It's at times like this that I wish I could remember everything I've ever read, heard and seen. Somewhere hidden in the far reaches of my brain is the information you need ...
In the absence of such recall, it probably doesn't help to state that I'm almost certain that notation developed in Ireland around the same time as the rest of Europe, which means at least a thousand years ago, and almost certainly more. And, as far as I can remember from the elusive info at the back of my brain, it was always used to notate what we now call trad as well as other music.
If you're looking for something academic, this won't help, though, 'cos I haven't got the references ...
Well, I'll be interested to see other people's thoughts ...
Mediaeval notation evolved slowly (I tried to make head and tail of it in a music dictionary) and was mainly for singers, as the Church then didn't use instruments (I think) and there were no large orchestras playing long complex works. There seems no reason to assume this notation didn't exist in Mediaeval Ireland. I think modern notation had been arrived at by the time of Elizabeth I, but then of course Ireland was being invaded. I assume that whatever happened to any native tradition of notation, the English imported and maintained music and sheetmusic of their own from then on, and that it did not remain with the English exclusively.
Musical / notational developments on the Continent - where most of them began - might have been accessed by the Irish independently of England, e.g. in France or Spain, prior to Elizabeth I, though I know nothing about this.
This is great question. I have not found much info on this. I can only make assumptions on what I've read. This is just spectulation...
From a history perspective their seems to be a huge hole before the late 1600's. It seems we are lucky to have O'Carolan's music.
Tune collectors like petrie (sp?)/ O'Neil etc.. seemed to have found someone to transcribe the tunes.
Dublin was a huge culture center. The earliest flute advertisement was 1741 (If memory servers me). Opera and baroque seemed to thrive in the upper classes at the time. Geminianni (a student of Corelli) lived there.
I think some of the collectors had a classical background and found it important to document the music. They had the notation skills but didn't understand the music. I believe that's why you'll see some odd tunes or keys in O'Neil's.
Social music (again upper class) was in the hands of the ascendancy until the act of the union. In which the ascendancy left.
With all of Ireland's hardships, it seems like we are really lucky to have what we do as far as tunes.
Hmmm... looks like its time to look at this closer. I believe Donal O'Sullivans book on O'Carolan had some answers on this.
great topic - I think I'll do some research on some of my mentions to references.
According to my copy of Donal O'Sullivan's book on O'Carolan, "the earliest book of Carolan's tunes is also probably the earliest book of Irish secular music" and he quotes some early publications of 1721. O'Sullivan also mentions that Ireland differs from most countries in that published books tend to precede the earliest manuscript sources (presumably because the publications survived longer than the manuscripts).
But there must have been notated church chant from earlier than that (I would have thought - but I'm speculating). Anyway, as I happened to have the book in front of me and madfluter mentions it above, I was inspired to dig around and find the passage and dates above.
The wee folk had it first, the Leprechauns. Sometimes you'd find it etched into a bank of turf, but not just anyone could read their shorthand, not until they were touched... Then you could only really see it if you didn't look directly at it, but caught it out the side of your view... It predates the written word and mankind's self-knowledge of music as rhythm and pitch. Before that everything, even the human voice, was monotone. Like Eve's apple, melody and the notation of it were passed through the veil of fantasy by the wee folk, and fairies too, for those with the ears to hear... The first to hear were babies while still in the womb. They then set out to educate, first with a scream, and then as they grew more conversant with song and dance they set out amongst the rest of us to infect others with this passion they had been born to... All this began a long, long, long time ago, seeds cast from another realm...
The subject of this thread seems ideal for a post-grad dissertation or thesis. Would it be possible for someone to contact one of the universities in Ireland to find out if such a thesis has been published, or if anyone is doing research in this area?
I could probably go into the instrument museum at Edinburgh uni (which I was planning to do anyway) and surely find more information. At any rate, Edinburgh and Glasgow have a fair bit of research about early Scottish and Irish musical traditions going on and they may have theses and such of that nature. I'll have a look around at some point.
