Hmmm...I thought Celtic music was just horrible synthesized crap music in the minor key that actually has nothing to do with the Celtic regions or music at all.
Anyway, to me "celtic" implies either "electric guitars imitating bagpipes and/or fiddles" or "went nuts with the synthesiser / reverb button" or both. You know, like Big Country or Runrig or Enya. Maybe it's my age - I'm in my 30s, so I remember all this stuff from when I was a kid.
Celtic folk is a category on amazon.co.uk but I'd rather see trad shoehorned into the equally arbitrary category of world music, myself, if it can't have a proper category of its own.
Alan Stivell seems to have got in early with his idea that the Celts were all one nation, presumably under Stivell, and that the national and local musics of the various Celtic places were part of one big pan-Celtic thing. I think with Stivell it was more about raising political consciousness than about finding one's inner goddess or whatever.
Can't remember listening to a note of his with pleasure, I must admit.
"...Celtic folk is a category on amazon.co.uk but I'd rather see trad shoehorned into the equally arbitrary category of world music, myself, if it can't have a proper category of its own...."
I agree: 'World Music' is a much more accurate. Music that originates from the world (or a world). Country music is another good one. Music that is from a country. Anyway, as Louis Armstrong said, “All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song”
Or, in the USA, you can use the word Celtic in your band's name, thinking it will open doors with both the Irish and Scots communities, and instead find that people want to hire you for "Pagan Festivals" and other odd events where folks dress like the Middle Ages or dance around fires in the moonlight!
Ask Fiona Ritchie. Surely she had a lot to do with popularizing the vague convention of “Celtic music” as traditional and trad-inspired music from the “Celtic lands.” As far as I can tell, most people who routinely use the term would say it includes Irish session music. Most people who play in Irish sessions would, of course, violently disagree. Okay, slight exaggeration there.
In the larger picture, it’s really no different from every other attempt at categorizing musical genres. Some folks are satisfied with it, some are annoyed and many non-fanatics are thoroughly confused
xpost, Bob. The confusion may just be worthy of a cringe, but not a campaign against sloppy language. How much energy do you have to squander trying to explain?
Celtic music is closely related to the music of Ethnia. Ethnic music, as we know, is a traditional dance music from the Old Country, based on the traditional dance rhythms of the djembe and the the plaintive wail of the traditional synthesizer and soprano saxophone, with the traditional didgeridude playing his traditional didgeridoo, often featuring a traditional electric bass guitar and drum kit.
I don't know what you want to call the stuff we play at Tommy's on a Wednesday or a Thursday night, but it's not Celtic by any stretch of the imagination.
Isn't that that what Bars in the US tack somewhere in their name so they can sell copious amounts of green Bud Light on St. Patricks day at inflated prices?
You know like Bogdan's Traditional Cuban Pizzeria and Celtic Brew Pub?
And they do Kareoke to Barry Manilow albums on Thursday nights, right before the guy with the Roland digital button box plays.
Irish is a subset of Celtic. You'll come across a lot of people who are offended that anyone would lump together such a diverse set of ethnicities and musical styles (Irish, Scottish, Breton, Cape Breton, Enya) under a single descriptor. In my experience, these are the people who are most likely, at sessions, to ask if the other brown-eyed, severe-featured, coffee-coloured person at the table is my brother, because Lord knows "east of the the British Isles" is one homogeneous land mass inhabited by a single family.
I think I may have noticed a new tactic in content moderation a few weeks back. Llig is not constrained in the old sense, i.e. suspension. Or, he may be doing something different altogether.
One difference between 'Celtic' music and the Tradition is that in comparison, the latter changes and develops at warp speed.
This remark is not based on earnest recollection or study. It just came out of me, a bit like Alien out of that bloke's stomach. It sounds as though it *ought* to be true: someone tell me if it is...although to do so might be an admission of listening to far too much of the 'Celtic' ear treacle!
But more specifically, Irish/Scottish/etc traditional music each feature enough distinct details (including rhythm, tune selection, instrumentation, and style/ornamentation) on their own that most people who have bothered to spend any time learning one or the other can pretty much instantly recognize the defining characteristics--or the lack of them.
