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Song Lore of Ireland, The, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 62

Song Lore of Ireland, The, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 62
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periodical Publisher
The Baker & Taylor Co., New York, 1911
periodical Editor
[none]
periodical Title
Song Lore of Ireland, The
volume Number
1
issue Content
SONGS OF WORK AND PLAY W ICHAPTER VISONGS OP WORK AND PLAYNowunnn has music been made to serve the turn ofthe laborer more practically than in Ireland. Manyoccupations have associated with them ancestral tunesof high antiquity. Of this class are the plow tunesand the tunes used for spinning and weaving. Theplow tunes are of peculiar interest. They were sungor whistled by the plowman as he followed the plow.Petrie thinks them as old as the race which intro-duced into Ireland the use of the plow. In theirwikfriess and freedom from obvious plan they strikeupon the ear like melodic meditations, a sort of musi-cal dreaming aloud, gracefully unsymmetrical. Inas-much as they served to stimulate and to pacify thelaboring horses they were utilitarian; but to lookupon them as this and nothing more would be to misstheir larger significance. For these strains are theproduct of nature moods, moods in which the mentalmachinery seems to be quiescent and the soul to per-ceive things not vouchsafed to the active intelligence.The straining horses, the earth upturning red fromthe plowshare, the magic of the morning: all thesethings enter into these melodies which the plowman,man and boy, has repeated at his task for untoldgenerations. Dr. Sigerson in his Bards of the Gadand Gall, speaks of the haunting effect of thesemelodies, heard in some lonely glen, when the shadesof evening have fallen. To appreciate them arightwe must listen to them with the ears of the imagina-tion as well as with the grosser bodily sense.The following example of the plow tune bears in-ternal evidence of its antiquity, for it is based on theprimeval scale of the Celts, the scale of five tones. Itis given in the key of B flat; but neither A norE fiat, neither the fourth nor seventh degree of thescale is present. It is also melody in the simplestform, a musical period. All the plow tunes are inperiod form, and the fact is strong presumptive evi-dence of their antiquity. We may be sure that thefirst singers of these songs, their composers, that isto say, were no professional musicians, but just sim-pie folks into whose hearts the Almighty had pouredthe divine language of melody.g r -t Ip0Np-[ n ir1n nt HA very interesting plow tune was noted down byPetrie from the singing of the Clare peasant, TeigeMac Mahon. It appeals to us the more on accountEx. 24. Plow Tune..F ( I & I-11
issue Number
1
page Number
62
periodical Author
Mason, Redfern
issue Publication Date
1911-01-01T00:00:00
allowedRoles
anonymous,guest,friend,member

The Song Lore of Ireland

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