Apart from enjoying myself hugely when reading what all of you have to say on one thing or the other (and occasionally adding my own bit to it as well) and actually learning something new nearly every day, I also find myself profiting a lot from whenever somebody is looking for a tune. Particularly when I know or think the title might be somewhere in my collection (twenty years of buying books make for a pretty large collection, though not exclusively Irish!). That is because it makes me take a look at books which I haven´t touched in years and discover lots of tunes and informations that I had missed or ignored the first time around (tunes that had been to difficult then, f.e.) or forgot again over the years.
Now I´ve stumbled over three tunes being called "fast slides" in a collection (one is called "Dinny O´Keefe´s", the others are "The Worn Torn Petticoat" and "The Turnip Jig", in case someone is interested I will post them) and listed right beside others described as single jigs AND slides which has led me to the (wrong?) conclusion that there must be differences between those types, at least to a dancer.
I am roughly familiar with the differences between slides and double jigs from the playing side of it (being one of those musicians which - whenever the choice between dancing or playing comes up - are perfectly happy to play and watch others enjoy and exhaust themselves on the dance floor…), and I also know that there is a lot of fluctuation (or should I say confusion?), with some 6/8 time tunes being called slides in one collection and single jigs in the other (sometimes written in 12/8, sometimes not!) and then again all lumped together as jigs in yet another book. But the fast slides are definitely a new one to me, I thought slides being supposed to be played faster than jigs anyway. And I have heard slides being played so fast I thought they were hornpipes until I saw them in notation!
And another question in the same vein: What´s the difference between a reel and a fling?
Any information on that will be welcome, thanks a lot in advance,
D'you mean, the difference to a dancer, or the difference to a player?
Single jigs (to a dancer) are played faster. (In fact, at competition speeds, almost exactly twice as fast as the slip jig.) It's not uncommon for a teacher to teach the children (and sometimes adults!) the single jig while lilting Pop Goes the Weasel. (It's something of a joke around our school that the single jig is the "pop goes the weaselly one".) It isn't danced by the champions; it's considered to be much more traditional in nature and therefore much simpler than the reel or slip jig. Many adjudicators like to see it danced closer to the ground and to see the steps include the "traditional" seven (different from the reel and light jig sevens -- leap two-three to-the-side in-front). According to Helen Brennan, they are called the single jig because the characteristic "batter" of the dance is single, whereas the batter of the double jig is the double beat, or "shuffle". They're notated in 6/8, usually, and characteristically have that quarter note-eighth note feel to them (as opposed to the three eighth note groupings). We will often count for the students in three for double jigs, and in four for single jigs. Now, a set dancer would probably have more to say about fast slides, as many sets are danced in part to slides.
Dancers are not known for their knowledge of the music. You'll often see inexperienced step dancers trying to dance jigs to reels and vice versa. They sometimes have a peculiar look on their face while doing it; they know something is wrong, but can't figure out what. To a dancer, the difference between a double jig and a light jig is that the former is slower and the latter is faster, the former is danced in hard shoe and the latter is done in light shoes (ghillies). It hasn't much to do with time signature, for a dancer.
I was told when I was first starting up that it's important to remember that, as the music is an aural tradition, things like time signatures in Irish music are an attempt to make a music form conform to a written system it wasn't meant to make. Shannon Heaton once demonstrated to me that you could play most jigs as a slide or a double jig by doing a few bars of Out on the Ocean as both. (Which is similar to hearing someone play Collier's as a reel and then as a jig.)
Is that what you're looking for? I can't comment about the fling, not being a highlands dancer. (Although to an Irish dancer, all Scottish dance music is dreadfully slow.)
From the dancers´ side of it everything is new and welcome information to me. I have been playing folk dance music (the international variety, Israel, Eastern european, German, Swedish, Breton etc.) for dancers on and off all through these twenty years past and I´ve noticed that many of them don´t know much about the music, and are usually fond of the silliest of tunes (f.e. "Old MacDonald had a farm...").
The funniest thing about that is that it´s mostly these people that tell me I have to be able to dance to play it correctly (while they´re barely able to tell the difference between a waltz and a polka)... I simply don´t mind anymore and ignore this opinion most of the time, though it probably has SOME merit. It might even make the job easier, who knows...
The question has of course been posted with the idea, that an answer should possibly help me - and others - to play those rhythms better, to find out what a dancer needs for a particular type of dance. So, if another musician has something to say about how he or she approaches the differences between a jig (double, light, single, slip or whatever) and a slide (fast or not!) I´d very much love to hear about that, too.
Basically I´d like to avoid situations where I find a certain tune does not really work because it has to be played much too fast or too slow for the required dance tempo. It doesn´t do the tune any good (not to mention the musician!) and I can´t imagine the dancers enjoy music that´s badly played. It can´t be much fun when it´s unrhythmic, jerky, rushed, whatever. Yet I have had that happen all the time. Particularly when musicians play from written music and don´t have anything else in their repertoires. We have a lot of them over here. And all the really good session players I know, which could easily cope with it by pulling a tune out of their sleeves that would fit the tempo better, usually avoid playing for dances, and I don´t blame them. It´s not a session!
