How play celtic music?

Subject: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST,Chuck the Monk
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 11:50 AM

I happen to have collected quite a lot of irish scots etc sheetmusic.

I have understood that it is not played according to the sheetmusic but very much more ornamentally.

I am not for the moment willing to buy CD and MP3 is a bit
too much for my modem.

So which are the differences between played and written Celtic folkmusic

Personally I play melodies with classic guitar and a 5-row Russian
Bayan but that is by no means important

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 01:18 PM

Chuck, I fear you might be asking for the impossible. To play appropriate ornamentations, you need first to hear their like, somehow. Given that you will not find them transcribed onto the scores, there is very little one can do in order to describe them to you.

If you are not willing to buy a CD, then borrow one - from friends, from library etc. Or if you don't have a CD player, borrow a cassette player. Or get someone to play Celtic music to you; or to sing it.

Without that, you may well try to add your own ornamentations - they may take you somewhere other than Celtic style, but what else can you do?

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 01:33 PM

"and a 5-row Russian
Bayan but that is by no means important"

Ah but, you can't just drop stuff like this in! What is it? As is widely claimed the Celts were basically Russians so you could be on a winner.

Monk, a fine musical name too.

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Stewart
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 01:34 PM

Who knows what kind of music the early Celts played? They left no recordings and no writings.

As for Irish, Scottish and most other traditional music, El Greko is right, the tunes cannot easily be transcribed into scores nor described in words. This music came out of an oral (aural) tradition and one can only get it right by listening. Listening, listening, and listening.

You could do what musicians used to do before recordings, CDs and mp3s. You could go to your local Irish session and just listen. Or other places where this music is played live.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 01:40 PM

Stewart is quite right, come out and hear the music live! It's almost ALWAYS the best way to experience it, and is particularly true in my opinion of Celtic music. You didn't mention geographic location, but you can find live Celtic music in a lot of places! Even in our humble town there is a monthly Irish night at our little coffee house in the middle of PA (Bellefonte).

Also listen for Thistle and Shamrock on NPR, in addition to other radio shows like our own Folk Show here on WPSU-fm (I'm one of the djs).

It's out there... just look around some!

-jim

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 01:57 PM

"El Greko is right, the tunes cannot easily be transcribed into scores"

I guess the crucial word is easily. If most people playing this kind of music do actually play more or less the same thing each time they play a tune, it can be transcribed and played by people who play from music?

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 02:54 PM

Hi Chuck,

Welcome to Mudcat. You have come to the right place to find people interested in Celtic and other folk & blues music. They're a nice bunch of people, here, too.

There are midi files available on the Internet. They are relatively small files which you can play online or download/save to your computer. A good starting point would be the Irish section of Barry Taylor's midis at The Contemplator's website. You can find tunes of other countries there too.

Barry may not play them all in an absolutely pure traditional way, but the Celtic "lilt" - which is usually played but not put into written music scores - is definitely there.

If you do a search for Celtic midi files on the Internet you will find a huge number of websites, some useful and some not so useful.

Also we have a page of links here at Mudcat. Just click on the word "Links" at the top of the page, in the Mudcat title bar. There are a lot of links to music sites with midi files.

There is also a very good online BBC site with session music called BBC Virtual Session   

You look at the score and listen to the midi while playing the music on your instrument. I think you can slow the speed down while you are learning.

Have fun, and let us know how you are going with it.

Helen

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 02:58 PM

Thanks Helen that site is brilliant

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 18 Jan 06 - 06:52 PM

I have no idea what you mean by "celtic" music (it's a bullshit marketing category promoted by American record companies and American racists) but if you want to play Scottish music, you might listen to some recordings of Bobby MacLeod, who played Scottish dance music on a five-row chromatic accordion (C-system rather than the B-system you've got, but the differences aren't great).

Listen to BBC Radio Scotland's "Take the Floor" and "Travelling Folk" programmes via the web, they stream them for a week after the original broadcast. There is a magazine devoted to Scottish dance music played on the accordion, "Box and Fiddle" - look at their website, it'll give you links to the Scottish accordion scene in general.

Chromatic accordions with a full bass section are not much used these days for Irish music. If you were in Ireland you'd find people who play them, as they're pretty tolerant of people doing odd things, but it will simply attract hostility from most wannabes playing Irish music elsewhere. Offhand the only Irish band I can think of that uses it is Donald Ring's, and his style is heavily Scottish-influenced (as well as being very unfashionable both sides of the Irish Sea). Donald himself plays a Shand-type bisonoric box, which is a very different beast. For other Celtic peoples like the Turks of western Anatolia, forget it.

I've just acquired a five-row C-system myself - never played any kind of accordion before. It promises to be a very flexible thing I can use for both Scottish music and continental stuff like tangos and French musette music.

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST,Chuck the Monk
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 08:46 AM

Well I did find some Celtic (scots or Irish) music on the net
and started to play the melodies with my guitar.

