Whats that all about then :roll:
And who doe’s it?
lilting or mouth music was done a lot in hard times, when there was no money for instruments.
i know miko russel did it some times. it sounds like “dadly daly didly…” all the way like a jig or a reel.
there might not have been that many old tunes without lilting.
Back in about 1960 or so, an Irish musician showed up at a Houston Folklore Society jam session in Hermann Park, and performed what he called “mouth music”. He said that it originated with the banning of the pipes by the British.
I can almost remember what he looked like, but not what he sounded like.
so how did they decide who got to drone and who got to lilt? 
I second the question. Is that like…humming?
I trust you used the search function to see previous discussion… yes?
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/search.php?mode=results&sid=59545b476e8f2e91c974abc8d3396905
It’s more like the “da row dee da diddly da diddly da dum” bits you run into in some pub songs. It’s got the rhythm and cadence of speech (well, song, rather), but the “words” are basically nonsense…syllables chosen for their rhythmic value rather than sense. One of the new Irish Rovers (I forget his name) is quite adept at it…he lilts a verse or two of “Kitty of Kilrae” on their “Boys of Belfast” CD.
Redwolf
Lilting, or mouth music, can be like humming, in the sense of walking along the road, got a tune in your head, and just humming along with it. IRTrad musicians will sometimes do that, just lilt a tune to help get it better in their head.
Lilting is also a serious art form, maybe starting at gatherings when there wasn’t a musician available. That’s how Jean Redpath described it on a live recording of one of her concerts.
In “Field Guide to the Irish Music Session” Barry Foy describes lilting as:
“Dum-diddly-diddly-dum, di-de-leedl-di, deedl-leedl-
deedl-dum, di-de-leedl dum” – which is harder than
it looks."
There’s some good examples of lilting on the Chieftains 3 & 4 albums, done by Pat Kilduff.
3 words for you: Celtic Mouth Music
I think it’s out of print, but it sometimes turns up in places like half.com.
g
Try this site, it will give a definition of Scottish Mouth Music (what some call lilting) but a completely different approach.
http://www.kammenandswan.com/mouth_music.htm
It is called “Pruit a beul.”
The Irish have several styles (which can be found farther down the above link)
Sean Nos - old style
Caoine (Keen-a) lament style
Hopes this helps
MarkB
If you have or can get the Matt Molloy “Shadows on Stone” album, it’s got some good lilting on it.
–James
It’s still around – I found it on Grey Larsen’s site, and there’s a lot of other places that have it.
http://www.greylarsen.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=13
Lilting is Irish “scat” singing, similar to some jazz scat.
Thanks Mark.
Realy good,this bit applies to whistle just as much as singing.
One of the great challenges for a singer is finding breathing space in a purt. The cardinal rule for this type of mouth music is that the rhythm must never be compromised. Breathing a purt calls for the ability to put the emphasis on the strong dance beats, while still saving space for catching your breath between sounds or having a breath take the place of a weaker beat while you maintain the momentum of the tune.
In jazz, think Ella Fitzgerald “scatting.”
PhilO
Where is Bloomfield? He started this one:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=15456&highlight=lilting
Brian
Yes but had hoped to get some proper answers 
The best example I can give of lilting is the little Irish gentleman in “The Quiet Man” who’s constantly lilting The Rakes of Mallow to himself.
Be careful, however, it’s VERY infectious. You will find yourself with that tune stuck in your head for weeks.
“Lilting” probably is related to the “lilt pipe”, a simple single reed pipe popular in the Isles.
The “Scottish” version of The English “Lilting” is called Canntairreachd {pronounced; CANT-er-roct} ‘the pipers sol-fa’. Gaelic dictionaries define as “chanting,singing,warbling”.
To Quote from Francis Collinson’s “The Bagpipe”{ISBN # 0-7100-7913-3}
“…and of John Cambell, the Lorn Piper, who taught me fifty years ago how to rouse men with strange words out of the isles-”
Hiodroho hodroho, haninen hiechin,
Hodraha hodroho, hodroho hachin,
Hiodroho hodroho, haninen hiechin,
Hodraha hodraha, hodraha hodraha,
Hodraha hodraha, hodraha hachin. etc.
“The pipers sol-fa,the series of vocables which enable the piper to sing the music of the piobaireachd (bagpipe music) in order to teach his pupil”
“One version attributes it (mouth music/Canntaireachd/Lilting) to the Italian eleventh-century Benedictine monk and writer on music, Guido d’Arezzo, who is generally credited with being the originator of the solmization syllables, ut, re, mi, fa, so, la, for the notes of the hexachord. Guido took these symbols from the initial syllables of the phrases of a hymm to St John the Babtist. His Idea is said to have reached the monasteries in Ireland, from whence it passed to the Irish Bards and from them to the Irish Pipers.”
The vocalized Mouth Music/Lilting/Cantairreachd is accredited with saving the Scottish bagpipe traditions after “The Disarming Act of 1747”.
From “The Bagpipe” again
…The (English) Courts judgment was that ‘No regiment ever marched without musical instruments such as drums, trumpets and the like: and that ‘a Highland regiment never marched without a piper’; and that "therfore his bagpipe, in the eye of the law, was an instrument of war’. Hence the Scottish tradition of Canntaireachd.
I’m sure, in my opinion, that music teachers throughout eastern europe used similar techniques to “lilting”. Has this been of help?
Thomas Hastay
Thomas aptly coined his “Pipers’ sol-fa”.
When reading above about analogies of lilt, diddling (etc.) with jazz scat (zoobap, zeebelebop!), the other analogy with plain solfying and classical “vocalizing” sprung to my mind.
If you can lilt, you can pipe, just as,
if you can solfy, then you can sing,
or if you can whistle, you can tin… 
Err… nevermind.
PS: don’t they have contests in Scotland, where one judge lilts–or whatever verb you make out of “canntaireachd”–the tune, and the contestant is supposed to pick it up and play it on the fly?
This feat always impressed me. I mean, playing on the fly while wearing a kilt.