Though actually it´s an experience that I can only recommend. It taught me how to learn melodies that don´t have lyrics to them, having to play one tune for any length of time between five and twenty minutes. I even started playing variations and improvising on tunes just to escape the boredom of it. At the time I was thinking I was developing something entirely new, until somebody told me that it used to be totally trad. - before somebody invented medleys...
To everybody else: please feel free to add here what comes to your mind. If it´s something I already know I will pat my back telling myself "Hey, you were right there!" and when it´s new, I´ll learn something. That´s what it´s about!
Jörg, as far as my understanding goes (and that is not very far), a "fling" is pretty much the same animal as the "highlands" that are very popular in Donegal. I'm not sure whether "highland" is short for "highland fling" or "highland schottische", but anyway the dance is a couple dance that was very popular for house dances apparently because, since it involved a lot of turning in tight circles, it didn't require vast amounts of space.
Many of the tunes played as highlands in Donegal are derived from Scottish tunes, strathspeys in particular, and they share some of the characteristics of the strathspey, such as runs of cascading triplets. The "Scotch snap" is less common but can be heard occasionally. In general the strathspeys that made it into highlands have, as one Donegal musician put it to me, "the kinks ironed out of them".
The main differences between a reel and a highland are that the highland is played single (the parts are not repeated) and the tempo is considerably slower, with a pronounced swing.
The name "fling" seems to be used more in more southern counties - I've never heard it used about Donegal music.
This is about as much as I know - I've never danced a highland or even seen one danced at close quarters. But the dance is still done in parts of Donegal.
I always thought Flings were played more like a cross between a hornpipe & a strathspey. Played with a heavy lilt & a little "scottish snap" to it. A big exception is the "The Pigtown Fling" which is normally played at reelish tempos.
Actually, Jorg, the dancers are correct in a way -- in order to play a tune for dancers correctly, it really does help a lot to be able to dance a step or two of it. A slip jig, for instance, becomes much easier to feel if you know the kind of steps a dancer does to them -- they're very different in feel to the reel, and not just in time signature.
But of course, it isn't necessary, in the same way it isn't necessary for a dancer to know anything about a time signature in order to dance to it. It's one of those fine details things.
I may be adding to the confusion here, rather than clearing things up, but my first thought when I saw the subject line was 'Are there slow Slides?' I've seen well known musicians fall apart when asked by step dancer to play tunes by the name dancers use for them, treble jig for example, i have even less faith that those who can write music are familier enough with Irish competitive dance requirements or social dance for that matter, that they are going to transcribe it and select the correct time signature, IOW don't believe what you see in print as Gospel. let me respond to a few points specificly:
----I am roughly familiar with the differences between slides and double jigs from the playing side of it ----
Slides are a group dance form. it is my understanding that they, like polkas, find their home mainly in Kerry. Having played a lot of dances at a ceili here in San Francisco that do a lot of Kerry Dancing, I can tell you that in my experience there is only one speed for Polkas and slides...faster as the joke goes. The tunes are usualy pretty easy to play very fast.
Double jigs, or just 'jigs' are usually much more complicated tunes than the single jig and slide. Slides, polkas and hornpipes will usually end the part with a decided 'thump...thump' a musical mark for the dancers, telling them they should be back home in their place on the set. Jigs and reels do not, usually.
Single jigs are too, but they are a solo dance, and like Zina said, have a rhythm that fits "Pop goes the Weasel" or my favortie "Humpty Dumpty." An excellent example of single jig that I use for beginning dancers is "Off She Goes" Tempo would be about what you would find comfortable for singing these childrens tunes to a child. If you want specifics, i do have the sanctioned tempos as provided by the school i play for.
----I also know that there is a lot of fluctuation (or should I say confusion?), with some 6/8 time tunes being called slides in one collection and single jigs in the other (sometimes written in 12/8, sometimes not!) and then again all lumped together as jigs in yet another book. ----
Merrily Kiss the Quaker shows up in various tune books as a jig, a slide, a single jig and a March! publishers are not reliable source for tune types.
---But the fast slides are definitely a new one to me, I thought slides being supposed to be played faster than jigs anyway. And I have heard slides being played so fast I thought they were hornpipes until I saw them in notation!----
In my experience hornpipes are not played fast, except as demonstrations of either the dancers skills or the musician's, or in some ceili dances. But even in the ceilis, they are often thought of as a cooling off dance according to one Clare dancer I know. Hornpipes have a lovely lilt to them, even the dead common one like Boys of Blue Hill and Harvest Home, Rights of Man, that is difficult to accomplish at tempo. in fact, one gauge I use for how skilled a musician is is to listen to his hornpipe, if he plays it fast and flat, rather reel like, then I don't pay much attention to what he does.
For competitive solo dancers I am asked to play two tempos for HP, about 60-65 and normal tempo, around 100-112. You want to build skill playing hornpipes...try the slow tempo.
(Hi Mike! How's stuff? Are you going to Oireachtas to watch?)
It's important to know that the better the dancer, the slower the hornpipe. Champions dance to a slow hornpipe (as Mike says, 60-70), but their feet are tapping out a much more intricate beat than a beginning dancer (the 100-112 speed). In otherwords, they dance faster to slow hornpipes and slower to fast hornpipes! This is true pretty much across the board -- if you've a recording of Riverdance, you'll note that Reel Around the Sun is much slower than most people play reels at a session, because the dancers are in hardshoe for that number.
