Celtic music

[pathetiquegirl]

anybody else like celtic music?

path

[jas]

I can't stand it, but I think that's because I'm Scottish. Too much exposure.

[thalbergmad]

I only listen to it when i am in Scotland.

[pathetiquegirl]

I can't stand it, but I think that's because I'm Scottish. Too much exposure.

i'm scottish too but i love it.

[ahinton]

i'm scottish too but i love it.

Please explain to me what it is; I'm only a mere Scotsman myself...

Best,

Alistair

[pathetiquegirl]

Please explain to me what it is; I'm only a mere Scotsman myself...

Best,

Alistair

explian what celtic music is?

path

[Kassaa]

Edit- NVM

[pianistimo]

i love celtic music.  it is basically ceolas music, or music from the countries of ireland, scotland, wales, gaul (france), and spain.  the celts are a race that is dying (some in ireland/scotland) because the celtic way - as i understand from national geographic is farming related and a very difficult lifestyle.  music would be their way of relaxing in the evening or at the pub.  the idea of the ballade (correct me somebody if i'm wrong) is a sort of passing along of the irish love of tales.  they are sometimes truth mixed with extravagant tales. 

there are very many irish, scottish instruments that are beautifully made and beautiful to hear.  one is the dulcimer.  my uncle and his wife both play dulcimer.  other instruments would be the flute and harp.  celtic dancing is that high stepping stuff that makes you wonder if they've got rubber legs.  there are quite a few summer festivals around the world dealing with celtic music making.  it's a genre all it's own (probably with quite a few forms within the general genre). 

irish babies have to be the luckiest babies in the world.  they get that soft wool (my grandma used to knit all kinds of stuff) and also the granny or mum that sings the ancient songs and makes everything all right by humoring the kid.  maybe every nationality has those lullabies that make the baby go right to sleep - but if we had a contest i'd say the irish would win at making babies go to sleep.  it's a soft kind of music and very family oriented (kind of like appalachian music).  you have all generations participating and passing on stories and family traditions.

[ahinton]

explian what celtic music is?

path

Joke - n'est-ce pas?...

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

On a more serious note - your message footer - ""O music in thy depths we deposit our hearts and souls!  You have taught us to see with our ears and hear with our hearts!!!" - where did you find this? I'll tell you why I'm interested to know if you can answer that...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Celtic Music is a term used by canny Scots to fleece tourists.

300 years ago, if you attempted a journey through the Highlands, you would probably be robbed, kidnapped for ransom or murdered. Nowadays, the Scots attempt to obtain your money by displaying "Celtic Music" at every available opportunity.

From Gretna Green to the "Last House" in John o Groats, you cannot travel more than a few miles without coming across Celtic Music CDs with a loud speaker blaring out some samples.

If you enjoy this music (which I do) please do not buy it from the Glencoe Tourist Information Centre or the petrol station outside Ullapool, because I have found they are the most expensive.

For those that are interested, I went to school with Jimmy Shands nephew, from which my interest stemmed.

Thal

[pianistimo]

jimmy shands nephew!  wow.  you're a star with me already thalbermad - but this does it.  *guesses that jimmy plays bagpipes after hiking a few hills.

[thalbergmad]

jimmy shands nephew!  wow.  you're a star with me already thalbermad - but this does it.  *guesses that jimmy plays bagpipes after hiking a few hills.

I think he played the piano accordian and sang a bit.

Not a munroist i feel.

His nephew was a horrible little creature who could not stop farting. We gave him a good kicking when Scotland qualified for the World Cup in 1978 and another one when they got knocked out.

Thalxx

[pianistimo]

not a munroist?  the scammer.

[thalbergmad]

not a munroist?  the scammer.

If you are not a munroist, you are not a proper Scot.

What a great Country. You get a different accent every 10 miles.

Its a shame they don't like us English. Its not my fault if Edward 1st kept giving them a hammering.

Thal

[ahinton]

On a more serious note - your message footer - ""O music in thy depths we deposit our hearts and souls!  You have taught us to see with our ears and hear with our hearts!!!" - where did you find this? I'll tell you why I'm interested to know if you can answer that...

To "pathetiquegirl"...

Please ignore my earlier request; I have found the source of that text now.

