What is Traditional Irish Music?
This question has inspired many books. The smart-alecky answer that it is the traditional music of Ireland is not strictly wrong, but it requires more detail to be useful to the person approaching the fascinating world of Irish music for the first time. Let’s try to expand on this. What is the traditional music of the Irish? There are two broad categories in Irish traditional music: songs and dance music. Songs The human voice is the oldest instrument we know, so as we expect, there is a very old tradition of songs in Irish music. As far as we can tell, the oldest Irish songs were sung A Capella in an elaborately ornamented style. The voice was also used as an instrument for accompanying dancers when no instruments were available. Dance music Parallel to this song tradition, there is Irish dance music. The basic styles are: jigs and reels. The reel is probably the older of the two, and many of the older reels in the tradition were imported from Scotland. It’s a fast dance in 4/4 or 2/2
