Niamh: Geography of Music

Ireland – The main musical instruments in Ireland that create traditional Irish music are: Fiddle, Flute, Tin Whistle, Bagpipes, Uilleann pipes, Free Reed Instruments, Melodeon, Button Accordion, Piano Accordion, Concertina, Banjo, Mandolins, citterns, bouzoukis, guitars, Harp, Hammered Dulcimer, and the Bodhrán. These instruments create sounds such as these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqYQLR-5xMg&feature=relmfu
There are many types of traditional Irish dance such as the reel, the jig, the hornpipe and the polka. There are traditional Irish music to go with these dances. Here is an example of a reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=180qFbppoaY&feature=related

South America – The top five instruments used in making traditional music in South America are as follows,

Guiro: This is a wooden instrument with notches on which a stick is rubbed to produce the sounds.
Bongos: These are a Cuban instrument composed of two small drums of different size which both make different sounds.
Claves: These are wooden cylinders. One is held along the thumb with the tip of the other fingers as support. This way, the hollow par formed by the hand and the instrument act as resonator and this cylinder is hit with another cylinder in the other hand.
Maracas: These are generally made of dried animal skin stitched together or hollow wood; they are filled with grains or small pebbles, then fastened to wooden handles. They are shaken to produce the sounds.
Cencerros: This is a cowbell hit with a stick.

Here is a composition using some of these instruments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98K3YyRQsy0

Africa – African musical instruments include a wide range of drums, slit gongs, rattles, double bells as well as string instruments, (musical bows, different types of harps and harp-like instruments such as the Kora as well as fiddles), many kinds of xylophone and lamellophone like the mbira, and different types of wind instruments like flutes and trumpets. Drums used in African traditional music include talking drums, bougarabou and djembe in West Africa, water drums in Central and West Africa, and the different types of ngoma drums in Central and Southern Africa. Other percussion instruments include many rattles and shakers, such as the kosika, rain stick, bells and wood sticks. Also, Africa has lots of other types of drums, lots of flutes, and lots of stringed and wind instruments.

This is an example of some African music using some of the traditional instruments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-AonKjmLo4

China - There are four types of families in the musical group in China. I will tell you about one instrument from each section of the family!

The Lute family

Pipa - four-stringed lute with 30 frets and pear-shaped body. The instrumentalist holds the pipa upright and play with five small plectra attached to each finger of the right hand. The pipa history can be dated back at least 2000 years and developed from pentatonic to full scales. This instrument has extremely wide dynamic range and remarkable expressive power.

The Zither family:

Guzheng - Chinese zither with movable bridges and 16 - 25 strings. In the same family there are the Japanese koto, the Vietnamese dan tranh, the Koreankayagum, and the Mongolian Yagta.

The harp family

Konghou - One of the most ancient Chinese music instruments that appeared in written texts of the spring and autumn period (around 600 BC). The structure of the Konghou looks similar to the harp, however, with its bridges spanning the strings in the way similar to guzheng.

The huqin family

Erhu - A two-stringed fiddle, is one of the most popular Chinese instruments in the Hu-qin family, where Hu stands for "foreign" or "the northern folk" in Chinese, and "qin" is a general name for all kinds of string instruments.