| Gaelic folk music | |
|---|---|
| Cultural origins | Gaelic Culture |
| Typical instruments | |
| Other topics | |
Gaelic folk music orGaelic traditional music is the folk music ofGoidelic-speaking communities in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, often including lyrics in those languages. Characteristic forms of Gaelic music includesean-nós andpuirt à beul singing,piobaireachd,jigs,reels, andstrathspeys.
The six Celtic nationalities are divided into two musical groups, Gaelic andBrythonic,[1] which according toAlan Stivell differentiate "mostly by the extended range (sometimes more than two octaves) ofIrish andScottish melodies and the closed range ofBreton andWelsh melodies (often reduced to a half-octave), and by the frequent use of the pure pentatonic scale in Gaelic music".[2]
The emigration of ScottishGaels toCape Breton has also resulted in a unique strain of Gaelic music evolving there.[3][4] A number of fiddle tunes of Irish and Scottish Gaelic origin have entered the Americanbluegrass andcountry repertoires.
Thesession is a common setting for Gaelic music, where musicians from a given locality gather to play music in a public setting. Gaelic music is also commonly heard at folk festivals, bypipe bands and at competitions such asmods and theFleadh Cheoil.
In Traditional Gaelic music, theIonian,Dorian,Mixolydian andAeolian modes dominate,[5][6] with the keys of D Ionian, G Ionian, A Dorian and E Dorian among those popular with session musicians.[7]
UnlikeClassical andJazz music, modal harmonisation avoids diminished chords, as seen below for the seventh scale degree of the major scale.[8] Seventh chords are generally limited to the II and the V positions of the chord scale.
| Roman numeral | I | ii | iii | IV | V | vi | V6(first inversion) |
| Scale degree | tonic | supertonic | mediant | subdominant | dominant | submediant | subtonic |
