Sean-Nos singing is a highly ornamented style of solo, unaccompanied singing in Gaelic, confined mainly to a few areas in the west and south of the country. The Connemara style is a more decorated style, with forms familiar to a traditional instrumentalist along with other more complex forms. It is unaccompanied and has a highly ornamented melodic form. Sean-Nos songs can be relatively simple, though many are long, extremely stylised and melodically complex. A good performance is highly individual and judged on its having substantial ornament and rhythmic variations from verse to verse. The performance of most songs are not restricted by gender. The lyrics can be changed to show whether it is a man or a woman singing or to represent their point of view. The interaction between the performer and audience is a crucial aspect of the sean-Nos singing tradition and some aspects of this interaction are almost ritualistic: 1) The singer may require encouragement to begin singing and is often part of the over all performance. 2) Some singers face a corner of the room away from the audience thought to be for acoustic benefits. 3) Audience participation is expected by words of encouragement and commentary or physical interaction with the singer. Such interaction does not disturb the flow of music, and the performer will often respond to it musically. The tradition of sean-Nos song was exclusively oral, and remains customarily so. However a few songs were known to have been conveyed to script as early as the 16th century. A songbook for Elizabeth the First?contained English interpretations of sean-Nos songs. Songs started to be more extensively written down in the eighteenth century and distributed in print from then on. New composition is a controversial issue within sean-Nos song circles. Some singers insist that the traditional should be supplemented with new material, arguing that since society has changed, then the content of the lyrics should reflect this. On the other hand, some singers say that only the older, traditional songs represent the essence of sean-Nos song and therefore deserve a protected, preferential status.