There's very little "supposed" to when it comes to this music, mind. In sessions, you'll hear jigs being played much faster than any dancer could possibly keep up with.
There are actually jigs that are treble jigs to musicians (they're the ones with the bulk of the notes in even eight notes, making them groups of three, or trebles) and double jigs (which I was told once are like slides and single jigs because the notes are in groups of two, a dotted quarter and an eighth, but I have my doubts about that definition), which have different meanings than a treble jig to a dancer (the shuffle beat that a dancer taps out with the foot is called a treble, so a dancer asking for a treble jig is asking for what is also known as a hard jig, -- which is different from an easy or difficult jig!). As I mentioned above, the dancers also know them as double jigs, for the shuffle, or doubled, beat. Music for hard jigs is slower, as the dancer needs more time to get the beats of the step in. Light jigs, on the other hand, are simply jigs played for light shoes, or ghillies, and they're played faster simply because the dancer doesn't need so much time when in ghillies.
Helen Brennan mentions the old moneen jigs in her history of Irish dance as some of the oldest known stepdances, and says that they were what is now single jigs.
Zina Wrote:
There are actually jigs that are treble jigs to musicians (there the ones with the bulk of the notes in even eighth notes, making them groups of three, or trebles)and doubles (Which I was told once are like slides and single jigs because the notes are in twos, a doted quarter and an eight)(I couldn't cut and paste for some reason, so forgive me if I transcribed something wrong, Mike)
My reply
I note you doubted the explanation...
I've never heard such a distinction made, calling a double jig 'treble' it sounds like something someone who didn't know better made up on the fly The dotted quarter, eighth ryhthm is a mark of a slide or single jig, but a treble is *any (usually double)jig* that can be played at the neanderthol tempo you dancer want to be able to batter out your "triple" taps to each note we play, more or less.
To be sure there are double jigs that I can't play that slow, Lark in the Morning to name one, and make it sound musical, and there are tunes like Kitty's Rambles and Tobins Favorite than seem to be able to go either way and still sound good, and tunes like the 5 Mile Chase, that to my ear, sound very bad played at a faster tempos, even when the likes of Joe Burke plays them.
Someone previously had made mention that sometimes experienced dancers, no reflection on you Zina, can't tell the difference between tune types. I just recalled an incident at a folk festival session. Some dancers I knew from the regular ceili were trying to organize themselves into sets and dance. We were deep into playing our jigs, one right after another at a proper tempo. All I could see of the dancers was heads bobbing briefly, then confusion, then regroup and start over. I had no idea what was going on. Later another dancer friend of mine asked if I had noticed those dancer getting themselves all confused, trying to dance a reel set to our jigs :-0
No, I´m definitely not sorry, Zina! Though it´s like opening a can of frogs...
I will be waiting for another two or three days and see what else will be added to this deluge of information and then I´ll try and come up with a conclusion, sort of...
No, no, Mike -- in case anyone is wondering, Mike and I know each other, so we can assume a certain jocularity and goodwill on each other's part that we probably wouldn't assume with someone we didn't know -- I think we're getting confused because dancers call double jigs one thing and musicians will sometimes call a double jig something else, so sometimes I'm using dance terms and sometimes musician's terms. I've had musicians tell me (without knowing that I play myself as well as dance) that wonky treble jig description and double jig description. It's not that I'm doubting your description, it's just that I'm well aware that there are differing definitions out there even among the musicians themselves and the dancers themselves, and of course there's the well-known different definitions of the dancers and the musicians. I probably should have said, "to SOME musicians" instead of making it sound like everyone.
There's simply no way to be dogmatic about time signatures and tunes, because there's no way to control every Irish trad musician's transcriptions. That treble jig definition as groups of three eighth notes was given to me by another musician and I as well as you doubt that definition, but it does mean that that belief is out there, ready to screw up any musician and dancer team.
I think the best way to get over the whole thing is to have the dancer(s) give you first the tempo that they want, and then sing or play a tune for them to see if it works. Of course, since many dancers wouldn't know a jig from a reel until they tried dancing to it (and even then sometimes they don't get it -- Mike, it was ME who mentioned dancers who don't know the difference between the tune types), that's not foolproof.
I've watched many an inexperienced (and sometimes experienced!) dancer try to dance a jig to a reel. One of the things I try to teach my students is the difference, but you can't do that until they know both dances.
Zina, all my knowledge of dancing to this music comes from watching the "Riverdance" and "Lord of the Dance" videos, apart from seeing the occasional solo dancer doing his thing on a festival stage, but that´s years ago and I knew even less about it then. (And your remark reminds me of my plan to learn a couple of the best tunes on the records...)
What puzzles me, especially after reading about hornpipes being played in varying tempos -- slower for good dancers, faster for beginners -- is your remark about Scottish dance music being considered dreadfully slow by Irish dancers. At first I assumed it to be an Irish dancer´s friendly joke about a competing neighbour, but there might be -- as usually is the case -- some truth behind it. Could you please specify on that?
