Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hi folks,
Happy to meet you folks. I found the forum looking for advice on a Low D whistle. I've been making and playing bamboo flutes for a long time, but I want a contrasting sound. I mostly play keys, but also hammered dulcimer and a few other odd instruments. Here's a link to a tune done with my friend Michael Tanenbaum on dulcimer, probably the most Celtic thing I have recorded. https://youtu.be/a_CfLxz3Ask
Best wishes,
Stephen

Welcome, Stephen!

That's a pretty piece of music. I'm impressed (maybe fearful) of hammer dulcimer. I have two friends with recently acquired instruments, and the more ebullient one got pretty good quickly and the more shy one was daunted and has let it lapse, I think. When she showed me how to play the scale on the instrument I was horrified. I'll stick with guitar, thanks.

Hey,
I'm new to these forums as well! I have just found your song and I must say that I fell in love with it! Sounds really Celtic, that's true

Thanks for that.

Now, I may be being a bit retro here, but back a few years ago, bandying the term "celtic" around here was considered ...um... "fraught with pretension". Has this usage lost its stigma?

Innocent Bystander wrote:Now, I may be being a bit retro here, but back a few years ago, bandying the term "celtic" around here was considered ...um... "fraught with pretension". Has this usage lost its stigma?

With me, perhaps it has. I've finally eased up and remembered that it's a big world. While I still don't care for it in the main, I think of "Celtic" as a new broad genre that was never really intended to have anything directly to do with tradition in the first place, but is instead meant to evoke, in some way, a vague notion of an idea of a concept of whatever "Celtic" might be whether born of the gritty streets or the mists of time. Sometimes the result is dreamy, sometimes brash and beery. Of course the free-for-all rankles for those of us who have invested so much in the Tradition, especially when any such connection is undetectable. But railing against it is pointless if we already know the difference; we mustn't forget that Trad is a highly specialized niche that demands you put in your time before you even think about pushing the envelope. But I do think that distinguishing between the two is not only valid, it's necessary. To further keep myself happy, I also distinguish between Celtic artists who actually come from the Tradition, and those who don't. But all that aside, there are two things I see as common to all of the so-called Celtic genre: a stab at wider appeal, and a certain theatricality, from Gaelic Storm to Loreena McKennitt. And what can we call The Treacherous Orchestra, for that matter? I'd like to know what they call themselves. That lot'd probably tell me to just shut up and get into it, or go home. Any of their members could tear up a hardcore Trad session with the best of 'em, and teach me something besides.

I use the word "Celtic" to denote anything not really, actually Trad. It does help to keep things orderly.

Thanks. That seems like a reasonable approach.