Irish and Scottish music are certainly similar enough that one could lump them into the "celtic" parent category for discussion (or radio programs), but for the most part the only people who actually self-identify as "celtic" are either doing so as a business move, or they neither recognize nor care about the differences between the traditions... This, obviously leaves those who DO care about the difference to generally prefer the more specific "Irish Traditional" (or Scottish/Cape Breton/etc) label, when asked.
To sum up, Georgi ... Irish traditional musicians play Irish traditional music, Scottish traditional musicians play Scottish traditional music, Manx musicians play Manx traditional music, Shetland musicians ... well they're just out there, Cape Breton musicians will play anything, Irish American musicians are live action slut-dudes ... etc.
The very thought that the term 'Irish traditional music' is somehow specific simply ignores all the divergence & variation throughout the tradition. By it's very nature it embodies ambiguity. Embrace the fluid beauty which surrounds you!
... music travels, it meanders, it need not run aground; though someone will probably come & take it out again. It leaves home, it meets other music, it has a drink .... it has another drink .... it forgets where it lives .... it remembers (way too early) & takes 2 aspirin. It repeats itself. It has no name, but everyone recognizes it.
Honestly what is the big fuss. Is it really just on this board that people get into a stushie about these things?
Irish music is a subset of Celtic music. There are a number of "Celtic nations" - Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Isle of Mann, Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias.
They are not the same thing because "Celtic Music" describes more than just "Irish Music". The term "Celtic Music" does not apply any more to Scotland than any of the other Celtic nations - as has been suggested in this thread at one point.
I can not pretend to have read the whole thread. I have better things to be doing with my life. Why get all bothered about it anyway?
I'm seriously curious, not being sarcastic when I pose the question: if you are in what most would call a "Celtic Rock" band, how else are you supposed to "market" or "describe" it to people that haven't heard that type of music before? Or, perhaps more intriguingly, what would I say to purists? Beyond the jibe, "it's all sh*te anyway", of course.
I'd say you're asking in the wrong place. If you're in what most would call a "Celtic Rock" band, what you're playing has about as much to do with session tunes as it would if you were playing in what most would call a "Western Swing" band. How you market yourself is your business, but it's not really got anything to do with playing tunes at a session, does it?
Certainly nothing that anyone describes as "Celtic Rock" sounds much like anything I play when I go down the pub with my box to have some tunes.
The term "Celtic music" is merely lazy. That's all.
Along with such terms as "World" "Jazz" "Easy listening" "Classical" "Rock & Pop" etc etc. They a merely labels in magazines and record shops designed for people who are not really interested in music.
It's a marketing tool. It's purely for sales. Totally materialistic. Keep it well away from your art and what makes you happy. Well, that's what I do, works for me. I keep a little divider up. 'This is work, this is art.' 'This is schmaltz, this is pure drop.'
Erik Marchand ne rechigne pas à donner des conférences sur des thèmes variés comme "La modalité et le tempérament inégal dans la musique bretonne" ou "La musique dans les Balkans". Il est également l'initiateur d'un festival de clarinette, de master class et de la Kreiz Breizh Akademi qui est une académie de musique populaire du Centre-Bretagne.
Fiddlechick, you could call it, "Music influenced by Irish/Scottish/Cape Breton, etc. tunes but put to more familiar rock and pop style bass, guitar, and drums."
It is. And if it communicates something to the listener, it's an effective label. It certainly communicates something to me: "stay away, there's nothing worth hearing here."
I encourage anyone who thinks that "Celtic Rock" is the right label for their music to slap that label all over the stuff. It'll save me a lot of time.
The question, though was whether there's a difference between "Celtic" and "Irish" music. Yes, there is - the two are unrelated.
They are not unrelated. They are very related. You might not like the term and it may be used as a marketing term but nonetheless it is a reasonable descriptor.
But it doesn't actually describe any music except Crapercailie and the like, which has nothing at all to do with Irish, Scottish, or any other music . It's pop music with a green and red paint job. It's like saying that "Smooth Jazz" is a sort of jazz because it's got "jazz" in the name. No, it's pop music with bad saxophone and no vocals. Just because someone calls it "Celtic" doesn't mean it's got anything to do with Celts.
But it is all Celtic music. It is the traditional music of the Celtic nations.
The word "Celtic" itself is not made up.
And you may or may not like Capercaillie but it has got everything to do with traditional music and is the band that got many of us, including me into traditional music in the first place.