Actually I started all this because I was asked to provide live music for a local dance group doing Irish step dancing. And thinking about the requirements of the job suddenly made me aware of expressions like "fast slides" and the like. I simply suspected (I was right!) that I didn´t know enough about it yet just to jump into the situation totally unprepared.
So what all of you have been doing so far is helping me a lot with my homework. It will at least enable me to ask not too stupid questions when a dancer tries to tell me something. Like the fact that dancers and musicians don´t talk about the same thing although they use the same words, that will prove extremely helpful...
Please, go on adding what you think might be useful to know about it. Anything is appreciated here at the moment.
The impression I´m getting from watching the videos is that the rhythm stepped out by the dancers (when they do hardshoe) very closely resembles what is played on a bodhrán or the bones. Am I right?
If that´s the case it should be possible for a dancer to step through a sequence -- say four or eight bars long -- to enable the musician to sing or hum something to the beat that would fit the dance nicely. When they dance in ghillies it will of course be harder because you have to detect a rhythm in the motions.
(That just gave me the idea that it might be a good thing to teach dancers to `play´ the bodhrán just to give them some help on how to distinguish at least between reels and jigs... Don´t send me duel challenges now, I know there is not exactly a shortage of bad bodhrán players around. In the best of worlds it might even work out, but ... Don´t be afraid, I won´t go public with this idea!)
Jorg, it would be wonderful and would make the palying for dancers so much easier if they "closely resembled what was played on the bodhran" assuming a good bodhran player, but that is a whole 'nother thread.
The problem I've encountered with 3 different teachers and groups of students is far from that. The problem is the dance is not really focused on the music any longer, it is focused on the off beat bass 'oompah' wether it is being done on piano, bass violin or left hand of a accordion. I can count the times the dance has matched the music, even when listening and watching them dance to their favorite CD's, on one hand. One hard shoe reel and a couple of hornpipes. Otherwise they do the steps they do to win competitions, not to enhance the musical experience. even the dance who are musician, and you can often tell in their steps, don't dance to a tune, except set dances.
The reel, btw, was Flogging Reel, which has a kind of machine gun note effect when I play it on my concertina, matching the rapid fire tap, tap tap, they were doing on the floor. The hornpipe was Boys of Blue Hill. I walked in on a pre-show warm up, the kids were tapping away. i *recognized* the tune, Boys of Blue Hill. It was a moment of awakening for me to see a bit of history from when the dance and the music was one. I asked the teacher about it and there was no understandable explanation for why reels and jigs of various description can't all be that way. But, on thinking it over, the dance would have to be composed specific for a tune. Bucks of Oranmore does not sound like Crowleys Reel, if all you are doing is tapping it out.
I jumped in with both feet, and I lasted nearly four years before I dropped out. Inspite of my frustrations with the music and dance not really tying together "like a bodhran", playing for the dancers was one of the best things I ever did for my music skills. If you can play a steady reel or jig at 112+ and can keep a slow steady beat of about 69 for some jigs and hornpipes and set dances, then they will love you for it, once they figure out what to do without the oompah back beat, unless you can do that too
Thanks, Mike. I´ll try and see. As far as the oompah back beat goes I hope some of the session mates will join me in the adventure... And I may be lucky because from what the teacher told me competitions aren´t an issue in this group. Not many of them have been at it long enough to have gathered enough confidence to enter one. It´s more a hobby horse for them...
Jorg, yes, it isn't a friendly joke (I mean, yes it's friendly, but it's not a joke) about the difference between tempos for Irish dancers and Scottish dancers. Scottish country dancing is played much slower than music for Irish ceili dances. It's almost impossible to dance a ceili dance to a Scottish country dance temp. I assume it would be just as hard to dance a Scottish country dance to a ceili band tempo.
As to dances being danced to a certain piece of music, it depends. A reel or jig is not danced to a certain piece of music like the sets are. They are danced to whatever piece of music the musician is playing. The only dances that will sound exactly like they belong to a tune are the ones that were either choreographed to that tune or the ones that are pretty simple and therefore would go with just about any tune. A really talented choreographer TCRG can ensure the step goes with the exact tune regardless of the tricks and bits going into the step, but as Mike says, most TCRGs really only care about having champions, not art.
And that back beat -- well, that's mainly because, sadly, most dancers aren't trained by their teachers to listen to the music -- the only thing that anchors the dance to the music at that point is the beat, so they need it. Even after years of dancing and teaching at this point, I'm always still amazed by the dancers who haven't even figured out that the tunes usually go in repeats of eight. *sigh*
Fast slides?
Fast slides?
Apart from enjoying myself hugely when reading what all of you have to say on one thing or the other (and occasionally adding my own bit to it as well) and actually learning something new nearly every day, I also find myself profiting a lot from whenever somebody is looking for a tune. Particularly when I know or think the title might be somewhere in my collection (twenty years of buying books make for a pretty large collection, though not exclusively Irish!). That is because it makes me take a look at books which I haven´t touched in years and discover lots of tunes and informations that I had missed or ignored the first time around (tunes that had been to difficult then, f.e.) or forgot again over the years.