Best,

Alistair

[pianistimo]

since you said 'i feel he is not a munroist' did you deduce it by his short legs?  even short legged scots can't help climbing all those hills.

and, where in the world did alistair find the poet?  how does one search for this?  do you just type in the 'saying' and then voila the poet is there?  i will now try this.

[thalbergmad]

since you said 'i feel he is not a munroist' did you deduce it by his short legs?  even short legged scots can't help climbing all those hills.

and, where in the world did alistair find the poet?  how does one search for this?  do you just type in the 'saying' and then voila the poet is there?  i will now try this.

I have short legs, and I am a munroist. Albeit I have only done 26.

[pianistimo]

that's pretty good if the total number of hills is 30.  thalbergmad, i'm bored today - and if i didn't get people in trouble - i'd say 'let's go climb one of those hills today.'  it's raining here.

[ahinton]

and, where in the world did alistair find the poet?  how does one search for this?  do you just type in the 'saying' and then voila the poet is there?  i will now try this.

As you will no doubt have discovered now, this is indeed what can be done to establish its source and and I wish I'd had the sense to do this several years ago before the 3-CD set of my string quintet was released (I set this as one of a number of texts by different authors in the finale of thie work and, in a move years ago before I'd got to that part of the piece, I lost all the notes on the texts and have never been able to recover them since - fortunately, I did not lose the texts themselves, or the score); it is accordingly credited in the liner notes as "unidentified - possibly Kahlil Gibran". As it happens, I remember correctly that it is by Gibran but what I'd forgotten (and have now found) is that it comes from his "The Voice of the Master", a copy of which I no longer possess. I now have only two other texts to identify in that piece...

Sorry - this is well off-topic, I know (except that I am a Scottish composer)....

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

that's pretty good if the total number of hills is 30.  thalbergmad, i'm bored today - and if i didn't get people in trouble - i'd say 'let's go climb one of those hills today.'  it's raining here.

There are over 270 Munro's. I am never going to get them all done.

Thalx

[pianistimo]

hmm.  i just wrote a message and it disappeared into thin air.  will post again and see what happens. 

270!  wow.  my leg is better, so am going biking when the weather turns. unfortunately, it's raining tommorrow, too.  at least we're getting rain and not hail.  did you see any of the shots of tennessee and parts of mid-west?  they got golf-ball sized hail and tornados.  terrible weather.  many houses looked like matchsticks.

[pathetiquegirl]

To "pathetiquegirl"...

Please ignore my earlier request; I have found the source of that text now.

Best,

Alistair

oh really?  where did you find it?  tell me the source please.    did you like the poem or something?

path

[ahinton]

oh really?  where did you find it?  tell me the source please.    did you like the poem or something?

path

I answered your questions two days ago in this thread as follows:

As you will no doubt have discovered now, this is indeed what can be done to establish its source and and I wish I'd had the sense to do this several years ago before the 3-CD set of my string quintet was released (I set this as one of a number of texts by different authors in the finale of thie work and, in a move years ago before I'd got to that part of the piece, I lost all the notes on the texts and have never been able to recover them since - fortunately, I did not lose the texts themselves, or the score); it is accordingly credited in the liner notes as "unidentified - possibly Kahlil Gibran". As it happens, I remember correctly that it is by Gibran but what I'd forgotten (and have now found) is that it comes from his "The Voice of the Master", a copy of which I no longer possess. I now have only two other texts to identify in that piece...

Best,

Alistair

[pathetiquegirl]

oh ok so was i of any help?  i found the quote off a cd.

[pianistimo]

3 cd set of your string quartet, ehh.  that must have been inexorably long.  alistair, what is the matter with you?

[ahinton]

oh ok so was i of any help?  i found the quote off a cd.

In that, having asked you the question, I felt prompted to go search for the answer myself, yes! Thanks for that, anyway.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

3 cd set of your string quartet, ehh.

String QUINtet, actually.

that must have been inexorably long.

That would depend on your minimum duration that qualifies as "inexorable", I guess.

alistair, what is the matter with you?

How long have you got?! All sorts of things, no doubt - far too numerous to mention and too dull to be of interest. Just being a composer in the first place is surely one; I'll leave you to guess at some of the remainder, if you have nothing better to do!

