The Ireland Dispatches
From an interview I conducted with Mick Crehan of the Galway School of Traditional Irish Music:
"There’s a parallel between landscape and music. I can’t articulate exactly what it is, but the type of music varies by location, directly influenced by the landscape. You can see it in the difference between East and West Clare. Both musics show melodic variation and a long note at the end of a phrase. But East Clare has a softer, quieter music, it’s flowy. The landscape is like that too, the Shannon flows through it, and it’s soft and rolling. West Clare music has a harsher edge, it’s more cutting, more out front. Whether that has to do with the sea and the land I don’t know. Connemara music is brasher still. I believe there’s a reason, a connection for that."
9 April 2000
Kilfenora, County Clare
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