Now I´ve stumbled over three tunes being called "fast slides" in a collection (one is called "Dinny O´Keefe´s", the others are "The Worn Torn Petticoat" and "The Turnip Jig", in case someone is interested I will post them) and listed right beside others described as single jigs AND slides which has led me to the (wrong?) conclusion that there must be differences between those types, at least to a dancer.
I am roughly familiar with the differences between slides and double jigs from the playing side of it (being one of those musicians which - whenever the choice between dancing or playing comes up - are perfectly happy to play and watch others enjoy and exhaust themselves on the dance floor…), and I also know that there is a lot of fluctuation (or should I say confusion?), with some 6/8 time tunes being called slides in one collection and single jigs in the other (sometimes written in 12/8, sometimes not!) and then again all lumped together as jigs in yet another book. But the fast slides are definitely a new one to me, I thought slides being supposed to be played faster than jigs anyway. And I have heard slides being played so fast I thought they were hornpipes until I saw them in notation!
And another question in the same vein: What´s the difference between a reel and a fling?
Any information on that will be welcome, thanks a lot in advance,
Jörg!
# Posted on November 12th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Re: Fast slides?
Jorg:
D'you mean, the difference to a dancer, or the difference to a player?
Single jigs (to a dancer) are played faster. (In fact, at competition speeds, almost exactly twice as fast as the slip jig.) It's not uncommon for a teacher to teach the children (and sometimes adults!) the single jig while lilting Pop Goes the Weasel. (It's something of a joke around our school that the single jig is the "pop goes the weaselly one".) It isn't danced by the champions; it's considered to be much more traditional in nature and therefore much simpler than the reel or slip jig. Many adjudicators like to see it danced closer to the ground and to see the steps include the "traditional" seven (different from the reel and light jig sevens -- leap two-three to-the-side in-front). According to Helen Brennan, they are called the single jig because the characteristic "batter" of the dance is single, whereas the batter of the double jig is the double beat, or "shuffle". They're notated in 6/8, usually, and characteristically have that quarter note-eighth note feel to them (as opposed to the three eighth note groupings). We will often count for the students in three for double jigs, and in four for single jigs. Now, a set dancer would probably have more to say about fast slides, as many sets are danced in part to slides.
Dancers are not known for their knowledge of the music. You'll often see inexperienced step dancers trying to dance jigs to reels and vice versa. They sometimes have a peculiar look on their face while doing it; they know something is wrong, but can't figure out what. To a dancer, the difference between a double jig and a light jig is that the former is slower and the latter is faster, the former is danced in hard shoe and the latter is done in light shoes (ghillies). It hasn't much to do with time signature, for a dancer.
I was told when I was first starting up that it's important to remember that, as the music is an aural tradition, things like time signatures in Irish music are an attempt to make a music form conform to a written system it wasn't meant to make. Shannon Heaton once demonstrated to me that you could play most jigs as a slide or a double jig by doing a few bars of Out on the Ocean as both. (Which is similar to hearing someone play Collier's as a reel and then as a jig.)
Is that what you're looking for? I can't comment about the fling, not being a highlands dancer. (Although to an Irish dancer, all Scottish dance music is dreadfully slow.)
Zina
# Posted on November 12th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Fast slides?
Thank you, Zina:
From the dancers´ side of it everything is new and welcome information to me. I have been playing folk dance music (the international variety, Israel, Eastern european, German, Swedish, Breton etc.) for dancers on and off all through these twenty years past and I´ve noticed that many of them don´t know much about the music, and are usually fond of the silliest of tunes (f.e. "Old MacDonald had a farm...").
The funniest thing about that is that it´s mostly these people that tell me I have to be able to dance to play it correctly (while they´re barely able to tell the difference between a waltz and a polka)... I simply don´t mind anymore and ignore this opinion most of the time, though it probably has SOME merit. It might even make the job easier, who knows...
The question has of course been posted with the idea, that an answer should possibly help me - and others - to play those rhythms better, to find out what a dancer needs for a particular type of dance. So, if another musician has something to say about how he or she approaches the differences between a jig (double, light, single, slip or whatever) and a slide (fast or not!) I´d very much love to hear about that, too.
Basically I´d like to avoid situations where I find a certain tune does not really work because it has to be played much too fast or too slow for the required dance tempo. It doesn´t do the tune any good (not to mention the musician!) and I can´t imagine the dancers enjoy music that´s badly played. It can´t be much fun when it´s unrhythmic, jerky, rushed, whatever. Yet I have had that happen all the time. Particularly when musicians play from written music and don´t have anything else in their repertoires. We have a lot of them over here. And all the really good session players I know, which could easily cope with it by pulling a tune out of their sleeves that would fit the tempo better, usually avoid playing for dances, and I don´t blame them. It´s not a session!
Though actually it´s an experience that I can only recommend. It taught me how to learn melodies that don´t have lyrics to them, having to play one tune for any length of time between five and twenty minutes. I even started playing variations and improvising on tunes just to escape the boredom of it. At the time I was thinking I was developing something entirely new, until somebody told me that it used to be totally trad. - before somebody invented medleys...
