The instruments of celtic music
From the thump of the Bodhrán to the airy rasp of the wooden flute, celtic music is known by its instruments. Here's an introduction to the main players, with links to more information, for players and afficionados.
The fiddle is the mainstay of most Scottish and Irish music. The instrument is exactly the same as a violin; fiddle is simply the term used in traditional music. Despite it's popularity, there's not much information on the net about fiddles or fiddling.
Flutes of one sort or another have been played in the celtic countries for over a thousand years. The kind in use today is mainly the 'simple-system' flute with six holes and up to eight keys. This became popular in Ireland during the nineteenth century, when classical musicians were abandoning them for the new Boehm-system flute. Modern traditional flutes are usually copies of these early instruments, and almost always made of wood. Their cylindrical bore and wooden construction give a hollow, airy tone, softer than the classical flutes and
much smoother than the tin whistle.
More information:
The simplest and cheapest of traditional instruments, yet not so simple to master. The tin whistle is a simple metal tube, with six holes and a mouthpiece like a recorder, and a range of about two octaves. The cheapest ones cost about $5, though more highly-crafted ones run into the hundreds. Some of today's best players still play nothing but the cheaper brands, and make great music.
More information:
Several forms of bagpipe are used in celtic music. The basic instrument has a bag of air, inflated
by blowing through a blowpipe. Arm pressure on the bag sends air through a reed on a fingered chanter
which makes the sound. The usual range is about two octaves.
The Scottish highland pipes are the
loudest, played standing, usually in pipe bands. The chanter has eight holes and plays a distinctive
'pipe scale'. There are two tenor drones, tuned an octave below the chanter and a bass drone a
further octave down. The Irish Warpipes are similar, but have only one tenor drone.
More popular
in Ireland, and a lot quieter are the bellows-powered uilleann pipes. The chanter has a range of
two octaves (in the key of D), often has keys, and in addition to drones (three or four), the
uilleann pipes have
regulators, extra pipes which can play certain chords. A 'practice set' is often used, which has
a chanter but no drones or regulators.
In Northumberland (England), the Northumbrian small pipes
are similar, with a variable number of keys and up to five drones. They are unique in having being
able to cut off air to the chanter; all other pipes have to play continuously.
In Brittany they play the binou, which has seven-holed
chanter and a single drone. In the celtic regions of Spain, Asturias and Galicia, the local
bagpipe is the gaita, similar to the Scottish pipes, with a 1-3 drones (usually 2; tuning is 2 octaves
below the chanter, one octave below and the same octave). The usual key is C, with about a two octave
range.
More information:
Discussion:
This is a small oboe-like shawm with a penetrating sound,
used widely in Breton music. It is fingered like a tin whistle with an extra hole to allow
one note below the stated key (usually B flat, sometimes C or D). It is often played in duet with
the binou, whose chanter plays an octave above it and whose drone is an octave below. The bombarde
is usually played for only part of the tune, giving the player time to relax from the very high
breath pressure required to play the instrument.
This family of instruments was developed in the early nineteenth century.
They all work on the same principle: air is blown across a set of paired metal reeds,
causing them to vibrate and produce a particular note. All but the harmonica are powered by
bellows pulled in and out by the arms (hence 'squeeze box'). The two reeds of a pair are placed
in opposite directions, so each is vibrated by either the press or the draw (in or out) of the
bellows. 'Single-action' instruments have the pairs tuned a tone apart, so the one key will
produce two adjacent notes depending on whether the player is pressing or drawing. 'Double-action'
accordions have the reed pairs tuned in unison, so one key produces one note.
The melodeon is a simple single-action accordion.
It has ten keys, giving a twenty-note diatonic range, usually pitched in C.
It also has two bass keys, which give the chords of the tonic and dominant keys.
The button accordion has a second row of keys, tuned a semitone above the first set, giving a fully
chromatic instrument. The most popular kind is tuned to B/C, though C/C#, C#/D and D/D# are also played.
Traditional music is mostly diatonic, so the second set of keys is used mainly for ornamentation such as
rolls. It also has extended bases.
