Two and a half thousand years, half a dozen languages and one stubbornly modern idea. A working history of what we mean when we say "Celtic music" — and of the gaps in the record that every performer has to decide how to fill.
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Harp, bodhrán, uilleann pipes, hurdy-gurdy, fiddle, whistle, tabla and oud — not a museum catalogue but an arranger's working guide to range, register, articulation and the frequency each one is going to fight you for.
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What the medieval Irish sources actually say about the four quarter days, how the modern eight-spoked wheel was assembled, and the West Limerick bonfire night that turned into a recording in the summer of 2016.
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The Celtic-speaking peoples who settled in the middle of Anatolia, the eleventh-century crossroads that gave an album its shape, and what it actually means — musically — to put a bodhrán and a riq in the same bar.
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The floating upper register that defines this genre is not a gift and it is not a studio effect. It is released tension, managed airflow and a set of ornaments you can learn. A teacher's working method, with exercises.
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How to get a usable ethereal vocal in a spare bedroom — treating the room before buying anything, choosing and placing a microphone, building harmony stacks that sound like one voice, and using reverb as architecture rather than as rescue.
Read the essayNo essay matches that search. Try “harp”, “Samhain”, “vibrato” or “microphone”.
Also in the news
Celtic Mid-East winter and Christmas music from Enchanted Winter featured across a month of programming, beginning with episode 530.
James A. McQuiston on how music found her, the strangest thing she has done as a musician, and what she sees for music in the future. The interview begins on page 17 of the December 2016 issue.
An Samhradh and Enchanted Winter made available as exclusive downloads to Trad Connect’s worldwide radio members, writers and musicians.
A ten-minute lyric film travelling through Ireland, Scotland and Nova Scotia, with images from Jillian’s own travels alongside photographs by Nichole Rae and Carol Zielinski. See the album.