their music is made complete and consonant
by a melodious velocity, by a dissimilar parity
and by a discordant concordance
do-ghnidhthear a n-oirfide iomlán oireamhnach
le luas taighiúir, le comhthrom eugcosmhail
agus le coimhtheacht ainfhreagarthach ré chéile
Ainfhreagrach
The word 'ainfhreagrach', an equivalent of 'dofhreagrach' (unresponsive), appears in Foras
Feasa ar Éirinn (foundation of knowledge about Ireland) written around 1632 by Seathrún
Céitinn (Geoffrey Keating), a priest from north Co. Tipperary. In part V of the introduction to this
popular document, a section of Gerald de Barri about the music of Irish harpers is translated
from the Latin into Irish as follows.
The rather unwieldy phrase 'le coimhtheacht ainfhreagarthach ré chéile' here stands in place for
the Latin phrase 'tam discordi concordia' (such a discordant concord). Sgáthán an Chrábhaidh
was written only sixteen years before Foras Feasa ar Éirinn and also uses the words 'taighiúir'
(lit. tearful), and 'coimhtheacht ré chéile' (lit. convening together) to translate musical phrases
from Romance language.
Of the notional leading strings, only the sisters and téad na feola carry a name which might
signify the intervallic relationships used for tuning up described by Byrne and Bunting. Other
leading string names either indicate similar neighbouring relationships to other strings (an
dara/treas téad os cionn na gcomhlaí) or they indicate retuning (téad an leithghléis). The name
crónán seems to carry pitch or harmonic implications.