Kesh Jig

You will create a blog via Blogger to record world music listening that you have selected to share with our class (not contained in our textbooks).  Embed a video example or audio recording of the musical example and write an entry that states the following:

1. Title of piece
2. Performer(s)
3. Culture or Origin
4. Orchestration
5. a one paragraph reaction to the piece that makes connections to course readings/discussion (see a specific weekly focus for this paragraph in the Assignments section)

Your blog entry must be posted on the Friday of each week. In addition to maintaining your own blog, respond to a classmates' blog entry by Sunday of each week.  A list of classmate blog posts is listed under Announcements.  Click on the assignments tab on the menu to the left to submit your blog assignment.

Specifically for week two, discuss in what ways classification systems are useful (use an example of time or instruments in your response).

The piece I chose to listen to and blog about this week is titled "Kesh Jig."  It is a traditional Irish Jig and performed here by a group called The Ghillies.  Included in this performance is a harp, and acoustic guitar, a violin/fiddle, flute, and a drum called a Bodhran: 

This is a lively and upbeat piece of music that is very easy to dance for.  An Irish Jig is a folk dance usually performed in compound meter.  They were adopted into Ireland and Scotland in the 17th century.  This particular piece, because it is a folk piece, has many renditions.  You can see one rendition in this piece of music here:

It is written in 6/8 time or compound meter.  

Bonnie C. Wade, author of "Thinking Musically" described many ways of classifying instruments.  She stated that "Belgian curator Victor Mahillon turned to the ancient Indian system with its one consistent criterion - the primary sound-producing medium of the instrument - and named the four types of instrument as idiophone, membranophone, chordophone, and aerophone" (Wade pg. 38).  Idiophones are instruments where the sound is produced by the instruments vibrating body.  Membranophones are instruments where the sound is produced by a vibrating membrane.  Chordophones are instruments where the sound is produced by a vibrating string.  Aerophones are instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating column of air.  In this piece, we can classify the harp, guitar, and violin as chordophones.  We can classify the bodhran as a membranophone and we can classify the flute as an aerophone.

References:

Bodhran. (n.d.). . Retrieved July 3, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhr%C3%A1n

deLombarde, T., & Randall, B. (n.d.). Kesh Jig. . Retrieved July 3, 2014, from http://www.blackflute.com/music/tunes/jigs/kesh.html

Wade, B. C. (2013). Thinking About Music. Thinking Musically (). New York: Oxford University Press.