Lilting
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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, "mouth-singing") in Irish Gaelic. It in some ways resembles scat singing.
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Contents
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 expensive 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)}
- Karen Matheson and Mary Ann Kennedy demonstrate lilting on a BBC 2005 television series, The Highland Sessions, filmed in Killiecrankie, Perthshire.
- Dolores O'Riordan, singer of Irish rock band The Cranberries.
- Lorcan Connolly, renowned lilting revivalist and part-time culchie, he is best known for his All-Ireland Lilting Championship Runner-Up medal of 1983.
- Siobhan Owen, Welsh-born Australian celtic and classical singer, harpist.
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".
See also
- List of All-Ireland lilting champions
- List of traditional Irish singers
- Sean-nós song, unaccompanied Irish traditional singing.
- Puirt a beul, Scottish Lilting.
- Waulking song, unaccompanied Scottish traditional singing done while working.
