Bagpipes aren’t just Celtic - And the difficulty of defining Celtic Music

Homo sapiens talks in orange autumn forest about Celtic music for 18 minutes.png

[@faryafaraji]

Homo sapiens talks in orange autumn forest about Celtic music for 18 minutes.png

[@DarkSamael55]

pog.png

[@kalata_8691]

Love those type videos explaining such interesting topics, make more man!

[@irishakita]

real

[@robinrehlinghaus1944]

It is a very Human Thing to do. One of the good things, that is.

[@jarjars3261]

mp4* xD

[@petarjovanovic1481]

I just witness this few days ago. Arab Christians in the Middle East have a tradition of marching scout bands. In them they play different instruments, one of them are bagpipes. One of their most recent marches in Israel got recorded and posted online by an American Israeli tour guide. The most of the comments below the video were Americans asking themselves "why did Arabs co-op this Scottish instrument". I am from Serbia. In Serbia bagpipes are an ethnic instrument, like in most places in the Balkans. Therefore I was very perplexed. I was thinking to myself why do all these Americans think that bagpipes are exclusively Scottish instrument?

[@nicolocrippa8514]

It's true that bagpipes existed for millennia in the Middle East and maybe they even originated there, but the marching bands with bagpipes you see today in the region are of British origin, probably dating back to the protectorate time. The marching band style and also the instruments they play are clearly the Scottish ones, not traditional local bagpipes. Often they are even wrapped in tartan.

[@dennyregova76]

Istina!

[@christopherellis2663]

Dorćol Irish and the Orthodox Celts (Band)

[@Andy_folkMusic]

thanks to Hollywood, always misleading people in history facts

[@AmandaFromWisconsin]

@@georgiosmastoras2079 Depends on the American.

[@CptSquirrel]

You barely learn anything about historical music (in school and modern media aswell), so as a historygeek I always love to hear your thoughts.

[@faryafaraji]

Thanks alot! My videos are mainly meant for history nerds; I always liked the channels talking about the details of history like cooking or clothing, so I wanted to add music to the list

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

An extraordinarily fascinating treatise, sir. While I had in my head a few elements in the background, I had never quite made the connexion that, indeed, there is no such thing a "Celtic" music that we wouldn't better call "traditional Scottish/Irish" etc. applicable only to the past few centuries, and definitely not to antiquity. I'm very grateful for your work!

[@faryafaraji]

Coming from a master of video treatises, I’m honoured, grātiās tibi agō dear Luke!

[@DefinitelyNotEmma]

Here I am watching a man from the near east talk about the history of bagpipes. That's how you know that the KZbin algorithm works correctly.

[@gryfalis4932]

I'm from Brittany, we also have our own bagpipes (binious) which are different from the scottish ones and usually play in duet with a small type of oboe called "bombarde" (and a drum). Just to tell the differences between celts themselves, at the point that we share more cultural similarities with a western french or an asturians than our far away cousins in scotland

[@soslanroseft4750]

I would say that almost when we talk about Celts we think more than others of the Gaelic culture and its traditions because of Hollywood and nationalism.

[@faryafaraji]

That’s a very good observation yeah. Most of our ideas of Celticness are specifically based on the Gaels; and this makes sense with Hollywood since Americans have large degrees of Irish (and Scottish to an extent) ancestry

[@soslanroseft4750]

​@@faryafaraji In fact, I once had a talk with a friend about it when I played a Welsh song saying that it is not Celtic when Welsh are Celtic, which when comparing both musical traditions, the Welsh

[@SnakeWasRight]

So what you're saying is that Gerard Butler's scottish accent was 100% historically accurate for a Spartan king in the movie 300.

[@obxwave]

The prominence of the (Scottish) great highland bagpipe often causes people not to realize that the very term “bagpipe” is actually a category, akin to “stringed instrument” or “drum.”

[@morava8333]

I like our relationship: you sit and talk, I sit and listen.

[@rolandscales9380]

Thank you! Useful video which confirms what I've been saying for years. I've immersed myself in English, French, Welsh, Irish and Scots music for the last 40-odd years and I also own a number of European bagpipes, along with a collection of Jews-harps. (Yes, thank you, I know the name's controversial.) I'm fully convinced that the term "Celtic music" was coined in the 1970s as a marketing ploy. I see little resemblance between Breton, Welsh and Irish music, while there's a close relationship between the musical and dance styles of Brittany and adjacent, supposedly non-Celtic, regions such as Normandy, Maine and Vendée. Vendée has had bagpipes - the veuze - in recent historical times, and there's iconographic proof of them being present in other regions up to the 16th or 17th century. The pipes survived in Burgundy and the centre of France well into the 20th century, and Gascony, Roussillon and the area around Calais until late in the 19th. The French ethnomusicologist Michel Colleu once told me that leader-and-response dance songs, generally considered typically Breton, are in fact to be found all along the Channel coast from Dunkerque as far as Brest, and from Brest southwards into Poitou, also being present in Gascony and the Béarn, in the far south-west. Dance steps such as the an-dro and hanter-dro are closely related to some of the dances described in Toinot Arbeau and Pierre Attaignant's manuals, published in the 16th century. I have also found that Welsh dance tunes are immediately accessible to English players, unlike Irish tunes which tend to be less formulaic and less predictable.

