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Sean-nós singing
Sean-nós singing (/ˈʃæn.noʊs/ SHAN-nohss, Irish: [ˈʃan̪ˠ n̪ˠoːsˠ]; Irish for 'old style') is unaccompanied, traditional Irish vocal music usually performed in the Irish language. Sean-nós singing usually involves very long melodic phrases with highly ornamented and melismatic melodic lines, differing greatly from traditional folk singing elsewhere in Ireland, although there is significant regional variation. Sean-nós songs cover a range of genres, from love song to lament to lullaby, traditionally with a strong focus on conveying the relevant emotion of the given song. The term sean-nós, which simply means '[in the] old way', is a vague term that can also refer to various other traditional activities, musical and non-musical.
The musician and academic Tomás Ó Canainn said:
... no aspect of Irish music can be fully understood without a deep appreciation of sean-nós singing. It is the key which opens every lock.
The origins of sean-nós singing are unknown, but it is probably at least seven centuries old.
There is almost no mention of sean-nós songs in medieval Irish literature, but experts have speculated that sean-nós singing has existed in a similar form since the thirteenth century. Many of the songs sung today can be traced back to the 16th century.
In early Irish history, poets and bards had distinctly separate social roles from musicians. However, the Tudor and Cromwellian conquests of Ireland led to a suppression of traditional Irish culture, and the 1662 Act of Settlement, which banished Irish Catholic landowners to Connacht, meant that the remains of these once complex social and regional styles combined. The once lowly bard became the nonprofessional composer of "street poetry" (sráid éigse), and the strict meters of older, professionally composed, Irish ballads were replaced with the far more accessible amhrán ("song") meters.
The tradition of the sean-nós song was exclusively oral and remains customarily so, however, a few songs were known to have been conveyed to script as early as the 16th century. A songbook for Elizabeth I contained English interpretations of sean-nós songs.[citation needed] Songs started to be more extensively written down in the eighteenth century and distributed in print from then on.
The Irish antiquarian Thomas Crofton Croker described an elderly female sean-nós singer he encountered in the early 1800s known for her "skill in keening":
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Sean-nós singing
Sean-nós singing (/ˈʃæn.noʊs/ SHAN-nohss, Irish: [ˈʃan̪ˠ n̪ˠoːsˠ]; Irish for 'old style') is unaccompanied, traditional Irish vocal music usually performed in the Irish language. Sean-nós singing usually involves very long melodic phrases with highly ornamented and melismatic melodic lines, differing greatly from traditional folk singing elsewhere in Ireland, although there is significant regional variation. Sean-nós songs cover a range of genres, from love song to lament to lullaby, traditionally with a strong focus on conveying the relevant emotion of the given song. The term sean-nós, which simply means '[in the] old way', is a vague term that can also refer to various other traditional activities, musical and non-musical.
The musician and academic Tomás Ó Canainn said:
... no aspect of Irish music can be fully understood without a deep appreciation of sean-nós singing. It is the key which opens every lock.
The origins of sean-nós singing are unknown, but it is probably at least seven centuries old.
There is almost no mention of sean-nós songs in medieval Irish literature, but experts have speculated that sean-nós singing has existed in a similar form since the thirteenth century. Many of the songs sung today can be traced back to the 16th century.
In early Irish history, poets and bards had distinctly separate social roles from musicians. However, the Tudor and Cromwellian conquests of Ireland led to a suppression of traditional Irish culture, and the 1662 Act of Settlement, which banished Irish Catholic landowners to Connacht, meant that the remains of these once complex social and regional styles combined. The once lowly bard became the nonprofessional composer of "street poetry" (sráid éigse), and the strict meters of older, professionally composed, Irish ballads were replaced with the far more accessible amhrán ("song") meters.
The tradition of the sean-nós song was exclusively oral and remains customarily so, however, a few songs were known to have been conveyed to script as early as the 16th century. A songbook for Elizabeth I contained English interpretations of sean-nós songs.[citation needed] Songs started to be more extensively written down in the eighteenth century and distributed in print from then on.
The Irish antiquarian Thomas Crofton Croker described an elderly female sean-nós singer he encountered in the early 1800s known for her "skill in keening":