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Celtic music

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{{Celticmusic}} '''''Celtic music''''' is a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic peoples of Western Europe. The term ''Celtic music'' may refer to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded popular music with only a superficial resemblance to folk styles of the Celtic peoples. Most typically, the term ''Celtic music'' is applied to the music of Ireland and music of Scotland Scotland, because both places have produced well-known distinctive styles which actually have genuine commonality and clear mutual influences. The music of Wales, music of Cornwall Cornwall, music of the Isle of Man Isle of Man, music of Brittany Brittany, music of Northumbria Northumbria and music of Galicia, Cantabria and Asturias Galicia are also frequently considered a part of ''Celtic music'', the Celtic tradition being particularly strong in Brittany, where Celtic festivals large and small take place throughout the year. Finally, the music of ethnically Celtic peoples abroad are also considered, especially Celtic music in Canada in Canada and the Celtic music in the United States United States.

Divisions
In ''Celtic Music: A Complete Guide'', June Skinner Sawyers acknowledges six Celtic nationalities divided into two groups according to their linguistic heritage. The Q-Celtic nationalities are the Irish people Irish, Scottish people Scottish and Manx people Manx peoples, while the P-Celtic groups are the Cornish people Cornish, Breton people Bretons and Welsh peoples. Sawyer also mentions the Celtiberian languages as part of P-Celtic. The Breton musician Alan Stivell uses a similar dichotomy, between the Gaelic (Irish and Scottish) branch and the Brythonic (Breton and Welsh) group, which differentiate "mostly by the extended range (sometimes more than two octaves) of Irish and Scottish melodies and the closed range of Breton and Welsh melodies (often reduced to a half-octave), and by the frequent use of the pure pentatonic scale in Gaelic music." {{ref|Stivellondivision}}.

Definition debate
At issue is the lack of many common threads uniting the "Celtic" peoples listed above. While the ancient Celts undoubtedly had their own musical styles, these have grown and evolved to the point where considering any modern styles reminiscent of ancient Celtic music is misleading. There is also tremendous variation between Celtic regions. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany have living traditions of language and music, whereas Cornwall and the Isle of Man have only revivalist movements that have yet to take hold. Galicia has no Celtic language (Galician is a Romance language closest to Portuguese language Portuguese), but Galician music is often claimed to be "Celtic." Thus traditionalists and most musicology musicological scholars dispute that the "Celtic" lands have any folk connections to each other. A strong case can be made that the similarities between the various musics called "Celtic" derive more from a common origin in the vernacular music of late mediaeval and early modern Europe than from any innate Celticity. Many critics of the idea of modern Celtic music claim that the idea is the creation of modern marketing designed to stimulate regional identity in the creation of a consumer niche; June Skinner Sawyers, for example, notes that "Celtic music is a marketing term that I am using, for the purposes of this book, as a matter of convenience, knowing full well the cultural baggage that comes with it".

Forms
Identifying "common characteristics" of Celtic music is problematic. Most of the popular musical forms now thought of as characteristically "Celtic" were once common in many places in Western Europe. Jigs were adapted from Italian music, for example, and polkas have their origin in Czech and Polish tradition. On the other hand, there are musical genres and styles specific to each Celtic country, due in part to the influence of individual song traditions and the characteristics of specific languages. Strathspeys are specific to Highland Scotland, for example, and mimic the rhythms of the Scottish Gaelic language.

Festivals
The Celtic music scene involves a large number of music festivals. Some of the most prominent include Festival Internacional do Mundo Celta de Ortigueira (Ortigueira, Galicia (Spain) Galicia), Celtic Colours (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia), Celtic Connections (Glasgow) and Festival Interceltique (Lorient, Brittany).

Modern Adaptations
Starting in 1982 with The Pogues invention of Celtic folk-punk, there has been a movement to incorporate Celtic influences into other genres of music. Marxman, an Irish-Jamaican hip hop group that gained notoriety in Britain in the late 1980's and was banned from the BBC for including Provisional Irish Republican Army I.R.A. slogans in their music, sampled traditional Celtic instruments in several of their songs as well. Sinéad O'Connor has also been active in the fusion movement and incorporated a wide range of modern and traditional influences into her music. In Scotland Gaelic punk bands such as Oi Polloi and Mill a h-Uile Rud that write and perform in Scottish Gaelic language Scots Gaelic have recently gained popularity as well. Today there are Celtic-influenced sub genres of virtually every type of popular music, from House to Trance music Trance, Hip hop music hip hop to Punk Rock. Collectively these modern interpretations of Celtic music are sometimes referred to as Celtic Fusion.

Notes
# {{note|Stivellondivision}} translation by Steve Winick

References

- Steve Winick *{{cite book|author=Sawyers, June Skinner|title=Celtic Music: A Complete Guide|year=2000|publisher=Da Capo Press|id=ISBN 0306810077}}

External links

- UbuWeb Ethnopoetics: Canntaireachd
- UbuWeb Ethnopoetics: Celtic Mouth Music
- Last.fm Celtic top artists
- Austin Celtic Association and Austin Celtic Festival Category:Celtic music Category:Musical genres es:Música celta he:מוזיקה קלטית it:Musica celtica pl:Muzyka celtycka pt:Música celta see Celtic music Category:World music by region

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