There is the theory that when the popular dance rhythms such as the reel and jig came into fashion from the 1600's to 1800's, that the structural tones of ancient irish songs and march's became the structural tones of the new music.
This seems very plausible to me and there are examples such as "Welcome Home Grainne" and "The Foxchase" where a melody is used in a variety of different dance rhythms.
Even though there is no way of verifying this, if ancient tunes had made it up until now, you would find them in jigs, particularly when the jig also has a double life as a sean nos song.
The earliest tunes also had very simple structures such as the primary motif as found in the first two bars of a tune being repeated as many as four times in a part with minor variations to its tail.
The music wasn't original when the Chieftans started playing it 40 odd years ago.....
Seriously though. All of music is a testament to evolution. Music is an important piece to all cultures, and given the long time proximity and interaction of the "celtic" (sorry but note the use of the lower case 'c') cultures and the pressure against preserving Irish culture through....well probably the 1980's if we want to be strict about it...it would be implausible to argue there was no connection to ancient music forms.
Well, I'd like to just say that I don't see how you could possibly exclude all those wonderful melodies that we have today, thanks to the likes of Bunting.
I know we always do our best to include a few tunes from way back then, in our sessions up here.
Sadly, there are far too many musicians out there, with a rather myopic view if ITM, who think of it only in terms of Jigs & Reels. So if we compare ITM to Art, then I think of ITM as a huge, multi-coloured canvas, rather than a silhouette!
I think if you wanted to find the echo of the ancient music in today's tradition you would need to look back into the dance traditions and probably be looking through period chronicles and writings for descriptive passages about the everyday lives of people.
Possibly you could also look at the Mass and the music in the Church, but that would take some real musical archeology to tie it to any secular folk dance traditions. But sometimes the monks were influenced by what they heard in their locality, and in the Middle Ages they were the only ones writing anything down.
But the dominence of the jig and reel would make me think the roots of most of what we hear today is in the 18th and 19th centuries.
I don't know much of anything about this subject, but that's never stopped me before.
The origins of trad are probably back in the folk music of the middle ages. I think it would be a stretch to say that it goes back to ancient music; we don't know much about music before written music came along, but it's probably a safe bet that it was different enough to be considered something else entirely.
I've always felt that there was a connection between trad and Baroque music because of certain similarities. But it may just be that the chamber music of that time influenced the folk music. There are a lot of similarities between trad and Early/Baroque dance music.
It's an interesting subject, I wish I knew more about it. If you want to study how far back trad goes, it might be useful to look into the history of the harp in Ireland, and also the history of the dances the tunes are played for.
Also, I remember seeing a man on The Late Late Show 4 years ago who was demonstrating instruments which had been found dating back to early Celtic times. They included Large horns - that seemed to have required the techniques used in playing the didgeridoo. Steve Cooney actually taught the man how to play these ancient instruments through his own knowledge of another ancient culture - the aboriginals.
Another instrument which was dug up was a type of pan-pipe which seemed to be tuned pentatonically. So following on from my first post, if we are looking for the oldest airs which may have been grafted on to our relatively new forms, then we might be looking for pentatonic tunes in jig form and with a narrow range.
I know that the guy I'm talking about who was on the Late Late show, has or had a site on eircom.net explaining these ancient instruments. Perhaps if some of you have more time than I, you could find the site, or the program from RTE's Late Late Show -which was definitely 4 years ago. I'd love to learn more myself.
you brought up a good point about baroque dance forms. The jig was one of the dances of the standard baroque suite, and I would bet that the connection to baroque music lies also in the techniques of playing the fiddle itself.
I remember one of my first threads about fingering, someone talked about rocking the bow and said the technique had an actual name in baroque music.
I think another "line in the sand" we can draw is the advent of equal temperment. So intruments that rely on equal temperment are clearly newer to the tradition than instruments that use natural tuning
I dunno, but talking crap about music beats the hell out of working
It depends on what your definition of "ancient" is. For some that means anything that isn't currently played by Lunasa or whatever similar bands.
There's no doubt the music reaches back to the middle ages. And I always wonder why people get stuck in the 1800s when talking about fiddle. Its a fact that rebec music goes way back and was around for a long time. For me, this obviously had something to do with fiddle music and the fact that it is completely different than classical music.
My aging eyes first saw that as "barbeque" dance forms. Anyway, the jig – or gigue – of the baroque suite wasn’t the same thing we call a jig today. Like Elizabethan jigs, they weren’t in 6/8 or 9/8. I can’t think of any baroque jigs in 6/8, but my knowledge of that stuff is fairly narrow. Is lazyhound in the house?
Great subject to flannel away about! But there seems to be little known for definite.
The Irish definitely had frame-harps in the familiar shape around the c8 - they appear on stone crosses, obviously not in fine detail, but recognisable enough. Such depictions also appear in Scotland - made by the Scots (Dark Age Irish immigrants to Scotland) or the Picts or both - and I rather think they turn up in Northern Anglo-Saxon England also, on one or more crosses. These sculptures can be approximately but reasonably confidently dated by their content and styles.
The c12 churchman Gerald of Wales expressed great admiration for Irish music he heard on a visit there, but did not say what instruments were played. He was impressed by playing that included discords that resolved skilfully into harmonies - but we're not told if this was done by a single harpist, two harpists, other instruments or whatever.
There are hints in literature that extended pieces of what we might call "mood music" were played on the harp - some evidently to lull, some to induce sad feelings or a mood of lamentation, others to create a social, cheerful atmosphere. The contemporary Welsh harpist Llio Rhydderch has composed a piece called Enlaid Enlli which is an extended piece that I imagine is rather like one of these old pieces of music might have been: atmospheric, rather sombre, no tune as such but many sequences of repeated notes; a fine piece of music and playing, IMO.
There are jigs in 6/8 in the suites of both J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. I know because I had piano teachers who insisted that I study and learn how to play the keyboard music of both composers as well as some of the keyboard music of their less well known comtemporaries.
How ancient are the airs used by sean-nós singers? Who knows?
I'm just puzzled why the recently-appeared 'Arthur Nordstrom' is bedevilling this board with somewhat abstruse questions. Does anyone else sense that his/her motive is not entirely genuine?
This is a detail of the 'Pórtico da Gloria' in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia). It's a master piece of romanesque sculpture built in the 12th century: http://www.arteguias.com/imagenes2/ancianosporticogloria2.jpg
Most likely the instruments seen there were common all over Europe, as Santiago was and still is a major pilgrimage centre, of the same importance as Rome or Jerusalem, and received visitors coming from the whole continent.
The following century, the king Alfonso X El Sabio composed the 'Cantigas de Santa María', a collection of religious songs with musical notation. He was probably influenced by the Western music tradition as wel as by Arab tradition. You can listen to a sample here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Santa_Maria.ogg
And here http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cantigas/ are midi files of the songs nad a lot of info about them.
I used to play J.S. Bach's 4th cello suite transcribed for classical guitar
the gigue in that one is in 6/8
but, yes, you are right that those jigs or gigues are not the same as the ones we play.
the movements in the baroque suites were derivitives of the folk dances, so I can agree that there is no direct cause and effect relationship there.
I think you would be looking more at performance practices like bowing patterns and things like that that players learned from each other, like that rocking pattern we talked about earlier. Those sorts of things could have thier roots in the playing styles of late 17th and early 18th centuries
The 4th cello suite has a 6/8 gigue? I probably never played that one. Is it a compound duple 6/8, like the modern jig, or does it really sound like 3/4? Come to think of it, the gigues I remember might have been written as 6/8 or 12/8, but the rhythm was more like 3/4 or 6/4 - not jig-like.
