I just got back from scanning the tune section to find some set dance tunes. The only obvious one I could find is "The Three Sea Captains" (and my version -- learned from a recording by the Dubliners ages ago -- even has one bar more in the 2nd part than the version posted here!).
Thanks, Jorg. So when you say it has a specific dance, do you mean like in the old dance books where they have pictures of feet and arrows to show how you dance?
Where's Zina when we need her? My understanding too is that dancers do very specific steps to set dance tunes. Jorg is right on about recognizing these tunes by their extra bars. The set dance we hear requests for most often is Saint Patrick's Day, a jig. The A Part has the nornal 8 bars, but the B Part has 14. I'll post it in our tune section shortly.
Will
Also, the Miles Krassen edition of O'Neill's has 17 set dances in their own section, between the hornpipes and O'Carolan's compositions. I'm sure there's plenty of local variation, but the more popular set dances stateside seem to be:
Saint Patrick's Day
Job of Journeywork
The Blackbird
King of the Faeries
Garden of Daisies
The Downfall of Paris
The term "set dance" also refers to a set of quadrilles, cotillions, etc., danced by groups of people, like contra dancing, and sometimes called ceili (or ceilidh) dancing. According to Dublin-based set dancer and teacher Pat Murphy, these set dances were brought ot Ireland from France via England and Scotland. Eventually, the steps and group movements evolved to fit Irish reels, jigs, polkas, slides, and hornpipes. The steps, movements, and tunes are arranged and known by locale--so you have the Down quadrilles and the Clare set and the Newmarket plain set and the Clare Lancers, etc.
The band Moving Cloud bases much of its reputation on playing for sets--their recordings are a good source of tunes for these. Also, Na Piobairi Uillean offers sheet music books with matching tapes called "Music for the Sets"--the tapes and tunes are quite helpful (if you ignore the chord recommendations).
Oh DEAR. This is another one of those complicated things.
There are three kinds of set dances.
As Will says above, there are the set dances, which are group dances. They are NOT the same as ceili dances, which are generally much simpler (basically because you have to be able to do them when you're drunk *grin*), and are categorized as circle, long, line, and barn dances.
Set dances refer a "set of dancers" -- in the case of a full set, eight dancers. "Set" also refers to the group of dances (a polka, a jig, a reel, a reel) that the set dance is made up of. They are very much regional (although some are danced all over Ireland now) and are still very much a living tradition; I know of many a set dancing group that are still working on their own local sets.
Playing for the sets is a little trickier than the other two kinds of set dances; a good band will know how many bars of a tune the set dancers need to dance their sets, and what order they go in (slide, reel, hornpipe, slide, for instance). The dancers actually stop in between each kind of tune and reform their set. They can also dance a half set.
Then there are the four (or five) traditional set dances. These are solo stepdancing dances, very much related to the old sean-nos dances. They are An Coimisiun's way of keeping the old traditions alive in modern day stepdancing, sort of a bit of history, and many adjudicators prefer to see them danced in the old style, low to the ground and not using a great deal of space (although some don't).
There are four traditional set dances in North America (although that may now be five, I can't remember offhand): The Blackbird, St. Patrick's Day, Job of Journeywork, and Garden of Daisies. All four set dances are danced the same way all over the world, given a few local variations. In Europe, there's another one, and NA may also begin dancing that one as a traditional set dance as well, I can't remember the name -- the White Cushion? Something like that. Stepdancers usually learn St. Patrick's Day first, then The Blackbird, which is why they're so popular -- champions rarely will ask musicians to play their set because the time is extremely specific. All four tunes are tunes, songs, airs, and dances, which partially accounts for the extra bars in some of them -- this is called a "crooked" tune.
Then there are the 30 non-traditional set dances, or the choreographed sets. These are dances that a TCRG or ADCRG has choreographed, usually especially for a dancer or group of dancers in a class, to one of the 30 (or is it 35?) Coimisiun approved tunes. They include Kilkenny Races, Madame Bonaparte, King of the Fairies, Downfall of Paris, Blackthorn Stick, etc. They tend to go in a kind of trend. A while ago, Kilkenny Races was the big one, and all the steps had these little horsey motifs in them.
The hornpipes are considered more difficult than the double jigs (hard reels are not a competition dance). They're normally danced between 60 and 80 to allow the dancer plenty of time for very fancy footwork.
