Learning an 800 year old style of singing

hello my friends today i'm going to be learning a style of singing that is over 800 years old as someone with irish heritage i grew up around a lot of irish music a lot of singing a lot of tunes so i learned a lot of these songs just by ear by listening to them but i don't know a lot about its history and where it comes from and why it's important and so for that i am turning to my friend madeline monahan she is also a tick talker and she specializes in a style of singing called shen shenos and she is truly so expert at it i can't believe i get to learn from her so stick around for the end there's a little duet coming but for now let's learn together about [Music] shannons [Music] is irish traditional singing and it's thought to date back to the 13th century it is traditionally unaccompanied sometimes they'll have a drone as a way to anchor the singer in the key um but it's highly ornamented and often tells a story many of the songs are for occasions you know uh funerals burials or their comedy songs they're like have a plucky story that they're about or love songs and they all have this storytelling purpose and the singer is the vessel for the story so when someone begins a shadow song in a pub at a session everyone shuts up and listens sometimes the singer will close their eyes or even go into the corner of the pub go into the corner of the poem that's so funny because americans are like i'm telling a story like i'm telling a story exactly yes they shut off the showy aspect of themselves and rely on the voice alone to communicate the story wow i've seen footage of some singers will require some cajoling or like they'll hold hands with someone else and that person will turn their hand as if they're winding a human music box and they call it casauron or turning or winding the song it's meant to be both like you know distinctively irish and that it is in the irish language but it's also very human and very accessible so you don't have to be like a professional singer to sing is that right right and in fact like they have a different sociology around um singing and performing in ireland everyone is expected to have a party piece or to have a song at any occasion and you don't have to be trained i had a friend who um was in ireland and was like i have to take voice lessons because i'm so terrified that i'm gonna have to get up and sing every time pressure the pressure wanna be good when i'm called upon yeah exactly because you will be how it's usually taught nowadays from what i gather is you'll have um the teacher sing a line and then sing it together with the student and then they repeat it on their own echo it and then they learn a song phrase by phrase there is such a reverence for these songs it's not just like oh i took a couple days to learn it you're learning the phrase which has a lot of ornamentation but also you're learning you're learning the story you're getting the story in your body and giving it back so it's it's the learning is not just learning the notes and the words yeah it's deeper than that everything with shen nos is not pretty much not written down like it's it is orally passed down many singers feel that they don't want to write a song down it should be passed down in the way that it always has been tick-tock has kind of become like a way of keeping the oral tradition alive it's a way of documenting in a way of of educating people about it absolutely which is amazing yeah i mean technically the oral tradition is still being passed on in a similar way just to a much broader audience and so for us as irish americans our pedigree is a mess when i was in ireland you know singing out a session i felt very welcomed and at home there but at the same time i was the american there yeah whereas over here when i sing somewhere i'm the irish girl you're the irish person [Music] you have so kanamara the galway gualtakhti that style is the most highly ornamented they will decorate um every single phrase sometimes every single word and then just below that um in the south west you have monster so west carrie corkuglina that's the dingle peninsula of that region middle ground ornamentation and then ulster in the north um um that's the most uh sparsely ornamented so very straight tone line and that fourth one is and ryan in waterford and that is east monster oh how [Music] they have their own kind of distinct style as well and of course all of these places have their own um dialect of the irish language as well i thought i'd give one verse as an example of melasmatic and intervallic ornaments so this is the second verse of aaron wensha which is a galway song so from it's written by a woman on her deathbed and she this is a real story she is giving instructions to her family and community for how she wants her send-off to go wow so it's very touching beautifully written song um the irish are really good at dying they really are they are and they they're excited for it when the day comes they're ready [Music] so i like this one line um she's asking a question so nacho gastor a dimitu weren't you young when you left the world it's what she's asking the blessed mother um so for that i put it too because in irish the when we ask a question it's um a little bit higher in the middle of the phrase didn't you leave the world at a high time when the kaku was singing so um i i think that sounds kind of bird-like or like a kaku you know wow there's little things in there that are sort of like word [Music] painting [Music] before we perform some schedules for you i want to thank today's sponsor of the video hellofresh let's make some chili hello fresh offers a selection of delicious recipes and pre-measured ingredients delivered right to your doorstep every week in recycled or recyclable packaging if you're getting bored of making that same recipe every week hello fresh has been wonderful for introducing me to new dishes and putting new spins on old favorites dinner is on the table in about 30 minutes and the meal i'm making now is a one pan which is amazing i saved time on cooking plus the 40 minutes or so that it would have taken me to go to the grocery store so for fresh scrumptious meals and a deal just for you go to hellofresh.com and use code melinda14 to get 14 free meals what plus free shipping that's hellofresh.com code m-a-l-i-n-d-a-1-4 the best thing to come home to after a long day of singing and without further ado here's the song that madeleine taught me [Music] [Music] we [Music] [Music] oh [Music] thank you all so much for watching go and follow madeleine on all of the socials down below my folk ep with more irish music comes out on july 16th you can please save it right now and a giant thank you to my patreon family for making my videos possible thank you all so much for watching i hope you had as much fun as i did learning about this and i will see you all soon bye

Channel: MALINDA

Views: 281,901

Rating: 4.9852009 out of 5

Keywords: malinda, reese, malinda kathleen reese, folk, tiktok, irish, singing, madelyn, madelyn monaghan, sean nos, sean nós, pub, traditional, ancient, ethereal, gaelic, gaeilge, ireland, malinda reese, google translate sings

Id: 2zCv3XXjCY8

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 14 2021