Capercaillie have been around for a long time now and have had many different guises. Are you saying you can find nothing traditional about ANYTHING they have done?
Capercaillie isn't "Celtic Rock" - not even close.
"If the lot of you deplore Celtic music so much how do you keep finding all those YouTube links?"
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Because we know we're going to watch young women in diaphanous clothing under spotlights trying to play fast reels on the fiddle while attempting to reproduce Salome's dance before Herod in Zeffirelli's movie "Jesus of Nazareth", and we want to see if one of them prangs.
At any rate, I dare say this rivets enough Session.org members, though frankly I'd prefer to watch paint dry.
This is because I (sometimes) paint.
It is also because Salome's dance in the Zeffirelli film was family viewing, to the point of being blancmange core.
I don't think there's any sense in talking about "the traditional music of the Celtic nations". It makes sense to talk of a "Celtic" language group, if your hypothesis is that there was a group of people who spoke a single language, and that group split up into a number of nations whose languages descend from the "proto-Celtic" language - and that hypothesis would make sense. But the music we're talking about developed long after there were Scots and Irish and Galicians and so forth, so the idea is historically and musically a non-starter.
It's like trying to describe a category of "African music" - there's no such thing. There is plenty of music in Africa, and lots of good music, but what Ali Farka Toure has in common with Hamza el Din or Fela Kuti or Rahid Taha or Ladymith Black Mombazo is nothing more than a shared continent. It does make an excellent label for marketing, because many people who like Toure like the others as well, but it doesn't respect the music any more than "Music by People Whose Last Names Start With T" would.
Developed after the "Celts" were no longer a going concern. I don't know when you want to put the start of the sort of music that we all play, but no matter what period this music emerged in, it was first played by Irishmen and Scots, not by Celts.
It’s true that “traditional Celtic music” may not make literal sense, but when it comes to conveying information to another person, sometimes you just have to take a stab at what might make sense to *them*. I don’t like the “Celtic music” label, for several reasons, but I have occasionally used it when I thought it was my best shot at getting a point across. I probably failed anyway, but it seemed more reasonable than launching into an academic lecture.
As Bob himself says, it's useful for describing the music to most folks, and by that I mean the people that will assume you're talking about gaudy shamrockery and songs about jars of whiskey when you say 'Irish music' or even 'Irish traditional music' heaven forbid.
'Launching into academic lectures' is what we do on here with the Traduminati.
Really Jon? Well this is fascinating. I wasn't aware I was in the presence of such an expert on the Celtic peoples.
Perhaps you could enlighten us on a rough start time for traditional music in Ireland? Do you know the equivalent date in Scotland? Did they maybe emerge separately and even centuries apart from each other?
Seeing as you brought up the languages when would you estimate that Irish and Scottish Gaelic diverged from each other to be the seperate languages that are spoken today? Was there no traditional music played at that time?
I look forward to being educated.
*You will need to forgive the tone above. I wrote something completely different and then my internet connection chewed it up.*
I wouldn't disagree with anything said in that extract. I am not one of those people who goes through mental crisis when anyone uses the term "Celtic" though.
I also agree with what is in the Vallely extract. The term "Celtic" is a rather large and fuzzy category, but it is useful in sorting music that draws from some common influences. On WGBH radio out of Boston, there is a show called Celtic Sojourn, which plays music from Ireland, Scotland, and other "Celtic" countries. Brian O'Donovan, the host, says his mission is to explore the "roots and branches" of the music, the roots being the pure drop stuff, and with the branches including music from America and Canada influenced by music from the Old Countries, more contemporary stuff, fusion, etc, etc. The show covers broad territory, but in general, you can hear the common thread of everything that is played on the program.
"The term "Celtic" is useful in sorting music that draws from some common influences"
Only to people who are not interested in music and are happy to have their tastes dictated to them by an industry . Anyone who is interested in music knows it's merely a commercial construct.
What's lazy about the term is that while the musics of the world almost always draw from common influences, by far the most important element of all of the musics of the world is that they invariably draw from the immense diversity of not only their ancestries, but also the completely unrelated stuff that their traditional exponents merely take a fancy too.
As far as I'm aware a speaker of one of the Gaelic languages will not understand Welsh, Cornish or Breton without specifically learning one of them, and the same the other way round.
