Celtic Music
by Alexandria Faethorne

What exactly is meant by Celtic music? Celtic music simply indicates that it is Irish or Scottish music. In Britain and the United States, what we know as Irish music is simply our term for Celtic music. It is often associated with St. Patrick’s Day and the Irish culture. From recent times and dating back to the ancient Celts, music has been an important part of Irish life. History, legends, and religion were passed down by stories and songs during the period of the ancient Celts. After the conquering of the Celts by the English, they were forced to stop using their own language. They turned to music to help remember the important events in their culture and to hold together their heritage and history. Music was eventually banned by the English, the majority reason to stop the emotional uproar it caused.

There are many instruments used to put the beautiful sounds together to make Celtic music. The fiddle is exactly the same thing as a violin; fiddle is just the name used for traditional music. The flute has been played in the Celtic countries for a thousand years or more; the one used today has six holes and up to eight keys. The tin whistle is a small metal tube with six holes and a little mouthpiece, and a range of two octaves; it is a cheap instrument, but not easy to master. The bagpipe has several forms used in Celtic music and is played by blowing air through a blowpipe and putting arm pressure on the bag which sends air through the reed and makes sound. The bombarde is a small oboe-like shawm with a penetrating sound and is fingered like a tin whistle with an extra hole to allow one note below the stated key to be sounded. The free reed instruments; the melodeon, the button accordion, the piano accordion, and the concertina. The banjo most used in Irish music is a 4-string tenor banjo with standard strings. The harp has been used in Celtic music for hundreds of years. The hammered dulcimer which is a trapezoidal board with pairs of strings stretched over it and played with light hammers. The bodhrán is a goatskin drum that is widely used in Celtic music. And other instruments include mandolins, citterns, bouzoukis, and guitars.

Enya is a renowned Celtic singer who has produced many wonderful sounds in the Celtic music area. She signed with WEA Music UK in 1987, and her career as a vocalist took of from that point. Her first album release was in 1987 with a self titled album "Enya." In 1988 when her second album "Watermark" was released, the song "Orinoco Flow (Sail Away)" brought her into the public attention. It reached number 1 on the charts in several days. Enya sings many songs that are not in English; there are many that are in Irish. Irish belongs to the Gaelic branch of the Celtic family languages, and is her first language.

Enya dose not tour live, she is just a studio vocalist. She has sold over 50 million records so far in her time as being a vocalist. In 2002, Enya was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "May It Be," from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. She also won Grammy Awards for Best New Age Album three times. She has also won three World Music Awards for Best Selling Female Artist, Best New Age Artist, and Best Selling Irish Artist. And last but not least, she earned an Echo Award for Best Pop-Rock Single for "Only Time." Other artists that produce music such as hers are Clannad and Moya Brennan.