i’ve sometimes wondered why i don’t enjoy folk music from eastern europe (gypsy music i think it’s called), klezmer music, latin music etc, and i think it may be to do with the modes that are used - for some reason the modes that are used in irish music appeal to me as though i’m primed in some way to appreciate them more - i particularly prefer the flattened 7th you get in irish music in the minor modes as compared to say a g# in a minor - i can still appreciate the skill of musicians in other traditions but i don’t connect with it - has anyone experienced anything similar?
First of all, it is certainly not called “gypsy music”, as gypsy is quite widely considered to be a very offensive term, especially when used to describe all eastern european people (or at least culture), and second I doubt that it has very much to do with the tonality so much as the phrasing. Eastern european music utilise odd time signatures (to us western europeans) and ways of phrasing those that are very unusual to us, and as such we have quite hard time to appreciate the rhythm of it, as well as absorb the meoldies. It’s very much an aquired taste, not to mention the fact that a discussion around “my music is better than your music, your music is stupid because it’s different from my music” (or in this case "my music is better than all other music, all other music is silly etc.) is very counter productive and will not amount to anything constructive in any way.
Sometimes it take repeated exposure to a style of music to get accustomed to it. Sometimes you got to listen to it and then come back to it a couple of months later. Sometimes it just doesn’t click. There’s not right or wrong to it.
So what it is about ITM that is so captivating to so many of us who are not exactly Irish?
A guess would be that it is one of the more widely exposed forms of music. If you watch a TV program or a movie, chances are better that you will hear an irish tune or song being played, and not a swedish tune or a bulgarian piece or tune from south east asia. And the fact that the modalities and tonalities used in irish music have been quite prevalent in different types of concert music and popular music. And I don’t know how things are in California, me being Swedish, but around here at least there is quite a craze for eastern european folk music and klezmer music.
ITM is a much closer relative of the folk/country/western*/Jazz/Blues/Rock family of genres than the Balkan/Gypsy/Klezmer family.
Given that the first cluster includes the dominant strains of popular music in generica, it’s not surprising that ITM feels more accessible than, say, hungarian, arabic, or gamelan.
*No, I’m not recycling the Blues Brothers joke. The Western in C&W is Western Swing, which is jazz + old time.
Most of the Irish folk music I’ve come across uses the major keys; D major, F major, G major or Bb major. There’s a lot of commonalities with say, western European folk music in this respect.
Oddly, chinese music also uses the same keys frequently, with a subset of the D, F, G, Bb major keys (i.e. pentatonic scale, with the rest of the octave for decorations).
I’m not interested in playing or listening to jigs, reels or hornpipes, unless it happens to be live in Ireland. It’s the languid slow airs which move me mostly. That’s what I’d like to play mostly.
I do have some Klezmer music (Itzak Perlman on the violin) as well as some Mark O’Connor improvisations ,as well as a truly horrible Mel Bay book on Balkan music. Like you, I find them completely unmemorable. On the other hand, music like ‘The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices’ is very memorable, and I really like it when I hear it, but I get that ‘too lazy to put the CD on’ feeling when I think about playing it.
So you’re not meeting many tunes in A? Or modal ones?
There’s a lot of commonalities with say, western European folk music in this respect.
But it is western European (about as far west as you can get)…
Oddly, chinese music also uses the same keys frequently, with a subset of the D, F, G, Bb major keys (i.e. pentatonic scale, with the rest of the octave for decorations).
Eh?
I don’t hear that many F and Bb major tunes at sessions… Not at all probably.