TRADITIONAL SINGING
By Tomás Ó Maoldomhnaigh
The first and most obvious thing to explain is the term ‘sean-nós’. This does not necessarily refer to any musical terminology but to a way of life as experienced by our people who witnessed many forced changes to the old ways. It is a rather vague way of describing their daily routine at work and play. Songs were made to accompany the work inside and outside the home, to express the many emotions-love and sadness of daily existence, to record local and other historical events and to often mark the loss of family and friends whether by death or by emigration.
‘Sean-nós’ is generally understood to refer to songs in the Irish Language, while the term ‘Traditional Singing’ means songs sung in the English language, and is much older than traditional singing in the English language. Again, most of songs composed in English are connected to people, community events both local and in reference to emigration.
The term ‘sean-nós’ (in the old way) as applied to traditional singing in the Irish Language, encompasses a style of singing, which is rooted in the Gaeltacht regions of the country. There are three main styles of sean-nós, corresponding to the three areas where Irish is still spoken as a community language, the Gaeltachtaí of Munster, Connacht and Ulster. Munster Gaeltachtaí includes parts of Kerry, Cork and Waterford, the Connemara region of Connacht and the Ulster Gaeltacht in Donegal.
It would not be correct to say that sean-nós is not practised outside these areas, but only those three distinct styles are generally recognised. Singers from the Galltacht (regions outside the Gaeltacht) and indeed from outside Ireland may blend them, depending on where they learned the songs.
The most obvious difference between the styles, to someone not familiar with sean-nós, is between the Ulster style and the other two. Donegal sean-nós has been heavily influenced by Scots Gaelic song, where the melody is much less ornamented-that is through the use of grace notes, and may also contain a steady pulse in the singing. Both the Connemara and Munster styles are highly ornamented, both with forms familiar to a traditional instrumentalist and with other more complex forms. In all styles, the performer connects the text to his interpretation of the melody. There are also categories of songs in all three styles, namely, slow of non-rhythmic songs and songs that are sung to melodies with a very strong rhythm mostly drawn from the dance music, e.g. Jigs, slip-jigs, reels, polkas etc.
The first obvious thing to notice about sean-nós singing is that it is unaccompanied and performed mainly as a solo art form. The singer tells the story in the song by combining many vocal techniques, especially through the use of ornamentation and variation, in linking the melody to the text. Sean-nós singers use different techniques to ornament the performance of a song, One syllable in a word can be sung to several notes and the notes can be varied from verse to verse. Sometimes the notes to be ornamented can be adjacent to each other and at other times the gap between them is wide. The latter practice is confined mainly to Munster. Different notes can be stressed for a particular effect, or a note can be held over several beats.
Previous generations learned the songs in the home and in the locality. However, that way of life has changed dramatically and students must now source songs in other ways. Organised classes, singing clubs, publications, recorded material on tape and CD seems to be the alternative methods in which to learn the art. Sean-nós can only be accurately and effectively learned by ear. An understanding of the story-line and text, together with a knowledge of the historical background and lore, will add greatly to the eventual performance of the song. Listening to a wide range and variety of traditional singers will obviously benefit singers in developing a personal style.