[@faryafaraji]

Very interesting observations, thank you good sir!

[@francescopalermo6661]

Farya! Your channel is incredible. I’m a huge historical music nerd, particularly Western and Eastern European music, as well as Middle Eastern and Central Asian music. Spot on analysis of “Celtic music”. I remember learning that the jig, which is always considered “Celtic”, is actually something the Irish got from the Scots, who got it from Northern England, who in turn got it from continental folk dances in Europe. Seeing the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic geographic influence on music is incredible because it brings greater appreciation for a particular style of folk music from a culture, but can be seen in the wider context of the cultures surrounding and influencing that culture’s style as well. Your music is great! Keep up the good work. Hoping to hear more- I’ve been looking for good Italian, French, and Spanish music from the Renaissance period, as well as Scandinavian folk music.

[@lucimicle5657]

No time to sleep, time to learn about bagpipes from a felow homo sapiens.

[@mari_gori_yasno]

I must tell you that automatic subtitles decided on 4:43 that you speak erotic language, and I agree: the knowledge culture is sexy in a way that excites both my mind and my body. I hope you will continue your angry enlightenment of people who had no idea they need an Iranian men speaking cleverly about the music for a very long time

[@Oklahomie_Friendly]

Every time I watch this channel I get sad because of all the music that was lost and we don’t know about

[@edoardopuglisi9763]

Every non Italian makes the same mistake when thinking and talking about Italian music. The stereotype is mandolin, but no one knows about the different bagpipes we have in Italy and the different musics we make in different regions, for example: Sicilian and Neapolitan musics are already really different, but what about northern Italian music? I come from an area where we use piffero (which sounds like a Dalmatian surle, but with a purely major scale), and the music is really major scale based, sometimes Dorian etc... harmonic minors are a modern influence in northern Italy, and sounds near to Phrygian dominant were never present. If you want to listen some northern Italian music I suggest: Alessandrina in La - played by Stefano Valla Povera Donna Alessandrina in Re

[@abdullaaladeeb538]

I really do love how you can deliver a subject in a simple, entertaining way that gets the message across easily keep up the good work I really do love your videos. and I also like how you managed to bring all people from all backgrounds, countries, religions, etc and managed to make us bond over music, truly a miracle in this torn world. P.s I have been waiting for a song that is mesopotamian related for a long time and more iranian/persian music as well.

[@faryafaraji]

Thanks alot for the kind words! I should look into doing Mesopotamian soon indeed!

[@jimatreidēs]

There were Celts in the centre of Anatolia, called Gatalia. I don’t think their music sounded anything like Irish or Scottish music, but most likely it sounded like Greek music or Phrygian. Thanks for blatantly telling the musicological truth. Nonetheless, the truth!

[@faryafaraji]

Definitely, it would have had the common characteristics of the region, definitely closer to Greek of the time than to any Celtic traditions in Northern Europe back then!

[@duidin99]

The Galatians migrated from Gaul down through the Balkans in the third century BC in a fairly short time. So chances are their music would have been identical to Gaulish music to begin with, and would have picked up indigenous Anatolian and Greek features as time went on.

[@orthochristos]

I like how many of your explanation videos focus on modern perceptions of music by deconstructing them.

[@faryafaraji]

Well noted. Interestingly enough that was never my initial intention; but I consitently found that our understanding of ethnic/historical music is so dominated by modern perceptions that the best way to even start talking about music is to begin backwards by deconstructing the misconceptions first

[@miastupid7911]

Να σε χαιρεται η καλη σου Μητερα Φαρυα! May your good mother always be proud of you! مادر خوبت همیشه بهت افتخار کنه

[@kellykabiri3849]

🙏🙏🙏

[@scott3013]

Every once in a while something comes along, gets my attention, and builds a new wing onto my mind museum. This channel is one of those things.

[@CruWiT]

I have never seen an Iranian person who looks so much like the ancient Persians in my life 😅. Dude, if you braid your beards, you can become an Achaemenid Immortal soldier fighting against Alexander the Great's army. Good luck in battle you will need that ⚔

[@greygamertales1293]

The Dutch Doedelzak and the Hungarian Duda are my favourite two types of bagpipes and I would recommend the channels of Ernst Stolz and Arany Zoltan for their ethnic bagpipe music.

[@BorninPurple]

Bruh, trying to clap the insect while speaking/swearing Persian speaks is legit me being Cypriot Greek.

[@panagiotetsolis4017]

Love how the call by mom still takes priority, that’s universal in culture lol. Often when I go to Greek festivals my American friends see a Greek bagpipe and ask why are we playing Irish music.

[@PPRhydon]

Great video man. You should do more of these and I would love hear you talk more about Mazandaran anything with the history, music and language.

