I decided to do my musical ethnography on the Celtic music-culture here in the DFW area. Since Irish and Scottish blood is somewhere not too far up my family tree, I figured it would be an interesting thing to learn about, both as a music-culture in general and as a family history of sorts.
Texas' version of Celtic music varies a lot from band to band. From what I've gathered so far, it can vary anywhere from a mix of Celtic and bluegrass to a mix of Celtic and rock. Key aspects typically stay the same, such as using traditional Celtic melodies and instruments.
I will be attending the Irish Festival this weekend in order to listen to a few different local bands. There are a few that I am pretty excited about. The Blaggards are a "Stout Irish Rock" band that, from the itunes clips I've been previewing, sounds a lot like a mix between Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys. There's also Shift, which has Celtic musical traditions of Ireland and Scotland as well as American Old-Time and Bluegrass.
This website gives a great deal of insight to the Celtic music-culture. A good list of instruments can be found here. The fiddle is the main instrument used, followed by the ever famous bagpipes. Guitars came along a lot later, in the sixties, but it sounds like a majority of the bands I will be listening to will use these, especially the rock-oriented ones. I'm still working on finding research on the actual Dallas Celtic music-culture.
All in all, I'm pretty excited about this weekend. I look forward to insight on a new music-culture.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
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