Historic trivia question…
It seems to me that most (i.e. 90%?) of Celtic / IRTRAD music is played with two sharps, most of the rest with one or three sharps. Flats seem to be rare. Why is this so?
Was this based on the limitations of a particular traditional instrument? If so which instrument?
Or were instruments made to match the tunes. If so, why were all the tunes in those keys?
Sort of a chicken or the egg question.
That is a very interesting question. I can put on my guitarist hat and tell you that even though you rarely see a Celtic band these days without a guitar and/or a bouzouki, these instruments are relative newcomers to IrTrad. So in the case of guitars, I would say the music came first. However, I can’t say that for such instruments as whistles and uilleann pipes.
Was this based on the limitations of a particular traditional instrument? If so which instrument?
I’ve always assumed it was because pipes and whistles are limited to these keys and their relatives. But keys with one or 2 sharps are also simpler for fiddles and such instruments as diatonic accordions and, presumably, concertinas. And on most fretted instruments for that matter.
Tunes in flat keys are quite common in the Scottish fiddle repertoire, and envelope-pushing fiddlers in Irish music tend to stray into more outlandish keys than the wind instruments are capable of.
Edited to fix typo.
[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2002-02-12 16:25 ]
Then of course, there was a time when the pipes were pitched in Bb, concertinas in Bb/F, and whistles in C (which also play in F)
This is most likely based on the limitations of the instruments at hand: pipes/flute/whistle and later on the concertina accordeon (and you have to bear in mind these were two row German type concertinas and single or double row melodeons which were not capable of playing in other than their basic keys like present day systems are).
You will also have to bear in mind that regardless of the key of the instrument most tunes are referred to as in D or G. So fiddlers with fiddles tuned below concert pitch , flat pipers, whistlers on other than d instruments etc, all consider the tunes as if they were in D/G. Which is, by the end of the day, the most practical way of dealing with the issue. I personally cannot understand people on the board who get confused when they buy a whistle in a different key, you pick it up and play don’t you?
Can we please cut the Celtic reference once and for all? Even while it is related Scottish music is still distinctly different from Irish music, Scottish music has a lot of tunes in A and tunes with two or three flats, Irish has some in A(and these are often Scottish imports) but also a good few C, Dm, Gm, depending where you are (and these keys are fiddle territory mostly though the concertinas are moving into that these days).
Fiddles have a big part with the choice of keys. The stings are G D A E so with the key of D the third string being open will give a good bell note. And then it obvious why then you also see many tunes in G and then A. The fiddle was such a main folk instrument (the Shetland Islands was said at one time to have about a tenth of the population as fiddlers)in years past.
Joe
Peter, I agree with cutting the “Celtic” reference, even though I catch myself using it often. If you have ever listened to Fiona Ritchie, she had an entire episode of Thistle & Shamrock dedicated to “music from the northern Celtic regions” (i.e. ScanTrad and Shetland Islands music)! This is kind of like music stored putting modern classical and progressive rock music together in the “New Age” category.
Leeettss Get Ready to RAMBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!
I am most certain that I could say this in a lot less space, but I’d like some serious discussion of the things going through my mind. Also, PLEASE see the foot note as to my sources and my negligence for remembering and not referencing those sources. That should account for most of the errors in anything that I write, and places the burden of these errors on me alone.
Sort of a chicken or the egg question.
That’s a real deep question and I don’t know if our ringers have dug deep enough. I have some additional questions to pose to this group (mostly for Peter). The reason being, I think we should consider this question to include music development before the 19th century. While the music has changed significantly over the centuries, 19th century traditional Irish music that is the foundation of contemporary Irish music. Music of this foundation must have roots and influences in prior traditional music.
It seems to me that most (i.e. 90%?) of Celtic / IRTRAD music is played with two sharps, most of the rest with one or three sharps. Flats seem to be rare. Why is this so?
Scottish music has a fair amount of Bb & F tunes in the tradition, I’m not sure about the music of Brittany with the exception of a small subset of music that uses a scale that has no connection to the rest of western music (a 9 note scale played on a special flute, if I remember commentary by of Jean-Michel Veillon of Kornog from a performance here in Delaware a while back). Point being, this is a good, valid IRTRAD question about sharps and flats; where as other non-Irish musics can be more variable.
