Companion to Irish Traditional Music 2nd Edition

[9781859184509]

"The Companion to Irish Traditional Music" is a landmark, easy to use A-Z format for studying, exploring and researching one of Ireland's most universally recognisable cultural expressions. Among the existing publications on Irish traditional music there are works of monumental initiative and deservedly enduring status. But the radical development in this music scene since the 1960s mark it now as an established part of Irish cultural life and demand new kinds of information. The commercial side of the music has evolved and consolidated, generating a new set of standards, popular music dynamics and significant music tourism. The music's expanding profile within the academic system too has created fresh approaches to playing and study, with a growth of academic research interest, and many major studies published or presently under way. In relevant and accessible ways The Companion uniquely draws together the oldness and newness in all of this: the practice and the study, the aesthetics and the analysis, the competing interests and diverse ideals. The editor Fintan Vallely is himself an accomplished musician and music writer. He has harnessed the expertise of some 200 specialists from all aspects of traditional music, who in more than half a million words and 300 images present the most comprehensive image of Irish traditional music ever assembled. This second edition is not only revised but also greatly expanded, and has much new information, including material never before printed and unavailable elsewhere. In 1,750 individual articles and as many more sub-sections The Companion gives A-Z coverage of song, dance, instruments, bands, storytelling, technology, tunes and style, composition, organisations and promotion, education and transmission, collectors and archives, revival, broadcasting and recording, English, Scottish and Welsh music and song, and music in all Irish counties, Europe and the USA.