The gigues in the Bach cello suites are as follows:
Suite 1: 6/8
Suite 2: 3/8
Suite 3: 3/8 (often seems to require grouping measures in twos for phrasing)
Suite 4: 12/8
Suite 5: 3/8
Suite 6: 6/8
As for older music in Irish and Scottish music, Tabhair Dom Do Lamh predates Carolan by several decades. A Scottish tune, MacDonald of the Isles March to Harlaw, also seems very old. The tune commemorates the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, and the book I found it in says that it was "likely composed some time after the battle." I think this may be 15th century, because Clan Donald lost the lordship of the isles at the end of that century (although apparently did try to regain it in the 16th century).
"From Prof. O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, we learn that it existed long before the arrival of the Milesians. Daghda, the great chief and druid of the Tuatha De Danaan, on the recovery of his harper Uaithne and his harp, carried off by the Fomorians on their retreat, played the three musical feats which gave distinction to a harper, namely: the Suantraighe, (which from its deep murmuring caused sleep); the Geantraighe, (which from its merriment caused laughter); and the Goltraighe (which from its melting plaintiveness caused crying)."
I am also a practitioner of these ancient musical arts. I make people laugh, cry or fall asleep all the time when I'm playing. Sometimes they even run away screaming.
I do appreciate the names of the ancient tunes. I would not have known them otherwise. I will try to find versions suitable for flute, and a recording of Mr. Enlli's work. It intrigues me to seek out music that might have been heard in the mists of the windward isles before the European cultural influence arrived and before the laws regarding the expression of Irish culture. Is the so-called "mouth music" very old?
FWIW since there appears to be some perversely deliberate or obscurantist mis-interpretation going on here, Llio Rhydderch is a lady and "Enlli" is the title of her most recent album, and refers, I believe to Ynys Enlli - Bardsey Island (http://www.bardsey.org/default.htm) (Bardsey meaning "Isle of the Bards" in a mixture of Celtic and Norse elements!).
As for "European cultural influences"..... since until the most recent of times the entire population of Europe including the western fringes of the British Isles was descended from the same small groups of (re)colonisers who followed the retreating ice sheets north from the ice age refuges of the Basque Country and N.E from the Balkans, and the same western seaboard (extending even up to Norway) was clearly part of a large scale trading and cultural transfer complex from the Neolithic on, what does A. Nordstrom mean? The whole damn shebang has been part of a linked cultural milieu since earliest prehistory!
"Jemtheflute" - No offense intended to Llio Rhydderch. I am accustomed to names that end in "o" being masculine. Thank you for correcting me in that regard.
As for European nations having trading ties to each other, that is undeniable in the modern era, but your reasoning extends backwards to a point that renders your reasoning absurd. I find your logic similar to claiming that because our ancient ancestors once all lived in trees in Africa no subsequent cultural differences arose.
Migrating groups of hunters and gatherers settled and took up farming and animal husbandry, using grains developed in the fertile crescent. Land holders led their workers, many of them likely family members, against other land holders when their populations created stresses on the lands that they owned that demanded expansion (or a simple lust for power was expressed). Territories expanded under the rule of a single family and "noble" houses were established. Significant cultural divides and new cultural identities clearly developed after the ice retreated as a result of these "civilizing" influences. (Those coastal visits by the norse men gone "viking" could hardly be called "trade", nor were Rome's ventures north particularly welcomed.)
The Italians had their religion, the norse theirs, and the celts their own. The Christianizing influence spread from the holy land, and pagan cultures died out. The British Isles were invaded again and again by cultures that somehow managed to develop after the ice and establish their own identities, with the celts migrating from the region now called Germany, Saxons invading England, and Normans following, setting the stage for territorial conflicts in France.
Europe's history is steeped in well organized blood lust, a factor that may actually have enabled it to advance its technology beyond the levels of other civilizations that did not settle, take up farming, and thus create population densities that could support, or that would demand, territorial expansion while possessing the agricultural techniques required to empower it and the development of unique, European cultures, including cultural acceptance of warfare in the European style. Certainly invading Moors and Mongols contributed to Europe's many cultural identities, drawing elements from much further south and east than the Basque region or the Balkans from cultures that evolved much later than the ice age.
In the only terms relevant to this site and my reference to "European Influences", music clearly did not develop in one common "milieu" without those well known cultural and instrumental variations that evolved throughout the history of many lands. Ireland, as an island, clearly experienced a level of isolation from what was going in many parts of Europe while it was under the rule of the ancient celts that was not reflected in its status in the more modern era after laws were passed that sought to diminish the expression of Irish cultural elements, including musical expression.
The difference that must have existed in ancient Irish music, premised upon a relatively isolated culture, musical scales that were unique to it, and particular instruments must have rendered the ancient music of the celts quite unique. Whether it would have survived cultural filtering that came about later in its original form is one basis for my original question.
So...let me get this straight. You started a discussion with a simple question as to whether or not trad goes back to ancient times, and the whole time you had this essay ready thwack down after people had responded.
This seems awfully familiar. A tip of the hat to you, FtT. Oh well, I'm off to play some jigs.
People don't run away screaming from me unless I am dumb enough to try to sing or I make the mistake of telling them that I work for the federal government and I am here to help them.
Who's Police Box, Ptarmigan?
Arthur Nordstrom, that's the worst piece of fanciful pseudo-history I have read for a long time. For example "the celts migrating from the region now called Germany" is an obsolete concept. There are really just too many mistaken speculations to bother answering, but Jem the flute's ideas are in line with modern DNA analysis of populations. Believe whatever you like, but it'd be a shame if others read it without noticing that almost every statement you make is dubious or obviously unsupported by the evidence.
Just so I understand this.... is it duplicitous to ask a question to which one has a ready, formulated response? should the question not have been asked or perhaps have been presented in a different way?
As an ethnomusicology student who studies cultural contact, colonialism, and nationalism, the idea of relatively frequent and widespread cultural contact over the millenia makes more sense to me than a completely insulated Ireland or British Isles. The genetic and historical evidence seem to support this. Cultures are always changing through outside contact and domestic innovations and we should be wary not to sacralize an idealized and static picture of a past culture in some sort of 'noble savage' state before outside influences destroyed it. The reality is just more complex than that. While we might consider the breakdown of the Gaelic order in Ireland and Scotland in the face of English and Western European culture a travesty, the previous situation was also a changing one, built on ages of contact, innovation, and synthesis, not some essential or elemental thing. I suspect that the culture of the early medieval Irish would seem somewhat familiar, but also strange to their linguistic and genetic forbears (apparently two different groups). Even their relatively recent ancestors probably would have had some trouble understanding their language, since linguistic change (at least for other European languages) was far more rapid before being frozen by movable type.
Anyway, I'm longwinded...freakin' academic type eejit that I am. Sorry. I'm a little uncomfortable with the way that premodern Irish culture is being referred to.
Following from the original post people have put some time and effort researching what seemed like an honest question, and a good one. Then Arthur Nordstrom slaps down his pre-formulated ideas after people have put some effort into trying to help out.
Notice that Arthur Nordstrom starts his little essay with a link to a site that LowProfile had found and linked to way above. That shows that Arthur Nordstrom may have already written his second post before the first, or at the very least didn't read the responses very carefully.
So, Arthur Nordstrom has caused people to do some research for him when he wasn't interested in what anyone else had to say. He was just warming up a pulpit for his own ideas.
I won't comment on the content of what Arthur Nordstrom wrote, since I'm no expert on the subject myself. But I resent the way he's gone about this. And from reading his other posts, he seems more concerned with trying to look smarter than he is than with having a real discussion.
I also really dislike the way he repeatedly polluted the tune database with non-trad exercises (including his own compositions without posting any trad tunes) after being warned several times.
I have an intense dislike for this kind of one-upmanship pulled by insecure people who are intent on proving that they are smarter than everyone else. They usually aren't that smart, but are incapable of realizing it, and for the most part don't see how insulting it is to everyone else. As a computer programmer I have to deal with a lot of that at work, and it irritates me.
It's like the stuff jig would pull, but with better punctuation. Though, to his credit, I haven't seen Arthur Nordstrom make any personal attacks yet.