To everybody else: please feel free to add here what comes to your mind. If it´s something I already know I will pat my back telling myself "Hey, you were right there!" and when it´s new, I´ll learn something. That´s what it´s about!
Jörg!
# Posted on November 12th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Flings
What´s the difference between a reel and a fling?
Jörg, as far as my understanding goes (and that is not very far), a "fling" is pretty much the same animal as the "highlands" that are very popular in Donegal. I'm not sure whether "highland" is short for "highland fling" or "highland schottische", but anyway the dance is a couple dance that was very popular for house dances apparently because, since it involved a lot of turning in tight circles, it didn't require vast amounts of space.
Many of the tunes played as highlands in Donegal are derived from Scottish tunes, strathspeys in particular, and they share some of the characteristics of the strathspey, such as runs of cascading triplets. The "Scotch snap" is less common but can be heard occasionally. In general the strathspeys that made it into highlands have, as one Donegal musician put it to me, "the kinks ironed out of them".
The main differences between a reel and a highland are that the highland is played single (the parts are not repeated) and the tempo is considerably slower, with a pronounced swing.
The name "fling" seems to be used more in more southern counties - I've never heard it used about Donegal music.
This is about as much as I know - I've never danced a highland or even seen one danced at close quarters. But the dance is still done in parts of Donegal.
# Posted on November 12th 2001 by Jeeves Tones
Re: Fast slides?
I always thought Flings were played more like a cross between a hornpipe & a strathspey. Played with a heavy lilt & a little "scottish snap" to it. A big exception is the "The Pigtown Fling" which is normally played at reelish tempos.
# Posted on November 14th 2001 by Mad Baloney
Re: Fast slides?
Actually, Jorg, the dancers are correct in a way -- in order to play a tune for dancers correctly, it really does help a lot to be able to dance a step or two of it. A slip jig, for instance, becomes much easier to feel if you know the kind of steps a dancer does to them -- they're very different in feel to the reel, and not just in time signature.
But of course, it isn't necessary, in the same way it isn't necessary for a dancer to know anything about a time signature in order to dance to it. It's one of those fine details things.
Zina
# Posted on November 14th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Fast slides?
I may be adding to the confusion here, rather than clearing things up, but my first thought when I saw the subject line was 'Are there slow Slides?' I've seen well known musicians fall apart when asked by step dancer to play tunes by the name dancers use for them, treble jig for example, i have even less faith that those who can write music are familier enough with Irish competitive dance requirements or social dance for that matter, that they are going to transcribe it and select the correct time signature, IOW don't believe what you see in print as Gospel. let me respond to a few points specificly:
----I am roughly familiar with the differences between slides and double jigs from the playing side of it ----
Slides are a group dance form. it is my understanding that they, like polkas, find their home mainly in Kerry. Having played a lot of dances at a ceili here in San Francisco that do a lot of Kerry Dancing, I can tell you that in my experience there is only one speed for Polkas and slides...faster as the joke goes. The tunes are usualy pretty easy to play very fast.
Double jigs, or just 'jigs' are usually much more complicated tunes than the single jig and slide. Slides, polkas and hornpipes will usually end the part with a decided 'thump...thump' a musical mark for the dancers, telling them they should be back home in their place on the set. Jigs and reels do not, usually.
Single jigs are too, but they are a solo dance, and like Zina said, have a rhythm that fits "Pop goes the Weasel" or my favortie "Humpty Dumpty." An excellent example of single jig that I use for beginning dancers is "Off She Goes" Tempo would be about what you would find comfortable for singing these childrens tunes to a child. If you want specifics, i do have the sanctioned tempos as provided by the school i play for.
----I also know that there is a lot of fluctuation (or should I say confusion?), with some 6/8 time tunes being called slides in one collection and single jigs in the other (sometimes written in 12/8, sometimes not!) and then again all lumped together as jigs in yet another book. ----
Merrily Kiss the Quaker shows up in various tune books as a jig, a slide, a single jig and a March! publishers are not reliable source for tune types.
---But the fast slides are definitely a new one to me, I thought slides being supposed to be played faster than jigs anyway. And I have heard slides being played so fast I thought they were hornpipes until I saw them in notation!----
In my experience hornpipes are not played fast, except as demonstrations of either the dancers skills or the musician's, or in some ceili dances. But even in the ceilis, they are often thought of as a cooling off dance according to one Clare dancer I know. Hornpipes have a lovely lilt to them, even the dead common one like Boys of Blue Hill and Harvest Home, Rights of Man, that is difficult to accomplish at tempo. in fact, one gauge I use for how skilled a musician is is to listen to his hornpipe, if he plays it fast and flat, rather reel like, then I don't pay much attention to what he does.
For competitive solo dancers I am asked to play two tempos for HP, about 60-65 and normal tempo, around 100-112. You want to build skill playing hornpipes...try the slow tempo.
I hope this helps in some way
Mike Euritt
# Posted on November 18th 2001 by unionpiper
Re: Fast slides?
(Hi Mike! How's stuff? Are you going to Oireachtas to watch?)