In my own poking around, I have found out there were collections of pipe tunes for bellows blown bagpipes at least as far back as the early to mid eighteenth century. Geoghegan's Tutor (1746) contains tunes from English, Irish, and Scottish traditions. It is thought to be one of the first printed collections of music for the pipes. Ross Anderson has kindly put it up on his website so you can have a look at it here: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html (scroll down to pastoral/union/northumbrian pipe music). From the way that this manuscript is set up, I'd infer that notation for traditional dance tunes had been standardized well before 1746. The tunes in Geoghegan's manuscript are readily legible to us today -- he uses standard music notation and as it's printed, it doesn't take any skills in paleography to read.
The thing to keep in mind is that Geoghegan's Tutor was written for an upper class, educated audience (pastoral and union pipes were developed to play chamber music, the past time of the elite). Lower classes would not have been able to read at all, much less read these manuscripts, so if if they were notating them at all, this may or may not be how they did it. Geoghegan also doesn't seem to discuss the origins of any of his tunes. However, it's a cool manuscript as you can see what sort of tunes they played in 1746 and also how they played them, as he describes piping techniques.
There is a facsimile of the first edition of Playford 's English Dancing Master (1651) at the library I work . It was a verypopular book so some copies could have strayed over to Ireland. The notation though 'modern' is not very readable. You can't tell if a note is a half note or quarter note. There are no key or time signatures.
Ihave seen many pieces of Medieval onwards of sheet music at Antiquarian book fairs. None that I can recall from Ireland.
When was notation first used in Irish music??
When was notation first used in Irish music??
Im sure it was in and around the 16th and 17th centuries
but how did it come to be used in Irish music and who
instigated it ?
# Posted on April 13th 2008 by roisinrua
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
It's at times like this that I wish I could remember everything I've ever read, heard and seen. Somewhere hidden in the far reaches of my brain is the information you need ...
In the absence of such recall, it probably doesn't help to state that I'm almost certain that notation developed in Ireland around the same time as the rest of Europe, which means at least a thousand years ago, and almost certainly more. And, as far as I can remember from the elusive info at the back of my brain, it was always used to notate what we now call trad as well as other music.
If you're looking for something academic, this won't help, though, 'cos I haven't got the references ...
Well, I'll be interested to see other people's thoughts ...
# Posted on April 13th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
Mediaeval notation evolved slowly (I tried to make head and tail of it in a music dictionary) and was mainly for singers, as the Church then didn't use instruments (I think) and there were no large orchestras playing long complex works. There seems no reason to assume this notation didn't exist in Mediaeval Ireland. I think modern notation had been arrived at by the time of Elizabeth I, but then of course Ireland was being invaded. I assume that whatever happened to any native tradition of notation, the English imported and maintained music and sheetmusic of their own from then on, and that it did not remain with the English exclusively.
Musical / notational developments on the Continent - where most of them began - might have been accessed by the Irish independently of England, e.g. in France or Spain, prior to Elizabeth I, though I know nothing about this.
# Posted on April 13th 2008 by nicholas
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
This is great question. I have not found much info on this. I can only make assumptions on what I've read. This is just spectulation...
From a history perspective their seems to be a huge hole before the late 1600's. It seems we are lucky to have O'Carolan's music.
Tune collectors like petrie (sp?)/ O'Neil etc.. seemed to have found someone to transcribe the tunes.
Dublin was a huge culture center. The earliest flute advertisement was 1741 (If memory servers me). Opera and baroque seemed to thrive in the upper classes at the time. Geminianni (a student of Corelli) lived there.
I think some of the collectors had a classical background and found it important to document the music. They had the notation skills but didn't understand the music. I believe that's why you'll see some odd tunes or keys in O'Neil's.
Social music (again upper class) was in the hands of the ascendancy until the act of the union. In which the ascendancy left.
With all of Ireland's hardships, it seems like we are really lucky to have what we do as far as tunes.
