These songs include famous songs like “Thousands Are Sailing to America” and “By the Hush”, though “Shamrock Shore” may be the most well-known in the field.įrancis O’Neill was a Chicago police chief who collected the single largest collection of Irish traditional music ever published. These were usually “sad laments, steeped in nostalgia, and self-pity, and singing the praises… of their native soil while bitterly condemning the land of the stranger”. Irish emigrés created a large number of emigrant ballads once in the United States. This fusion of Anglo-Celtic and African elements “usually consisted of unaccompanied solo vocals sung in a high-pitched nasal voice, the lyrics set to simple melodies (and using) ornamentation to embellish the melody” this style bears some similarities to the traditional song form of sean-nós, which is similarly highly-ornamented and unaccompanied.Ĭeltic-Americans have also been influential in the creation of Celtic Fusion, a set of genres which combine traditional Celtic music with contemporary influences. Country music’s roots come from “Americanized interpretations of English, Scottish, Scots and Scots-Irish traditional music, shaped by African American rhythms, and containing vestiges of (19th century) popular song, especially (minstrel songs)”. The most significant impact of Celtic Music on American styles, however, is undoubtedly that on the evolution of country music, a style which blends Anglo-Celtic traditions with “sacred hymns and African American spirituals”. Finally, the music of ethnically Celtic peoples abroad are also considered, especially in Canada and the United States.

The music of Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Brittany, Northumbria and Galicia are also frequently considered a part of Celtic music, the Celtic tradition being particularly strong in Brittany, where Celtic festivals large and small take place throughout the year. Most typically, the term Celtic music is applied to the music of Ireland and Scotland, because both places have produced well-known distinctive styles which actually have genuine commonality and clear mutual influences.

The term Celtic music may refer to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded popular music with only a superficial resemblance to folk styles of the Celtic peoples. Celtic music is a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic peoples of Western Europe.

Scottish celtic music