This has probably been the case for a very long time. Someone in the Dark Ages distinguished the five languages of Britain - English, British (early Welsh), Scots (Gaelic), Pictish, and Latin, the language of the Church common to all areas. Each of the four ethnic groups seems to have felt quite distinct from the others. From the point of view of the early Welsh, all the others were enemies - the latter including, also, raiders from Ireland itself. Meanwhile, Welsh / Breton / Cornish had come to contain a lot of Roman loan-words, widening any difference between these and Gaelic.
It seems difficult to believe that two groups of people speaking different languages and seeing themselves as determinedly distinct can share one and the same undivided *tradition*. Making cultural or other alliances, reaching out to the other group in the here and now, are rather different things.
82 (+1) comments? Really? So help me God, I seriously do not understand what the big deal here is. Some categories are broader than others. This is nothing new, nor unique to this topic. Do the folks arguing against the use of the word `Celtic` get as worked up when someone, say, refers to their pet as a dog rather than a German shepherd? Or when someone describes them as a lawyer rather than as a tax attorney? "Oh, sure, a tax attorney is a TYPE of lawyer, they all have to take the bar and stuff, but there are very important differences between types of lawyers and when you refer to me as just a lawyer, you're lumping many different types of people all together and suggests that you just don't care."
"...I think that many performers apply this term to their own music, simply to ensure that the kid with the pierced tongue at Tower Records puts their CDs in the right bin...."
llig, Thanks for reminding me that I am one of those "people who are not interested in music and are happy to have their tastes dictated to them by an industry." Yep, not interested in music at all, not me...
Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic vs. Irish
I've heard, from various unreliable sources, that there is a difference between Celtic and Irish music. Is that really the case?
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by elewis154
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
You'll have to find a Celt and ask him. We don't know.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Filetting herring in the parrot shaving capital of the world...
Come to a session and ask the ex-spurts!
I think the answer is Mixolydian...
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Yes.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic can refer to Irish, Scottish, Breton, etc. music.
Irish music is Irish music.
Similar to how all toads are technically frogs but not all frogs are toads.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Zazzaliss
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Hmmm...I thought Celtic music was just horrible synthesized crap music in the minor key that actually has nothing to do with the Celtic regions or music at all.
Only kidding.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by pipersgrip
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
..you'd better be.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
celtic music is an illusion
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Tirno
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
"Celtic music" is a marketing category.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by will morgan
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
""Celtic music" is a marketing category" will morgan
When marketing to the ignorant!
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Wait a minute...toads are reptiles, frogs are amphibians.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by highdesertbob
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
That must be some kind of joke, which I don't get. Both frogs and toads are amphibians.
However, Jonny Ward and Will Morgan have it right about "Celtic music".
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Frogs are green and hop, therefore Irish. Toads are brown and crawl, therefore celtic.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by gam
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic music usually means Scottish music or some kind
of dreamy synthesizer stuff.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Hup
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
My guess is that 'Celtic' music is an American phenomenon, linked to that of New Age music which as far as I know started there too.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Toads are not reptiles. They're not frogs, either.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic is professional basketball.
Irish is college football.
Both have "fight songs".
Glad that's settled.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Piece
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic: think breathy, think Enya. Irish: think Daniel O'Donnell.
Sorry about the swear-word there. Jeremy should fix it so that you can't type "O'Donnell."
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I think you can bang one on the sofa but not the other: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/371
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by RichardB
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Easy one this - Its all Celtic, only Irish is the Best !
lol... jim,,,
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic music is when they beat Rangers..
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Theirlandais
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Ha. Ha. Scottish is the best, obviously.
Anyway, to me "celtic" implies either "electric guitars imitating bagpipes and/or fiddles" or "went nuts with the synthesiser / reverb button" or both. You know, like Big Country or Runrig or Enya. Maybe it's my age - I'm in my 30s, so I remember all this stuff from when I was a kid.
Celtic folk is a category on amazon.co.uk but I'd rather see trad shoehorned into the equally arbitrary category of world music, myself, if it can't have a proper category of its own.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Red Menace
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Alan Stivell seems to have got in early with his idea that the Celts were all one nation, presumably under Stivell, and that the national and local musics of the various Celtic places were part of one big pan-Celtic thing. I think with Stivell it was more about raising political consciousness than about finding one's inner goddess or whatever.
Can't remember listening to a note of his with pleasure, I must admit.