[@faryafaraji]

I definitelt should at some point, it’s my native culture and few know about it :)

Music is the best way to travel through time and space and your demonstration is perfect to explain and explore this theory. Hello from Brittany (where I now live after working in Paris and living my first 18 years in Marseille ;)

[@faryafaraji]

Haha mon gars t’es passé de la côte d’azur au gris de Bretagne! C’était pas difficile au début? J’ai vécu au Languedoc et la transition vers le froid du Québec fût brutale 😂

@@faryafaraji J'avoue que quitter ma Provence natale pour la grisaille parisienne a été un peu brutal 😁 mais l'effervescence culturelle de la capitale m'a tellement donné que j'en rêve encore !! La Bretagne est un double choix : la famille avant tout, et aussi un éloignement des endroits trop chauds pour ma compagne qui est Normande 😄 En plus de tes excellents morceaux de musique, j'écouterai avec plaisir tes explorations culturelles sur la musique ;)

[@dannaaay7542]

I'm mostly Irish ethnically but my family has been in America for generations. Music is one of the ways I try to connect with my heritage, and I'm a little sad that most of what I've listened to is nowhere near what my ancestors would have listened to through most of history. I'd love to hear more accurate replicas of older Irish music, like what you showed in this video, but I imagine a lot of what we might have known has been lost to time.

[@irishakita]

well your ancestors listened to music similar to that of today, probably with the Warpipes and maybe the Uilleann Pipes (depending on when they left) but it's just the natural cycle of music, we should be proud we still have something very unique

[@faryafaraji]

To be fair this applies to every ancestry out there. Music inevitably changes with time and no one has exactly the same music their long dead ancestors listened to-even our languages are so different from our ancient ancestors’ that we might have difficulty communicating with them, if at all

[@dannaaay7542]

​@@faryafaraji I guess the sadness is that we only have fragmentary knowledge of the history of something so important to mankind. We can excavate a city, create a model of a face from a skull, and translate tablets and scrolls, but music leaves no trace.

[@dannaaay7542]

@@irishakita It was in the mid-late 1800s, so I have no doubt my most recent Irish ancestors were listening to the more modern variety of Irish music, which I still enjoy very much. It's just a small piece of a big picture and I'm disappointed we aren't able to glimpse more of it.

[@faryafaraji]

@@dannaaay7542 It does leave traces if the people documented it, so we know a good deal about Medieval music of Western Europe or Ancient Greek music; the problem is musical texts aren’t the priorities of most civilisations compared to documenting reigns of monarchs etc

[@OmniImpulse]

we humans have mingled and shared culture for far longer then what is official and accepted!

[@walemaa5631]

In many Eastern European languages bagpipe is called "volynka", for how it is associated with Volhynia. In mine it is duda/dudka.

[@tylerbrubaker6642]

Dude you are like the Jackson Crawford of historical music

[@faryafaraji]

I’m honoured, I’m a regular viewer of his!

[@Tsotha]

@@faryafaraji THANKS TO JACKSON CRAWFORD, I found out that most of what Americans think they know about Norse mythology comes from... Marvel Comics' comics about Thor. Not even Richard Wagner!

[@BungSpoot]

Sending love your way bro. "Can she excuse my wrongs" was an absolute banger. Sounded great in 2 10 inch subs.

[@faryafaraji]

Thanks my man, all credits to our boy John Dowland

[@FairyCRat]

As a French person, this point about the Bretons is very interesting to me. Reminds me of when you talked about how Greece was encouraged to westernize its own music after obtaining its independence from the Ottomans.

[@thereformer0079]

In India, we have the “been”, which is mostly famous due to its use in snake charming. It’s similar to the bagpipe and it’s played with the use of circular breathing. Also an ancient instrument.

[@textnumbers22]

Also as someone who was born in Scotland and is now living in Irelend these are not static traditions, they evolve and change as the people do. Ive seen celidh bands with drum kits and electric guitars, pipe bands playing new compositions, irish pub duos playing oasis songs in the trad style and trad bands using synthesizers and combining it with noise music and all of these are just as valid takes on the style. Like it seems super bizarre to me to treat folk and trad music as a perfect link to the past rather than a creative tradition people have grown up with and reshaped to express themselves better.

[@susano323]

I asked about similarities in Celtic music and one of your Epic Roman pieces, on another video comment section and you referred me here. Thanks for this and it's endlessly interesting. I'm astounded not just with your musical knowledge and talents but your amazing breadth of knowledge of history and linguistics, which makes what you cover so much richer. You were right to assume I meant (as most modern people do) Irish and Scottish when I said Celtic though I know that the Celts only migrated to Ireland and covered a much broader territory and while some are Irish, now, they came from elsewhere. Of course, it makes sense what you said about the vastly different music one would find from Celtic peoples. I'm kind of excited to see you get into "Latin" music - and I mean the Americas brand of Latin, one of these days. Again, there would be so many different styles and influences and I'd love to hear about where they all came from and where they overlap or are completely dissimilar. It's so cool to try to follow the threads back as far as we can. I wonder what kind of music the Anunnaki listened to. When I look at you, I think of them!

[@Evlogite19]

This is all very true. What we perceive as “Celtic” folk music is really less than 250 years old - which is nothing, a split second - in the grand scheme of history. Bagpipes, tin whistles, etc these archetypical instruments are fairly newer innovations in what gets labelled “Irish” or “Celtic” music. In fact, I believe I read recently that the earliest bagpipes were first used in Syria, but I do not remember the era. Probably quite ancient, though. I started realising all this when I was playing Celtic music in a folk and traditional band around fifteen or so years ago. As a history enthusiast, I wanted to know the exact sounds the people of the late Medieval/early modern period might have heard and what I discovered surprised me. And if you really want to get specific, these “fiddle dee sounds”, as my friends in Ireland sometimes jokingly refer to it, really started to show up with the Celtic Revival of the 1950s and 60s. However, many traditional ballads certainly are quite old, but the further back you go in history, you’ll find that much of these were sang with no musical accompaniment at all. They usually would be sung during funeral wakes or weddings or for important feast days. As I later came to learn, it was during the mid to late 19th century, with the rise of industrial cities, there was also sort of folk revival that came about in the West. The popularity of Stephen Foster’s music, Tin Pan Alley, etc. and the like, sparked a high demand for older songs. Thus, the old “broadside ballads” from the previous century saw a revival. And it is from this period that most of what we associate with being Celtic music finds it’s beginnings.

