Here is some background info on my piece, titled "What If", submitted for the 2012 Represent a Country competition:

I took two approaches to representing Ireland with a song - through stylistic interpretations and through content. The style can simply be summed up as folk music. When broken down further, you see three styles of folk music woven together.

The first is The Ballad, slow and mournful it has sparse voicings to let the message be featured. This style gives way to The Jig, in triple meter, it has almost identical chord structure to the ballad to make the transition flow smoothly, but the faster tempo and lilting style of the jig betrays the message of the piece. Finally, the jig transitions almost abruptly to aDrinking Song, in 12/8 it is a combination of the first two styles in a way, and an antithesis at the same time, almost answering, or at least, reassuring the ballad singer. These three styles are among the most popular within the Irish folk genre, as well as in Ireland in general and I found it much more fitting to pay homage to these styles than to make a DnB or orchestral piece and try to convey their cultural heritage through that medium.

The content itself is pretty straightforward, and is a nod to Ireland's history. Tragic, to be blunt, Ireland's past seems to be a string of conquests at others' hands and failed attempts to reverse these conquests.

Beginning with The Ballad, I tell the story of the Nine Years War which was the first 'modern' conquest of Ireland by the Anglicans (Britons) as well as a battle fought almost 100 years later by the same name, where King William (Protestant, backed by a European alliance) deposed King James II (Catholic, backed by France). He not only established further rule by England in Ireland, but began oppression of the Catholic majority. That's just the first verse. In verse two, the ballad goes on to document the Irish Rebellion of 1798 which was crushed when the British learned of the plan and captured and killed many suspected leaders. Once again, free Irish would not submit to English rule and would stage an uprising, this time during Easter week, 1916. And once again, the uprising would go horribly wrong, this time only lasting a week. The ballad laments these losses and wonders: had any of these battles gone the other way, and Ireland were a sovereign nation, could the pain and bloodshed since have been avoided?

The Jig departs from this in two ways: first it has no words to tell a story and second, it is a dance, so the mood is decidedly more upbeat. I used a descant recorder (in its upper register to emulate a tin whistle) as well as Uliann pipes to give the characteristic sounds commonly associated with Celtic music.

Finally, the Drinking Song wraps up the trio with an answer to the ballad's question: "what if?" Basically, the disposition of a drinking song is to be joyful and raucous since it's sung while, well, drinking! The somber idea that so much turmoil could have been avoided at any point in Ireland's troubled past is shirked with the realization that had anything gone differently, Ireland wouldn't be what it is and neither would Her people. The character and personality developed (by basically going through a thousand years of hell since the Vikings) is what distinguishes the Irish and is valuable to them. And in the end, the drinking song itself would not exist, nor would the group of people to sing it, nor the place or occasion to sing it - if things had gone differently. So, in an act of self-preservation, the song is reminding its singers that they should be thankful that they are singing it. I used lots of reverb to create a 'live' feel of a group of drunk, off-key men singing this at their favorite pub.

All of this comes together to create a thorough, yet succinct, snapshot of Irish culture, right around St. Patrick's Day, too.

Erin Go Bragh!