Open champions have to draw which of their two dances they will do in competition -- it will either be their reel or their slip jig -- and then their non-traditional set. The non-traditional set is considered the litmus test of the champion.
When playing for the latter two types of sets, the musician plays through the entire A part as an intro and then plays two As and a B, which allows for two full times through the set and then the right foot of the step. (Yet another usage of the word "set".) Once upon a time, it was 2 As and 2 Bs to make sure the dancer had a left foot on the step, but these days there's too many dancers in feisianna, and adjudicators and musicians don't want to be there for five days straight.
yes, it helps a lot. It's good to know that i'll never run out of stuff to learn. I'll just put this whole set thing to the side and come back to it in 15 years, after i learn doing rolls, ok?
Heh -- it's really not all THAT difficult to keep straight -- if only because dancers and musicians rarely mix. Which is probably how all this confusion and using the same terms for different things came to be in the first place!
Glauber, the boom box is NOT funny
Our band has had dancers ask us to take our pints outside for a spell so they could dance to tunes on a cd. I almost believe their excuses that they were accustomed to particular versions of particular tunes at a very particular tempo (these were mostly young, novice dancers), but it's still really strange when the musicians have to leave the room so people can dance....
Thanks Zina for clearing up what I muddied. All I know is that once a week someone asks me to play Saint Patrick's Day, slowly.
To make it even worse, a Novice dancer is a dancer who has competed and gotten through Beginner 1 and 2, so a Novice dancer is not a beginner!
It's true, dancers who are inexperienced or who have never danced to live music will often have a terrible time when they first try it. It helps if you know that music that is recorded for dancers has a very VERY even tempo at a very specific time (the musicians usually use a metronome to keep themselves on track for them). Plus, you'll note that most of the recordings feature a piano or piano accordian, to keep that beat exceptionally clear.
Our dance school has a "test-out" for our different levels (which are different from the competition levels, to make it even more confusing). Dancers at the basics level always get the same music. Beginner 1 students testing out to Beginner 2 get whatever music that they get, though, and if (as has happened) a student complains that they goofed up because they didn't have their usual music, 90% of the time it's an automatic fail.
As I said, Will -- St. Patrick's Day is usually the first hardshoe set dance a stepdancer learns. You will almost never have a dancer ask you for music for a set over the level of Prizewinner, because usually those dancers have more experience and know that what they ask for might not be what they get! Who can blame either side? Not me -- it's confusing to each group within their own bailiwick, much less between each other!
As a dancer and musician I hope I can help out here. It seems to me that this is the complete list of traditional sets danced throughout the world:
The BlackBird - These first four are required when
The Garden of Daisies - doing your TCRG (Teacher's Exam)
The Job of Jourbey Work - and ADCRG (Judge's exam)
St Patricks Day - .
Three Sea Captains
King of the Fairies
The White Blanket
Jockey To The Fair
A list of the remaining 'standard' set dances can be found on http://www.irishsetdances.net/tunes/ with the minimum speeds set down by An Coimisiun. (The minimum speed for Is The Big Man Within is 114 for 9/8 step, and 69 for 6/8 set). But these 30 are only a small subset of the some 80 set dances I know, some beautiful tunes have been left out that are thankfully still danced by the other organisations apart from An Coimisiun. Including The Four Masters, The Storyteller, The Wandering Musician, The Galtee Hunt (posted recently), The Fiddler Round The Fairy Tree, The Roving Pedlar, The Blue Eyed Rascal, The Piper's Dream, Planxty Hugh O'Donnell, ... need I go on?
Yes, there are a LOT of other set dances that got left out of An Coimisiun's list! I think that folk who know the older traditional set dances should be encouraged to teach them to other dancers in all the different organizations so that we don't lose them. And of course, it's worth pointing out that some of the choreographed sets we see now may in the future become someone's traditional set!
I've recently bought a practice flute and i'm trying to learn a few reels. I can play the notes but when it comes to the pulse i can't get that reel beat. Has anyone any advice
Start with the downbeats. The first and third beat of every measure is the important one. Give them good emphasis, more than you're comfortable with at first. You can back off as it becomes more natural to you. Then, to get that jazzy little lift, start pushing the second and fourth beats (you may have to practice that by emphasizing the off beats more than the downbeats at first). I once watched a fluter playing and his shoulders would pop up on all the off beats, great playing despite all the physical tics. You might also try swinging the eights a little (not as much as you do a hornpipe), if you're already doing all that.