To be more serious, the piece itself, scored for two violins, viola, cello and double bass, is in five movements and cast in two sections, one comprising the first three movements and the other the remaining two. Those first three movements are on CD1; their respective durations are approximately 22½, 7½ and 10 minutes. Movement 4, which opens CD2, is just over 3½ minutes. Movement 5, which also includes a big part for a soprano soloist, occupies the remainder of CD2 and the whole of CD3; its duration is about 125 minutes. I'm pleased to be able to say that it's had plenty of very positive reviews. It was broadcast in its entirety in USA twice in 2003 (in January and August) and its second movement again in 2004, all on WPRB; in UK, BBC broadcast the whole work last December.

Best,

Alistair

[haarmonika]

brave hearts rocks! 

[pathetiquegirl]

i totally agree! 

[pianistimo]

well, alistair, you do impress me because you know what you like and have definite ideas of how to write it down and express it.  i like the five movements broken down into three and two movement sections (and the selection of instrumentation).  and how you added soprano solo to the last.  you sound very creative and certainly way above my musical level right now.  maybe that is why you seem hard to understand sometimes - and yet, if i heard your music - i think i would understand your other 'problems' as genius related too.

i totally admire composers (esp. scottish ones) and have done a little composing myself.  unfortunately i rarely get past 3 pages and it's a miracle if it's four.  my ideas tend to stagnate.  i need someone to show me how to develop them better.  maybe it's time related too.  sometimes i get an inspiration of a melody or an idea and then i get interrupted.  coming back to it - i have to reclaim the space i was in at the point left off.

anyhew...please don't think i'm that knowledgeable about celtic music.  i'd like to visit scotland and ireland sometime.  my grandfather was irish, and grandmother scottish (on my dad's side).  needless to say - they didn't get along and divorced.  kinda sad.  they were both very sweet people on their own - but when they got together apparrently thy fought like a dog and cat.  what is really sad is they had four children at the time they split.  my grandma spoke the brogue.  i kind of needed an interpreter for her at times and so my aunt would explain things sometime.  grnny made the best scotch stew.  and, she could knit anything (no patterns). 

[ahinton]

well, alistair, you do impress me because you know what you like and have definite ideas of how to write it down and express it.  i like the five movements broken down into three and two movement sections (and the selection of instrumentation).  and how you added soprano solo to the last.  you sound very creative and certainly way above my musical level right now.  maybe that is why you seem hard to understand sometimes - and yet, if i heard your music - i think i would understand your other 'problems' as genius related too.

"Pianistimo", ma chère, I have no idea what "problems" that you attribute to me which you seek to identify here - not can I speculate as to how they may strike you if you sat down and listened to my quintet. I do not, of course, necessarily expect you to spend the two hours fifty minutes necessary in order to do that, but of course you are welcome to do so if you ever feel like it. All I would say right now in addition to what's already understood here is that I had written very little music before that piece, so I just had to go with it and do it as best I could. The results are whatever anyone - including you, naturellement (if you so wish) - may find them to be. "Genius"? What is that? Busoni had it. Chopin had it. Some might almost say that Bach invented it.  All that I have is the mere ability to write the things that I do the way that I do. How desperately far short of "genius" that may be in any given work is for the listener to decide! (and measurements thereof are likely to be in light-years at the very least). If you ever do listen to that piece, I just hope that you get something worthwhile out of it and that will not feel that you've wasted your valuable listening time.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

well, alistair, you do impress me because you know what you like and have definite ideas of how to write it down and express it.  i like the five movements broken down into three and two movement sections (and the selection of instrumentation).  and how you added soprano solo to the last.  you sound very creative and certainly way above my musical level right now.

(This is a P.S.)
I hope I don't sound that way! The performance on that recording, I should have said earlier, is truly wonderful from all six of the musicians involved, from first note to last - and the recording is excellent, too...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

(This is a P.S.)
I hope I don't sound that way! The performance on that recording, I should have said earlier, is truly wonderful from all six of the musicians involved, from first note to last - and the recording is excellent, too...

Best,

Alistair

Me might appear to be thick, but how can there be 6 musicians if it is a quintet?

is the other one serving the drinks or something, or do you have a substitute due to the length of the piece.

Massive regards.

