What Willie said..

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Er...
The harmony the regulators provide is homophony. A monophonic line accompanied by simple harmony. I see at Wikipedia they're referring to this as Melody dominated homophony. Whatever, Irish music wasn't polyphonic until Sean O'Riada came along (although James Morrison made a couple records with another fiddler who played a counterpoint - this is much more evident on a barndance that hasn't been reissued unfortunately).
The harmony of the regulators remained simple in structure mostly due to technical limitations - there are only so many variants of chords you can provide with the wrist, also pipe chanters are essentially diatonic - while keys for providing all the semitones have been commonplace for 200 years now it isin't really feasible to play these semitones at will - bringing out a staccato G# in the second octave requires great skill and dexterity - also there never really has been an audience for these expanded harmonic possibilities, the Anglo Irish gentry lost interest in the pipes after the Famine and pipers who could play excerpts from opera and the like were soon enough out of a job, in the poorhouse. It is most likely that the gentry were behind the development of the regulators, too - the pipes first sported one regulator and one writer mused that perhaps it was intended to be used for simple polyphony (two melodies moving at once), as it is easy with one reg to move the wrist up and down, maintaining a constant melodic movement. With two or more regulators this is a bit trickier, and the obvious homophony on tap became more the norm - homophony was what was going on in art music at the time as well (late 18th century).
Aside from that...the bagpipe has been played in Ireland for at least a thousand years, with drones from the 13th century or so - which is a form of harmony, after all.
The harmony you hear from old melodeon players is usually rhythmic in nature - constant pressing of one of the bass buttons - providing more beat for dancers. The piper Bill Ochs took lessons from Pat Mitchell and told me that like almost all pipers back then he didn't care for Leo Rowsome's piping, with his constant tapping of the regulators, but when he tried to play for dancers he realized that you can't make enough on-the-beat noise for them! They just want those ones and twos.
The piano seems to have been imposed on players - some seem to have been totally indifferent to what the piano played, to judge from how awful the chording could be. Other plunkers were more involved in the music and obviously knew the tunes and what would work. But back in Ireland it just wouldn't happen - how were you going to get a hold of a piano in Sligo? Out of the question.
The guitar playing of Whitey Andrews, backing up Coleman and Killoran, is very simple - someone said they'd figured he was playing a tenor guitar (four strings). So when they got a chance they went for as little guitar as possible!

[Nanohedron]

If someone's already pointed this out, forgive me.

I don't know about anyone else, but for me melodic stuctures (in ITM, anyway) imply chords and keys already. An arpeggio doesn't exist in a vacuum, after all. A decent backup player ought to be able to hear these implications and, perhaps, other appropriate possibilities, but these implications themselves are what make the tunes stand on their own with no accompaniment. It's all there already.

Just my $.02 USD...

[Cathy Wilde]

Amen. Tones stack up, form intervals and chords and keys and such. Whether they're used much or not in a certain culture or tradition of music is another story, but as I understand it where there are scales there are chords of some sort. (even in 12-tone-stuff)

Eeeeeek! It's math!

[Cynth]

Changing directions:
Peter quoted from an article by Pat Mitchell:
" My own personal experience suggests that those brought up only on harmonic music cannot actually hear all that is going on in good Irish traditional dance music performance unless they spend a great deal of time educating their ear."

As a beginner I am learning mostly how true this is for me. I'll mention two CD's among quite a number that have made me most aware of this. Seoltai Seidte (recording from 1957-1961 made by Gael Linn) and The Star above the Garter by Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford. When I first listened to either of these CD's I became aware of how different the music was from the music I was accustomed to hearing and I was really sort of shocked. Since I thought I had listened to Irish music before I think that means that a lot of the "Irish" music I'm hearing is not really Irish music---it is adapted to sound "right" to people who have been brought up listening only to harmonic music or something like that. I just didn't realize it. I still don't understand what is happening, but my ear is getting more accustomed to it. I think this real differentness explains why people start doing things to alter the music, they are making it more accessible to themselves and their cultures. Apparently that is just inevitable. But I think it helps me understand why it is so important that original recordings be preserved, recordings be made, etc., everything possible to preserve what hasn't been substantially altered (I know, I know, tradition changes---but we can't necessarily even hear the changes we make because they sound "normal" to us) so that what is actually Irish about the "Irish" music we hear will be understood. That goes for the music of everyplace obviously.