It'll go in stages. You'll think you have it, and will be elated, and then listen to a recording you make at a session and be discouraged again at the difference between you and an admired player (which is better than not hearing any difference between you and that admired player!), and then you'll go back to work at it again, be elated at your success, and then go through the whole cycle again. At least, that's the way it works for me, and almost everyone I know whose playing I admire.
Oliver,
Now, I'm no master on the flute by any stretch of the imagination. But I think the key to generating a nice, groovie pulse on the flute lies in exquisite breath support. Try playing a very juicy yet controlled pulse simply on one sustained tone, say G. Now, without moving from that G, try playing a tune in your head, while consistantly maintaining a pulse and the note. Also, cut out the tonguing for the time being. Exaggerating the pulse is okay too. You will find this to be quite difficult, and a hefty abdominal workout to boot. Perhaps introduce scales into the exercise, and then try actually busting out a tune.
If this fails, I say smash the flute to bits and take up an easy instrument, such as the fiddle
Go immediatelly to Scoiltrad (http://www.scoiltrad.com) and buy one of the beginner flute lessons (any one). Do the assignment as well as you can, send it, you will get excellent advice from a fenomenal flute player.
If you do this before the end of december (2001), you can get 2 lessons for the price of 1, a great bargain.
Set dances?
Set dances?
OK, newbie question of the day...
What is a set dance? Or is it a dance set?
g
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by glauber
Re: Set dances?
Hi, Glauber (by the way: no, it wasn
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Addition
I just got back from scanning the tune section to find some set dance tunes. The only obvious one I could find is "The Three Sea Captains" (and my version -- learned from a recording by the Dubliners ages ago -- even has one bar more in the 2nd part than the version posted here!).
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Joerg Froese
Re: Set dances?
Thanks, Jorg. So when you say it has a specific dance, do you mean like in the old dance books where they have pictures of feet and arrows to show how you dance?
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by glauber
Re: Set dances?
Where's Zina when we need her? My understanding too is that dancers do very specific steps to set dance tunes. Jorg is right on about recognizing these tunes by their extra bars. The set dance we hear requests for most often is Saint Patrick's Day, a jig. The A Part has the nornal 8 bars, but the B Part has 14. I'll post it in our tune section shortly.
Will
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Will Harmon
Also, the Miles Krassen edition of O'Neill's has 17 set dances in their own section, between the hornpipes and O'Carolan's compositions. I'm sure there's plenty of local variation, but the more popular set dances stateside seem to be:
Saint Patrick's Day
Job of Journeywork
The Blackbird
King of the Faeries
Garden of Daisies
The Downfall of Paris
The term "set dance" also refers to a set of quadrilles, cotillions, etc., danced by groups of people, like contra dancing, and sometimes called ceili (or ceilidh) dancing. According to Dublin-based set dancer and teacher Pat Murphy, these set dances were brought ot Ireland from France via England and Scotland. Eventually, the steps and group movements evolved to fit Irish reels, jigs, polkas, slides, and hornpipes. The steps, movements, and tunes are arranged and known by locale--so you have the Down quadrilles and the Clare set and the Newmarket plain set and the Clare Lancers, etc.
The band Moving Cloud bases much of its reputation on playing for sets--their recordings are a good source of tunes for these. Also, Na Piobairi Uillean offers sheet music books with matching tapes called "Music for the Sets"--the tapes and tunes are quite helpful (if you ignore the chord recommendations).
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Will Harmon
Re: Set dances?
Oh DEAR. This is another one of those complicated things.
There are three kinds of set dances.
As Will says above, there are the set dances, which are group dances. They are NOT the same as ceili dances, which are generally much simpler (basically because you have to be able to do them when you're drunk *grin*), and are categorized as circle, long, line, and barn dances.
Set dances refer a "set of dancers" -- in the case of a full set, eight dancers. "Set" also refers to the group of dances (a polka, a jig, a reel, a reel) that the set dance is made up of. They are very much regional (although some are danced all over Ireland now) and are still very much a living tradition; I know of many a set dancing group that are still working on their own local sets.
