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- Sean Nos = Old Style
- Oldest surviving branch of Irish Traditional Music
- No two performances the same
- Rhythm derived from words – speed varies
- Monophonic and unaccompanied
- Words more important than music
- Songs usually as Gaeilge
- Ornamentation essential
- Glissando – slides from one note to the next
- Glottal stops – stopping the air in the vocal chords
- Nasal vocal tone
- Melisma – more than one note per syllable (adjacent notes added)
- Intervalic variation – filling in intervals (gaps) with notes, eg G-C >>> G-A-B-C
- Styles vary throughout regions
Types
- Donegal – regular rhythm, limited variation
- Connemara – florid variation, narrow range
- Munster – Most like classical singing, wide range, lots of vibrato
- Examples of songs – Anach Cuain, Fill Fill A Run
- Examples of Singers – Iarla O Lionard (Munster), Maire Ni Mhaonaigh (Ulster), Joe Heaney (Connemara)