I do not have an inner goddess.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
"...Celtic folk is a category on amazon.co.uk but I'd rather see trad shoehorned into the equally arbitrary category of world music, myself, if it can't have a proper category of its own...."
I agree: 'World Music' is a much more accurate. Music that originates from the world (or a world). Country music is another good one. Music that is from a country. Anyway, as Louis Armstrong said, “All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song”
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by harmonic miner
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Meanwhile, in America...
Say your band is Celtic: Play the local St. Andrew's Society, Robbie Burns Night, Highland Games festivals, etc.
Say your band is Irish: Play for the local Irish Cultural Society and kiss all that tartan moolah goodbye!
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Or, in the USA, you can use the word Celtic in your band's name, thinking it will open doors with both the Irish and Scots communities, and instead find that people want to hire you for "Pagan Festivals" and other odd events where folks dress like the Middle Ages or dance around fires in the moonlight!
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Ask Fiona Ritchie. Surely she had a lot to do with popularizing the vague convention of “Celtic music” as traditional and trad-inspired music from the “Celtic lands.” As far as I can tell, most people who routinely use the term would say it includes Irish session music. Most people who play in Irish sessions would, of course, violently disagree. Okay, slight exaggeration there.
In the larger picture, it’s really no different from every other attempt at categorizing musical genres. Some folks are satisfied with it, some are annoyed and many non-fanatics are thoroughly confused
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Bob himself
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Al, as in:
http://www.faerieworlds.com/
It's trip, let me tell you.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
xpost, Bob. The confusion may just be worthy of a cringe, but not a campaign against sloppy language. How much energy do you have to squander trying to explain?
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Michele Sims
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Yeah, that's the thing.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Bob himself
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Celtic music is closely related to the music of Ethnia. Ethnic music, as we know, is a traditional dance music from the Old Country, based on the traditional dance rhythms of the djembe and the the plaintive wail of the traditional synthesizer and soprano saxophone, with the traditional didgeridude playing his traditional didgeridoo, often featuring a traditional electric bass guitar and drum kit.
I don't know what you want to call the stuff we play at Tommy's on a Wednesday or a Thursday night, but it's not Celtic by any stretch of the imagination.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Irish music is Celtic.
Everybody else just trys to copy us!
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Kess
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Hey man, times are tight. If the hippies at the New Age bookstore or the Live Action Role Players at the Ren Fair want to hire me, I'm listening.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Taxonomically ~ More lumping vs. less lumping; but lumping nonetheless.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
'Celtic' ?
Isn't that that what Bars in the US tack somewhere in their name so they can sell copious amounts of green Bud Light on St. Patricks day at inflated prices?
You know like Bogdan's Traditional Cuban Pizzeria and Celtic Brew Pub?
And they do Kareoke to Barry Manilow albums on Thursday nights, right before the guy with the Roland digital button box plays.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by zippydw
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Irish is a subset of Celtic. You'll come across a lot of people who are offended that anyone would lump together such a diverse set of ethnicities and musical styles (Irish, Scottish, Breton, Cape Breton, Enya) under a single descriptor. In my experience, these are the people who are most likely, at sessions, to ask if the other brown-eyed, severe-featured, coffee-coloured person at the table is my brother, because Lord knows "east of the the British Isles" is one homogeneous land mass inhabited by a single family.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
The Celtic Football Club 1888
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IpjAzvf66w
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
The fact that there is no post by llig suggests to me he is on another one of his forced absences.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I think I may have noticed a new tactic in content moderation a few weeks back. Llig is not constrained in the old sense, i.e. suspension. Or, he may be doing something different altogether.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
@SWFL Fiddler: *shudders* LARP? ewww *shudders*
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Resodan
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
One difference between 'Celtic' music and the Tradition is that in comparison, the latter changes and develops at warp speed.
This remark is not based on earnest recollection or study. It just came out of me, a bit like Alien out of that bloke's stomach. It sounds as though it *ought* to be true: someone tell me if it is...although to do so might be an admission of listening to far too much of the 'Celtic' ear treacle!
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
if the lot of you deplore Celtic music so much how do you keep finding all those YouTube links?