Am I making a personal attack? I don't mean it as an attack really, and I have nothing personal against the guy. Heck, if I met him in person I might like him, who knows. I don't mean to attack him as a person but I think that what he's done here is dishonest and disrespectful to the rest of us, and that's what I'm attacking.
I didn't address any of the above directly to Arthur Nordstrom because it's his posts that I'm upset with, not him as a person.
Arthur Nordstrom, you're new here as far as I know. I know you probably feel some pressure to show that you fit in here by showing off your knowledge. But if you really want to be welcomed here, you don't need to be an expert, and you don't need to have submitted a bunch of tunes.
Just see the discussions as chats among people with a common interest. It's not a competition. If you wanted to discuss this topic it would have been better to put your thoughts at the beginning, and start the discussion there.
What you've done appears to be to set a trap to get people to put their own thoughts down, so that you can later post what you think is proof that everyone else is wrong and that you have the real answer. Whether you're right or wrong about the topic doesn't matter to me, it's the method that I have a problem with.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but we've had some bad experiences with certain posters on this board recently, and I have absolutely zero patience left for these kinds of games.
Arthur Nordstrom, after re-reading the first of my two posts above, I think certain parts were a bit more harsh than they should have been.
I stand by the content of what I said, but some of it was rude when it wasn't necessary to go there. I'm not trying to offend you or pick a fight, I'm just trying to stop a problem before it gets worse.
To put it in perspective, there was a certain poster who caused a lot of problems here, and your post reminded me a bit of him. That made me come down harder than I would have otherwise, because I associated you with a repeat offender rather than seeing you as a new member who just made a few mistakes. So that was unfair and I apologize for any offense.
There's no reason you can't be a welcome and valued member of the discussion board as far as I'm concerned, just take it easy and be mindful of the others here. And please take the rules here seriously (like the ones for submitting tunes); there aren't many rules but they are important.
Thanks for the clarification Screetch. I understand your point and sensitivity to these situations and AD may indeed be operating as you have described. But he also received a good bit of criticism when his bias became evident --criticism that he hasn't and perhaps is unable to respond to. But I recognize when someone is just trying to establish their street cred when they don't really have any... that's an old story.
My goal was to identify the limits of what is called "trad", and, if possible, find a few tunes that sounded older. Neolithic stone monuments must have been surrounded by some form of music. I would love to know how it sounded.
No, I didn't have an essay ready to slap down. A fellow already wrote the "essay" that contains quite a few of my "dubious" assertions as "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and won a Pullitzer Prize for it. I read it. I recommend it. I don't think that counts as a "pre-formulated" argument that I created to introduce through some devious maneuver. I don't argue against intermixing of genes. War has a way of bringing about that end. The assertion that cultures are changed by the movements of armies and migrations, which affects music and the musical instruments in use, isn't arguable. There are too many good examples. I indicated as much in my references to invasions bringing cultures to Europe from far beyond the limits referenced as refuges from the ice and had not functioned as a closed trading block after the ice retreated.
Cultural changes are ongoing, but that does not mean that in a particular era a unique music was not performed on culturally relevant instruments. Note that my response was to someone who had just introduced a reference to ice age peoples in a discussion of ancient music, as a basis for asserting, it seemed, that Ireland had no unique, native music as an expression of its culture in the pre-Christian era (a musical era that seems quite intriguing), but rather that it possessed merely an expression of some sort of ancient "Euro-pop" carried by traders.
My reading with regard to the migrations of ancient European peoples may well be outdated. Can you recommend a modern reference (with ISBN number)? (Note that some of my responses take a little longer than others, and posts pop up while I am typing or while reading e-mail in another window that are not incorporated. My search occurred after others demonstrated that there were not many "ancient" tunes that they cared to identify in the database here.) I certainly hope I have not mistakenly offended someone due to assertions based upon an old migrational map.
I am not attempting to establish my "street cred". ITM is music I like, but as music for fun, not a vocation, or even a competitive hobby. It seems that various parties here affirmed unique, ancient instruments discovered in Ireland and potential for a unique but now lost form of music dating back to the referenced archaological digs, then all of that became irrelevant, and I was painted as some very peculiar, scheming demon, all as a result of a post that was the product of my wondering:
1. Is "trad" limited temporally in a manner that is widely accepted.
2. Is there some truly old music in the traditional repertoire, or in an ancient repertoire, that someone just might mention, that would be intriguing to attempt on a low D flute?
Perhaps there are others here whose fixation on their "cred", particularly in terms of pecking order, is more relevant as a potential problem.
I offer my sincerest thanks to those who attempted to help me without painting on a pair of horns and smearing my character. As for baiting, "Screetch" actually regards one of his prior comments as an "apology", according to a message he elected to send me. (Was it the "certain parts are a bit more harsh" reference that is supposed to represent an apology?)
For those who may have actually entertained some interest in my intended area of focus:
I tried the "Take my hand..." arrangement, but somehow it doesn't have the same appeal as "Brian Boru's" march. I do hope I can get the "Enlli" harp recording. Again, many thanks to those who helped. I fully agree about the police box!
(I'll be trying to find away to connect four mandolin strings to a ukulele, and taking it from there. For those eager to spend their lives with such peculiar motives for focusing on a chat room, either engaging in one-up-manship or accusing others of doing so, have at it... - Not intended for the many good natured and helpful people who lend this site its best element.)
You're defending yourself by saying that you didn't write the essay ahead of time, but rather that you were paraphrasing from a book? Are you kidding? So not only was your original question a dishonest attempt to set up a pulpit for what you already wanted to say, you actually plaigarized someone else on top of that?
And you're using the fact that this book won a Pulitzer to show how you're right and everyone else is wrong?
You set a trap, plain and simple. You weren't asking a real question, and you didn't even use your own thoughts. As for smearing your character, buddy, you just admitted to us all how devious this whole thing was.
"Was it the "certain parts are a bit more harsh" reference that is supposed to represent an apology?"
Yes, actually, I was apologizing for the tone, not the content, because I thought I was taking my frustrations with Jig out on you.
But now I see that was a mistake. You're even using someone else's words--an "authority"--to back yourself up in this trap you set for everyone. This M.O. is way too familiar.
"Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work"
Some years ago there was a TV documentary here in the UK about the possible acoustic properties of Stonehenge in its original form as a temple, It seems that impressive effects were available.
There was also another documentary about the Newgrange neolithic burial chamber in Ireland which suggested similar things.
I don't have details now of these broadcasts but this web page on the acoustics of Newgrange is relevant http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146410394 - and also mentions the Stonehenge experiments.
A relevant website on the archeoacoustics of Stonehenge is http://www.monumental.uk.com/site/research/proj/acoustics/stonehenge.html – there are probably others.
Of the gigues (jigs) in the Bach cello suites only two, to my ear, have a dance feel to them - #1 in G, and #4 in E-flat. The latter, in 12/8, tends to the 4-in-a-bar of a fast slide when played, but it's not in slide rhythm, one very good reason being that it is continuous triplets from beginning to end - almost like a fast moto perpetuo. The G-major gigue gets closer to a real jig, even if the bar setup is 12+22 (both parts being repeated).
Does anyone know if Bach had any familiarity with Irish dance music of the period (Middle to Late Baroque) which could have influenced his music? Bearing in mind that he was a devote German Lutheran who spent most of his career in the service of his local church, I'm inclined to think not - but I may be wrong.
A rather better example of a "classical" jig from a later period is the opening 8 bars of the last movement of Haydn's D major cello concerto, which would make a fine A-part. Unfortunately for us, Haydn doesn't complete it with a matching B-part - he instead sends the cello off on some giddy virtuoso excursions - well, it is a concerto after all
After hearing about J.S.Bach's famous secular "Coffee Cantata", I suspect that Bach was at least familiar with secular dance music in his native Germany and certainly was aware that other countries such as Ireland had similar secular music.