Hmmm... looks like its time to look at this closer. I believe Donal O'Sullivans book on O'Carolan had some answers on this.
great topic - I think I'll do some research on some of my mentions to references.
I apologize for the spelling.. been a long day.
# Posted on April 13th 2008 by madfluter
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
According to my copy of Donal O'Sullivan's book on O'Carolan, "the earliest book of Carolan's tunes is also probably the earliest book of Irish secular music" and he quotes some early publications of 1721. O'Sullivan also mentions that Ireland differs from most countries in that published books tend to precede the earliest manuscript sources (presumably because the publications survived longer than the manuscripts).
But there must have been notated church chant from earlier than that (I would have thought - but I'm speculating). Anyway, as I happened to have the book in front of me and madfluter mentions it above, I was inspired to dig around and find the passage and dates above.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
The wee folk had it first, the Leprechauns. Sometimes you'd find it etched into a bank of turf, but not just anyone could read their shorthand, not until they were touched... Then you could only really see it if you didn't look directly at it, but caught it out the side of your view... It predates the written word and mankind's self-knowledge of music as rhythm and pitch. Before that everything, even the human voice, was monotone. Like Eve's apple, melody and the notation of it were passed through the veil of fantasy by the wee folk, and fairies too, for those with the ears to hear... The first to hear were babies while still in the womb. They then set out to educate, first with a scream, and then as they grew more conversant with song and dance they set out amongst the rest of us to infect others with this passion they had been born to... All this began a long, long, long time ago, seeds cast from another realm...
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by ceolachan
The dots represented the seed, the stems represented the root and branch, the staves the furrowed fields... That was in the beginning...
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
I can sense a theology being developed
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
The subject of this thread seems ideal for a post-grad dissertation or thesis. Would it be possible for someone to contact one of the universities in Ireland to find out if such a thesis has been published, or if anyone is doing research in this area?
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
I could probably go into the instrument museum at Edinburgh uni (which I was planning to do anyway) and surely find more information. At any rate, Edinburgh and Glasgow have a fair bit of research about early Scottish and Irish musical traditions going on and they may have theses and such of that nature. I'll have a look around at some point.
In my own poking around, I have found out there were collections of pipe tunes for bellows blown bagpipes at least as far back as the early to mid eighteenth century. Geoghegan's Tutor (1746) contains tunes from English, Irish, and Scottish traditions. It is thought to be one of the first printed collections of music for the pipes. Ross Anderson has kindly put it up on his website so you can have a look at it here: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html (scroll down to pastoral/union/northumbrian pipe music). From the way that this manuscript is set up, I'd infer that notation for traditional dance tunes had been standardized well before 1746. The tunes in Geoghegan's manuscript are readily legible to us today -- he uses standard music notation and as it's printed, it doesn't take any skills in paleography to read.
The thing to keep in mind is that Geoghegan's Tutor was written for an upper class, educated audience (pastoral and union pipes were developed to play chamber music, the past time of the elite). Lower classes would not have been able to read at all, much less read these manuscripts, so if if they were notating them at all, this may or may not be how they did it. Geoghegan also doesn't seem to discuss the origins of any of his tunes. However, it's a cool manuscript as you can see what sort of tunes they played in 1746 and also how they played them, as he describes piping techniques.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by TheSilverSpear
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
welsh harp notation from 1600s, lots of people are trying to figure it out and all have different takes on how it should sound http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ap_huw/facsimile/ap_huw_015smallsmall.html
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by poldebrun
Re: When was notation first used in Irish music??
There is a facsimile of the first edition of Playford 's English Dancing Master (1651) at the library I work . It was a verypopular book so some copies could have strayed over to Ireland. The notation though 'modern' is not very readable. You can't tell if a note is a half note or quarter note. There are no key or time signatures.
Ihave seen many pieces of Medieval onwards of sheet music at Antiquarian book fairs. None that I can recall from Ireland.
# Posted on April 14th 2008 by Pirate-Fiddler