Ceol beag
Ceol beag or ceòl-beag (Gaelic "small music"; also ceòl aotrom "light music", English mostly "light music") denotes - as a contrast to "great music", the Piobaireachd - the dance played with constant rhythm and tempo - and marching music for the Scottish bagpipe ( Great Highland Bagpipe ). It is unclear whether this is a traditional term. In any case, in contrast to ceol mor , it is rarely used and almost exclusively in writing.
The ceol beag includes quick marches as well as strathspeys , reels , jigs and hornpipes .
Ceol meadhonach or ceòl-meadhonach (Gaelic "medium music"), in contrast, is the rhythmically freer music of the song, i.e. mainly the slow airs played on the bagpipes .
If the main distinguishing feature of the ceol beag is its functional character - the purpose of accompanying movement (marching or dancing) - then other forms of music can also be counted as part of the ceol meadhonach, for example the competition type marches , technically demanding pieces that (usually ) can only be played for the sake of music, but not for marching.
The assignment of jigs is not that clear. If you see jigs as dance music (which is clearly the case these days), then they belong to the ceol beag. If you see them as something else (which they may have been in the past), they belong to the ceol meadhonach. Seumas MacNeill, for example, originally sees jigs as finger exercises for the Piper, as there is no tradition of jigs as a dance in Scotland (“ Jigs probably originated basically as exercises for the fingers, for there is no tradition of the Scottish jig as a dance - certainly not in the Highlands. ")
The term ceol meadhonach is even less historical than ceol beag . It was probably first shaped by Captain John Campbell and Archibald Campbell, who in 1909 published a collection of Slow Airs under the title "The Kilberry Book of Ceol Meadhonach". This collection contains slow airs (for example “Fear a 'bhata”, “The mist-covered mountains”), slow marches (“Lochaber no more”) and retreat marches (“When the battle is over”, “The green hills of Tyrol “), but no jigs.
literature
- Campbell, John & Archibald Campbell: The Kilberry Book of Ceol Meadhonach. Glasgow: Peter Henderson, 1909.
- Cannon, Roderik D .: The Highland Bagpipe and its Music. New Edition. John Donald Publishers, Edinburgh, 2002. ISBN 0859765490
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Dwelly, Edward: Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary. Edinburgh 1993 (first publ. 1901-11). ISBN 1874744041
- ↑ a b R. D. Cannon 2002
- ↑ MacNeill, Seumas (1976): Text accompanying the records / CDs by John Burgess: 'The Art of the Highland Bagpipe Vol 1' (12TS291, 1976) and 'The King of the Highland Pipers' (TSCD466, 1993)
- ↑ The Kilberry Book of Ceol Meadhonach. 2nd ed. 1932