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Blood, Thunder, and Drums: Style and Changing Aesthetics of Drumming in Northern Ireland Protestant Bands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Ray Casserly
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Extract

Northern Ireland experiences a large and often politically sensitive parading tradition annually between March and September. Music takes a prominent position in these parades, with flutes, accordions, bagpipes, snare drums, and bass drums being the most popular instruments on display. Percussion instruments are often the only instruments that are found in the vast majority of parading bands throughout Northern Ireland (figure 1). A particular drumming style, known locally as blood and thunder, has evolved as a result of working-class bands attempting both to imitate military styles and to adapt them to changing working-class tastes. Through a combination of ethnographic material and technical analysis, this paper enables an in-depth understanding of the way a unique tradition has developed as a result of working-class attempts to mimic the musical practices of the dominant military power without access to the tuition techniques and facilities on which that dominant style depended.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 45 , 2013 , pp. 142 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the International Council for Traditional Music

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References

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