The Music
There are principally two types of music at these festivals: music sung a cappella (kan ha diskan, ...), accompanied with music or purely instrumental. Before the invention of microphones and amplified instruments, the instruments that were most often used were the bombarde (a sort of oboe or shawm) and the Breton bagpipes (biniou kozh), due to their high volume. Also popular was the diatonic accordion, the clarinet, and occasionally the violin and the hurdy-gurdy. After the Second World War, the Scottish bagpipes (biniou bras) became also common in Brittany thanks to bagadoù (pipe bands) and thus often replaced the biniou-kozh. The basic clarinet (treujenn-gaol - "cabbage core" in Breton) had all but disappeared but has regained popularity over the past few years.
Other than the traditional instruments, there are nowadays groups with many different styles of music ranging from rock, jazz, to punk and also mixes with styles from other countries. String instruments (the violin, the double-bass, the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar, the bass guitar) and North-African percussion instruments have long since been adopted. To varying degrees, some Fest-Noz groups also use electronic keyboards and synthesisers (Strobinell, Sonerien Du, Les Baragouineurs, Plantec...). Brass instruments are becoming more and more commonplace, often bringing with them sounds approaching those of oriental music.
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