[@Frilouz79]

Celtic countries are defined by the language spoken, or spoken not so long ago. It's relatively easy to recognize a relationship between languages: the presence of a common vocabulary, similarities in syntax, the way verbs are conjugated... What's more, we have fairly ancient written sources of these languages or their ancestors. The kinship between modern Celtic languages is indisputable. The same cannot be said for music. If we want to establish kinship between different musical traditions on a purely musicological basis, putting ideologies and marketing aside, we need to: 1- Delineate a corpus of tunes reputed to be the most "authentic" in the various regions studied, taking care to avoid sherry-picking wherever possible. 2- Draw up a list of characteristics to be measured, on a statistical basis, such as: ambitus, mode, joint note progression or presence of fifth or octave jumps, presence or absence of polyphony... and apply it to the selected corpus. 3- See if this statistical study reveals any criteria representative of this type of music. 4- Compare the results obtained with those of neighbouring regions, which are assumed to belong to other traditions. As far as modern Celtic-speaking countries are concerned, the results are more or less as follows: - These musics are diatonic and modal, with a predilection for minor modes: mode of A natural (Aeolian), mode of D (Dorian). - They are monodic: they ignore harmony and polyphony, apart from the octave and the drone. - They separate a cappela singing and instrumental music, and therefore ignore accompanied singing. - ... and that's about it. - ... and these criteria also apply to a large extent to the surrounding regions, and even far beyond. In fact, if we extend the corpus to the surrounding regions, we find that Irish and Scottish music have more in common with traditional Scandinavian music than with Breton music, and that Breton music has more in common with the traditional music of north-western France, or even the Massif Central. These musics have features that can be considered archaic in comparison with Western art music (see the characteristics cited above), but these characteristics are not sufficient to define "Celtic" music on a purely musicological basis.

[@babybloc]

You mention the origins of Scottish and Irish folk music Writing my Accordion Revolution book I was trying to figure out why Inuit accordion in the Canadian Arctic sounded like Irish and Scottish music. Answer, English and Scottish whalers. Wait, English? Stumbled on this Masters thesis by Celia Pendlebury about the upper-class origins of English, Irish, Scottish, and similar sounding (don’t tell!) and related folk music. It offered the idea of a kind of toolbox used to create a lot of instrumental dance music back in the 16-1800s. Her intriguing idea is that it didn’t start out as folk music, but really spread as written tunes often created by known and credited dance Masters going around training people in what we could imagine as Jane Austen‘s settings. Later fashion changed when waltzing became popular and all these dance masters had to find jobs so they taught these classes to lower class folks where they caught on. And that is how similar folk music became a global thing. Wrested from the halls of the rich and liberated for all. (That’s a positive populist take anyway) I posted about it here: Dance Tunes in Britain and Ireland: Where Did “Traditional” Begin? (Celia Pendlebury Thesis Review) accordionuprising.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/dance-tunes-in-britain-and-ireland-where-did-traditional-begin-celia-pendlebury-thesis-review/

[@samdagreat6301]

Fantastic stuff Farya, keep it up! Always love these pieces. Very informative, and these are misconceptions that most people will never have discovered otherwise. You’re doing good work man

[@faryafaraji]

Thanks my friend!

[@dagon99]

So if i understand this correctly, regarding the ancient world- Music is regional, not entirely based around races/ethno-langiages, and is affected by other cultures. It has a core, and diffuses outward, incorporating the music of its neighbor's.

[@faryafaraji]

Absolutely right, although this isn’t even uniue to the ancient world; this is still how traditional ethnic music functions geographically

[@dagon99]

@@faryafaraji thanks. I made the distinction cause of how the internet could transfer styles across borders and time. Keep up the great work!

[@chrstopherblighton-sande2981]

I'm glad you brought up the example of Galicia. It saddens me that so many of our traditional music styles (including those played on the bagpipes) are often being overshadowed by the desire to pass-off imported Irish music as being the 'authentic' Galician Celtic music. Don't get me wrong I am perfectly happy that Irish-style music, which I really like, is now a part of modern Galician culture - but the ahistorical aspect of claiming that it is our original music annoys me. Likewise I am perfectly happy that other aspects of Irish culture - such as the festival of Sahmain - have been imported into Galicia - (as Samaín) but it upsets me when suddenly a festival that my grandparents and great grandparents (actually even my parents) had never heard of is presented as historically authentic Galician culture. The dishonesty of it bothers me. As a very proud Galician I don't regard myself as Celtic to be honest, and whilst I view our beautiful culture as being distinct I see it as part of the wider Iberian culture and by extension Latin speaking southern Europe, made distinct in part by the affects of living by the Atlantic. (After all the Romans created our identity by naming all the various peoples of the northwest 'Gallaeci', they gave us our language, they plugged us into the wider mediterranean world (well the Phoenicians had already done that to some extent) and later into the broader Catholic world which also shaped our culture).

