Gaelic singing

[Gunnar]

https://youtu.be/x7jW5qDexnc

So, I just discovered this on YouTube, and found it awesome! I then watched several more, this is some of the coolest music around, note the guizouki (is that how you spell that?) The bouzouki is an instrument that I love the sound of...

[Jim Imhoff]

She also sings wonderful harmony in English (with Bruce Molsky); The Blackest Crow. My wife and I do this duet, but this performance is heavenly. A bit less Celtic, maybe more Appalachian, but still a beautiful Irish-Scots crossing song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6jh1vqNvMs

[Gunnar]

Yeah, I also watched that one (and a few more, some English, some Gaelic, prefer Gaelic) there's an interview here
https://youtu.be/qczDug2BNRo
And her singing in English again here
https://youtu.be/TJFcbHOgXOc
There's that zouk again, this is part of the soundtrack from the Disney movie Brave

[Ranald]

Thanks, Gunnar. She's a lovely singer. Try Mary Jane Lamond from Cape Breton for similar singing.

Here's some traditional Gaelic singing from Cape Breton. My grandmother, born in the 1870's, took part in "milling frolics" to shrink cloth, and, in her later years, just for fun. A "frolic" is a "bee", a community work party. Milling frolics are explained in the second video. Traditionally, the new wool cloth would be soaking wet, and heavy. The milling involved pounding the cloth. The table was long with ridges for the liquid to run off. Milling or "waulking cloth" was hard work.

I've listened to Scottish field recordings from before the folk revival, and found the singing similar to traditional Gaelic singing in Cape Breton. The sweet, trained voices that one often hears singing Cape Breton Gaelic today are a recent phenomenon. Frolics were pretty wild, with plenty of laughter, and verses made up to poke fun at those present, especially young sweethearts -- that's why there are so many bachelors and spinsters in Cape Breton. Shy people didn't stand a chance. I've participated in milling frolics, but only in Gaelic revival years (1990's, early 2000's), but have a tape of my grandmother and her peers singing.

If the links don't work, search You Tube for: "BEG VC 7.2.2 Milling Frolic" ; and "Explanation of a Milling Frolic".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-SzSKlaZw




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8rDRuuYMe8