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Ha ha, no takers yet Resodan, but if they got cash I'll play an Elven Bard with a +5 fiddle of jigging.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I thought about bothering to actually answer this, then I figured somebody else had probably put in the trouble... And here it is:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071124152459AAcuOX5
But more specifically, Irish/Scottish/etc traditional music each feature enough distinct details (including rhythm, tune selection, instrumentation, and style/ornamentation) on their own that most people who have bothered to spend any time learning one or the other can pretty much instantly recognize the defining characteristics--or the lack of them.
Irish and Scottish music are certainly similar enough that one could lump them into the "celtic" parent category for discussion (or radio programs), but for the most part the only people who actually self-identify as "celtic" are either doing so as a business move, or they neither recognize nor care about the differences between the traditions... This, obviously leaves those who DO care about the difference to generally prefer the more specific "Irish Traditional" (or Scottish/Cape Breton/etc) label, when asked.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Georgi
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
To sum up, Georgi ... Irish traditional musicians play Irish traditional music, Scottish traditional musicians play Scottish traditional music, Manx musicians play Manx traditional music, Shetland musicians ... well they're just out there, Cape Breton musicians will play anything, Irish American musicians are live action slut-dudes ... etc.
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
The very thought that the term 'Irish traditional music' is somehow specific simply ignores all the divergence & variation throughout the tradition. By it's very nature it embodies ambiguity. Embrace the fluid beauty which surrounds you!
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
... music travels, it meanders, it need not run aground; though someone will probably come & take it out again. It leaves home, it meets other music, it has a drink .... it has another drink .... it forgets where it lives .... it remembers (way too early) & takes 2 aspirin. It repeats itself. It has no name, but everyone recognizes it.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Ben, I think you took your own advice and embraced a little too much fluid....
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
You're the wordsmith, Will. What say you about the original question?
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Interesting thread.
Particularly about finding work.
How about
"Pan-Celtic New Age Green World Tribal Progressive Traditional Music"?
Burn's Nights gigs, St. Paddy's gigs, cutural festivals, rock fests, folks fests, political rallies, Earth Day -
All things to all people, and they would all hire you.
Trouble is, if you try to be all things, you usually wind up being none of them.
;-/
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Piece
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Honestly what is the big fuss. Is it really just on this board that people get into a stushie about these things?
Irish music is a subset of Celtic music. There are a number of "Celtic nations" - Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Isle of Mann, Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias.
They are not the same thing because "Celtic Music" describes more than just "Irish Music". The term "Celtic Music" does not apply any more to Scotland than any of the other Celtic nations - as has been suggested in this thread at one point.
I can not pretend to have read the whole thread. I have better things to be doing with my life. Why get all bothered about it anyway?
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I'm seriously curious, not being sarcastic when I pose the question: if you are in what most would call a "Celtic Rock" band, how else are you supposed to "market" or "describe" it to people that haven't heard that type of music before? Or, perhaps more intriguingly, what would I say to purists? Beyond the jibe, "it's all sh*te anyway", of course.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Oh, and we use some irish, scottish, breton, etc. tunes/influence. Not just irish tunes.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I'd say you're asking in the wrong place. If you're in what most would call a "Celtic Rock" band, what you're playing has about as much to do with session tunes as it would if you were playing in what most would call a "Western Swing" band. How you market yourself is your business, but it's not really got anything to do with playing tunes at a session, does it?
Certainly nothing that anyone describes as "Celtic Rock" sounds much like anything I play when I go down the pub with my box to have some tunes.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
The term "Celtic music" is merely lazy. That's all.
Along with such terms as "World" "Jazz" "Easy listening" "Classical" "Rock & Pop" etc etc. They a merely labels in magazines and record shops designed for people who are not really interested in music.
Musicians don't really care much about it.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by ...
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Cross post Jon. And we more or less said the same thing
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by ...
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
It's a marketing tool. It's purely for sales. Totally materialistic. Keep it well away from your art and what makes you happy. Well, that's what I do, works for me. I keep a little divider up. 'This is work, this is art.' 'This is schmaltz, this is pure drop.'
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I stumbled on some music, it's a farflung tangent; if a tangent ~
Erik Marchand & Les Balkaniks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGe4floVjho
Erik Marchand ne rechigne pas à donner des conférences sur des thèmes variés comme "La modalité et le tempérament inégal dans la musique bretonne" ou "La musique dans les Balkans". Il est également l'initiateur d'un festival de clarinette, de master class et de la Kreiz Breizh Akademi qui est une académie de musique populaire du Centre-Bretagne.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Fiddlechick, you could call it, "Music influenced by Irish/Scottish/Cape Breton, etc. tunes but put to more familiar rock and pop style bass, guitar, and drums."
