| Falling in Love Means Gaelic
By Melissa Warner
Singer/author Virginia Blackenhorn of Detroit loves learning foreign
languages. In the early ‘70s as a California native, Blackenhorn fell in
head over heels for Gaelic.
Although her husband is Irish, Blackenhorn is not. "He's not responsible
for the operation," she said laughing. But as a graduate student, Blackenhorn
decided to get a degree in Celtic Studies. The majority of her learning
took place in the United States, but she spent many years living in Ireland
and Scotland.
From 1975-1978, she spent her first significant amount of time abroad.
Blackenhorn then returned to the States, living here from 1981-1988, but
sandwiching three years in Scotland in-between. For two years, Blackenhorn
studied Celtic studies at Dublin's Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS),
a publicly-funded statutory corporation that specializes in Celtic studies,
theoretical physics and cosmic physics.
Blackenhorn also spent one year living in Galway and Carlow. In Galway,
she became attached to the people and culture, using this as an opportunity
to converse with locals. Talking "with anyone that would put up with me,"
she said.
Blackenhorn decided to learn Gaelic because she enjoys studying languages,
a relatively easy task because of what she described as her good ear for
sounds. Gaelic is difficult to learn because it uses many such sounds that
the English language does not, she explained, adding that the language
was s not fun to learn but that the process was rewarding.
The easiest way for her to learn Gaelic was through song repetition.
Before graduate school, Blackenhorn earned a degree in music. "I was interested
in learning the songs and the funny sounds made it irresistible," she said.
Sean nos means "old style." Yet, in her opinion, her songs are
not sean nos because there is no old style or new style, saying there is
only one style. Therefore, she prefers to call her music merely "traditional
Irish songs."
The first time she appeared live singing was in 1973, after taking classes
in school that introduced her to legendary artists such as Joe Heaney.
She found the songs easy to learn because many of the tunes are the same,
the scores recycled with different lyrics.
When Blackenhorn was learning, she picked up on the sounds of the words
and sang along, although she had no idea what she was singing. Blackenhorn
recalled that she learned by repeatedly listening and then looked at the
words over and over. To have the songs come out well, just imitate the
tune and pronunciation, she suggested.
One of the first artists she imitated did not have a good singing voice.
This made her studies a challenge because the man spoke a different dialect
of Irish than what she was learning. However, after she listened to enough
of his music, Blackenhorn became comfortable enough to mimic him. She put
her own stamp on the music by simultaneously changing the tune enough to
fit her style.
"It's okay to go off tradition," she said.
It is also easy to learn a tune from someone with a poor singing voice.
Blankenhorn just takes the text and sings along.
Blackenhorn does not often perform traditional Irish songs, usually
once or twice a year at events such as a recent sean nos weekend
in Milwaukee. It is difficult to find perform venues, she said, because
listeners do not necessarily like this style of music. "It’s not like artists
in a bar performing with a band," she pointed out, indicating that her
style is done solo, originally sung in a quiet place such as a kitchen.
The Irish believe there are singers and musicians. The two are totally
different activities, according to Blankenhorn. In true Irish tradition,
singers do not use accompaniment.
Many people are interested in sean nos, especially if their families
have passed the tunes down through the generations. Children learn such
songs in school but Blankenhorn did not consider this rote as truly traditional.
Traditional Irish songs are too flexible to be sung as choral pieces, she
asserted, adding that to be traditional they should be passed along from
generation to generation.
Since teachers do not always speak good, fluent Irish, this creates
another problem with pupils learning the music. Often, when such activities
are too closely related to a school situation, youngsters often look negatively
upon them, Blackenhorn said.
In 1978, Blackenhorn released a compilation of her songs, entitled Tiocfaidh
an Samhradh. She also took third place in the All-Ireland competition
for women's singing in 2001. In 2003, she published a book based on her
doctoral work titled, Irish Song-Craft and Metrical Practice Since 1600.
 
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