The piano accordion has a piano keyboard on the left and an extensive bass keyboard on the right hand.
It is a double-action instrument
(same note on press and draw) and much larger than the button accordion. It is most popular in Scotland and is
also widely used in central European folk music.
The concertina is a small, hexagonal accordion, which comes in both double-action chromatic ('English')
and single-action diatonic ('Anglo' or 'German') forms. The most common form for traditional music is
an Anglo, tuned to C and G, which has the keyboard is spread out on both ends of the bellows (usually
two rows of five keys on either end) with no bass. The stronghold of concertina
playing has been in Co. Clare, where it is particularly common among women players.
More information
The American five-string banjo came to Ireland in the nineteenth century, losing one string
along the way. It became popular in ceili bands and in ballad groups such as the Dubliners and
recent recordings by American based Seamus Egan and
Mick Moloney are furthering it's spread.
The banjo most used in Irish music is a 4-string tenor banjo, with the standard strings
replaced by heavier ones, tunes to GDAE.
More information:
These fretted instruments are mostly used in accompaniment and for rhythmic backing. The guitar comes in
from the folk boom of the sixties, and is usually a standard acoustic six-string model, though a variety
of tunings can be used. A wide variety of instruments come under the general umbrella of the
mandolin family. These have a rounded back and usually four pairs of strings (courses) tuned in unison. The
mandolin is usually tuned like a fiddle. Larger versions include the mandola (tuned a fifth below) and the
mandocello (an octave below). The mandocello is also known as the octave mandolin and is similar to what is
known as the Irish bouzouki - a much modified version of the Greek bouzouki, introduced to Irish music by
Johnny Moynihan, in his Sweeney's men days in the late sixties, and now almost a standard in Irish groups.
Bouzouki tuning is usually GDAD or GDAE. There are several other variants, including the five course citterns
developed by Stefan Sobell (with the name borrowed from a medieval family of instruments) and various hybrids
such as Andy Irvine's 'bizarre' (bouzouki-guitar).
More information:
There have been harping traditions in the celtic countries of Ireland, Scotland,
Wales and Brittany for hundreds of years and in Ireland at least it was closely tied to the
old aristocracy and 'high' culture. Most celtic harps are small, and can be played on the
knee. The Scottish harp is called a clarsach, and the Welsh harp is the triple-harp,
a form once popular in art music until superseded by the pedal harp. The triple has three rows of
strings, tuned a semitone apart to give a chromatic scale. Most modern players use nylon or gut
strings, but some have gone back to the original wire-strung harp, with it's bell-like sound.
More information:
This is a kind of zither, a trapezoidal board with pairs of strings stretched over it, played
with light hammers. It is common to many folk traditions. Much of its association with celtic
music seems to be recent and comes from the American folk tradition, though it also arrived in
Scotland and Ireland in the eighteenth century, from England (as best I can make out) and
Derek Bell of the Chieftains plays a version that he calls a tiompan. The sound
is similar to that of the harp.
More information:
This is a goatskin drum used widely in Irish music and also becoming popular in other celtic
areas. For loads more information, jump to Josh Mittleman's excellent
Bodhrán pages.
The bagpipes used in Scottish military music are usually accompanied by side and snare drums.
In Northern Ireland, the gigantic Lambeg drums are a symbol of the Orange (unionist) musical
tradition. Also in Ireland, bones (usually short wooden sticks or cow rib bones, clicked
against each other, a little like castanets) and spoons are sometimes used to provide
accompaniment.
There are many kinds of singing in celtic music, some more specialised than others. In Scotland,
puirt a beul
is a rhythmic form of unaccompanied singing that can be danced to. There is a long
and popular choral tradition in Wales. In the west of Ireland, sean-nos singing is a very
unusual unaccompanied and highly ornamented form. I'm no expert on any of these, so if you know
more, let me know!
Many mainstream and unusual instruments are used in celtic music from time to time; instrument
specific pages can be found using Yahoo or other search engines.
Dan Beimborn's classified used instrument sales web service.
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