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
There's only two types of music. Commercial and non commercial.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by ...
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Now you're being lazy, llig.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
TheSilverSpear, on the other hand, is spot on. Good one, Em!
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
There's only two types of music, but I don't know what they are.
Or maybe:
There's only one type of music, good, and bad.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
You're right Ben.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by ...
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I would suggest that "Celtic Rock" is an easier label.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
It is. And if it communicates something to the listener, it's an effective label. It certainly communicates something to me: "stay away, there's nothing worth hearing here."
I encourage anyone who thinks that "Celtic Rock" is the right label for their music to slap that label all over the stuff. It'll save me a lot of time.
The question, though was whether there's a difference between "Celtic" and "Irish" music. Yes, there is - the two are unrelated.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
They are not unrelated. They are very related. You might not like the term and it may be used as a marketing term but nonetheless it is a reasonable descriptor.
I refer to my previous post.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
My first post that is...
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
But it doesn't actually describe any music except Crapercailie and the like, which has nothing at all to do with Irish, Scottish, or any other music . It's pop music with a green and red paint job. It's like saying that "Smooth Jazz" is a sort of jazz because it's got "jazz" in the name. No, it's pop music with bad saxophone and no vocals. Just because someone calls it "Celtic" doesn't mean it's got anything to do with Celts.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
But it is all Celtic music. It is the traditional music of the Celtic nations.
The word "Celtic" itself is not made up.
And you may or may not like Capercaillie but it has got everything to do with traditional music and is the band that got many of us, including me into traditional music in the first place.
Capercaillie have been around for a long time now and have had many different guises. Are you saying you can find nothing traditional about ANYTHING they have done?
Capercaillie isn't "Celtic Rock" - not even close.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
"If the lot of you deplore Celtic music so much how do you keep finding all those YouTube links?"
# Posted on January 19th 2011 by Ben Steen
Because we know we're going to watch young women in diaphanous clothing under spotlights trying to play fast reels on the fiddle while attempting to reproduce Salome's dance before Herod in Zeffirelli's movie "Jesus of Nazareth", and we want to see if one of them prangs.
At any rate, I dare say this rivets enough Session.org members, though frankly I'd prefer to watch paint dry.
This is because I (sometimes) paint.
It is also because Salome's dance in the Zeffirelli film was family viewing, to the point of being blancmange core.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I don't think there's any sense in talking about "the traditional music of the Celtic nations". It makes sense to talk of a "Celtic" language group, if your hypothesis is that there was a group of people who spoke a single language, and that group split up into a number of nations whose languages descend from the "proto-Celtic" language - and that hypothesis would make sense. But the music we're talking about developed long after there were Scots and Irish and Galicians and so forth, so the idea is historically and musically a non-starter.
It's like trying to describe a category of "African music" - there's no such thing. There is plenty of music in Africa, and lots of good music, but what Ali Farka Toure has in common with Hamza el Din or Fela Kuti or Rahid Taha or Ladymith Black Mombazo is nothing more than a shared continent. It does make an excellent label for marketing, because many people who like Toure like the others as well, but it doesn't respect the music any more than "Music by People Whose Last Names Start With T" would.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Gaelic vs. Irish
"the music we're talking about developed long after there were Scots and Irish (Manx)" i.e. developed after gaelic began to develop?
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Developed after the "Celts" were no longer a going concern. I don't know when you want to put the start of the sort of music that we all play, but no matter what period this music emerged in, it was first played by Irishmen and Scots, not by Celts.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
It’s true that “traditional Celtic music” may not make literal sense, but when it comes to conveying information to another person, sometimes you just have to take a stab at what might make sense to *them*. I don’t like the “Celtic music” label, for several reasons, but I have occasionally used it when I thought it was my best shot at getting a point across. I probably failed anyway, but it seemed more reasonable than launching into an academic lecture.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Bob himself
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I've always thought of 'Celtic Music' as a slightly derogatory term.