[@Deedeedee137]

Just left this comment on your Iranian music video but I'm Irish and I think it's way cooler that so many cultures have their own bag pipes than that they're uniquely ours. I always love learning about the different types and traditions

[@Bombergangkidscrub]

I didn't even need to understand what was being said with your mom. You start speaking with her and the vibe makes itself understood.

[@emilev2134]

J'ai été surpris quand ma blonde m'a fait découvrir que la cornemuse fait partie du folklore Tunisien aussi. Il y a tout un style pop autour de l'instrument, le mezoued!

[@Εύροκλύδων]

Hey Farya, I really appreciate your discussions about the popular perceptions of the musical traditions of historical cultures. This definitely broadened my understanding and changed my perception. I really hope your content gets more attention. Keep doing what you do! P.S. Bagpipes were used in slavic cultures (not only with South slavic Gaida). They were called "Volynka". Interestingly this term can also apply to a hurdy-gurdy. I'm assuming because the sound is comparable.

[@faryafaraji]

Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it! And that’s really interesting about the hurdy-gurdy having the same term as bagpipes in Slavic cultures; medieval musicians often played them together and remarked that they sounded similar so it’s interesting that terminology followed suit here

[@greygamertales1293]

@@faryafaraji I am not sure but I heard about how the Hurdy Gurdy was played in Medieval churches as they accompanied the religious chanting due to the architectural environment at that time and the medieval version of the Hurdy Gurdy was said to be very loud. I might have got this information from Fredrik Knudsen of Down the Rabbit Hole.

[@faryafaraji]

@@greygamertales1293 That makes sense yeah! I also remembering something similar which mostly had to due with the drone of the hurdy-gurdy; they may not even have played any melodies sometimes but just have used the loud drone to fill the acoustic ambience; it might be the most important aspect of the instrument, and would certainly have been amplified with the acoustics of a large church

[@Εύροκλύδων]

@@faryafaraji Also, please make more videos on medieval music. I'd love you to talk more how medieval sounded like vs how ppl think it sounded like. Maybe something about occitan troubadour music or early medieval organum.

[@MusicIsTheJoyOfLife]

Thank you so much. after listening to your song belasaurius about a million times my side decided he wants to learn the bagpipes. You’re an inspiration, my friend.

[@christos3280]

Joonam wake up, new farya post

[@paddyquinlan3329]

The Irish bagpipe is distinguished by the fact that it's blown using an elbow operated bellows instead of the mouth (which is why they're called Uileann pipes, Uileann meaning elbow in Irish).

[@the36lessons11]

Sort of how bagpipes got to the Isles: Sumer -> Babylon -> Persia & Greece -> Rome -> Celts, Gauls & Britons (Rome was the big spreader of the pipes, but they didn't invent them, just introduced)

[@lavender5765]

Hello Faraj, I am from Iraq, and when I hear your music it is similar to our music in Basra and in Alqosh, the Chaldeans and Iraqi Gypsies, I love it very much.

[@markalton2809]

somewhere, long, long ago, far, far away, a bloke looked at a dead goat and said..."I've got an idea". And the bagpipe was born.

[@olcooksy6132]

I think the phenomenon you're describing has more to do with the failure to understand the breadth of the Celts in general--certainly for most people I've spoken to, "Celtic" is used to mean Irish/Scottish/Gael (ie: surviving Celtic traditions), while the Galatians, Celtiberians, and Gauls are hardly known at all.

[@Harper-jw2lh]

Wales?

[@oscarosullivan4513]

Brythonic’s

[@idrisa7909]

And it excludes certain modern groups usually, like Bretons (and arguably Vaqueros in Spain)

[@saoirsecameron]

This is true, but completely irrelevant to the question of bagpipes. Both the Celts and the Bagpipes spread throughout Europe and currently are most numerous on the Western edges of the continent, but the spread of the ethnolinguistic group and the spread of the instrument are seperated by at least centuries, perhaps even a millennia.

[@quinnblackburn6799]

Thank you! Much as I love the sound of bagpipes, I have always had a similar view. If I Were to choose an instrument to represent the Irish/Celtic I would have thought the lap harp would have had far more history and precedence than bagpipes. Bards did not spend their time making sacred... bagpipes. Thank you too, that insect was driving us all buggy. The song you have given in the Gallic Celt instrument family was Immensely Satisfying. Yes! This is exciting! This leaves me hopeful that you are inspired to create more and more in the styles all of this beautiful riot that was Celtic music. The history, anthropology and thought given to cultures woven in your compositions are gorgeous. The care is there in every song I have listened to and shared today thus far. I rarely take the time to comment on KZbin, but you have fed me today on many unexpected levels. Thank you and I look forward to the next creation. You are creating music I have been longing for a very long time. Voice was the first instrument we were given, and that is where I started learning to love music... in giving it voice within a group as a child. You recall that wonder with an educated grace. Thank you

[@Rotisiv]

Your videos are absolute gems man. ❤

[@samthesomniator]

I love that photographic setup with that bokeh and the academic ductus of the speech. 👍 Great Videos!

