Re: Celtic Music in Meantone

Aaron Krister Johnson <aaron@akjmusic.com> wrote:

"I have done midi files and jammed like this before, but I'm reminded of it
since I just got back from Milwaukee's IrishFest: Celtic music would work
beautifully in meantone: most of the keys never wander beyond three sharps,
and flat keys are all quite rare. The most common keys are G major/e minor, C
major/a minor D major/b minor, F major/d minor.

Any more thoughts on the matter from anyone? (of course, the fretted
instuments would present somewaht of a problem, perhaps?)"

Have a look at the entry for concertina in Berlioz' Treatise on Instrumentation. It shouldn't be impossible to restore meantone tuning to the concertina, which is still used in Irish music.

With tie-on frets, meantone is quite possible, as lutenists and gamba players demonstrate all the time (Lindley has a book on this).

For me, the most characteristic intonational feature of Irish instrumental music is the c natural when playing in the key of G on a tin whistle or Uillian pipes in D. Anyone else notice this?

DJW

On Aug 21, 2005, at 9:44 AM, Daniel Wolf wrote:

> For me, the most characteristic intonational feature of Irish
> instrumental music is the c natural when playing in the key of G on a
> tin whistle or Uillian pipes in D. Anyone else notice this?

There's two different C natural fingerings on a D whistle, one sharper than the other, not sure if the pipes have the same fingering.

Seth
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Seth Austen
seth@sethausten.com
http://www.sethausten.com