Traditional Scottish Ceilidh Music Versus Dance Music

What is it about traditional Scottish and Irish Ceilidh music that so entices people

of all ages and backgrounds on to the dance floor time and time again? Ceilidh music was around long before discos but has all the same characteristics. They both give people reason to gather and interact and revel in music they enjoy. But there is something about ceilidh music which unleashes the dancing fiend in even the stuffiest of uncles.

Most modern popular music offered in nightclubs can tend to be repetitive and predictable, sometimes in the extreme, and ceilidh music is also repetitive and predictable by its nature. The way the music works is by repeating rhythmic and lyrical patterns and by using "call and response" style playing, which is in itself repetitive. These styles spiral around each other and once the song comes to an end, it will often be started all over again, but faster.

Drinking is another unsurprising link between the disco and the ceilidh. One can buy the same type of beer at both the famous "Sandy Bells" pub in Edinburgh where they hold frequent cozy ceilidh evenings, and the multitude of run-of-the-mill bars and night clubs in its vicinity. It may be true that there will be more people drinking heavy beer who enjoy a bit of ceilidh music while there will be significantly more alcopop drinkers at a nightclub, but at the end of the day it all comes out the same way.

So what is it about ceilidh music that is so special? Perhaps it is the traditional aspect of the music which underwrites any preconceptions about fans of all other types of music. Country and western, Goth and punk music springs to mind. All hold an image or a stigma attached to being an advocate of these styles, while ceilidh music seems to duck under this barrier.

Maybe because ceilidh music and traditional Scottish country music was around before there was much else to compare it to, it was universally loved as being the best way to meet the opposite sex, to gather with friends and family and above all, have a good dance. That could be why, even today, when a ceilidh band at a wedding strikes up "The Eightsome Reel," "The Dashing White Sergeant" or "The Gay Gordons," you will be just as likely to see teenagers and kids dashing to the dance floor as you are old men throwing their canes to the side and spinning and reeling the night away.

by: David Somberville

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