Companion to Irish Traditional Music (2nd Edition)

The second edition of Fintan Vallely’s “Companion to Irish Traditional Music” was launched on 24th November at an event in The Royal Irish Academy. Published by Cork University Press, the edition was launched by Nicholas Carolan, Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

The ultimate reference for all players, devotees and students of Irish Traditional Music, The Companion to Irish Traditional Music is an indispensable reference guide to Ireland’s universally recognised Traditional music, song and dance. This comprehensive resource – now revised and greatly expanded – is the largest single collection of such diverse, essential data. It brings together the knowledge of two hundred contributors in an easy-to-use A-Z format with entries on:

 

• Song in Irish and English
• Dance – Step Dance, Céilí and Sets
• Solo and Group Playing
• Céilí Bands and Professionalism
• Storytelling
• Instruments and Technology
• Tune Types and Composition
• Styles and Ornamentation
• Organisations and Promotion Education and
Transmission
• Collectors and Archives
• History and Revival
• Performers, Stylists, Commentators
• Broadcasting and Recording
• English, Scottish, Welsh music and song
• Music in all Irish Counties, Europe & USA
• Timeline – 1100 BC – 2011 AD
• Irish Music Books 1724 – 2011

 

This extraordinary encyclopedia covers the people, instruments, styles, repertoires and regions of past and present Irish Traditional music, song and dance. Half a million words and several hundred images present facts, ideas and terminology, explore aesthetics and ideology, and document teaching, learning, study and performance.

 

The immense volume of biography, history and opinion is diverse yet comprehensive. It is drawn from the collective expertise of some 200 specialists who in A-Z format deal with all instruments and playing styles, repertoires, people, performance and transmission, media and professionalism, ideology, awards standards and competition. They broaden the picture to take in the musics of Scotland and England, migration to Britain and the USA, the exhilarating new internationalism and music tourism. Uniquely too, The Companion carries extensive data on Irish Traditional music as it is played in all counties of the island of Ireland, as well as in Britain, Scotland, the USA and the major European countries. This marks the book as a compendium of not only what is being done and by whom, but also of where it is happening and in what way.

 

A detailed time-line charts the history of music events, initiative and publications as prompted by and interwoven with history, and a categorized bibliography carries easy reference for all forms of enquiry. These pages lay out the canon of Traditional music in Ireland as assembled by its significant performers, teachers and collectors, composers and arrangers, commentators, promoters and audiences. It is an essential asset and a core reference for all research and further study in Irish studies, Irish music and ethnomusicology.

 

FINTAN VALLELY is a musician, writer, lecturer and researcher on Traditional music. He began to play Traditional music on the flute in the early 1960’s and compiled its first Irish-music tutor in 1986. He later studied ethnomusicology at Queens University Belfast, became The Irish Times’ Traditional music correspondent and reviewer from 1994-2000 and was columnist in that field with The Sunday Tribune 1996-2002.

All data in the book is supported by a website –  www.companion.ie – which provides detailed advice on creative ways to use the volume, and links to websites which cover other aspects of the book’s topics.

 

To get the book, see www.imusic.ie
 

ISBN: 978 1 85918 4509 Hardback, 245 x 175mm, 880pp