Playing for the sets is a little trickier than the other two kinds of set dances; a good band will know how many bars of a tune the set dancers need to dance their sets, and what order they go in (slide, reel, hornpipe, slide, for instance). The dancers actually stop in between each kind of tune and reform their set. They can also dance a half set.
Then there are the four (or five) traditional set dances. These are solo stepdancing dances, very much related to the old sean-nos dances. They are An Coimisiun's way of keeping the old traditions alive in modern day stepdancing, sort of a bit of history, and many adjudicators prefer to see them danced in the old style, low to the ground and not using a great deal of space (although some don't).
There are four traditional set dances in North America (although that may now be five, I can't remember offhand): The Blackbird, St. Patrick's Day, Job of Journeywork, and Garden of Daisies. All four set dances are danced the same way all over the world, given a few local variations. In Europe, there's another one, and NA may also begin dancing that one as a traditional set dance as well, I can't remember the name -- the White Cushion? Something like that. Stepdancers usually learn St. Patrick's Day first, then The Blackbird, which is why they're so popular -- champions rarely will ask musicians to play their set because the time is extremely specific. All four tunes are tunes, songs, airs, and dances, which partially accounts for the extra bars in some of them -- this is called a "crooked" tune.
Then there are the 30 non-traditional set dances, or the choreographed sets. These are dances that a TCRG or ADCRG has choreographed, usually especially for a dancer or group of dancers in a class, to one of the 30 (or is it 35?) Coimisiun approved tunes. They include Kilkenny Races, Madame Bonaparte, King of the Fairies, Downfall of Paris, Blackthorn Stick, etc. They tend to go in a kind of trend. A while ago, Kilkenny Races was the big one, and all the steps had these little horsey motifs in them.
The hornpipes are considered more difficult than the double jigs (hard reels are not a competition dance). They're normally danced between 60 and 80 to allow the dancer plenty of time for very fancy footwork.
Open champions have to draw which of their two dances they will do in competition -- it will either be their reel or their slip jig -- and then their non-traditional set. The non-traditional set is considered the litmus test of the champion.
When playing for the latter two types of sets, the musician plays through the entire A part as an intro and then plays two As and a B, which allows for two full times through the set and then the right foot of the step. (Yet another usage of the word "set".) Once upon a time, it was 2 As and 2 Bs to make sure the dancer had a left foot on the step, but these days there's too many dancers in feisianna, and adjudicators and musicians don't want to be there for five days straight.
Does that help?
Zina
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Set dances?
Zina,
yes, it helps a lot. It's good to know that i'll never run out of stuff to learn. I'll just put this whole set thing to the side and come back to it in 15 years, after i learn doing rolls, ok?
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by glauber
Re: Set dances?
Heh -- it's really not all THAT difficult to keep straight -- if only because dancers and musicians rarely mix. Which is probably how all this confusion and using the same terms for different things came to be in the first place!
zls
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Set dances?
So, if it wasn't for the invention of the boom box, dancing would be a lost art?
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by glauber
Re: Set dances?
Glauber, the boom box is NOT funny
Our band has had dancers ask us to take our pints outside for a spell so they could dance to tunes on a cd. I almost believe their excuses that they were accustomed to particular versions of particular tunes at a very particular tempo (these were mostly young, novice dancers), but it's still really strange when the musicians have to leave the room so people can dance....
Thanks Zina for clearing up what I muddied. All I know is that once a week someone asks me to play Saint Patrick's Day, slowly.
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Will Harmon
Re: Set dances?
To make it even worse, a Novice dancer is a dancer who has competed and gotten through Beginner 1 and 2, so a Novice dancer is not a beginner!
It's true, dancers who are inexperienced or who have never danced to live music will often have a terrible time when they first try it. It helps if you know that music that is recorded for dancers has a very VERY even tempo at a very specific time (the musicians usually use a metronome to keep themselves on track for them). Plus, you'll note that most of the recordings feature a piano or piano accordian, to keep that beat exceptionally clear.
Our dance school has a "test-out" for our different levels (which are different from the competition levels, to make it even more confusing). Dancers at the basics level always get the same music. Beginner 1 students testing out to Beginner 2 get whatever music that they get, though, and if (as has happened) a student complains that they goofed up because they didn't have their usual music, 90% of the time it's an automatic fail.