It's important to know that the better the dancer, the slower the hornpipe. Champions dance to a slow hornpipe (as Mike says, 60-70), but their feet are tapping out a much more intricate beat than a beginning dancer (the 100-112 speed). In otherwords, they dance faster to slow hornpipes and slower to fast hornpipes! This is true pretty much across the board -- if you've a recording of Riverdance, you'll note that Reel Around the Sun is much slower than most people play reels at a session, because the dancers are in hardshoe for that number.
There's very little "supposed" to when it comes to this music, mind. In sessions, you'll hear jigs being played much faster than any dancer could possibly keep up with.
There are actually jigs that are treble jigs to musicians (they're the ones with the bulk of the notes in even eight notes, making them groups of three, or trebles) and double jigs (which I was told once are like slides and single jigs because the notes are in groups of two, a dotted quarter and an eighth, but I have my doubts about that definition), which have different meanings than a treble jig to a dancer (the shuffle beat that a dancer taps out with the foot is called a treble, so a dancer asking for a treble jig is asking for what is also known as a hard jig, -- which is different from an easy or difficult jig!). As I mentioned above, the dancers also know them as double jigs, for the shuffle, or doubled, beat. Music for hard jigs is slower, as the dancer needs more time to get the beats of the step in. Light jigs, on the other hand, are simply jigs played for light shoes, or ghillies, and they're played faster simply because the dancer doesn't need so much time when in ghillies.
Helen Brennan mentions the old moneen jigs in her history of Irish dance as some of the oldest known stepdances, and says that they were what is now single jigs.
Are you sorry you asked yet, Jorg?
# Posted on November 18th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Fast slides?
Zina Wrote:
The dotted quarter, eighth ryhthm is a mark of a slide or single jig, but a treble is *any (usually double)jig* that can be played at the neanderthol tempo you dancer want to be able to batter out your "triple" taps to each note we play, more or less.
There are actually jigs that are treble jigs to musicians (there the ones with the bulk of the notes in even eighth notes, making them groups of three, or trebles)and doubles (Which I was told once are like slides and single jigs because the notes are in twos, a doted quarter and an eight)(I couldn't cut and paste for some reason, so forgive me if I transcribed something wrong, Mike)
My reply
I note you doubted the explanation...
I've never heard such a distinction made, calling a double jig 'treble' it sounds like something someone who didn't know better made up on the fly
To be sure there are double jigs that I can't play that slow, Lark in the Morning to name one, and make it sound musical, and there are tunes like Kitty's Rambles and Tobins Favorite than seem to be able to go either way and still sound good, and tunes like the 5 Mile Chase, that to my ear, sound very bad played at a faster tempos, even when the likes of Joe Burke plays them.
Someone previously had made mention that sometimes experienced dancers, no reflection on you Zina, can't tell the difference between tune types. I just recalled an incident at a folk festival session. Some dancers I knew from the regular ceili were trying to organize themselves into sets and dance. We were deep into playing our jigs, one right after another at a proper tempo. All I could see of the dancers was heads bobbing briefly, then confusion, then regroup and start over. I had no idea what was going on. Later another dancer friend of mine asked if I had noticed those dancer getting themselves all confused, trying to dance a reel set to our jigs :-0
Mike Euritt
# Posted on November 19th 2001 by unionpiper
Re: Fast slides?
No, I´m definitely not sorry, Zina! Though it´s like opening a can of frogs...
I will be waiting for another two or three days and see what else will be added to this deluge of information and then I´ll try and come up with a conclusion, sort of...
Thanks a lot so far to everybody,
Jörg!
# Posted on November 19th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Re: Fast slides?
No, no, Mike -- in case anyone is wondering, Mike and I know each other, so we can assume a certain jocularity and goodwill on each other's part that we probably wouldn't assume with someone we didn't know -- I think we're getting confused because dancers call double jigs one thing and musicians will sometimes call a double jig something else, so sometimes I'm using dance terms and sometimes musician's terms. I've had musicians tell me (without knowing that I play myself as well as dance) that wonky treble jig description and double jig description. It's not that I'm doubting your description, it's just that I'm well aware that there are differing definitions out there even among the musicians themselves and the dancers themselves, and of course there's the well-known different definitions of the dancers and the musicians. I probably should have said, "to SOME musicians" instead of making it sound like everyone.
There's simply no way to be dogmatic about time signatures and tunes, because there's no way to control every Irish trad musician's transcriptions. That treble jig definition as groups of three eighth notes was given to me by another musician and I as well as you doubt that definition, but it does mean that that belief is out there, ready to screw up any musician and dancer team.
I think the best way to get over the whole thing is to have the dancer(s) give you first the tempo that they want, and then sing or play a tune for them to see if it works. Of course, since many dancers wouldn't know a jig from a reel until they tried dancing to it (and even then sometimes they don't get it -- Mike, it was ME who mentioned dancers who don't know the difference between the tune types), that's not foolproof.
I've watched many an inexperienced (and sometimes experienced!) dancer try to dance a jig to a reel. One of the things I try to teach my students is the difference, but you can't do that until they know both dances.
zls
# Posted on November 19th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Fast slides?
Zina, all my knowledge of dancing to this music comes from watching the "Riverdance" and "Lord of the Dance" videos, apart from seeing the occasional solo dancer doing his thing on a festival stage, but that´s years ago and I knew even less about it then. (And your remark reminds me of my plan to learn a couple of the best tunes on the records...)