And Bach did spend a few years working as the "Kapellmeister" at Kothen(?) if I remember correctly. While Bach was there, his duties included composing a lot of secular music.
Last but not least, the famous piece by Bach, "Sheep May Safely Graze" is from another secular cantata by Bach which is known by the name of "Hunting Cantata".
Once I heard a Swedish-produced album of sounds produced by instruments / replicas / other things that were used, or could have been used, for musical purposes in prehistoric times. "Music" is perhaps not the right word: embarrassing loud farting noises featured (I was listening in a shop!..), and there was a lot of stone-knocking; maybe, and more interestingly, a xylophone or two, but I cannot remember. I'm sure the "lur" (big winding Bronze Age trumpet) featured. The album seemed conscientious and well-researched; I've forgotten its name, but I dare say those interested in prehistoric music and instruments could find similar things on the web.
Maybe a better place to study first if primaeval music or musical patterns have in fact persisted throughout a culture's development into modern times would be a country less historically inrupted than Ireland, with ample archaeological and musical records - say, one or more of the Scandinavian countries or indeed Germany, or parts thereof.
Or for that matter, primitive cultures such as in Papua New Guinea that will have started using many new musical forms and instruments quickly and recently, and about whose primitive culture a whole lot more will be known than in the case of European prehistorics, as it was still extant when Europeans got to those parts.
I understand there is a tribe in Asia Minor that is descended from the interaction of Alexander the Great's soldiers with the local community. There was a TV program about them some years ago, and it appears they still worship the ancient Greek pantheon with dance and music believed to have come down from over 2 millennia ago.
Sorry, but I don't recollect any more details.
I've also come across that fascinating snippet somewhere, lazyhound, but as I remember it, it was Afghanistan ? Alexander's soldiers, who reached India, but didn't fancy the trek back from the Khyber Pass to Macedonia.
And Google will soon be passing details of all those lurid YouTube videos you view to Viacom, said details including your identity and that of your computer. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488009.stm
Well, if you're interested in strange isolated historical anomalies, lazyhound, there's always the Melungeons, whose origin is mysterious, (possibly slaves from Rajastan dumped on the coast of N. America is one theory I read). Apparently Elvis Presley was one of them. And there's others...
A page on celtic culture in Europe from Washington State University and what sounds like migration from central Europe to the West. Worth a read from my perspective.
Apart from the fact that 'Arthur' seems to know nothing about recent research at TCD which suggests that the Irish aren't Celts at all, I suspect this poster is not Will Evans for several reasons:
1) he's far too literate - I'm assuming that 'Arthur' is male - though, that being said, 'he' does not understand the difference between single and double quotation marks, but who does on this site?
2) he writes garbage which even JIg, in his wildest imaginings would fail to achieve, such as. 'It intrigues me to seek out music that might have been heard in the mists of the windward isles before the European cultural influence arrived and before the laws regarding the expression of Irish culture. Is the so-called "mouth music" very old?'. Such a deliberate conflation of meaningless would be way beyond Jig (in any of his numerous guises).
and,
3) 'Arthur' does not respond to criticism in a similar fashion to Jig.
All that being said, his 'ignorance' about traditional music is startling for someone so apparently well-read. Therefore, I must conclude that his postings are only here to irritate and befuddle.
I noticed that he didn't deny it when confronted as learner either, which I thought was odd at the time. If he denies it then we can never be totally sure, but as long as he acts like Jig it doesn't really matter if it's the same person anyway. A troll is a troll.
He really did bring up an interesting topic this time, though. Too bad he couldn't just join the discussion in an honest way.
This article (from Wikipedia, so we know it has to be true claims that mentions of tin whistles have been documented as early as the third century A.D. Of course various types of flutes go way back, but this seems to specifically be the Irish whistle.
That's FAR older than I would have thought, and if true would make the whistle a truly ancient instrument.
The problem, though, is that we have no way of knowing what the music was like that was played on these ancient whistles. So we may be able to say that certain trad instruments go back to ancient times, but the music itself is a different story.
FtT, at first I thought that his writing was to good to be Jig as well. Then he admitted plaigarism and that seemed a plausible explanation. But I admit that his latest responses do seem to be more literate than what I'd expect from Jig, and some of it is obviously in his own words.
But it really doesn't matter, it's the behavior that's the problem, not the person. If he behaves, I don't really care whether it's Jig or not. And if he keeps playing these games, he might as well be Jig.
It is a fascinating topic. Pure speculation now, but if mesolithic hunter gatherers walked up the coastline (all of which is now under the Atlantic) from N. Africa and Iberia, after the glaciers had retreated, to Ireland (which was joined to Wales) I imagine that those people would have had songs and instruments such as bone and reed whistles, maybe rattles, frame drums, twanged bow strings, etc.
Theoretically, it is possible that a really good memorable tune from nine or ten thousand years ago could have passed down through all the generations.
But that's just a possibility. It cannot be proven or disproven.
Well, it was merely my answer to the question "How far back does ITM go?"
The theoretical oldest date *could* be, ten thousand years...
The date where there is some supporting empirical evidence would be inferred from the archaeological discoveries, maybe 4 or 5 thousand years, but we still don't know (and probably never can) what the music was like.
The evidence then becomes stronger as we look at more recent periods, where there is textual and anecdotal references, and, from what I've read, there's a good case to be made that some songs and tunes are 500 years old.
Of course, it depends also upon how you define ITM.
I would have thought that in early times the human voice was fairly independent of primitive instruments as a maker of music, with pitches and tunes. I can't imagine that people limited and bound the superior natural range of their voices in songs / calls / chants to the narrow tonal range of some primitive instruments. Something much more like what we know as tunes might have been present in their singing than in the odd two-holed whistle or bronze horn yielded by archaeology. We'll never know. But again, ethno-musicology may have light to shed on this from people living primitive lifestyles studied in (relatively) modern times.
Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Does Irish traditional music include "ancient" music? Examples?
How far back does ITM go? Is O'Carolan technically "traditional"?
Thank you for your insights.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
There is the theory that when the popular dance rhythms such as the reel and jig came into fashion from the 1600's to 1800's, that the structural tones of ancient irish songs and march's became the structural tones of the new music.
This seems very plausible to me and there are examples such as "Welcome Home Grainne" and "The Foxchase" where a melody is used in a variety of different dance rhythms.
Even though there is no way of verifying this, if ancient tunes had made it up until now, you would find them in jigs, particularly when the jig also has a double life as a sean nos song.
The earliest tunes also had very simple structures such as the primary motif as found in the first two bars of a tune being repeated as many as four times in a part with minor variations to its tail.
So says me,
Martin.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by martin t
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Yes.
The music wasn't original when the Chieftans started playing it 40 odd years ago.....
Seriously though. All of music is a testament to evolution. Music is an important piece to all cultures, and given the long time proximity and interaction of the "celtic" (sorry but note the use of the lower case 'c') cultures and the pressure against preserving Irish culture through....well probably the 1980's if we want to be strict about it...it would be implausible to argue there was no connection to ancient music forms.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by zippydw
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Well, I'd like to just say that I don't see how you could possibly exclude all those wonderful melodies that we have today, thanks to the likes of Bunting.
I know we always do our best to include a few tunes from way back then, in our sessions up here.
Sadly, there are far too many musicians out there, with a rather myopic view if ITM, who think of it only in terms of Jigs & Reels. So if we compare ITM to Art, then I think of ITM as a huge, multi-coloured canvas, rather than a silhouette!
Cheers
Ptarmigan
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Ptarmigan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I think if you wanted to find the echo of the ancient music in today's tradition you would need to look back into the dance traditions and probably be looking through period chronicles and writings for descriptive passages about the everyday lives of people.
Possibly you could also look at the Mass and the music in the Church, but that would take some real musical archeology to tie it to any secular folk dance traditions. But sometimes the monks were influenced by what they heard in their locality, and in the Middle Ages they were the only ones writing anything down.
