Lilting

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For the soft drink, see Lilt. For the film, see Lilting (film).

Lilting is a form of traditional singing common in the Gaelic speaking areas of Ireland and Scotland. It goes under many names, and is sometimes referred to as "mouth music", diddling, jigging, chin music or cheek music, puirt a beul in Scottish Gaelic, Canterach, or portaireacht bhéil (port a'bhéil) in Irish Gaelic. It in some ways resembles scat singing.

Features

Lilting often accompanied dancing.[1] Features such as rhythm and tone dominate in lilting. The lyrics thus are often meaningless or nonsensical. Because of this, translations from Gaelic often do not exist.

History

The origins of lilting are unclear. It might have resulted in part from the unavailability of instruments, whether because they were seen as too dear or were banned. However peasant music in other Indo-European cultures was subject to similar constraints, and lilting did not develop.

Notable lilters

  • Paddy Tunney, Bobby Gardiner, Seamus Brogan, 1998 All-Ireland Fleadh runner-up Katherine Burke, Seamus Fay, M. J. O'Reilly, the McPeake Family, Len Graham, Joe Holmes, Micho Russell, Christine Primrose, Audrey Saint-Coeur, and Elizabeth Cronin.

{many of the above are illustrated on a CD, Celtic Mouth Music, ASIN (1999)}

Lilting in popular culture

  • In the 1975 song "Kashmir" by the British rock band Led Zeppelin, lead vocalist Robert Plant sings the lyrics "Talk and song from tongues of lilting grace, whose sounds caress my ear / But not a word I heard could I relate, the story was quite clear".
  • In the episode #13 "Jupiter jazz part II" of the anime "cowboy bebop" character Gren refers as a "strange lilting tune" about a song he'd play on the sax

See also

References

  1. ↑ Article on Gaelic puirt-a-beul, by Craig Cockburn

External links

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