There is a wide variety in the Breton music. The one that is probably the most known is the 'music to dance' that you will hear in the Festou Noz. The bretons bands play on stage the one after the other trying to keep all the dancers moist (not to say sweating...). The main formation would be, one or 2 bombards, a biniou gozh, and maybe a guitar and a drum to complete the band.

The dancing varies from one tune to the next and from one region to another. There is always good mix of generations (we even sometimes have some problems to keep up with the grannies/Mammou-Gozh).

Here is a link to find the latest Festou-Noz happening in Brittany and if you are not able to make it to Brittany soon, you can follow each year the On-line festnoz proposed by an tour tan. People from all around connect to the site and give in for a few steps of dancing.

Sometimes in some of the Festou-Noz you will only hear 2 or 3 people singing. It sounds like there are anwering each other, this type of singing is called Kan-ha-Diskan and has the reputation never to fail an audience for giving the urge to dance all night.

Other type of music would be more listening music, such as Gwerz and Harp playing. The gwerz is a lamentation, one of most known Gwerz singer is Denez Prigent and it brings back to life some burried feelings.

The harp was brought back to life by Stivell (Alan), the melancoly of it has been used by a few of the young generation.

We also have what we call Bagadou, there are a formation of 10-50 (sometimes more) musicians, with bombards, biniou, drums. In a way it's similar to the notion of pipe bands that you would find in Ireland and Scottland. One of the most well known is the lann-bihoue bagad. Every year we have competitions for the best formation.

Another type of music, is by couple, a small biniou and a bombard.

We should also mention sailors songs that you can hear sometimes in the ports and giving the tales of ocean crossings, piratery and all sorts of hardship.

More so in the previous generations we had the everyday singing, used to count history, relate heroic endeavour. Some of the best songs were recorded in the Barzaz Breizh and some of the songs are supposed to be more than 1000 years old. A few organisations(Kendalc'h, Dastuum) are keeping the records up to date collecting ten of thousands songs from all over Brittany.

Finally (probably forgetting to mention 10000 of other types of music), we would have the 'drinking/can't really translate' songs. You will hear them at the end of weddings and at any occasion when the level of consumption of alcohol is enough to bypass our unnecessary inhibitions.

To get some taste of the breton music, a little session at the interceltic festival is highly recommended.