The "Irish Session"

Some people are under the impression that Irish music sessions are a type of traditional event. However, authorities such as Breandan Breathnach and others agree that Irish music as played traditionally was a solo, unaccompanied musical form. Furthermore, the artistry of the music depends for a large extent on the variation and ornamentation of the basic tune by the performer—subtleties which are necessarily lost when there is more than one performer.

In Cape Breton, which has probably the most conservative tradition in Gaelic music, it was unheard of until quite recently to have more than one fiddler playing at a time. To play while another person was playing would have been considered just as rude as talking while another person was talking.

The only circumstance in which it was common to have more than one person playing at a time was at dances. The lack of affordable PA systems in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made it necessary to have multiple performers so that the music would be audible.

From the reports of some of the early collectors, it appears that many professional musicians avoided performing in the presence of other musicians for fear that their tunes would be stolen. The stock of tunes in a given area may have been quite small, and knowing a tune that others didn't could be a distinct advantage. Many of the old musicians were extremely jealous of each other, and would carry their special tunes to the grave rather than teach them to anyone other than possibly a son or extremely well-loved pupil (with instructions not to perform them during the teacher's lifetime).
Some of the professionals were more generous, however, and some schools of playing can be traced back to particular founders.

While there were of course many talented amateur musicians, traditionally the best musicians were usually professional or at least semi-professional. However, being a professional musician in the early 19th century was a career rather similar to being a professional beggar. They often played for tips at cattle fairs, horse races, etc.

A number of professional musicians in the old style kept going well into the 20th century. For example, Johnny Doherty

and Padraig O'Keeffe

made their livelihood from music without giving concerts until late in their lives, if at all (aside from being taped and played on the radio).

The old harpers were almost all professionals, but they were usually maintained by the old aristocratic families. This form of patronage died out around the middle to late 18th century.
In Scotland professional musicians adopted the modern style of giving concerts, going on tour, etc. around the middle 18th century, just as the old patronage system died out. The musician/beggar lifestyle existed as well—no doubt it depended on your class origins.

Amateurs were much more likely to play in sessions than professionals, lacking the jealousy caused by having to depend on your store of tunes for your bread and butter, and lacking the artistry to perform elegant variations. Since such professional musicians as emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in the 19th century tended to gravitate towards stage performance (since the opportunities for a traditional musical lifestyle and prejudices against lower-class performers appearing on stage were both absent), it may well be that the establishment of the session as the standard venue for the performance of Irish music was an American innovation.

It is certain that the growth of sessions has changed the form of Irish music. The amount of variation of the tunes has decreased radically and the old descriptive pieces of music have almost totally died out.

The lifestyle in which Irish music originated is almost totally gone, and before we become too nostalgic about it we should remember that it was a life of hard physical labor, grinding poverty, poor health and early death. The fact that the music is changing is an indication that it is still alive and has not become a museum piece. This is not the first time that the music has changed in order to adapt to changing social structures, by any means.

Irish bardic poetry on the subject of harps and harpers.

This is a selection of Irish bardic poetry on the subject of harps and harpers. The earliest of these come from a collection of Irish poems which were researched and translated by the great Gaelic scholar Osborn Bergin in the period 1918-1926.

Bergin states:
By Bardic Poetry I mean the writings of poets trained in the Bardic Schools as they existed in Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland down to about the middle of the seventeenth century. In Scotland, indeed, they lingered on till the eighteenth century. At what time they were founded we don't know, for the Bardic order existed in prehistoric times, and their position in society is well established in the earliest tradition. You will understand that the subject is a vast one, but I mean to deal only with a small portion of it—the poetry of the later Bardic schools from about the thirteenth century to the close—that is to say, compositions of the period known as Later Middle Irish and Early Modern Irish."
Osborn Bergin
Irish Bardic PoetryDolmen Press, 1970
p. 3

The language of the poems is a somewhat artificial poetic Gaelic which remained almost unchanged over 500 years, although the spoken language continued to evolve in different areas. Hence, by the end of the period people complained that the poets were difficult to understand. It also means that the poetry can not be identified by region or date on stylistic grounds. Most of the words will be recognizable to the student of modern Irish, although the grammar is different enough that translation requires a specialist in the subject.

The structure of the poems follows a precise formal structure based on one of the traditional syllabic metres. These are very polished works produced by skillful professionals in a very dignified style. The subject matter of the poems as a whole is quite wide, but I have chosen only those connected with harps. No other musical instruments are mentioned, except in one place "liric", which Bergin translates as "lyre". This may be just a synonym for harp.

Poetry was a hereditary occupation, although training at a Bardic College for a period of about seven years was also required. The method of composing was to lie in a darkened room for an extended period of time until the poem was complete. Many have commented that this seems like a relic of some type of divination ceremony going back to pagan times.

Some of the poems:

• The Lover's Invitation
• The Parson's Revels

IRISH MUSIC FROM THE 6TH TO THE 9TH CENTURY

By the end of the 9th Century, the ancient Irish were responsible for the spread of music in Europe.

• They were acquainted with the ogham music tablature in pre-Christian ages; 
• They had their battle-marches, dance tunes, folk songs, chants. and hymns in the fifth century
• They were the earliest to adopt the neums or neumatic notation, for the plain chant of the Western Church; 
• They modified, and introduced Irish melodies into, the Gregorian Chant; 
• They had an intimate acquaintance with the diatonic scale long before it was perfected by Guido of Arezzo; 
• They were the first to employ harmony and counterpoint; 
• They had quite an army of bards and poets; 
• They employed blank verse, elegaic rhymes, consonant, assonant, inverse, burthen, dissyllabic, trisyllabic, and quadrisyllabic rhymes, not to say anything of caoines, laments, elegies, metrical romances, etc.; 
• They invented the musical arrangement which developed into the sonata form; 
• They had a world-famed school of harpers; 
• They generously diffused musical knowledge all over Europe.