But the dominence of the jig and reel would make me think the roots of most of what we hear today is in the 18th and 19th centuries.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I don't know much of anything about this subject, but that's never stopped me before.
The origins of trad are probably back in the folk music of the middle ages. I think it would be a stretch to say that it goes back to ancient music; we don't know much about music before written music came along, but it's probably a safe bet that it was different enough to be considered something else entirely.
I've always felt that there was a connection between trad and Baroque music because of certain similarities. But it may just be that the chamber music of that time influenced the folk music. There are a lot of similarities between trad and Early/Baroque dance music.
It's an interesting subject, I wish I knew more about it. If you want to study how far back trad goes, it might be useful to look into the history of the harp in Ireland, and also the history of the dances the tunes are played for.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Sorry, cross-posted with Nate there.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Also, I remember seeing a man on The Late Late Show 4 years ago who was demonstrating instruments which had been found dating back to early Celtic times. They included Large horns - that seemed to have required the techniques used in playing the didgeridoo. Steve Cooney actually taught the man how to play these ancient instruments through his own knowledge of another ancient culture - the aboriginals.
Another instrument which was dug up was a type of pan-pipe which seemed to be tuned pentatonically. So following on from my first post, if we are looking for the oldest airs which may have been grafted on to our relatively new forms, then we might be looking for pentatonic tunes in jig form and with a narrow range.
I know that the guy I'm talking about who was on the Late Late show, has or had a site on eircom.net explaining these ancient instruments. Perhaps if some of you have more time than I, you could find the site, or the program from RTE's Late Late Show -which was definitely 4 years ago. I'd love to learn more myself.
All the best,
Martin T.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by martin t
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
no problem there, screetch
you brought up a good point about baroque dance forms. The jig was one of the dances of the standard baroque suite, and I would bet that the connection to baroque music lies also in the techniques of playing the fiddle itself.
I remember one of my first threads about fingering, someone talked about rocking the bow and said the technique had an actual name in baroque music.
I think another "line in the sand" we can draw is the advent of equal temperment. So intruments that rely on equal temperment are clearly newer to the tradition than instruments that use natural tuning
I dunno, but talking crap about music beats the hell out of working
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I'm glad you asked this question because I've found http://pybertra.free.fr/ceol/tunes.htm as a result of it.
The trouble with Ancient music generally is that it's lost, so it's quite difficult to play it down at the session.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by LowProfile
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
It depends on what your definition of "ancient" is. For some that means anything that isn't currently played by Lunasa or whatever similar bands.
There's no doubt the music reaches back to the middle ages. And I always wonder why people get stuck in the 1800s when talking about fiddle. Its a fact that rebec music goes way back and was around for a long time. For me, this obviously had something to do with fiddle music and the fact that it is completely different than classical music.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by McCracken
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
http://www.mglarc.com/index.php/leinster/58-leinster-projects/107-unique-prehistoric-musical-instrument-discovered-in-co-wicklow.html
http://www.kiwicelt.com/flutes/flute-playing-help/#historical
http://www.jstor.org/pss/124239
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/bookinfo.cfm/ID/41184//Location/Oxbow
http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeagehorns/printablePages/biography.html
http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeagehorns/originalinstruments.html
http://www.libraryireland.com/IrishMusic/Preface.php
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
“baroque dance forms”
My aging eyes first saw that as "barbeque" dance forms. Anyway, the jig – or gigue – of the baroque suite wasn’t the same thing we call a jig today. Like Elizabethan jigs, they weren’t in 6/8 or 9/8. I can’t think of any baroque jigs in 6/8, but my knowledge of that stuff is fairly narrow. Is lazyhound in the house?
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Great subject to flannel away about! But there seems to be little known for definite.
The Irish definitely had frame-harps in the familiar shape around the c8 - they appear on stone crosses, obviously not in fine detail, but recognisable enough. Such depictions also appear in Scotland - made by the Scots (Dark Age Irish immigrants to Scotland) or the Picts or both - and I rather think they turn up in Northern Anglo-Saxon England also, on one or more crosses. These sculptures can be approximately but reasonably confidently dated by their content and styles.
The c12 churchman Gerald of Wales expressed great admiration for Irish music he heard on a visit there, but did not say what instruments were played. He was impressed by playing that included discords that resolved skilfully into harmonies - but we're not told if this was done by a single harpist, two harpists, other instruments or whatever.
There are hints in literature that extended pieces of what we might call "mood music" were played on the harp - some evidently to lull, some to induce sad feelings or a mood of lamentation, others to create a social, cheerful atmosphere. The contemporary Welsh harpist Llio Rhydderch has composed a piece called Enlaid Enlli which is an extended piece that I imagine is rather like one of these old pieces of music might have been: atmospheric, rather sombre, no tune as such but many sequences of repeated notes; a fine piece of music and playing, IMO.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
There are jigs in 6/8 in the suites of both J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. I know because I had piano teachers who insisted that I study and learn how to play the keyboard music of both composers as well as some of the keyboard music of their less well known comtemporaries.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
How ancient are the airs used by sean-nós singers? Who knows?
I'm just puzzled why the recently-appeared 'Arthur Nordstrom' is bedevilling this board with somewhat abstruse questions. Does anyone else sense that his/her motive is not entirely genuine?
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I would worry if his name showed up as Macy.....
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by zippydw
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
This is a detail of the 'Pórtico da Gloria' in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia). It's a master piece of romanesque sculpture built in the 12th century:
http://www.arteguias.com/imagenes2/ancianosporticogloria2.jpg
Most likely the instruments seen there were common all over Europe, as Santiago was and still is a major pilgrimage centre, of the same importance as Rome or Jerusalem, and received visitors coming from the whole continent.
The following century, the king Alfonso X El Sabio composed the 'Cantigas de Santa María', a collection of religious songs with musical notation. He was probably influenced by the Western music tradition as wel as by Arab tradition. You can listen to a sample here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Santa_Maria.ogg
And here http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cantigas/ are midi files of the songs nad a lot of info about them.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Ramiro
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I used to play J.S. Bach's 4th cello suite transcribed for classical guitar
the gigue in that one is in 6/8
but, yes, you are right that those jigs or gigues are not the same as the ones we play.
the movements in the baroque suites were derivitives of the folk dances, so I can agree that there is no direct cause and effect relationship there.
I think you would be looking more at performance practices like bowing patterns and things like that that players learned from each other, like that rocking pattern we talked about earlier. Those sorts of things could have thier roots in the playing styles of late 17th and early 18th centuries
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
The 4th cello suite has a 6/8 gigue? I probably never played that one. Is it a compound duple 6/8, like the modern jig, or does it really sound like 3/4? Come to think of it, the gigues I remember might have been written as 6/8 or 12/8, but the rhythm was more like 3/4 or 6/4 - not jig-like.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
yea, it's written in six as best as I can remember.
I know I played it like it was in 6, whether or not that is right proper and fitting, I can't really say
but your point that those jigs are not the roots of the jigs played in Irish music is well taken.