What puzzles me, especially after reading about hornpipes being played in varying tempos -- slower for good dancers, faster for beginners -- is your remark about Scottish dance music being considered dreadfully slow by Irish dancers. At first I assumed it to be an Irish dancer´s friendly joke about a competing neighbour, but there might be -- as usually is the case -- some truth behind it. Could you please specify on that?
Actually I started all this because I was asked to provide live music for a local dance group doing Irish step dancing. And thinking about the requirements of the job suddenly made me aware of expressions like "fast slides" and the like. I simply suspected (I was right!) that I didn´t know enough about it yet just to jump into the situation totally unprepared.
So what all of you have been doing so far is helping me a lot with my homework. It will at least enable me to ask not too stupid questions when a dancer tries to tell me something. Like the fact that dancers and musicians don´t talk about the same thing although they use the same words, that will prove extremely helpful...
Please, go on adding what you think might be useful to know about it. Anything is appreciated here at the moment.
The impression I´m getting from watching the videos is that the rhythm stepped out by the dancers (when they do hardshoe) very closely resembles what is played on a bodhrán or the bones. Am I right?
If that´s the case it should be possible for a dancer to step through a sequence -- say four or eight bars long -- to enable the musician to sing or hum something to the beat that would fit the dance nicely. When they dance in ghillies it will of course be harder because you have to detect a rhythm in the motions.
(That just gave me the idea that it might be a good thing to teach dancers to `play´ the bodhrán just to give them some help on how to distinguish at least between reels and jigs... Don´t send me duel challenges now, I know there is not exactly a shortage of bad bodhrán players around. In the best of worlds it might even work out, but ... Don´t be afraid, I won´t go public with this idea!)
Cheers (Tschüß), Jörg
# Posted on November 19th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Re: Fast slides?
Jorg, it would be wonderful and would make the palying for dancers so much easier if they "closely resembled what was played on the bodhran" assuming a good bodhran player, but that is a whole 'nother thread.
The problem I've encountered with 3 different teachers and groups of students is far from that. The problem is the dance is not really focused on the music any longer, it is focused on the off beat bass 'oompah' wether it is being done on piano, bass violin or left hand of a accordion. I can count the times the dance has matched the music, even when listening and watching them dance to their favorite CD's, on one hand. One hard shoe reel and a couple of hornpipes. Otherwise they do the steps they do to win competitions, not to enhance the musical experience. even the dance who are musician, and you can often tell in their steps, don't dance to a tune, except set dances.
The reel, btw, was Flogging Reel, which has a kind of machine gun note effect when I play it on my concertina, matching the rapid fire tap, tap tap, they were doing on the floor. The hornpipe was Boys of Blue Hill. I walked in on a pre-show warm up, the kids were tapping away. i *recognized* the tune, Boys of Blue Hill. It was a moment of awakening for me to see a bit of history from when the dance and the music was one. I asked the teacher about it and there was no understandable explanation for why reels and jigs of various description can't all be that way. But, on thinking it over, the dance would have to be composed specific for a tune. Bucks of Oranmore does not sound like Crowleys Reel, if all you are doing is tapping it out.
I jumped in with both feet, and I lasted nearly four years before I dropped out. Inspite of my frustrations with the music and dance not really tying together "like a bodhran", playing for the dancers was one of the best things I ever did for my music skills. If you can play a steady reel or jig at 112+ and can keep a slow steady beat of about 69 for some jigs and hornpipes and set dances, then they will love you for it, once they figure out what to do without the oompah back beat, unless you can do that too
Good luck
mike euritt
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by unionpiper
Re: Fast slides?
Thanks, Mike. I´ll try and see. As far as the oompah back beat goes I hope some of the session mates will join me in the adventure... And I may be lucky because from what the teacher told me competitions aren´t an issue in this group. Not many of them have been at it long enough to have gathered enough confidence to enter one. It´s more a hobby horse for them...
Jörg
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Re: Fast slides?
Jorg, yes, it isn't a friendly joke (I mean, yes it's friendly, but it's not a joke) about the difference between tempos for Irish dancers and Scottish dancers. Scottish country dancing is played much slower than music for Irish ceili dances. It's almost impossible to dance a ceili dance to a Scottish country dance temp. I assume it would be just as hard to dance a Scottish country dance to a ceili band tempo.
As to dances being danced to a certain piece of music, it depends. A reel or jig is not danced to a certain piece of music like the sets are. They are danced to whatever piece of music the musician is playing. The only dances that will sound exactly like they belong to a tune are the ones that were either choreographed to that tune or the ones that are pretty simple and therefore would go with just about any tune. A really talented choreographer TCRG can ensure the step goes with the exact tune regardless of the tricks and bits going into the step, but as Mike says, most TCRGs really only care about having champions, not art.
And that back beat -- well, that's mainly because, sadly, most dancers aren't trained by their teachers to listen to the music -- the only thing that anchors the dance to the music at that point is the beat, so they need it. Even after years of dancing and teaching at this point, I'm always still amazed by the dancers who haven't even figured out that the tunes usually go in repeats of eight. *sigh*
zls
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Zina Lee