Thalx

[pianistimo]

guess he doesn't count the soloist as an instrumentalist.  maybe it's quintet with voice?  interesting combos and probably sounds great.  i like it when the vocalist has completely different material (no repetitions majorly) of the instrumental part.  even if it sounds like the addition of another instrument - there's always a huge difference between the human voice and instruments.

just as with pianists - i think composers cannot be criticized or judged according to one person's aesthetics, but more over time by people who understand what motivated the music to be 'born.'  what impetus that got it rolling.  a combination of looking at the score and listening.  you can't really follow some things without the score.  and, yet, you can't get total feeling without shutting your eyes and listening to the music.  i don't personally like to feel manipulated by music (hearing things that are unpleasant for long periods of time) and yet society does this to us all the time (cell phones, advertisements, etc) so i can see how intrusions play a huge part on the psyche of unsymmetrical ideas (such as the long and short movements).  i tend to want to 'fix' things that don't look right.  perhaps that is what keeps me from composing longer pieces.  fixing too much and not seeing a bigger picture.  realism has it's place, i guess.  not sure what style of music you write, alistair, but am imagining it is similar to sorabji?

[thalbergmad]

guess he doesn't count the soloist as an instrumentalist. 

I did not think of that.

You is clever.

Thalxx

[ahinton]

Me might appear to be thick, but how can there be 6 musicians if it is a quintet?

is the other one serving the drinks or something, or do you have a substitute due to the length of the piece.

Massive regards.

Thalx

Sorry not to have responded sooner - I've been away for a couple of days.

You are not thick at all - at least certainly not on the strength of what you write here.

No, sorry to disappoint you, but no one serves the drinks - at least not until the piece is over! The piece has five movements and is scored (as I think I mentioned) for 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass; about 15 minutes into the finale, the ensemble is joined by a soprano and the remainder of the work becomes a song cycle but is still very much an integral part of the whole. This is not a new idea - look, for example, at what is perhaps still the most famous example from almost 100 years ago - Schönberg's String Quartet no. 2 in F# minor, Op. 10, where the ensmeble is enhanced by a soprano in its third and fourth movements.

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

guess he doesn't count the soloist as an instrumentalist.  maybe it's quintet with voice?

See my reply to Thal. Yes, it is that, really - except that, when asked about this in the premable to its recent BBC broadcast, I said that I really see it more as a piece for five singers who are joined in its last movement by a sixth, except that the sixth is the only one who's not a string player (which is perhaps only a bit wide of the mark in that the only soprano ever to have sung it - Sarah Leonard - happens to have begun her professional life as a violinist).

i like it when the vocalist has completely different material (no repetitions majorly) of the instrumental part.  even if it sounds like the addition of another instrument - there's always a huge difference between the human voice and instruments.

Yes to this last, but the material is very much integrated and, as the finale progresses, the soprano's rôle is in part to enhance and further develop that integration rather than being any kind of separate entity.

just as with pianists - i think composers cannot be criticized or judged according to one person's aesthetics, but more over time by people who understand what motivated the music to be 'born.'  what impetus that got it rolling.  a combination of looking at the score and listening.  you can't really follow some things without the score.  and, yet, you can't get total feeling without shutting your eyes and listening to the music.  i don't personally like to feel manipulated by music (hearing things that are unpleasant for long periods of time) and yet society does this to us all the time (cell phones, advertisements, etc) so i can see how intrusions play a huge part on the psyche of unsymmetrical ideas (such as the long and short movements).  i tend to want to 'fix' things that don't look right.  perhaps that is what keeps me from composing longer pieces.  fixing too much and not seeing a bigger picture.  realism has it's place, i guess.  not sure what style of music you write, alistair, but am imagining it is similar to sorabji?

I accept many of your points here, but I should add that the disproportionate durations of the movements is deliberate and just has to be like that for the piece to work properly. I won't expand on that, because that would be boring and intrusive and, in any case, also a very poor substitute for listening to the piece itself. In a way, it is supposed to sound as though one has no idea of the extent to which the finale will expand until one is inside it and cannot get out - a bit like the concluding chaconne from the D minor violin partita of J S Bach, whose unfolding itself throws new perspectives upon all that has preceded it in its earlier movements. My style is not at all similar to Sorabji, though when I write for piano I have been conscious in the past of influences from other composers who also influenced or otherwise affected Sorabji.

Best,

Alistair