BECCON plays instrumental music in the Celtic and American traditions. We like both traditional and original tunes that have emotional appeal and memorable melodies. The music in our sets span a variety of tempos and instruments, including fiddle, guitars, four-string banjo, whistles, mandolin, keyboard, drum and electric bass.

What kind of Celtic music does BECCON play?
We call our Celtic style "Neo-Celtic." Our music has a greater emphasis on strong melody lines and harmonies than is often found in more traditional Celtic playing, although we play some tunes in a more traditional style. We play both Irish and Scottish tunes, but usually play in a more Scottish style. This means, among other things, that our medleys often have a variety of tempos, time signatures and key signatures. So a medley (or set) of tunes may start out slow, say in 4/4 time, and end up in a fast jig (6/8 time).

What kind of American traditional music does BECCON play?
We play a variety of traditional American tunes. These include beautiful Shaker tunes, lilting civil war-style tunes and some foot-tapping, down home instrumentals. Many of our tunes come from the rich traditions of the Appalachian Mountain region. Our sound files page includes a beautiful Shaker tune called "The Burning Day."

What about original tunes?
We have two band members who write music, sometimes creating entire tune medleys, and sometimes tucking their music into tune medleys with traditional tunes. You can hear one example in our "January Waltz" sound file. This song was written by band member Karen Bjorklund.

To listen to some of our tunes, visit our Recordings page.