I simply liked the music, at first it was in Tabulature which gave too much frredom as I had no notion at all about the sound of the tunes, but then i stumbled on the same pieces as sheetmusic. The I got some sense of the pieces but I have a feeling there is more to it

By and by I started to improvise a bit and now I am trying to
get som sense of the music with my bayan.

Thank you any way very much for the positive advice. If I have offended somebody by my question I am sorry.

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: cool hand Tom
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 08:52 AM

You have not offended anyone,just some folks here need a Valium LOL you asked a good question and hopefully got some good answers.

    Regards Tom

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: mooman
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 10:31 AM

I agree with some of the other replies. You simply cannot beat "being there" with some good practicioners of the art.

Peace (and good luck with the music)

moo

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST,Chuck the Monk
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 02:12 PM

A good starting point would be the Irish section of Barry Taylor's midis at The Contemplator's website.

I listened and took home the whole lot at once.

It is much much better than most midis on the net.

How Celtic it is I have some trouble to decide but perhaps
if someon could find something else in that class???

Other suggestions?

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Stewart
Date: 19 Jan 06 - 06:57 PM

Chuck,

If you're looking for ornamentation, lilt and the essence of Irish music then midis are not much better than the score (dots). It's really just a skeleton of the tune and sounds quite wooden and robotic. You should look at TheSession.org. It's all about Irish Traditional Music - it has a discussion forum, directory of sessions, an archive of thousands of tunes, and more.    Here's a discussion of midi file ornamentation for example. ABC files played through a program such as ABCMus , for example, allows you to vary the speed and rhythm (reel, jig, hornpipe, etc). But still, the ornamentation (rolls, triplets, etc) is not adequately reproduced.

So, in my opinion, you really have to experience the music played live to hear how it should really sound. Also no two players will play a tune the same way, and even the same player will not play repeats exactly the same each time. Then there are different styles, sort of like different accents in spoken language. It is impossible to replicate it by mechanical (or computer) means.

There is no substitute for listening to the real thing. So listen, listen, and listen.

Good luck,

S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From:
Date: 20 Jan 06 - 05:50 PM

Chuck, where abouts would you be located?

We might find you a good Irish or Scottish music session in your area.

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST,Chuck the Monk
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 05:54 AM

Thank you all for the information so far

I am in fact located in the countryside in Finland and I think
it is possible to borrow some CD:s from the Musical library
in Helsinki.

What kind of musicians and CD:s would you recommend?

Anyway even from midi and sheets i like to play the music so...

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From:
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 06:18 AM

Perhaps, Danu, Comas, Beolach and Slainte Mhath and the Barra MacNeils for a start. Great tunes and musicianship. You'll hear lots more from others.

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Charmion
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 02:12 PM

Oh, yes, all of the above, plus the first CD by Solas -- listen carefully to John Doyle the guitarist -- and everything by the Chieftains. The Chieftains are so internationally popular that your public library should have at least one of their recordings; for the true taste of the sound of Irish music my favourite is "Bonaparte's Retreat".

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 08:31 PM

Stuff the Chieftans they sold out with crap like "The Long Black Veil".

As a box has cropped up, for some nice box music try Tony McMahon & Noel Hill I Gcnoc Na Grai (CEFCD114)

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 09:05 PM

If you already play Finnish music, much of what you know will transfer to Scottish music. There aren't many tunes in common but some of the dance forms (reels, polkas, waltzes) are not that different, and the way the accordion is used will seem familiar (as it will not with Irish music). Again I would suggest listening to the folk/trad programmes on BBC Radio Scotland.

Not much Finnish music is known here, but Varttina and Kimmo Pohjonen have a following.

For web reading on Scottish music, look at the Footstompin Records website. They're a music distributor specializing in Scottish music - http://www.footstompin.com - and the forum is very active, with dozens of posts a day, and a lot of the posters are well-known Scottish musicians, though often pseudonymous. (Presumably to sell to Americans, Footstompin uses the "Celtic music" genre label to describe what they're doing - they presumably know it makes about as much sense and is about as morally acceptable as "Aryan music", but money talks).

Scottish instrumental music has three rather different styles - "folk" bands (where almost anything goes in arrangements and vocals are usually included as well), ceilidh bands (where you can use whatever lineup you like but you can't mess with the tempo and rhythm very much) and country dance of the more formal variety (with the largest active tune repertoire and the least variety in playing them). You'll hear this quite clearly in the Radio Scotland webcasts. In practice musicians switch between these and adjust the way they play to their clientele.

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 21 Jan 06 - 11:22 PM

Chuck, you will find a ton of stuff on this site. Sheet music and Mp3s.
                   Sandy   
(cut & paste) http://www.cranfordpub.com/tunes/sample_tunes.htm

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 12:06 AM

Subject: RE: How play celtic music?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 06 - 12:08 AM

Seeking a bodhran instructor in the southern Los Angeles areas.Z

Any tips of leads?