the truth, embroider it, or make up a good lie, but don’t just hide behind your nom-de-plume, we’re all people here relating through our music.
And I particularly wanted to know a little about another ‘zouk player.