[KateG]

[quote="Cynth"]Changing directions:
Peter quoted from an article by Pat Mitchell:
" My own personal experience suggests that those brought up only on harmonic music cannot actually hear all that is going on in good Irish traditional dance music performance unless they spend a great deal of time educating their ear."[quote]

Actually I think that's true in any musical tradition. My husband is a classically trained pianist who grew up adoring Mahler and Brahms. I know that he hears polyphonic music far more acutely than I do, and can follow harmonies and voices in ways that I am totally deaf too. He had learned not to noodle on the mando in sessions, but in the privacy of our home I love it when he improvises harmonies around whatever I'm playing on the flute or mt. dulcimer.

Likewise their are subtleties to Indian classical music or Balkan music or opera or jazz, or..... In any music there are aspects that can be enjoyed by almost anyone armed (eared) with enthusiasm and an open mind, but there are also layers that reward study and concentration.

[AaronMalcomb]

I don't know about anyone else, but for me melodic stuctures (in ITM, anyway) imply chords and keys already. An arpeggio doesn't exist in a vacuum, after all.

Correllation does not imply causation (OK, now I'm being pedantic).

But still, that's like saying the Ancient Egyptians had Space Age technology because of the construction and alignment of the pyramids.

[jim stone]

I remember somebody remarking once that the
first time he heard the Chieftains in concert he
thought to himself: Why don't these people TUNE?

[Cynth]

Changing directions:
Peter quoted from an article by Pat Mitchell:
" My own personal experience suggests that those brought up only on harmonic music cannot actually hear all that is going on in good Irish traditional dance music performance unless they spend a great deal of time educating their ear."

Actually I think that's true in any musical tradition. My husband is a classically trained pianist who grew up adoring Mahler and Brahms. I know that he hears polyphonic music far more acutely than I do, and can follow harmonies and voices in ways that I am totally deaf too. He had learned not to noodle on the mando in sessions, but in the privacy of our home I love it when he improvises harmonies around whatever I'm playing on the flute or mt. dulcimer.

Likewise their are subtleties to Indian classical music or Balkan music or opera or jazz, or..... In any music there are aspects that can be enjoyed by almost anyone armed (eared) with enthusiasm and an open mind, but there are also layers that reward study and concentration.

Definitely agree and then we could include just about everything else when you think about it!

[Nanohedron]

I don't know about anyone else, but for me melodic stuctures (in ITM, anyway) imply chords and keys already. An arpeggio doesn't exist in a vacuum, after all.

Correllation does not imply causation (OK, now I'm being pedantic).

But still, that's like saying the Ancient Egyptians had Space Age technology because of the construction and alignment of the pyramids.

Aaron, I don't think the Egyptian analogy holds, or maybe I'm too undereducated to see your logic. For me to suggest that patterns imply chords or keys is in fact the result of my own sensory experience (and may I say -despite my misgivings- that the result of the application of this experience, or paradigm, or whatever anyone wishes to call it, is that I get told often enough and warmly that my backup playing is appreciated, simple though it is), and when wearing my backup player's hat, I rely on what I hear in the melody in order to at least do the right thing. The approach hasn't failed me yet, and it's all because of hearing what's going on in the tune. The tune provides the avenues available. Repeating myself, it's all there already. Does a "D-F#-A-d" progression primarily suggest Dmaj? To me it does. I HEAR it. That's what I'm getting at with my previous post.

[Brazenkane]

ya..the Egyptian analogy is a little far out imo. In fact, much of the waxing about harmonic vs. a soliatry line, what camp you reside in ... Well, no comment.

what I do think is if you want to become the best musician you can be, study harmony, study the single note line, and use your take on it all to get as deep as you can into the feeling and the draíochta of the music. Sitting in one camp or the other just seems to amount to a whole bunch of sitting.

