Notes to Celtic Tunes & Songs

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Celtic music is a term used to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic peoples (those people who originally spoke some variety of Gaelic). These traditions include Irish, Scottish, Manx, Cornish, Welsh, and Breton. Included in the Scottish group are songs and tunes from the Hebrides, Shetland and Northumberland which, while south of the Scottish border in England, is very much Scottish in its traditional music. There is a page in this section giving the country of origin for each song or tune. Since most of the items in my Celtic collection are from Ireland, I have placed them in a separate (Irish) section. The tunes and songs in this section are from the other Celtic tradition areas. Even though some of my heritage is Welsh, I have few items from there and none from family tradition. My ancestors were from the south of Wales, spoke English (and very little Welsh) and were mainly interested in hymns and not secular music. The tunes that I have placed in this section have roots in the Celtic areas but some that are also well known in American tradition I have left in the Old Time Tunes category. ("Old Mother Flanagan" is a good example). Type of dances common in Celtic areas are: Jigs There are 3 types of jig in use:   the Single Jig in 6/8 featuring a quarter note-eighth note movement   the double Jig in 6/8 featuring all, or almost all, eighth notes   the Slip (Hop) Jig in 9/8 featuring eighth note movement Reels The Reel is probably of Scottish origin and is often the favorite dance of traditional musicians. Although sometimes written in 4/4 it is played in 2/2 with 2 steady beats in each bar. Hornpipes The Hornpipe is the slowest dance allowing the most complicated dance steps to be used. Many set dances are Hornpipes. It is characterised by the dotted rhythm, triplets and 3 strong quarter notes in the last bar of each section. Other dances related to hornpipes include Barndances, Schottishes and Highlands. Polkas The Polka is a dance associated with the set dances of the Sliabh Luachra area of West Munster. It is in 2/4 time and the tempo is very fast. "The Flitter Dance" is the only non-Irish Polka in this collection. Strathspeys A strathspeyis a dance tune in 4/4 time. It is almost exclusively played in Scotland. It is a type of reel played at a slightly slower tempo (between 108 and 160 beats per minute), with slightly more emphasis on certain beats. The rhythm peculiar to strathspeys is a Cut-dot snap rhythms, known as "Scotch snaps". These are a short note before a dotted note. There are a number of strathspeys in this section. Please refer to the Tune Types page. The structure of Celtic music is usually simple. In the past, most tunes consisted of 2 x 8-bar phrases, called Parts, which are usually repeated. These 8-bar parts can be further sub-divided into 2 x 4-bar sub phrases which are often quite similar. A typical form therefore is AABB which is usually repeated for the length of the dance. More recently developed tunes commonly have 3 or even 4 parts. Some of my audio sources for this music are The Clancy Brothers, The Chieftains, Abby Newton, Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham and The Boys of the Lough, all of whom have made excellent recordings of traditional material. The most used printed sources in my library include:       Cole's One Thousand Fiddle Tunes       John Loesburg's An Irish Tunebook, part 1 and part 2       Robin Williamson's English, Welsh, Scottish & Irish Fiddle Tunes