So pondering this question within only IrTrad music, we have scales with one and two sharps being most common, and three sharps a distant third possibly coming from Scottish musics. They work within 4 modes that include the 2 modes that most western music has settled within. Music in modes should, in my mind at least, come from being influenced by the Roman musics through Catholic Monks that entered Ireland arriving in the 2nd century and through the 6th century. Musical culture in Ireland was certainly present in abundance before that time, but early Christian missionaries had a tremendous impact on Irish culture. If I (both remember and) understand it this wave of influence fostered the Bardic system of scholarship focusing on aural learning and not written. Written music was first really recorded in earnest with a second wave of monastic tradition from Rome that started in the 11th century. This scholarly system was at odds with the Bardic tradition (which it eventually extinguished) and more in line with the Baroque/Renaissance musical traditions which evolved into what we now call Classical music.
That places more ancient western music in the hands of the people while more modern western musics influencing them after a time for those original influences had time to develop independently as a folk music. That, I think, gives IrTrad the basis for retaining active use of more modes than the rest of western music. It also gives IrTrad such musical complexity while existing in mostly melody only (today’s harmonies are nice, but not necessary for the music to exist, unlike most other western music). That leads us to the instrument portion of BobJ’s question.
Was this based on the limitations of a particular traditional instrument? If so which instrument? Or were instruments made to match the tunes. If so, why were all the tunes in those keys?
The word “fiddle” is derived from “fidil” which WAS actually a different instrument that the violin. The fidil was a stringed instrument played with a bow, but more primitive. When Italian violins started arriving in Ireland, they were superior instruments and were quickly adopted into the music (maybe not overnight, I wonder if there is a comparison with acceptance of the low whistle and the transition fidil/fiddle). I don’t know much about those instruments. But that brings up obvious questions, like “what scales and key signatures did these instruments use?” and “with what pitch did these instruments play?”
Now, help me if you can here, Peter, thank you. How many examples of pipes do we have from this era. I think I have heard of a set of Uilleann pipes in very modern configurations are known from the 16th century (even with keys), which runs against the school of thought that Union pipes were born in the 18th century and developed into their current form in the 19th century. If that is the case, with what pitches did they play.
What I am trying to get at is the pitch of these instruments may have caused the pitches to migrate to their current bell tones, but not their modes which could be preserved in any key thorough being transposed to modern instruments (similar to choosing a different whistle to do the transposing work and using the fingering you are familiar with).
ANSWER HERE: If my understanding of the history is correct, I think that the melodies migrated to fit on the fiddle, but were preserved within their modal context. The musicians were playing by ear, as most folk musics are, with strong reinforcement from cultural vestiges of the Bardic tradition operating with the musicians. This makes that transition all the more easy. The music “sounds right” no matter which instrument it is played on if it is played well.
This would have been reinforced by the wood concert flutes being sold in 2nd hand shops by classical musicians who needed the new bohem system flutes in classical music. All of these second hand instruments were fairly easy for whistle players to master as they have the same fingering. Since the 1 & 2 sharp music that worked on the fiddle and worked equally well on these flutes, those keys would become even more entrenched for today’s traditional music.
My obvious lack of knowledge about the history of the pipes is why I picked on Peter to challenge my answer to BobJ. There is one big wildcard that changed the influence of both pipers and harpers in the tradition. That was that pipers and harpers, who bore the tradition almost exclusively, were forced to quit playing during penal times, or risk being put to death at the end of a rope as directed by the Monarchy. Death and dismemberment have a very strong influence on how (if) music is played.
FOOTNOTE: My understanding comes from the writings of Gearóid ÓhAllmhuráin, Tómas Ó Canainn, and Francis O’Neill, as well as many remembered authors with internet pages. Also, I made no references here as I made no attempt to check my sources for accuracy. If there are any errors, they are my own failings of memory. Any faulty connections between events is the result of my overactive imagination. If anything is correct, it is due to the efforts and works of these scholars.
OK we can be fairly short about the pipes, no Uilleann pipes were in existence during the 16th, 17th and most of the 18th century. The invention of the pipes as we know them today is now attributed to the elder Kenna during the second half of the 18th century. One instrument stamped ‘Kenna, Mullingar- inventor’ is in existence. An article in the forthcoming Journal of the Sean Reid society will shed more light on this. The earliest tutors and collections for the pipes (Geoghan, O Farrell) all date around 1800.
It is interesting to note that a lot of tunes tunes published in O Farrells Pocket Companion are very much in circulation to this day, some forms have disappeared but the jigs seem to have stayed on often unaltered (reels seem to have been less numerous in those days and one can assume that most reels date post-1800).
