Cerdd Dant Ache
Monday, May 28, 2007

It's that time of year again. S4C shelves the farming programmes for a week and dedicates its entire airtime to that festival of over-exaggerated facial expressions otherwise known as the Urdd Eisteddfod.

Tune in on Monday for seven year-olds straining their cheekbones to convey some hackneyed emotion or other through speech or song.

Tune in on Saturday and all that's changed is the trouser measurements.

But worst of all must be the bloody Cerdd Dant. We Welsh are enormously proud of this unique art form. Unique, that is, because the rest of the world wouldn't go near the idea (except for this website in Japan, which as far as I can make out seems unusually keen on it).

Cerdd Dant is a performance for harp and voice (or voices - equally bad). And this is how it works: The harp plays a 'cainc' - a traditional melody. The voice sings a counter-melody. Literally. This is about as contrary to the notion of melody as you will ever hear.

It is completely musically backwards and about as tuneful as a Lembit Opik and Gabrielle Irminia mouth organ session.

Worse still, the Urdd is somehow of the opinion that eight year-olds are capable of singing it. Well, they aren't.

I've watched that 'gwyl' on TV and I can tell you that those cute little kids can barely hold a normal melody, let alone an upside down and back to front melody with harp non-accompaniment.

Back in the studio they heap on the praise, deliberately ignoring shots of audience members tearing their hair out and stuffing it desperately into their ears. Bloody hell, they've just starting clog dancing. Time to sign out...

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posted by Blamerbell @ 3:40 pm, ,