The way people use it round here, Celtic Music is to Irish or Scottish Music what Country & Western is to Appalachian Music.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by skreech
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
As Bob himself says, it's useful for describing the music to most folks, and by that I mean the people that will assume you're talking about gaudy shamrockery and songs about jars of whiskey when you say 'Irish music' or even 'Irish traditional music' heaven forbid.
'Launching into academic lectures' is what we do on here with the Traduminati.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Really Jon? Well this is fascinating. I wasn't aware I was in the presence of such an expert on the Celtic peoples.
Perhaps you could enlighten us on a rough start time for traditional music in Ireland? Do you know the equivalent date in Scotland? Did they maybe emerge separately and even centuries apart from each other?
Seeing as you brought up the languages when would you estimate that Irish and Scottish Gaelic diverged from each other to be the seperate languages that are spoken today? Was there no traditional music played at that time?
I look forward to being educated.
*You will need to forgive the tone above. I wrote something completely different and then my internet connection chewed it up.*
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic?
Fintan Vallely, "The Companion to Irish Traditional Music" excerpt
Posted on December 1st 2003 by gian marco
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/2451/comments#comment46688
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I wouldn't disagree with anything said in that extract. I am not one of those people who goes through mental crisis when anyone uses the term "Celtic" though.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by No Cause For Alarm
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
I also agree with what is in the Vallely extract. The term "Celtic" is a rather large and fuzzy category, but it is useful in sorting music that draws from some common influences. On WGBH radio out of Boston, there is a show called Celtic Sojourn, which plays music from Ireland, Scotland, and other "Celtic" countries. Brian O'Donovan, the host, says his mission is to explore the "roots and branches" of the music, the roots being the pure drop stuff, and with the branches including music from America and Canada influenced by music from the Old Countries, more contemporary stuff, fusion, etc, etc. The show covers broad territory, but in general, you can hear the common thread of everything that is played on the program.
# Posted on January 20th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
"The term "Celtic" is useful in sorting music that draws from some common influences"
Only to people who are not interested in music and are happy to have their tastes dictated to them by an industry . Anyone who is interested in music knows it's merely a commercial construct.
What's lazy about the term is that while the musics of the world almost always draw from common influences, by far the most important element of all of the musics of the world is that they invariably draw from the immense diversity of not only their ancestries, but also the completely unrelated stuff that their traditional exponents merely take a fancy too.
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by ...
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
As far as I'm aware a speaker of one of the Gaelic languages will not understand Welsh, Cornish or Breton without specifically learning one of them, and the same the other way round.
This has probably been the case for a very long time. Someone in the Dark Ages distinguished the five languages of Britain - English, British (early Welsh), Scots (Gaelic), Pictish, and Latin, the language of the Church common to all areas. Each of the four ethnic groups seems to have felt quite distinct from the others. From the point of view of the early Welsh, all the others were enemies - the latter including, also, raiders from Ireland itself. Meanwhile, Welsh / Breton / Cornish had come to contain a lot of Roman loan-words, widening any difference between these and Gaelic.
It seems difficult to believe that two groups of people speaking different languages and seeing themselves as determinedly distinct can share one and the same undivided *tradition*. Making cultural or other alliances, reaching out to the other group in the here and now, are rather different things.
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by nicholas
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
82 (+1) comments? Really? So help me God, I seriously do not understand what the big deal here is. Some categories are broader than others. This is nothing new, nor unique to this topic. Do the folks arguing against the use of the word `Celtic` get as worked up when someone, say, refers to their pet as a dog rather than a German shepherd? Or when someone describes them as a lawyer rather than as a tax attorney? "Oh, sure, a tax attorney is a TYPE of lawyer, they all have to take the bar and stuff, but there are very important differences between types of lawyers and when you refer to me as just a lawyer, you're lumping many different types of people all together and suggests that you just don't care."
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Is English music, then, considered traditional Germanic music? I agree with Jon. He makes a good point.
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by shanty
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Thanks Ben, thanks Fintan.
"...I think that many performers apply this term to their own music, simply to ensure that the kid with the pierced tongue at Tower Records puts their CDs in the right bin...."
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
...and thanks gian marco!
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
llig, Thanks for reminding me that I am one of those "people who are not interested in music and are happy to have their tastes dictated to them by an industry." Yep, not interested in music at all, not me...
# Posted on January 21st 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Celtic vs. Irish
Irish is a subset of Celtic.
# Posted on January 24th 2011 by Invincible