How fast should jigs and reels be played

[fel bautista]

Obviously you've heard my rushing through a tune. And I thought it was my pipes

[Uilliam]

[


Well, my daughter happens to be a World qualifying "Barbie doll" and I can only say that the amount of strength, dedication, skill and tolerance to pain that these kids exhibit at this level is astonishing..

..careful commenting on something you don't understand.

Au contraire dear boy ,au contraire...the Irish Post ran a very long and heated debate on this very subject of Barbie Doll Dancing,running for many weeks and started by moi.I don't want to bore the rest o ye so seek out the Irish Post archives if ye are that interested,I am not critical of[SOME] of the dancing but it is the fault of the parents that it has developed into the Holywood nonsense that it has become,glitzy stiff dresses,glued up socks,curly headed wigs(all of which attract points and cost a fortune!!)
It even made a friend of mine from India,at a dinner ,almost choke when they came on,she said it was more twinkly than Bollywood...all in all a total embarrassment to what it was and now has become...dedication and skill are to be admired, but strength and pain never were necessary this is what it has become in the never ending competition ethos of so called Irish dancing...I used to bring my son along to the classes when he was younger,when my mother visited once at a Feis she could not believe what it had degenerated into....He left of his own accord eventually and I was glad he did.
The biggest and guiltiest contributor to this style of Barbieism is the Chicago born Michael Flately with his grossly inflated sense of self.
So don't get on your high horse when the term Barbie doll is used.
America gave us Barbie and America gave us the modern "Irish Dance"
Thankyou America!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway this is way off topic and introduced by wydeboar as a correction to Brendan Breatnach"actually etc etc.."I know better type of thing"
the girls can dance up the walls and across the ceiling at 999bpm for all I care.
The tempo in Ceol Rince is for dancing by normal people doing normal dances not competition high kicks for 2 minutes
Slan gofoill
Liam
Have a nice day :roll:

[glands]

My very own daughter is a champion step dancer. I'd agree with much of what has been said on both sides of this issue. It is indeed competitive and athletic and quite demanding of the youngsters. Uilliam is right on. It has indeed become a sport of glamour and glitz. Every dancer knows that IF she must, for some reason such as alteration required, dry cleaning, etc, dance in the schools dress in solo competition rather than in her very own glitzy $1000 dress, then she doesn't stand a chance at placing in competition here in the US. My daughter has a perfect head of hair, as do many of the other dancers, yet they dare not wear a curly Q $100 wig on theit heads as failing to do so will cost 'em points. Let's not blame those of us here in Amerikay though. The scrutinizing judges for US national and some regional competitions all come from an island that I can drive across in three to four hours. The consolation for me is that my daughter often enters the room when I'm playing and says "Give me a slow hornpipe, dad!" What a real treat it is to play for your own child to dance!

[Uilliam]

Hya lewis,I'm blaming Amerikay for spawning twinkle toes aka Flatley(and Barbie).Ye cannot deny they are yours can ye?The costumes started to change after that dramatic drivel Lord of the Dance hit the stage.Now it is well known that Ireland has a love for all things American,ye only have to drive around the place to see mini South Forks everywhere and it is no surprise that they went for Flatelyism,but I think they should have drawn the line on this.I am absolutely immplaccable on this one,it has been a huge step forward and away from traditional dancing of course the schools will disagree,it is after all a big money business.The answer lies with the Parents if ye all said NO this is crap they would soon listen.I thank God that Scottish Traditional Dancing is still just that" traditional"but no doubt Ronnie McDonald will come along one day and........
Sorry to hear ye can't make Miltown this year,see ye when I do
Slan go foill
Liam

[mconners]

I thank God that Scottish Traditional Dancing is still just that" traditional"but no doubt Ronnie McDonald will come along one day and........

But Uilliam - Ronald McDonald has already come along and changed Scottish Trad dancing with his costume...

[Joseph E. Smith]

To the above forum entry, I have only this to say:

YIKES!!!!

