Irish folk music: national musical instruments, dance and vocal genres

Irish folk music is an example when the tradition becomes popular, because at this time, both in Ireland itself and abroad, including in the CIS countries, many performers with great pleasure play Irish folk or "Celtic" music. .

Of course, it is worth noting that most of the teams play not quite authentic music for the Emerald Isle, for the most part all compositions are played in a modern style, simply with the inclusion of Irish folk instruments. Let's look at Irish music, but let's start with the instruments.

Ireland's national musical instruments

How did the Tinwistle flute appear?

Tinwistle is a kind of flute that owes its appearance to the simple laborer Robert Clarke (a young instrument, but who managed to pick up on popularity). He realized that flutes made of wood were very expensive and began to make tools from tin-coated tin. The success of Robert's flutes (called tv-whistles) was so overwhelming that Robert made a fortune from this, and his invention later became a national instrument.

Fiddle - Irish Violin

There are interesting stories about how Fiddle appeared in Ireland - a local analogue of a violin. Once a ship sailed to the shores of Ireland, and it was loaded with cheap violins, and the Irish people became very interested in inexpensive musical instruments.

The Irish did not fully understand the technique of playing the violin: they didn’t hold it this way, they needed it, but instead of rosin bow - rosin strings. Since the way out of the people learned to play on their own, as a result, they had their own national style of play, their own ornamentation in music.

Famous Irish Harp

The harp is a heraldic symbol and the national emblem of Ireland, so the fame that Irish folk music has achieved is due to the harp a lot. This instrument has long been revered, played by a court musician who sat beside the king, and in the hours of wars he rode in front of the troops and raised the morale with his music.

Irish bagpipes - old acquaintance?

Irish bagpipers are sometimes called “the kings of folk music”, and Irish bagpipes are noticeably different from the bagpipes of Western Europe: the air in the pipes is forced not by the power of the light musician, but with the help of special bellows, like an accordion.

Irish national music genres

Irish folk music is famous for its amazing songs, that is, vocal genres, and fiery dances.

Dance genres of Irish music

The most famous dance genre is jig (sometimes they say - jig, without the initial “d”). In the old days, such a word was generally called just a violin, on which some village musician played for dancing youth. Apparently since then, the word jig (or more narrow-minded - jig) has become attached to the dance, becoming at the same time its name.

Gigue was not always the same - at first it was a doubles dance (girls and boys danced), then he acquired humorous features and migrated from the youth environment to sailors. The dance became purely masculine, fast and agile, sometimes not devoid of rudeness (when written and joked overly “playfully”, rudely).

Another popular dance and music genre is reelwhich is also played at a fast pace.

The main means of expression, distinguishing jig and ril music, is rhythm around which the melody is wound. Gigue in this respect is somewhat akin to the Italian tarantella (due to its clear triple figures at 6/8 or 9/8), but the rhythm of the riel is more even, almost devoid of sharpness, this dance goes in a bipartite or four-part size.

By the way, if Gigue is a dance that arose and formed in the folk environment over a fairly long time (the time of appearance is unknown), reel, on the contrary, is artificial, invented by dance (it was invented around the end of the XVIII century, then it became fashionable, but then the Irish could not imagine their life without rila).

Something close to the reel is polka - Czech dance, which was brought to the Celtic lands by soldiers and dance teachers. In this genre, the two-part size, as in reel, is also important rhythm, as the basis. But if evenness and continuity of movement are important in reel, then in polka, and you know it perfectly, in polka we always have clarity and separation (prints).

Vocal genres of Irish folk music

Irish's favorite vocal genre is ballad. This genre is also poetic, because it basically contains a story (epic) about life or about heroes, or, finally, a fairy tale told in verses. Usually such narrative songs were performed to the accompaniment of a harp. True, it all reminds Russian epics with their guesses?

One of the oldest vocal genres in Ireland was Shan-Nose - very highly ornamented improvisational singing (that is, singing with a large number of chants), where there were several parts of the voices, of which the overall composition was woven

Watch the video: Instrumental traditional Irish music compilation (March 2024).

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