If anything, it's the other way around, Bach based his gigues on the folk tradition
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Nate Ryan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
The gigues in the Bach cello suites are as follows:
Suite 1: 6/8
Suite 2: 3/8
Suite 3: 3/8 (often seems to require grouping measures in twos for phrasing)
Suite 4: 12/8
Suite 5: 3/8
Suite 6: 6/8
As for older music in Irish and Scottish music, Tabhair Dom Do Lamh predates Carolan by several decades. A Scottish tune, MacDonald of the Isles March to Harlaw, also seems very old. The tune commemorates the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, and the book I found it in says that it was "likely composed some time after the battle." I think this may be 15th century, because Clan Donald lost the lordship of the isles at the end of that century (although apparently did try to regain it in the 16th century).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_isles
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by jasonb
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Brian Boru's march dates back to 1014, and his minstrels probably stole it from earlier musicians.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
"From Prof. O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, we learn that it existed long before the arrival of the Milesians. Daghda, the great chief and druid of the Tuatha De Danaan, on the recovery of his harper Uaithne and his harp, carried off by the Fomorians on their retreat, played the three musical feats which gave distinction to a harper, namely: the Suantraighe, (which from its deep murmuring caused sleep); the Geantraighe, (which from its merriment caused laughter); and the Goltraighe (which from its melting plaintiveness caused crying)."
http://billhaneman.ie/IMM/IMM-I.html
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I am also a practitioner of these ancient musical arts. I make people laugh, cry or fall asleep all the time when I'm playing. Sometimes they even run away screaming.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
@ Floss the Tethers
Yes.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Thanks, Seosamh,
If the name was Nordberg I'd probably take the messages more seriously.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I do appreciate the names of the ancient tunes. I would not have known them otherwise. I will try to find versions suitable for flute, and a recording of Mr. Enlli's work. It intrigues me to seek out music that might have been heard in the mists of the windward isles before the European cultural influence arrived and before the laws regarding the expression of Irish culture. Is the so-called "mouth music" very old?
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Hmmm...there are some rhetorical similarities too. We'll know the nature of the beast soon enough.
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Isn't it a pity we don't know what music was played on the Bowed Lyre, which surely pre dates the Rebec.
Oh if only that Police Box really could travel back in time!
# Posted on July 2nd 2008 by Ptarmigan
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Gor crwth! It's crowder time!
FWIW since there appears to be some perversely deliberate or obscurantist mis-interpretation going on here, Llio Rhydderch is a lady and "Enlli" is the title of her most recent album, and refers, I believe to Ynys Enlli - Bardsey Island (http://www.bardsey.org/default.htm) (Bardsey meaning "Isle of the Bards" in a mixture of Celtic and Norse elements!).
As for "European cultural influences"..... since until the most recent of times the entire population of Europe including the western fringes of the British Isles was descended from the same small groups of (re)colonisers who followed the retreating ice sheets north from the ice age refuges of the Basque Country and N.E from the Balkans, and the same western seaboard (extending even up to Norway) was clearly part of a large scale trading and cultural transfer complex from the Neolithic on, what does A. Nordstrom mean? The whole damn shebang has been part of a linked cultural milieu since earliest prehistory!
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by Jemtheflute
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
This is quite an interesting site, including various Irish tunes presented as ancient:
http://pybertra.free.fr/ceol/tunes.htm
"Jemtheflute" - No offense intended to Llio Rhydderch. I am accustomed to names that end in "o" being masculine. Thank you for correcting me in that regard.
As for European nations having trading ties to each other, that is undeniable in the modern era, but your reasoning extends backwards to a point that renders your reasoning absurd. I find your logic similar to claiming that because our ancient ancestors once all lived in trees in Africa no subsequent cultural differences arose.
Migrating groups of hunters and gatherers settled and took up farming and animal husbandry, using grains developed in the fertile crescent. Land holders led their workers, many of them likely family members, against other land holders when their populations created stresses on the lands that they owned that demanded expansion (or a simple lust for power was expressed). Territories expanded under the rule of a single family and "noble" houses were established. Significant cultural divides and new cultural identities clearly developed after the ice retreated as a result of these "civilizing" influences. (Those coastal visits by the norse men gone "viking" could hardly be called "trade", nor were Rome's ventures north particularly welcomed.)
The Italians had their religion, the norse theirs, and the celts their own. The Christianizing influence spread from the holy land, and pagan cultures died out. The British Isles were invaded again and again by cultures that somehow managed to develop after the ice and establish their own identities, with the celts migrating from the region now called Germany, Saxons invading England, and Normans following, setting the stage for territorial conflicts in France.
Europe's history is steeped in well organized blood lust, a factor that may actually have enabled it to advance its technology beyond the levels of other civilizations that did not settle, take up farming, and thus create population densities that could support, or that would demand, territorial expansion while possessing the agricultural techniques required to empower it and the development of unique, European cultures, including cultural acceptance of warfare in the European style. Certainly invading Moors and Mongols contributed to Europe's many cultural identities, drawing elements from much further south and east than the Basque region or the Balkans from cultures that evolved much later than the ice age.
In the only terms relevant to this site and my reference to "European Influences", music clearly did not develop in one common "milieu" without those well known cultural and instrumental variations that evolved throughout the history of many lands. Ireland, as an island, clearly experienced a level of isolation from what was going in many parts of Europe while it was under the rule of the ancient celts that was not reflected in its status in the more modern era after laws were passed that sought to diminish the expression of Irish cultural elements, including musical expression.
The difference that must have existed in ancient Irish music, premised upon a relatively isolated culture, musical scales that were unique to it, and particular instruments must have rendered the ancient music of the celts quite unique. Whether it would have survived cultural filtering that came about later in its original form is one basis for my original question.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
So...let me get this straight. You started a discussion with a simple question as to whether or not trad goes back to ancient times, and the whole time you had this essay ready thwack down after people had responded.
This seems awfully familiar. A tip of the hat to you, FtT. Oh well, I'm off to play some jigs.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
People don't run away screaming from me unless I am dumb enough to try to sing or I make the mistake of telling them that I work for the federal government and I am here to help them.
Who's Police Box, Ptarmigan?
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Arthur Nordstrom, that's the worst piece of fanciful pseudo-history I have read for a long time. For example "the celts migrating from the region now called Germany" is an obsolete concept. There are really just too many mistaken speculations to bother answering, but Jem the flute's ideas are in line with modern DNA analysis of populations. Believe whatever you like, but it'd be a shame if others read it without noticing that almost every statement you make is dubious or obviously unsupported by the evidence.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
After reading these, I understand a bit better what wolfbird is referring to:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/4677
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/4462
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by jasonb
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Just so I understand this.... is it duplicitous to ask a question to which one has a ready, formulated response? should the question not have been asked or perhaps have been presented in a different way?
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by leoj
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
As an ethnomusicology student who studies cultural contact, colonialism, and nationalism, the idea of relatively frequent and widespread cultural contact over the millenia makes more sense to me than a completely insulated Ireland or British Isles. The genetic and historical evidence seem to support this. Cultures are always changing through outside contact and domestic innovations and we should be wary not to sacralize an idealized and static picture of a past culture in some sort of 'noble savage' state before outside influences destroyed it. The reality is just more complex than that. While we might consider the breakdown of the Gaelic order in Ireland and Scotland in the face of English and Western European culture a travesty, the previous situation was also a changing one, built on ages of contact, innovation, and synthesis, not some essential or elemental thing. I suspect that the culture of the early medieval Irish would seem somewhat familiar, but also strange to their linguistic and genetic forbears (apparently two different groups). Even their relatively recent ancestors probably would have had some trouble understanding their language, since linguistic change (at least for other European languages) was far more rapid before being frozen by movable type.
Anyway, I'm longwinded...freakin' academic type eejit that I am. Sorry. I'm a little uncomfortable with the way that premodern Irish culture is being referred to.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by jasonb
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Sorry, crosspost.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by jasonb
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Yes leoj, it's duplicitous.
Following from the original post people have put some time and effort researching what seemed like an honest question, and a good one. Then Arthur Nordstrom slaps down his pre-formulated ideas after people have put some effort into trying to help out.
Notice that Arthur Nordstrom starts his little essay with a link to a site that LowProfile had found and linked to way above. That shows that Arthur Nordstrom may have already written his second post before the first, or at the very least didn't read the responses very carefully.
So, Arthur Nordstrom has caused people to do some research for him when he wasn't interested in what anyone else had to say. He was just warming up a pulpit for his own ideas.
I won't comment on the content of what Arthur Nordstrom wrote, since I'm no expert on the subject myself. But I resent the way he's gone about this. And from reading his other posts, he seems more concerned with trying to look smarter than he is than with having a real discussion.