[Nanohedron]

what I do think is if you want to become the best musician you can be, study harmony, study the single note line, and use your take on it all to get as deep as you can into the feeling and the draíochta of the music. Sitting in one camp or the other just seems to amount to a whole bunch of sitting.

There you go.

[talasiga]

Nanohedron, I am not a chordophonic type being mostly a flute and whistle and tabla player. I do play chords on harmonium though and I do direct musicians who play chordophonic instruments when it is my privilege to lead a piece.

Rightly or wrongly I tend to agree with the basic drift of both Aaron and Kevin here.

My angle is that homophonic accompaniment doesn't mean anti-chord/arpeggio - it just means the chords must support the melodic line according to the mode. For example, if the song is E Dorian (as you know, this means a song that uses only some or only all of the notes of DM/Bm key signature but ending on E) the last chord must be Em and not something that resolves somewhere else to explore other relative modal possibilities withing DM/Bm key signature. In effect, any possible chord within that key signature can support the piece providing the chord accompanies or harmonises with the melodic line and does not detract from the modes' tonic drone at resolution. As you know already, the traditional music was/is always droned on the tonic of the mode of the song and not on some relative harmonic.

It is true that polyphonic chords are richer for harmonic elucidation but they come at the expense of richness of melodic development within the mode and in relation to a tonic dominated harmonic.

[talasiga]

Changing directions:
Peter quoted from an article by Pat Mitchell:
" My own personal experience suggests that those brought up only on harmonic music cannot actually hear all that is going on in good Irish traditional dance music performance unless they spend a great deal of time educating their ear."

As a beginner I am learning mostly how true this is for me.
..........
Since I thought I had listened to Irish music before I think that means that a lot of the "Irish" music I'm hearing is not really Irish music---it is adapted to sound "right" to people who have been brought up listening only to harmonic music or something like that.
......................

Yes, at the risk of being attacked for talking Indic music, I would like to relay a personal experience. I don't feel its off topic because, hey, this is an ITM topic in the flute forum! Anyway, there are some similarities in that both IrishTM and IndicTM are melodic traditions premised on drone.

There is this lady singer, professionally trained opera singer, who likes my flute playing. She also enjoys indo spirituals and likes to perform them. She heard me playing a raag in Dorian Mode and when I told her that this particular raag is actually the raag she sings with one of the hymns she wanted me to accompany her.

During rehearsal I noticed that she kept resolving this raag, which ended at tonic D on the song line, with the relative C major chord. This may be polyphonicly correct but it did little to bring out the subtle mystery of that raag - the very thing she admired she could not have becuase her polyphonic approach to keyboarding was killing the egg. I told her that she would need to change her whole accompaniment style if she wanted the particular effect that she had heard when I played it monophonically.
As there was not enough time for this I suggested that what she was doing was pretty good anyway and lets just go with it this time. The performance was a success. People enjoyed it. However the soul was not there for me or for her as she had heard me in a different context.

[KateG]

Argh, the supression of modes. Talasiga, your lady opera singer isn't the only one who wants to shove everything into the major/minor box. I admit I was blissfully ignorant of them except as a piece of music history/theory arcana until I took up the Mt. Dulcimer with its drones and diatonic fretboard. Worlds opened!!!! I now find myself very irritated when music publishers ignore modes and try to make modal tunes fit their preconceived boxes. G mixolydian is not G major with F natural as a recurring accidental; the F natural is integral to the scale in that mode. Another cop out that annoys me is just labelling a tune "modal" without identifying the mode. L.E. McCollough is guilty of that in his Homespun tutorial "121 Session Tunes." Tunes are either major, minor or "modal" with no distinction between Dorian and Mixolydian tunes, plus a lot of the tunes are identified incorrectly. After all, the scale affects the harmony and your standard "three chords and the truth" doesn't work at all for modal tunes.

[GaryKelly]

L.E. McCollough is guilty of that in his Homespun tutorial "121 Session Tunes."

What exactly is he guilty of, failing to provide you with information to construct harmonies for single-line melodic tunes from a tradition that doesn't use them?