[@concentratedcringe]

Whenever I have questions about an ethno-musicological topic, my search always seems to lead me back to you. Cheers for talking so much on these topics, it doesn't seem too well-trodden on KZbin :) (In this particular case, I was listening to 'The Blood of Cu Chulainn' for what must be the billionth time and got to wondering whether it was based on older Irish styles, more modern Irish styles, or was just some Canadian bloke throwing Irish/Celtic-associated instruments together and creating 🔥🔥🔥. I still don't have the answer to that, but at least now I know a bit more about the history of bagpipes. Also it's funny KZbin brought me to this video specifically, since I didn't even use the word 'bagpipe' in my searches. I'm pretty sure that song doesn't even have any in it 💀)

[@AaronAnaya]

All of this is an example of how our modern conceptions of culture have been shaped by nationalist movements that are all fairly recent inventions and they have distorted our view of how distinct and fluid most cultural traditions actually are. We’ve been misled to believe that modern political borders reflect ancient and distinct cultural differences and divisions when they mostly do not.

[@wizardscrollstudio]

Bagpipes are at best mediterranean. There are early clues that suggest it existed in Anatolia and Ancient Greece from ancient times from where it spread from all over neighbouring regions. Is very possible Celtic Bagpipe came from Roman ones which came from Greek ones or Celts probably had direct contact with Balkan region and appropriated the instrument directly.

[@EmelieWaldken]

Celticness is such a mess, coopted by so many groups for various purpose, and extremely well-selling. In Swedish traditional music there are bagpipes and a heckton of fiddles too, yet it's clearly a Scandinavia land, not Celtic. Also I love to confuse people by telling them about the two most crazy bagpipes lands I know of : Italy and Bulgaria =D

[@landravac]

I looked it up and the percussion goes back to the bronze age, the woodwinds go back to the stone age, whatever brass they had was shared with Italy, apart from the carnyx ( a two-meter long *vertical* warhorn with an animal head at the top and they would have hundreds of these in battle so you can imagine) which shows up wherever the Celts went, as did the crwth, their very own bonafide Celtic string instrument but syke it's just the lyre. Always has been. Would also shout out to one Gaius Iulius Vindex, a former Gallic rebel and later senator, who called emperor Nero "a bad cithara player" and also called him OUT on his "ignorance of the arts". That's how you stick it to'em.

[@williamgreenway1785]

Hey farya faraji, I’ve been listening to your music for a while and it’s hit me that music and culture are two things that always go hand in hand. Whenever one culture merges and intermingles with another we always see the music from both those cultures merge as well. I like to believe an interesting example of this would possibly be some sort of merging of Greek and Indian music. During the reign of the Greco-bactrian and indo-Greek kingdoms, shortly after the conquests of Alexander in the Indus Valley region. And historically I know that Indian culture (especially Indian religion) merged with the settled Greek culture in the area. And so I like to think that if things such as religion from both cultures merged with each other, than it is possible to think there was also musical exchange with both cultures and likely some merging between the two. Food for thought I guess…

[@chromaticswing9199]

Your Epic Talking series has been really eye-opening for me; thanks for these videos! It got me wondering if you can do a video on how colonialism affects a native population's perception of their own music. I'm Filipino-American and have been trying to do some research on the indigenous music of the Philippines, specifically of the Tagalog people. However, I could barely find any information on the subject, and based on friends and family, it looks like barely anyone has any knowledge of precolonial music outside of knowing some random trivia they picked up in school. For example with my parents, postcolonial Spanish music IS their native music. I tried playing music from nearby Filipino tribes who have kept their cultures intact (for the most part), and their reaction was as bewildering as if I had just played Iranian music to them. I find it fascinating that for many Filipino people like my parents, the music of their neighbors within driving distance could sound so alien and foreign. Like their heritage was completely replaced by a foreigner's in their own land. I would love if you could discuss this topic Farya, and I'm super curious to hear your rendition of indigenous Tagalog music if you ever decide to dive into that culture. Take care!

[@faryafaraji]

That’s a really really good idea; I also searched for traditional Filipino music and as you said I could only find completely Spanish sounding stuff. My best friend is half-Filipina so I can start doing some first research by asking her family

[@pascalbourelier3463]

Excellent analysis, a real pleasure to hear you speak & articulate those thoughts! I for one would extremely keen to hear a reconstruction of a what could be Hallstatt music, coming from the knowledge of the instruments of the time. Your talent & intelligence might well make it sound truer than anything lying around in the musical sphere :°

[@joshuaperkins9916]

I would also like to say, I agree with much of your points about regions and time periods. I also appreciate your research and perspective. Incidentally the English are Celts as well;) Cheers Josh

[@linuslundquist3501]

What do you mean by the english being celts? Aren't they mostly germanic?

[@mohammadmahdijalaeipour2387]

When he recited Khayyam, I felt that.

[@cwmyr]

Very good video! Love your recent vids of this format as well. The original pronunciation of Gallic *Uerkingetorix is probably Oo-er- kin- gay- tuh -rigs, it means the marching king. The Breton music stuff is fascinating, of course makes one think of Walter Benjamin and invented tradition.

[@elverkongen2515]

Virgin ignoring your mom vs Chad answering call from your mom during a video

[@alexanderdettlaf406]

great video ! by the way , There is something interesting about your appearance, you look like those ancient Mesopotamian sculptors.