As I said, Will -- St. Patrick's Day is usually the first hardshoe set dance a stepdancer learns. You will almost never have a dancer ask you for music for a set over the level of Prizewinner, because usually those dancers have more experience and know that what they ask for might not be what they get! Who can blame either side? Not me -- it's confusing to each group within their own bailiwick, much less between each other!
Zina
# Posted on November 20th 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: Set dances?
As a dancer and musician I hope I can help out here. It seems to me that this is the complete list of traditional sets danced throughout the world:
The BlackBird - These first four are required when
The Garden of Daisies - doing your TCRG (Teacher's Exam)
The Job of Jourbey Work - and ADCRG (Judge's exam)
St Patricks Day - .
Three Sea Captains
King of the Fairies
The White Blanket
Jockey To The Fair
A list of the remaining 'standard' set dances can be found on http://www.irishsetdances.net/tunes/ with the minimum speeds set down by An Coimisiun. (The minimum speed for Is The Big Man Within is 114 for 9/8 step, and 69 for 6/8 set). But these 30 are only a small subset of the some 80 set dances I know, some beautiful tunes have been left out that are thankfully still danced by the other organisations apart from An Coimisiun. Including The Four Masters, The Storyteller, The Wandering Musician, The Galtee Hunt (posted recently), The Fiddler Round The Fairy Tree, The Roving Pedlar, The Blue Eyed Rascal, The Piper's Dream, Planxty Hugh O'Donnell, ... need I go on?
Hope this helps,
GK
# Posted on November 21st 2001 by GoldenKeyboard
Re: Set dances?
Yes, there are a LOT of other set dances that got left out of An Coimisiun's list! I think that folk who know the older traditional set dances should be encouraged to teach them to other dancers in all the different organizations so that we don't lose them. And of course, it's worth pointing out that some of the choreographed sets we see now may in the future become someone's traditional set!
Zina
# Posted on November 22nd 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: The pulse in a Reel
I've recently bought a practice flute and i'm trying to learn a few reels. I can play the notes but when it comes to the pulse i can't get that reel beat. Has anyone any advice
# Posted on December 2nd 2001 by oliver
Re: Set dances?
Hmmm...hard to do online...but here's my try.
Start with the downbeats. The first and third beat of every measure is the important one. Give them good emphasis, more than you're comfortable with at first. You can back off as it becomes more natural to you. Then, to get that jazzy little lift, start pushing the second and fourth beats (you may have to practice that by emphasizing the off beats more than the downbeats at first). I once watched a fluter playing and his shoulders would pop up on all the off beats, great playing despite all the physical tics. You might also try swinging the eights a little (not as much as you do a hornpipe), if you're already doing all that.
It'll go in stages. You'll think you have it, and will be elated, and then listen to a recording you make at a session and be discouraged again at the difference between you and an admired player (which is better than not hearing any difference between you and that admired player!), and then you'll go back to work at it again, be elated at your success, and then go through the whole cycle again. At least, that's the way it works for me, and almost everyone I know whose playing I admire.
Zina
# Posted on December 3rd 2001 by Zina Lee
Re: The pulse in a Reel
Oliver,
Now, I'm no master on the flute by any stretch of the imagination. But I think the key to generating a nice, groovie pulse on the flute lies in exquisite breath support. Try playing a very juicy yet controlled pulse simply on one sustained tone, say G. Now, without moving from that G, try playing a tune in your head, while consistantly maintaining a pulse and the note. Also, cut out the tonguing for the time being. Exaggerating the pulse is okay too. You will find this to be quite difficult, and a hefty abdominal workout to boot. Perhaps introduce scales into the exercise, and then try actually busting out a tune.
If this fails, I say smash the flute to bits and take up an easy instrument, such as the fiddle
Good luck.
# Posted on December 3rd 2001 by Brendan
Flute
Go immediatelly to Scoiltrad (http://www.scoiltrad.com) and buy one of the beginner flute lessons (any one). Do the assignment as well as you can, send it, you will get excellent advice from a fenomenal flute player.
If you do this before the end of december (2001), you can get 2 lessons for the price of 1, a great bargain.
# Posted on December 3rd 2001 by glauber
Easy?
Okay, I'll bite, Brendan -- EASY?! Omigod, I must be an idiot. *grin* Guess I'll take up the box next... hehehe
Zina
# Posted on December 4th 2001 by Zina Lee