[wydeboar]

Hya lewis,I'm blaming Amerikay for spawning twinkle toes aka Flatley(and Barbie).Ye cannot deny they are yours can ye?The costumes started to change after that dramatic drivel Lord of the Dance hit the stage.

It's true that Riverdance became a pop culture phenomenon that drew people to the dance who had little understnding of the culture - and there's plenty that's wrong with the sport. However, Spillane's digitally enhanced performance as part of the show also spawned many new players of the uilleann pipes. Is it fair to say that these newbies are now representative of U piping world wide? Your claim about Irish dancing is just as much an uninformed generalization.

BTW, if you ask U.S. dance teachers about the out-of-control costuming, they will tell you they're are only trying to keep up with overseas dancers - so it's a circular argument.

[djm]

The same arguments can be said about CCÉ gradings for different instruments. They keep getting set higher, and the judges here say it is because the basis for judging keeps getting set higher by the home organization. But what all this really reflects is that there are more and more people getting involved, the level of performance is escalating, and the basis for judging is perforce being raised to match.

The whole environment is changing, so the various artforms are evolving. Is this good or bad? That's a question for personal judgement, but you cannot compare today's environment to the days when a bunch of locals gathered at the crossroads or a shebeen to party all night. There is nothing to compare against.

djm

[glands]

Well, Uilliam, I guess there really is no denying that Flatley is from America. Some fairly nontraditional Irish folk were in cahoots with him though (NE1 want my Spillane and Whelan CD's...just pay for the shipping!). I know of two women who danced with Flatley when they were all kids taking lessons in the big windy city. Apparently, he has not changed much over time. He surely thrust new age dancing into the publics eye sockets, though, and he has become mighty wealthy in the process. Isn't it usually true that entertainment rackets for dollars often ruin something good and traditional. Just think of how many wonderful films will never be shown to the public because of the way Hollywood functions.

[Patrick D'Arcy]

He surely thrust new age dancing into the publics eye sockets, though, and he has become mighty wealthy in the process.

Yes, but is he happy? He jsut had a castle refurbished down in Cork, spent something like loadsa Euro on it!

http://www.showbiz-ireland.com/news/may ... ey26.shtml

PD.

[Uilliam]

[quote

However, Spillane's digitally enhanced performance as part of the show also spawned many new players of the uilleann pipes. Is it fair to say that these newbies are now representative of U piping world wide? Your claim about Irish dancing is just as much an uninformed generalization.

BTW, if you ask U.S. dance teachers about the out-of-control costuming, they will tell you they're are only trying to keep up with overseas dancers - so it's a circular argument.

Wydeboar ye are just going from the sublime to the feckin ridiculous are ye trying to have the last word or what?,cos if ye are ,then your welcome to it.

mconners...Brilliant!!that is the way Scottish Trad should go

DJM what evidence do you have that the judging rules have changed?I am not aware that they have!If ye are saying that the standard is getting higher thats no bad thing but there is nothing new in the rules about grading instruments... :roll:

Anyways this is all a load of BOLLOCKS the poor guy at the beginning only wanted to know what the tempos were and he got it,not mine take note,but from Ceol Rince...this seems to have been sideswerved by wydeboar for whatever reason...as I said I don't give a hoot if the Barbies dance upside down on the ceiling,who wanted to know what feckin tempo they were doing in the first place???

Pat...What did Cork do to deserve his omnipotence?Whatever it was it must have been bad...very bad
Slan go foill
Liam
Have a nice day ya all

[Royce]

How fast should they be played on the pipes? Is there a "standard" metronome
setting?

Double Jigs...........127
Single Jigs............137
Slip Jigs................144
Hornpipes.............180
Reels....................224

I noticed in a Scottish Music Book they had hornpipes at 76 well that is just ridiculous,ye may as well carry a coffin whilst yer at it!

You'll note a lot of 100% discrepancies in tempo estimations in this thread. This is due to an egocentric way of looking at how you count the beats, and that varies from player to player, school to school. The Scottish figures you got were probably, almost certainly, based on hornpipes written in 2/4. Until recent Irish incursions, Highland and Scottish hornpipes were always written out in pointed 2/4, not 4/4. Double 76 and you get 152, pretty close to your 180.

