I used to think that modal composition was primarily found in "celtic" music. However since I started exploring other traditional genres of music, I'm finding modes to be very common in everything except Western European Art music.. American country music spends alot of time in the "Major" pentatonic and dorian modes.
Doesn't American country music have Irish and Scottish roots via immigration to the Appalachian region?
That's supposed to be the connection, though it's not as pronounced in country music because it's absorbed so many other influences..
Note that when I refer to "country music", I'm not talking about the crap that Nashville now passes off as the stuff. That stuff is rubbish, just like top 40 music of every other genre nowadays.. Sad..
Last week or so I saw a country line-dance troupe outside of an Asda supermarket in Aberdeen. I suppose it's better than another McDonald's. ;-)
Ugh.. That's too bad.. Line dancing is an atrocity, although it's somehow managed to become popular abroad.. Why is it that the very worst elements of American culture seem to get exported abroad?
This is not to say that I am not biased on the subject :-) Couldn't they at least have been clogging? At least that's a style of dance that has an interesting tradition and history behind it. My cousin in Charlotte clogs like noboby's business.. You should see her go! She's tall and thin like Kate. :-)
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