BS: Regional styles of music and dance

Subject: Regional styles of music and dance
From: GUEST,BeauDangles
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 06:58 PM

I have wondered a lot about musical styles. Looking at the Celtic idiom, you can see many distinct styles, or accents, that have developed. For instance, it is fairly easy to distinguish just by listening between Scottish and Irish music. Within Irish music, you have several distinct regional styles (i.e. Donegal, Clare, Sligo, etc.). Cape Breton music is to me instantly recognizable, and has a voice all it's own. The same can be said about the development of dance and language in each of these places. The reason for this has a lot to do with isolation. Taking Cape Breton as an example, the (mostly) Scottish people who settled there brought with them their language, their music, their cultural biases. The Gaelic that is spoken there has been isolated for so long, that it is closer (purer?) to the original Gaelic that was spoken in Scotland than the modernized form that developed in Scotland. Cape Breton dance is very much different from the highly stylized form that came to be in Scotland. And the music that evolved their is very distinct as well: primarily fiddle and piano, with a fairly healthy guitar tradition, but virtually no flute tradition; they gravitate, like the Scots, toward the reel and the strathspey.

Conversly, there is no Virginia style of Irish flute playing. There is a lot of Irish music in Virginia, but will there ever be any kind of regional style here? We do have "old time" music. I am not well versed enough to know if our style of old time is distinct from that of, say, upstate New York. Is Old Time our style Celtic music?

And what about Down Under? One would think that any Celtic music that was "imported" there from the old country would have been sufficiently isolated to have evolved a unique regional accent. Is there any such animal?

Any thoughts on this subject?

BeauD

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: BeauDangles
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 01:03 PM

Just refreshing this thread to see if I get any nibbles.

BeauD

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: Petr
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 10:13 PM

Bruce Molsky regards old time music and part Irish & part African(the banjo is definitely African in origin). Although there are a many regional styles of fiddle playing and traditional dance in the US and Canada. New England tends to be (I think close to Scottish and Irish) and the Virginia and the (Round peak style) differs significantly from say Kentucky fiddling which tends to be cleaner and has less double stops and less cross tuning. Of course theres Cajun which is a mix on its own but part of it comes from the French Canadian tradition. French Canadian fiddle and dance music is derived oddly enough (according to Yvon Mimeault) from Scottish & and to some extent Irish music as opposed to French. (Although when french canadian fiddlers attended Fiddle tunes in Port Townsend (American Festival of Fiddle Tunes) encountered Mexican fiddle music they sensed something familiar maybe some latin roots. Then there is Texas swing which is probably the most recently evolved regional style. Also Mississippi Fred McDowell (blues player of course) said the blues originated from the reel (which originally came from scotland) although the blues are in 12bar phrases.

Anyway Im not an expert by any means on regional styles but I think that they are constantly evolving. For instance (I think purists may disagree) but any history of traditional Irish music must to some extent involve the Irish in America from Chief O'Neill the Chicago police chief who collected and published Irish tunes in the latter half of the 19th century. To Michael Coleman and Hugh Gillespie and James Morrison and many others who early recordings subsequently made their way back to Ireland. Which is why the sligo style (Colemans) became a lot more dominant. In that sense the Irish in America aided a revival of trad. music in Ireland where it was dying out (possibly thanks to the British and the church). Also many current top Irish fiddle players are second generation Irish Americans.

As Irish music and dance became popular people would have kitchen parties and bring a bit of money for some ham and booze. The church and govt. saw an opportunity to collect taxes on this and passed a law (The Church Hall Act?) requiring all dances to be held in halls (which were usually churches) and taxes could be collected.

I think the church influenced Irish step dancing to some extent too. Dancing was considered sinful anyway but at one time it involved using the whole body as there are remnants of Irish dancing in Newfoundland which uses the the whole body (as the substantial Irish population there was isolated for several hundred years.

As for other dancing styles take a look at clogging. Scottish Clog dancing is different from english which is different from southern clog dancing.

Irish set dancing which Im currently into, comes from the French quadrille (based on groups of two couples) which was brought back by the English during the Napoleonic wars and influenced Scottish country dance and American square dancing).

Anyway what was your question? cheers Petr/

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: Escamillo
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 10:44 PM

This is the kind of threads I save for my library. Thanks a lot to both of you. Please continue, and if possible satisfy my curiosity: my ancestors, whose descendants I never contacted, were Britons from Finisterre in France - was/is their music and dances closely connected to Irish, or British ?
Un abrazo - Andrés (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: DougR
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 11:29 PM

Well, Petr, you may not consider yourself an expert but if your not, you'd make a damn good salesman! This a good thread and I hope it goes on awhile. Learned a lot, thanks!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: Kelida
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 11:38 PM

I don't know about Australian music, but definitely the music that was imported to America has developed into a completely different animal. American folk music has some of the same sound as the older Celtic/English/whatever folk that it evolved from, and there are American versions of a lot of war songs ("Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" is a good example of this). Also, a lot of American labour songs were adapted from earlier folk music. Modern Country and Bluegrass music both have deep roots in Celtic music. All modern folk rock (Jethro Tull, etc.) have a huge amount of Celtic sound. Etc.

Really, almost all music has some sort of tie to Celtic music (at least in America). Of course the extent of those roots varies greatly between genre and artist. . .

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: Petr
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 11:39 PM

I wanted to add that old time music (which is what we call it now but used to be just called dance music) led to Bluegrass, Country and Western, and Texas Swing. Bluegrass music, which incidentally is one of the few musical genres that was started by one person, namely Bill Monroe. He took old time music and jazzed it up a little, and made it into a more driving performance oriented style as opposed to dance music. You dont usually see musicians doing improvised solo breaks in old time music. For 60 years or so old time music took a backseat to Bluegrass but has recently become popular again in the last 20 years thanks to a fiddle and banjo players who kept the tradition.

Escamillo, I dont know enough about Breton music and dance but Im sure its related to other celtic music. The chieftains had a cd a few years ago which included some Breton music.

Im sure there are many other influences in North American music besides celtic, eg Spanish (guitar) African(banjo ) why does the banjo make me think of Downs Syndrome) Mexican, Gypsy etc. Cheers Petr

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 12:52 PM

Regional Styles, to a very great extent, have been wiped out by the coming of the roads, the recordings, TV and mass media. You can still find them in areas where the folks haven't had too much contact with the folkies, but this is rare.

Subject: RE: BS: Regional styles of music and dance
From: Petr
Date: 19 Apr 00 - 04:51 PM

I should add as well that to some extent the resurgence in popularity of roots music has led to loss of regional styles as well. With fiddle camps springing up everywhere they might pick up say one style from Kentucky fiddling (whereas some old time fiddlers have said there are up to 12 styles in KY. Petr.