I also really dislike the way he repeatedly polluted the tune database with non-trad exercises (including his own compositions without posting any trad tunes) after being warned several times.
I have an intense dislike for this kind of one-upmanship pulled by insecure people who are intent on proving that they are smarter than everyone else. They usually aren't that smart, but are incapable of realizing it, and for the most part don't see how insulting it is to everyone else. As a computer programmer I have to deal with a lot of that at work, and it irritates me.
It's like the stuff jig would pull, but with better punctuation. Though, to his credit, I haven't seen Arthur Nordstrom make any personal attacks yet.
Am I making a personal attack? I don't mean it as an attack really, and I have nothing personal against the guy. Heck, if I met him in person I might like him, who knows. I don't mean to attack him as a person but I think that what he's done here is dishonest and disrespectful to the rest of us, and that's what I'm attacking.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I didn't address any of the above directly to Arthur Nordstrom because it's his posts that I'm upset with, not him as a person.
Arthur Nordstrom, you're new here as far as I know. I know you probably feel some pressure to show that you fit in here by showing off your knowledge. But if you really want to be welcomed here, you don't need to be an expert, and you don't need to have submitted a bunch of tunes.
Just see the discussions as chats among people with a common interest. It's not a competition. If you wanted to discuss this topic it would have been better to put your thoughts at the beginning, and start the discussion there.
What you've done appears to be to set a trap to get people to put their own thoughts down, so that you can later post what you think is proof that everyone else is wrong and that you have the real answer. Whether you're right or wrong about the topic doesn't matter to me, it's the method that I have a problem with.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but we've had some bad experiences with certain posters on this board recently, and I have absolutely zero patience left for these kinds of games.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Arthur Nordstrom, after re-reading the first of my two posts above, I think certain parts were a bit more harsh than they should have been.
I stand by the content of what I said, but some of it was rude when it wasn't necessary to go there. I'm not trying to offend you or pick a fight, I'm just trying to stop a problem before it gets worse.
To put it in perspective, there was a certain poster who caused a lot of problems here, and your post reminded me a bit of him. That made me come down harder than I would have otherwise, because I associated you with a repeat offender rather than seeing you as a new member who just made a few mistakes. So that was unfair and I apologize for any offense.
There's no reason you can't be a welcome and valued member of the discussion board as far as I'm concerned, just take it easy and be mindful of the others here. And please take the rules here seriously (like the ones for submitting tunes); there aren't many rules but they are important.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Thanks for the clarification Screetch. I understand your point and sensitivity to these situations and AD may indeed be operating as you have described. But he also received a good bit of criticism when his bias became evident --criticism that he hasn't and perhaps is unable to respond to. But I recognize when someone is just trying to establish their street cred when they don't really have any... that's an old story.
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by leoj
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
*AN
# Posted on July 3rd 2008 by leoj
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
My goal was to identify the limits of what is called "trad", and, if possible, find a few tunes that sounded older. Neolithic stone monuments must have been surrounded by some form of music. I would love to know how it sounded.
No, I didn't have an essay ready to slap down. A fellow already wrote the "essay" that contains quite a few of my "dubious" assertions as "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and won a Pullitzer Prize for it. I read it. I recommend it. I don't think that counts as a "pre-formulated" argument that I created to introduce through some devious maneuver. I don't argue against intermixing of genes. War has a way of bringing about that end. The assertion that cultures are changed by the movements of armies and migrations, which affects music and the musical instruments in use, isn't arguable. There are too many good examples. I indicated as much in my references to invasions bringing cultures to Europe from far beyond the limits referenced as refuges from the ice and had not functioned as a closed trading block after the ice retreated.
Cultural changes are ongoing, but that does not mean that in a particular era a unique music was not performed on culturally relevant instruments. Note that my response was to someone who had just introduced a reference to ice age peoples in a discussion of ancient music, as a basis for asserting, it seemed, that Ireland had no unique, native music as an expression of its culture in the pre-Christian era (a musical era that seems quite intriguing), but rather that it possessed merely an expression of some sort of ancient "Euro-pop" carried by traders.
My reading with regard to the migrations of ancient European peoples may well be outdated. Can you recommend a modern reference (with ISBN number)? (Note that some of my responses take a little longer than others, and posts pop up while I am typing or while reading e-mail in another window that are not incorporated. My search occurred after others demonstrated that there were not many "ancient" tunes that they cared to identify in the database here.) I certainly hope I have not mistakenly offended someone due to assertions based upon an old migrational map.
I am not attempting to establish my "street cred". ITM is music I like, but as music for fun, not a vocation, or even a competitive hobby. It seems that various parties here affirmed unique, ancient instruments discovered in Ireland and potential for a unique but now lost form of music dating back to the referenced archaological digs, then all of that became irrelevant, and I was painted as some very peculiar, scheming demon, all as a result of a post that was the product of my wondering:
1. Is "trad" limited temporally in a manner that is widely accepted.
2. Is there some truly old music in the traditional repertoire, or in an ancient repertoire, that someone just might mention, that would be intriguing to attempt on a low D flute?
Perhaps there are others here whose fixation on their "cred", particularly in terms of pecking order, is more relevant as a potential problem.
I offer my sincerest thanks to those who attempted to help me without painting on a pair of horns and smearing my character. As for baiting, "Screetch" actually regards one of his prior comments as an "apology", according to a message he elected to send me. (Was it the "certain parts are a bit more harsh" reference that is supposed to represent an apology?)
For those who may have actually entertained some interest in my intended area of focus:
I tried the "Take my hand..." arrangement, but somehow it doesn't have the same appeal as "Brian Boru's" march. I do hope I can get the "Enlli" harp recording. Again, many thanks to those who helped. I fully agree about the police box!
(I'll be trying to find away to connect four mandolin strings to a ukulele, and taking it from there. For those eager to spend their lives with such peculiar motives for focusing on a chat room, either engaging in one-up-manship or accusing others of doing so, have at it... - Not intended for the many good natured and helpful people who lend this site its best element.)
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Let me get this straight.
You're defending yourself by saying that you didn't write the essay ahead of time, but rather that you were paraphrasing from a book? Are you kidding? So not only was your original question a dishonest attempt to set up a pulpit for what you already wanted to say, you actually plaigarized someone else on top of that?
And you're using the fact that this book won a Pulitzer to show how you're right and everyone else is wrong?
You set a trap, plain and simple. You weren't asking a real question, and you didn't even use your own thoughts. As for smearing your character, buddy, you just admitted to us all how devious this whole thing was.
"Was it the "certain parts are a bit more harsh" reference that is supposed to represent an apology?"
Yes, actually, I was apologizing for the tone, not the content, because I thought I was taking my frustrations with Jig out on you.
But now I see that was a mistake. You're even using someone else's words--an "authority"--to back yourself up in this trap you set for everyone. This M.O. is way too familiar.
I was a dupe. You ARE Jig, aren't you?
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
"Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Some years ago there was a TV documentary here in the UK about the possible acoustic properties of Stonehenge in its original form as a temple, It seems that impressive effects were available.
There was also another documentary about the Newgrange neolithic burial chamber in Ireland which suggested similar things.
I don't have details now of these broadcasts but this web page on the acoustics of Newgrange is relevant http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146410394 - and also mentions the Stonehenge experiments.
A relevant website on the archeoacoustics of Stonehenge is http://www.monumental.uk.com/site/research/proj/acoustics/stonehenge.html – there are probably others.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Soooo much more entertaining than TMZ today! Oh, that belongs on another thread...
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
That's interesting, lazyhound, reminds me of the acoustic properties of ancient Meso-American ballcourts:
http://www.acoustics.org/press/152nd/lubman.html
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Of the gigues (jigs) in the Bach cello suites only two, to my ear, have a dance feel to them - #1 in G, and #4 in E-flat. The latter, in 12/8, tends to the 4-in-a-bar of a fast slide when played, but it's not in slide rhythm, one very good reason being that it is continuous triplets from beginning to end - almost like a fast moto perpetuo. The G-major gigue gets closer to a real jig, even if the bar setup is 12+22 (both parts being repeated).
