Traditional Irish Music 101

I love Irish music! Jiggity jiggity jig! And Guinness! And little blood sausages! Jiggity jiggity jig! But most of all, Irish music! Jiggity jiggity jig!

That's a song I just wrote. Do you like it? There's a dance that goes with it, you just can't see me doing it. Okay, I admit, I'm a little overexcited, because I'm going to Ireland for the first time ever in less than a week. I promise that I'll stop doing the song-and-dance routine before I get there, but until then, if you happen to run into a short curly-headed girl doing something that vaguely resembles the "Where the Hell is Matt?" dance and singing "jiggity jiggity jig" tunelessly, you can be sure it's me.

At any rate, a hefty chunk of my ancestors are Irish (I'm a pretty hearty blend of various European backgrounds), and I've always felt a real kinship with the country. Perhaps it's my name, or the fact that I look quite Irish, or maybe I'm just drawn to the general "work hard, play harder" attitude that the Irish people seem to have towards life. At any rate, I do think that there's a great deal of value in seeking out the music that springs from your cultural roots. I know for a fact that any person is capable of appreciating and even falling deeply in love with any genre of music from around the globe, but there's something distinctly pleasant about a music (and, generally, musicians) with whom you share history. I wouldn't necessarily say that Irish music is even my absolute, all-time favorite, but there's still that little something special about knowing that my ancestors enjoyed something that sounded almost identical at some point in time.

What are your cultural roots? Have you done much digging through the music of that culture (or those cultures, as the case may be)? Do you feel differently about that genre of music than you do about others? Leave a comment and let us know!