Semiomusicology - Vincent Michaud-Laine

  The tuning of the ancient Gaelic harp: questioning and prospections Vincent Michaud-Laine, (PhD) – Université de Franche-Comté – Besançon – Laboratoire ELLIADD. (CC BY-SA 01-2025)   The ancient Gaelic harp situation, as an ancient instrument, is a far more delicate one that might appear from the start. We know for sure that its history spans at least from the 12 th century up to the times of Edward Bunting, its main collector, in the early 19 th century, at the end of a long and probably diverse musical life. Yet, because of the very nature of the collecting period and the collector’s system of thoughts, these late documents require a great deal of interpretation in order to become intelligible, let alone in order to project them prospectively towards more ancient times. The tuning regime of Denis Hempson, as given by Bunting in his 1840 edition, is no exception to this. Projecting such a system to earlier times requires a lot of prudence and circumspect precautions....