Re: Gaelic singing
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
Last edited by Ranald; Aug-02-2019 at 4:34pm.
Reason: program kept posting wrong video
Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
"I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.
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