Just a few points:

Welsh music is quite different from Irish or Scottish. One top musician I know explains it by saying that Irish music is about unity, and Welsh about harmony. Another few emphasize that Irish is about ornamentation and Welsh is about variation. They're different, anyway, and all this is part of why I cringe at the 'Celtic' label. Even 'Gaelic'.

Re: Anahata's remark about the Eisteddfod - yeh, it has had a strangle hold but most people admit that Eisteddfod singing is all about aiming for Western Classical style excellence rather than 'folk'. It's encouraging that some of the 'folk' competitions are faltering because (IMO) the practitioners are realizing that competition isn't the be all and end all. There are lots of places where you can hear the living tradition including Plygain carol services at Christmas which brings us to ...

... Fa so la and ilk. Plygain singing has retained a much older singing style which sounds to my ear quite similar to Fa so la. I read "Sound of the Dove" some time ago and the author writes that the congregations she studied in Appalachia traced themselves back to the Welsh Baptist Churches of Delaware and ... Pennsylvania? ... in 1703 or thereabouts. (William Penn was Welsh, IIRC) I am not trying to make a case for Fa so la being 'Welsh', just trying to reinforce the points above that the style was quite broad-spread. Many English academics, working in a variety of fields, think things are 'English' because they never thought to do any research into areas where the supporting literature isn't IN English. twits.

sian