The early tutors all give the scale and fingering of the chanter as if it was pitched in D. However while there is a small number of early sets in D and E flat in existence the vast majority of the surviving older instruments are pitched between Bflat and C sharp. It seems the practice of referring to the bell-note as D regardless of it’s actual pitch goes back to the very beginning of the instrument. It is also safe to assume the practice of tuning the fiddle to the ‘A ‘ of the chanter has been in place since pipes and fiddles started playing together (whenever that was the session is after all a recent development).
I can not shed too much light on the music pre- 1800, the main body of the dance music In the living tradition came into being after that date. The music from the harpers as collected by Bunting and the like was a very different sort of music from what we play nowadays. Airs are commonly thought of as the oldest surviving form of music, they most likely survived in their original form, sung.
I couldn’t help but add something to this thread.
First a disclaimer: I may be wrong.
What I understand of folk music is that it has always been pretty much influenced by “professional” music. (Like the styles of music of Bach, Handel etc..) While at the same time those “professional” music have been influenced by folk music (notably the Russian Five)
Basically, folk music of any form has been around for a lot longer than the 18th century, and well it is true that perhaps the formalized styles of songs (reels, jigs) are more recent, many of the melodies of earlier folk songs are still around, changed to fit these new styles. Obviously there have been new compositions as well.
In regards to the pipes, I don’t know when the irish pipes as we know them were invented (developed is the proper word), but pipes of all (and sometimes extremely similar) types have been around well before the 18th C.
One of the earliest known is a Roman type with a bag and a pipe. Very simple.
Now to the Key. It is very possible that the key had a lot to do with the instrument, BUT from what I have seen of older (beginning of 1900s) music books (containing folk music)have been in many different keys. The Scottish keys of Bb and F and easy to explain because the scottish highland bagpipes are pitched ( for a very long time) in a key that is almost Bb (kind of a sharp A), so the act of writting it in Bb and of fiddlers playing in Bb is an effort to play with the Bagpipes.
It seems plausible that playing in A resulted in that as well, since bagpipe music (I think) is written in A and (here it is) prior to 1900s European music (and therefore Folk music in Europe) was not pitched to A = 440 but to 415 (I think it was an A but am not sure)
I am positive that the development of the irish bagpipes resulted in some similar happening, or just beacuse of lazy fiddlers. It is easier to play in D from what I have heard…
Nico
Mark J mentioned harpers, who along with pipers were largely responsible for carrying on the tradition in the olden days. Harpers may have had an influence on the keys, too. Folk harps rely on sharping levers to change keys. (The lever is something that just shortens the string’s vibrating length, raising the pitch of the note by a half step.) Many harps had (and have) only two sets of sharping levers, installed on the F and C strings, so they could play in C, G, and D. Or else retune the whole harp, which isn’t fun for either the harper or the audience.
Charlie
Speaking of “chicken and egg”:
Cartoon in the New Yorker, which I’ll just have to describe to you.
A chicken and an egg are shown in bed together. They’re both smoking cigarettes. The chicken says, “Well, I guess that answers THAT question.”
ROFLMAO!!! That is too funny! 
To get more facts: The Swedish bagpipe (yes, there exists such things, take a look at http://hem2.passagen.se/crwth/index.html) was probably adopted from some central european pipe and is played in A harmonic minor, although it’s drone and bell note is E.
Also, very much folk singing is done in D since this is a nice mode to sing in. This probably influenced the folk instument makers in some ways. The old Greek bousouki (three stringed variant) as well as other instruments of this family, are also tuned in D. Probably, all countries haave been influenced by other countries and more or less “agreed” on D as a good choice.
EGG!
(Forgot to spellcheck 
)
[ This Message was edited by: Vinny on 2002-02-14 08:16 ]
Simple really. Most tunes in celtic music these days are played in the key of D major, and the D major scale has got two sharps in it. If it was in the key of C major, there would be no sharps or flats at all. The music was composed using the diatonic (or octave) scale. The octave scale intervals run: tone - tone - semitone - tone - tone - tone - semitone. there are two semitones (or half tones) in each octave scale, and they are either sharps or flats, or even one sharp and one flat.
I don’t know much abt the history of irish trad music, but I wld also guess that comfort as a singing key is a factor, after which people started agreeing on some standardisation or uniformity in the usual keys used.
After all, when people first started making 6-holed flutes/whistles, they could make them in any length, aka, any key. THe only restraining factor would be making sure the length was comfortable for playing. That would rule out only the very short and the very long.
There must be some physical constraints for pipes, stringed and other instruments as well. But within the acceptable physical ranges, people must have also got together to form some consensus on what keys to use.