Capercaillie Essay
Capercaillie Essay
Capercaillie Essay
Tempo, texture, tonality, structure, ensemble. How does the group combine traditional and more modern ideas. This is a type of folk song, what are some other traditions of folk music.
Folk music is created and played by ordinary people. There are four main types of folk music. Work songs, such as Capercailliess song Skye Waulking Song, were sung whilst people worked to keep the rhythm of what they were doing. Ballads, which were made to pass on news mainly because there werent radios or televisions. Short songs, these had romantic or comic lyrics mostly for entertainment. Dance music, these were written for events such as weddings and parties. Capercaillie is a Celtic folk band and is made up of eight musicians mainly from Scotland and Ireland. The band was formed in Oban in 1984 and went on to become famous worldwide. The band wrote a song based on waulking, which is a traditional stage for cloth making, the women who song the traditional song would sing it to the beat of their work. Skye Waulking Song is written based on a pentatonic scale. Its in 6/8 with two beats in a bar which hold the strong rhythm, helping to keep the workers in time. The song is polyphonic with the vocals being sung in 6/7 and the hi-hat plying 3 crotchets, this gives the piece a 3/4 feel. The structure of the song is split into two main sections. Section one is in E minor, with chords changing from Em to G and has a very traditional feel with just a simple beat. It sounds almost subdued because of its quiet, calm and peaceful mood. This section mainly focuses on the vocals as the instruments blend together in the background, not really standing out. Section two drives forward from section one as a full rhythm section is introduced. The key changes from E Minor to its relative major, G major. In this section it is generally louder and has a pipe solo that uses the vocals melody line in its improvisation. The ending then fades out. Although Skye Waulking Song is based on a traditional folk song Capercaillie use a mixture of traditional and modern characteristics in the song. The band plays traditional instruments, the uillean pipes, flute, fiddle, accordion and bouzouki with modern instruments over the top, drums, piano/keyboard and the bass guitar. The lyrics are all in Gaelic which keeps the song mainly traditional. Capercaillie have written an overall interesting song with a fun mixture of modern and traditional ideas while still sticking to the folk song traditionally written for women working.