[@Renegade498]

I'm a ~celtic~ musician and the biggest misconception I hear is the idea that Celtic music is historical. It is not. it's not even old. Lay folks and even some Trad musicians have a hard time with this fact. Modern "Trad" music across the Celtic diaspora has grown in the past century thanks in large part to the wildly successful Irish Trad revival movement of the late 50s and 60s. This movement was part of an Irish nationalist movement to promote Irish culture and the declining Irish language following centuries of English apartheid (for lack of a better term). This is where we get The Chieftains, The Clancy Brothers, and The Dubliners. These groups are not, and never claimed to be historical preservations or reconstructions of irish music. They were innovating in their own time. This was when the Irish Session/Seisiun was invented (impromptu playing of tunes in a group at a pub), when the now ubiquitous DADGAD guitar tuning was popularized (inspired by an Oud player from Morocco), and when decidedly new "irish" versions of the bouzouki and tenor banjo were absorbed into the Irish Trad family of instruments. If I can make one point to anyone that might read this, it is that the Celtic music of Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, and Galicia aren't artifacts - they are living, modern traditions. LOVE your videos and music!

[@MickeyCuervo36]

I'm part of an SCA group (think Renfaire folks, but more...club-like, if that makes sense) and my thing is that I'm a musician. Everyone wants to hear Irish and Scottish tunes from the 17-1900s, even though our group is supposedly in "The Dark Ages" (that's a whole other nightmare of terminology I won't go into) but researching the instruments used, like the tin whistle and bodhran, they are MUCH more recent than folks might think. Now, from my own family history in Wales, there are older instruments, like the Pibgorn (like a bagpipe chanter or clarinet) Crwth (think tagelharpa/bowed lyre with a fingerboard like a violin) and the triangle framed harp (Telyn in Welsh, Clarsach in Gaelic). They're mentioned in law documents from the 900sAD/CE. This is still Early Medieval though, and not antiquity. Not really sure how much further back they go, since the documentation doesn't go back much more, and organic material like wood doesn't preserve well. Some of the tunes WERE written down though, so that's neat. They were still influenced by, if not descended directly from, things like the Greek Mantura, Cithera, and Psalterion, and even those go further back and have equivalents/antecedents in Egypt and Mesopotamia.

[@humanwithaplaylist]

Wow! I didn't actually realize that Iran had bagpipes! Mind blown. But then I think of the common sounds and think, of course, how did I not notice before??! Love your videos

[@news-net7572]

Les musiques et les chansons traversent les âges et les espaces en cassant les barrières religieux et ethniques ainsi que linguistiques . Les fondements de cette force et tout simplement ressentir les émotions et l'accomplissement de l'être humain. Merci, Tesekur ederim !

[@darthplagueis13]

Reminds me of that time when I was reading a satirical 17th century German picaresque novel and in the first chapter the then child protagonist describes playing the bagpipe (interestingly using a word that could literally translate to bagpipe rather than the modern German word for bagpipe) whilst hearding sheep, which inadvertedly ends up drawing the attention of a group of soldiers who would then go on to brutally pillage his home. And I do remember thinking "Oh, so they had bagpipes then and it obviously wasn't thought off as a foreign instrument".

[@petera618]

The use of bagpipes are common in Sicily and Southern Italy. Zamprogna in Calabria and Ciaramedda in Sicily where My family is from. When I explain to other Americans that they use bagpipes in their folk music they are perplexed and tell me that bagpipes are Scottish or Celtic. I then explain that bagpipes are originally from the Middle East and they are usually very surprised.

[@Laurelin70]

There's also the zampogna (without the R) in the mountains of Ciociaria (between Lazio, Campania and Abruzzo). In Rome there was the Christmas tradition of the "zampognari" (players of zampogna), shepherds who in the old came from the mountains with their herds of sheep during winter and played their instruments around the streets with lullabies and Christmas songs: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oF7boatmrZianposi=-J4IdAvFm0aMBz5D kzbin.info/www/bejne/kHuUZXppiaxll7csi=iUxypNRnjxMkuRnz

[@susano323]

I think bagpipes (which I believe I heard in some ancient Greek song vid you did) are associated with the Scots for simple reasons, in addition to the ignorance about what you call ethnomusicality (or something): the British empire simply dominated recent modern history, in a very big fucking way. If somebody mentioned the queen, who would most people think of? Elizabeth II just because their impact was that huge. After watching this vid, I went and watched some Scottish bagpipe march and the lockstep regimentation those outfits (!!!) is just so impressive to look at. It's like watching The Wizard of Oz. Plus, other than drums , it's all bagpipes so they overwhelm the listener. It's a pretty immersive listening and visual experience. Being that the British are such masters of pomp and ceremony and have made such big deal out of it, one tends to take notice when you see and hear something like that so they are forever associated. The bagpipes might not belong to them but when they took them up, they "owned" them in a unique and memorable way. That said, I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing with teaching about the real history of music, what it sounded like and where came from and now my ears will be attuned to listening for those pipes when hearing traditional music from around the world. I also just read the interview with you, "WFA: Farya Faraji, By Robert Miklos, September 19, 2022", at Everything Is Noise, and it really helped me understand what it is you're doing and the why of it. You should link that interview in your profile because I know many people discovering you will want to learn. You're just amazing, Farya, and I love your vids. I hope you go on to write screenplays and direct films for some of the "Epic" stuff you've done because you make me want to see the movie!