Does anyone know if Bach had any familiarity with Irish dance music of the period (Middle to Late Baroque) which could have influenced his music? Bearing in mind that he was a devote German Lutheran who spent most of his career in the service of his local church, I'm inclined to think not - but I may be wrong.
A rather better example of a "classical" jig from a later period is the opening 8 bars of the last movement of Haydn's D major cello concerto, which would make a fine A-part. Unfortunately for us, Haydn doesn't complete it with a matching B-part - he instead sends the cello off on some giddy virtuoso excursions - well, it is a concerto after all
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
After hearing about J.S.Bach's famous secular "Coffee Cantata", I suspect that Bach was at least familiar with secular dance music in his native Germany and certainly was aware that other countries such as Ireland had similar secular music.
And Bach did spend a few years working as the "Kapellmeister" at Kothen(?) if I remember correctly. While Bach was there, his duties included composing a lot of secular music.
Last but not least, the famous piece by Bach, "Sheep May Safely Graze" is from another secular cantata by Bach which is known by the name of "Hunting Cantata".
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Once I heard a Swedish-produced album of sounds produced by instruments / replicas / other things that were used, or could have been used, for musical purposes in prehistoric times. "Music" is perhaps not the right word: embarrassing loud farting noises featured (I was listening in a shop!..), and there was a lot of stone-knocking; maybe, and more interestingly, a xylophone or two, but I cannot remember. I'm sure the "lur" (big winding Bronze Age trumpet) featured. The album seemed conscientious and well-researched; I've forgotten its name, but I dare say those interested in prehistoric music and instruments could find similar things on the web.
Maybe a better place to study first if primaeval music or musical patterns have in fact persisted throughout a culture's development into modern times would be a country less historically inrupted than Ireland, with ample archaeological and musical records - say, one or more of the Scandinavian countries or indeed Germany, or parts thereof.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Or for that matter, primitive cultures such as in Papua New Guinea that will have started using many new musical forms and instruments quickly and recently, and about whose primitive culture a whole lot more will be known than in the case of European prehistorics, as it was still extant when Europeans got to those parts.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Or, for that matter, the guy in this photo....an image that sums up the whole of human history and prehistory...
http://whatsinmyipod.blogspot.com/
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I understand there is a tribe in Asia Minor that is descended from the interaction of Alexander the Great's soldiers with the local community. There was a TV program about them some years ago, and it appears they still worship the ancient Greek pantheon with dance and music believed to have come down from over 2 millennia ago.
Sorry, but I don't recollect any more details.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I've also come across that fascinating snippet somewhere, lazyhound, but as I remember it, it was Afghanistan ? Alexander's soldiers, who reached India, but didn't fancy the trek back from the Khyber Pass to Macedonia.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
The Khailashi near Chitral in NWFP Pakistan bordering with Afghanistan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2d_sABc3rs
Warning :some of YouTubes related video's are unsuitable for work.
Some of you still work, right? ;)
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by cStu
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Work ?? What's that ?
Cool video, cStu. Seems these are the folks...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
And Google will soon be passing details of all those lurid YouTube videos you view to Viacom, said details including your identity and that of your computer. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7488009.stm
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Thanks, cStu and Wolfbird, for tracking down the Khlash reference.
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
"Kalash"
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Well, if you're interested in strange isolated historical anomalies, lazyhound, there's always the Melungeons, whose origin is mysterious, (possibly slaves from Rajastan dumped on the coast of N. America is one theory I read). Apparently Elvis Presley was one of them. And there's others...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon
# Posted on July 4th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
A page on celtic culture in Europe from Washington State University and what sounds like migration from central Europe to the West. Worth a read from my perspective.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MA/CELTS.HTM
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Arthur Nordstrom, I notice that you don't respond to "You ARE Jig, aren't you ?"
I assume therefore you are also 'learner!', and 'nine' and 'tradpiper' and the many other guises you've used to troll this site.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Apart from the fact that 'Arthur' seems to know nothing about recent research at TCD which suggests that the Irish aren't Celts at all, I suspect this poster is not Will Evans for several reasons:
1) he's far too literate - I'm assuming that 'Arthur' is male - though, that being said, 'he' does not understand the difference between single and double quotation marks, but who does on this site?
2) he writes garbage which even JIg, in his wildest imaginings would fail to achieve, such as. 'It intrigues me to seek out music that might have been heard in the mists of the windward isles before the European cultural influence arrived and before the laws regarding the expression of Irish culture. Is the so-called "mouth music" very old?'. Such a deliberate conflation of meaningless would be way beyond Jig (in any of his numerous guises).
and,
3) 'Arthur' does not respond to criticism in a similar fashion to Jig.
All that being said, his 'ignorance' about traditional music is startling for someone so apparently well-read. Therefore, I must conclude that his postings are only here to irritate and befuddle.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I noticed that he didn't deny it when confronted as learner either, which I thought was odd at the time. If he denies it then we can never be totally sure, but as long as he acts like Jig it doesn't really matter if it's the same person anyway. A troll is a troll.
He really did bring up an interesting topic this time, though. Too bad he couldn't just join the discussion in an honest way.
----------------------------------------------------
Back to the topic:
This article (from Wikipedia, so we know it has to be true
claims that mentions of tin whistles have been documented as early as the third century A.D. Of course various types of flutes go way back, but this seems to specifically be the Irish whistle.
That's FAR older than I would have thought, and if true would make the whistle a truly ancient instrument.
The problem, though, is that we have no way of knowing what the music was like that was played on these ancient whistles. So we may be able to say that certain trad instruments go back to ancient times, but the music itself is a different story.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Cross-posted there..
FtT, at first I thought that his writing was to good to be Jig as well. Then he admitted plaigarism and that seemed a plausible explanation. But I admit that his latest responses do seem to be more literate than what I'd expect from Jig, and some of it is obviously in his own words.
But it really doesn't matter, it's the behavior that's the problem, not the person. If he behaves, I don't really care whether it's Jig or not. And if he keeps playing these games, he might as well be Jig.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Er..."too good," I meant.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Yes, Screetch, and yes, Floss....
It is a fascinating topic. Pure speculation now, but if mesolithic hunter gatherers walked up the coastline (all of which is now under the Atlantic) from N. Africa and Iberia, after the glaciers had retreated, to Ireland (which was joined to Wales) I imagine that those people would have had songs and instruments such as bone and reed whistles, maybe rattles, frame drums, twanged bow strings, etc.
Theoretically, it is possible that a really good memorable tune from nine or ten thousand years ago could have passed down through all the generations.
But that's just a possibility. It cannot be proven or disproven.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Well, yep, Wolfbird, of course that's possible, but so what?
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Floss the Tethers
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Well, it was merely my answer to the question "How far back does ITM go?"
The theoretical oldest date *could* be, ten thousand years...
The date where there is some supporting empirical evidence would be inferred from the archaeological discoveries, maybe 4 or 5 thousand years, but we still don't know (and probably never can) what the music was like.
The evidence then becomes stronger as we look at more recent periods, where there is textual and anecdotal references, and, from what I've read, there's a good case to be made that some songs and tunes are 500 years old.
Of course, it depends also upon how you define ITM.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
Oops, I forgot to link the article in my post above:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_whistle
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Does ITM include "Ancient" Music?
I would have thought that in early times the human voice was fairly independent of primitive instruments as a maker of music, with pitches and tunes. I can't imagine that people limited and bound the superior natural range of their voices in songs / calls / chants to the narrow tonal range of some primitive instruments. Something much more like what we know as tunes might have been present in their singing than in the odd two-holed whistle or bronze horn yielded by archaeology. We'll never know. But again, ethno-musicology may have light to shed on this from people living primitive lifestyles studied in (relatively) modern times.
# Posted on July 5th 2008 by nicholas