What is traditional?
The first point derives from the music being labeled "traditional". What does this mean? For every player/singer, there is a definition, but the prime common factor is typically some notion of "age"-it's being an "old" form of music. As Einstein might indicate to us, time is relative. Look at the Bunting, Joyce and Petrie Collections (the works of the early "great" collectors). They all invariably describe certain tunes as "ancient". This is the typical terminology of the "antiquarians" of their day (which they all were themselves). BUT, how old is old and ancient? A house in North America built in the 1700s is rare and considered very old. Alone in the small town in which I live, Ballyshannon in County Donegal there are several of them. How old is ancient? When Christ was born! That is a pretty good stab at ancient. Twice a day every weekday, I drive by a man-made religous structure that was very old when Christ was born!
We have a notion about "traditional" Irish dance music as being ancient. Certainly we have read as much in the great collections. The evidence (and this is critical and forms the basis of investigation into this subject) can only be derived from published collections and other literary accounts of what was played at various periods and it must be noted that these sources also contain their inaccuracies. If publications are examined through time, there is a clear indication that the body of tunes we now generally consider as traditional were composed in the 1700 and 1800s. For some, this is old, for others, it is hard to conceive of this as being ancient, and therefore not traditional.
Those who don't accept that this is old enough to be "traditional" often discount this music and maintain that the "traditional music of Ireland" was the music of the harpists, a tradition which has died out in a direct aural, passing-on tradition. They commonly note that this music was music which was revered and was performed in venues of high status.
What the latter view fails to recognise is that running exactly parallel with the harp history was a history of performance of music amongst the general public and there are numerous accounts of this music. In short music performed in houses by ordinary people on such instruments as primitive fiddles, flutes, pipes and whistles. I would call this music as traditional as the music of the harpists. It has evolved directly into today's dance music which we discuss so passionately on the IRTRAD-L list. Personally I suspect that the "elite status" of the harp is true but also masks the performance at citizen level. I base this on accounts of harpists (at the end of the period) who note that while they certainly played for the upper echelons of society, they also did so for the general public with warm receptions.
Furthermore, if one were to argue for the sole elevated status of harpists, they would in fact find themselves in difficulty. Much of the evidence for this high standing comes from State Papers, not in patronised harpists amongst royalty. In these same papers are accounts of pipers (presumably playing mouth blown pipes) holding equal status!
Repressive laws designed to stamp out a Gaelic order lifestyle played a large part in the decline of the harp tradition but it is worth while to note that with the demise of the national musical symbol came a quick replacement of it in the upper echelons of society by the uilleann pipes. Over a short period of time, the harp was wiped out and pipers quickly filled the gap with "patronised pipers" and "gentleman pipers" emerging rapidly as a distinct musical group which performed in the vacant venues left by the harpists.
In short, to say that the true "traditional" music of Ireland died with the harpists is to fail to recognise the parallel tradition of dance music played by the ordinary public on instruments which have been evolving in an unbroken development history to today's instruments.
The origins of the different dance metres
There have been great debates about the evolution of the "traditional" dance music repertoire which we now generally agree as forming "traditional" Irish music. One fact of outstanding importance is that there are little facts to go on thus, our view of how we have what we have is from one point of view, purely speculative and from another, the result of a great deal of careful investigation and logical conclusion based on the tested information available.
A mathematician will argue very strongly that the number of music time signatures must be very limited since once you start assigning the number of beats to a bar starting up from one, you quickly meet numbers divisible by a smaller number and thus technically repeat a signature you've already accounted for. For example 1, 2, 3, the next number 4 is divisible by two and so is only a variant of 2, 5, the next number, six, is divisible by three so is only a variant of another time signature etc.
As a result of this mathematical fact there are only really a limited number of basic rhythms available (though I fully accept complex rhythms can easily be generated without a lot of effort using unusual number combinations). So, in Irish music we wind up with hornpipes, jigs, reels, highlands (or fling/schottische variants), barndances, strathspeys (even Coleman played them!) slides, single jigs, slip jigs, mazurkas and polkas (I exclude airs as we are dealing with dance music). Indeed, these are only the common forms; there are also other forms such as set dances (extra bar versions of key signatures already accounted for above), waltzes, rondos, etc.
Although the vast quantity of performed traditional Irish dance music is now done in the absence of dancers, tracing the history of the musical rhythms is inexorably entwined with the history of the dances. It is now widely acknowledged a critical agent in the spreading of traditional (not contrived by cultural committees, etc.) dances were military regiments. They brought dances with them they knew from their own countries as well as those they picked up in others. The significance of these can still be seen in the names of some of the sets still danced in traditionally strong dancing areas, such as The Caledonian (after a Scottish regiment) and The Lancer (after the French De Lancier regiment).
The history of the introduction of each of these rhythms into the performed "tradition" varies between complex to trace and simple to trace. For example, the introduction of the Polka into western European folk (Breathnach's definition of folk please, not to imply "Guns & Bullets" ballads etc.) idiom music is relatively easy to trace. It exploded into the repertoire with the sudden mass popularity of the Swedish singer Jenny Lind. Such was her notoriety that not only were polkas named after her, but polka dances were created and named after her.
Jenny Lind was primarily a singer, but her career was very much pushed by a new type of PR to emerge then. They made her a SOCIALITE. That is she performed on stage and was then invited to private (publicly covered in news terms by "Social Columnists") parties by influential, socially prominent people.. There was much dancing at these things and Jenny became well known for her preference for dancing a polka. (Jackie Small has done a good bit of digging on this one). As such, she was very much a "popularising vehicle" for the polka.
The mazurka is a dance of eastern European origin, commonly credited to Poland. It more than likely entered Ireland through the military route but never gained a great foothold with the exception of Donegal. It certainly arrived by the middle of the last century and possibly earlier.
The date of the strathspey is easy to fix as its invention in Scotland is well documented. James Oswald printed the first strathspey in book 3 of his Pocket Caledonian Companion series in 1745. Its journey to Ireland was more than likely rapid, having only a sustained effect in the northern half of the country. Whether it gave rise to the highland, or whether the highland previously existed and used strathspeys as a melodic base to "compose" new highlands, would now appear to be impossible to determine.
source: www.standingstones.com
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