Others have claimed to count reels out at 90 bpm, but they're half-timing the count because they're too lazy to count out every beat. Irish, straight-ahead reels are always written in 4/4, so when you give bpm in 4/4 you'd have to double the 90 and come out at 180, just a bit slower than the reference given.

Scottish, or at least Highland reels used to always be written out in 2/2, pointed, and counted that way, so in that case the 90 bpm would actually fit the time signature given.

When you flatten hornpipes, like a lot of Irish and modern pipe band horn/reels, you end up with a reel formulated with hornpipe phrasing, playing pretty much exactly like a reel at those 200 bpm speeds in 4/4.

A least I hope nobody's really playing a reel at 90 bpm and arguing that's fast enough?

Royce

[Scott McCallister]

This always seems to be a point of contention around here. I'm somewhat puzzled by this. The freedom of expression that Irish Trad affords a player seems stifled when you pigeon-hole and entire style of tune into a single tempo marking. Different tunes will lend themselves to a tempo where there is a "pulse" for the piece. I use this term because I'm not merely referring to the beats and rhythm of the piece, but rather where the tune comes alive and is in its most natural mode of existence. Some lend themselves naturally to faster playing some demand slower just so the entire depth of musical thought or emotion can be pronounced properly. I'm not referring just to technician ability here but rather the emotive communication of a musical thought. Sometimes the same tempo just doesn't fit.

That is not to say that dancers don't have a different requirement of the music. Their emotivness is more physically expressive than aurally(obviously). To that end the music has a different purpose and of course, form follows function.

The trick is to make a tune have meaning and drive regardless of the tempo. For example, the fastest tune I ever played was Wind Machine by Sammy Nestico. The score had an actual tempo marking of 240 but all the players parts were marked "mucho fasto" as sort of a joke. It was like 8 pages long and took only a few minutes to get through. I always had the vision of feeling like I was cruising about 700 miles an hour about a foot off the ground when playing and listening to the music. (good background music for the Pod Race scene in Phantom Menace maybe?) Contrast that to the big trombone excerpt from Wagner's Tanheuser. I think that's marked at 45bpm and is just as driving a piece as the Nestico, only here you might be sailing over the top of Everest at a distance and feeling the immense power and grandeur of such a sight.

The point is, that you should train the hell out of your ears and then play what sounds good to you. This music is a lot more free than stuffing hundreds of tunes into the same tempo just because they happen to be marked a reel or hornpipe.


Scott McCallister

[Uilliam]

Royce,your bit was MOST helpful and I wish to thank ye for it.It was informative and clear and answered a query I have had for a while

Scott,we were and are not talking about freedom of expression here.The question was quite specific aka tempo.The answer is specific.The reason a reel is 224 is because the dance will be done at 224,hand in glove,horse and carriage.The two are not seperated.

It is a complete myth this notion that ye have freedom of expression in Irish music as tho it is some sort o holy grail..Twaddle!!
Perpetuated mainly by people who havnae a scooby or who wish to enhance their status by pretending that it is so.
Their is some freedom of expression in slow airs,but ye still need phrasing and be able to follow the original sean nós so its a kind of limited freedom.Try playing it at reel speed and it becomes a reel!

As Peter rightly said when he quoted Breatnach,"when many of the older musicians were playing for themselves they would play at a slower pace than that demanded by dancers"
That is fine and is as close to freedom etc as ye will get!Play for the dance and there are certain rules to follow otherwise it won't work.
Maybe this idea of freedom came from not following the strictures and discipline ofCompetition Piob Mhor playing? well think again and try playing jigs at reel speed at the CCÉ heats and see what comments the adjudicators will give!

So those of ye out there who may be puffing up their feathers in indignation at the thought that their beloved music can be played any old way ye like cos thats the way its meant to be...dream on. :roll:
Slan go foill
Liam

[eskin]

Royce, Royce, Royce.... sigh... so I count my reels in groups of 4 notes instead of two, that counts as an "egocentric" way of notating tempos and I'm lazy...

You must be a very interesting fellow in person.


M