[@jeanveneziano8656]

You are so wonderful! I could sit and listen to you for Hours on end😽and your voice is so good to hear! You have so much incredible knowledge of history. I Love your voice, and your singing. You are a great man!* So, who were the first to invent the bagpipes? Hmm...😸

[@Lunette-v2v]

The ancestral practice relevant music amongst the Gaelic Celts would be Sean Nós singing and prayers, drone music of various types and harps different from the ones used today, and maybe the scales of Hebridean music.

[@solvalleluna4064]

Me gusta cómo enseñas acerca de la música y la historia de lugares tan lejanos. Disfruto mucho escuchar y ver tu trabajo. Saludos desde Chile 🌾

[@veljarale7264]

In Serbia we have 4 different types of bagpipe.

[@udkline]

Excellent video! It's remarkable how carefully we have to examine claims of musical "ancestry", particularly in cases where cultural nationalism (like in Brittany) might motivate folks to make neat narratives that simply don't match up with actual history.

[@mr.farhadiya]

In fact we (Iranians) have a bagpipe we call it (Ney anban) and iranian people in south of iran use it. the sound of iranian bagpipe is so close to the sound of Greek bagpipe but it's so diffrent !!

[@YousefAlghadouri]

Farya, can you tell us what you actually said in Persian when you saw that mosquito? 😂

[@faryafaraji]

“Come here you son of a b*tch, koskesh.” Koskesh is hard to translate, literally it would mean a c*nt puller but I think it might mean a pimp. But basically it’s used like motherf*cker or something similar 😂

[@faryafaraji]

@@edrachel6251 “How did you find out about Omar Khayyam” “An angry Iranian French Canadian was yelling at a mosquito”

[@oscarosullivan4513]

@@faryafaraji Could you do a feature on the ancient Irish war pipes.

[@oscarosullivan4513]

@@faryafaraji A certain type of Harp is strongly associated with Ireland.

[@RedWhing13]

Love this types of video!

[@AlessandraHudson]

This video looks amazing, do you mind sharing what camera you were using? Thank you so much, and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.

[@ShizaruBloodrayne]

Legends fortell the camera still lost in the Canadian forest...

[@Raphlhs]

I often went in Bretagne for vacation and heard a lot about celtic stuff like music. I was like most of people before, thinking there was only one type of celtic music. It's very interesting video and i loved to learn more about a topic i often heard about ! By the way, what is the song at 4:52 ? I would love to listen to it's full version 😅

[@faryafaraji]

I don’t have the name of the song but I found it in this video :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4bbqpugna2Vi80

[@sionsoschwalts2762]

My life is ruined, my brain broken and me wanting to know more!

[@sal6695]

As a Serb, I will *NEVER* forgive you for stating the obvious!!!

[@mgierdal]

Bagpipes feature strongly in Northern Europe as well, e.g. in Polish traditional folk culture (kzbin.info/www/bejne/hWTQe6Z7ac6gd5Y), of which Polish Highlanders' culture belongs to a larger Carpathian Vlach ethnographic phenomenon (see their reference to Hungary). This perfectly illustrates your point of culture (musical including) not neatly dividing between linguistic/ethnic groups.

[@RandomNorwegianGuy.]

The Bible describes the ancient Assyrians using bagpipes to war

[@rosahassad199]

poetry by Omar El Khayyam, I will be using this quote from now on 🤣🤣

[@disconnected7737]

And just like that, he was gone. The only evidence left behind was his camera Ooo, free camera

[@setarehmariposa9571]

I laughed so hard at the khayyam part lol

[@mekelius]

I can't be arsed to look it up right now, but I heard a musicologist say some archeologists had found bagpipes here in Finland under some church floorboards or something like that. And that it was the first evidence of bagpipes having been played here. I don't know which century they dated it to but I'd imagine 1700-1800 maybe?

[@jasminv8653]

There's a lot of bagpipe music from Estonia that I absolutely love, I'm so glad to hear more about the history of them. It's so miserable that they've vanished from Finland after the medieval times.

[@russellsnyder2634]

That confusion might clear up in pop culture because a few people are understanding that the Scots and the Irish are Gaels who speak Gaelic (two different closely related forms) and have Gaelic music (both adopting a lot of songs from each other.)

[@italimarco]

What amazing culture you have! 👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼

[@acuerdox]

you know, I think I heard that Celt comes from a greek word called keltica that they used to designate an area at the west of the map where there was nothing, so it was a sort of throwaway term to designate some unknown land at the west. The one word I hear come up again and again is Gaul, maybe that's a better name, and the way I tell gauls apart of other people is by their myths, you have the tutatis people and the woden people, not much but it's the best thing I could come up with.

[@Kriegter]

It's hard to define celtic itself as an ethnicity, they were so widespread it would be weird to just call them "Celtic" since even for Gaul there are many separate groups

[@faryafaraji]

Right that’s a really good point; it’s a linguistic subset of Indo-European, and we don’t really apply this to the Romance language speakers, no one really says the “Romance ethnicity” of the Portuguese and the Romanians. So we’re basically creating an arbritary musical category based on an arbritary cultural category that isn’t one, it’s really just a linguistic group

[@yotamkaspi8508]

@@faryafaraji Same with "Semitic". Europeans in the 19th century decided it's an ethnic term that means Jews but really it's just a linguistic family