A chairde,
was recommended this site from another Irish translation forum and hope someone can help. Im teaching in Ireland and have decided to throw a ceili in my school. Thing is lack of music. Only problem is I cant tell a jig from a reel. Have taught in the Gaeltacht and can teach about 4/5 dances. Now I know the dances, And technically I should be able to find any suitable music to teach Shoe the Donkey, Stack Of Barley, Siege of Ennis, Walls of Limerick, but I cant tell one tune from another unless the music cd cover clearly states that it is either one of the above mentioned dances! see my predicament, or are you lost!
What i really need is a cd with Shoe the Donkey, Stack Of Barley, Siege of Ennis, Walls of Limerick on it or any of the easy sets like the Kerry set. So if anyone can recommend any titles so I can order them from my local record shop or tell me of somewhere on line I could purchase them would be eternally grateful!
Or if anyone has any of the above you could forward them to my streamload acc/ username: eireann.
Hope someone can help me out
any help appreciated
Le meas
I wish I knew how to help. At ceilis I have to ask the dance master whether it’s jigs or reels I’ll be playing; I seldom know as I’ve never danced. Thing is, if you’re calling any of those sets that go on and on and on, you really may need live musicians. I’m not aware of any recordings of nonstop jigs, reels, etc. What’s really weird to me is that some of the dances can be danced to jigs OR reels!
Good luck, and sorry about no fadas…no character map at work.
Hi!
The Stack of Barley and Shoe the Donkey are danced to the relevant tunes - the Stack is a hornpipe, and the Donkey is a mazurka, if that makes a difference. The easiest thing to do would be to find tracks with those tunes / musicians who know them (they’re very common).
The Siege of Ennis is danced to jigs - there is no set tune. This dance pretty much goes on until someone dies/the musicians give up (as I’m sure you know), so any long set of jigs will do. Failing that, reels also work (although the Dance Commission seems to disagree, having it as danced to jigs in their handbooks). The Walls of Limerick is danced to reels. Get a couple of cds, experiment to see how long you think the dance will go on for, and try to find a tune set that’s long enough. Depending on where you are, it might be easier to find a couple of willing musicians to play for you (if you’re interested in finding some, PM me and I’ll see if I know anyone nearby).
Hope that helps!
Deirdre
NPU has a set of six cassettes called Music for the Sets. The dances covered include:
Vol 1 - The Plain Set, The Lancers, The Sliabh Luachra Set
Vol 2 - The Victoria, The Kerry Set, The Baile Mhuirne Reel Set
Vol 3 - The Caledonian, The South Galway Set, The Monaghan Set
Vol 4 - The Ginnie Ling (Auban), The Baile Bhuirne Jig Set, The Piper’s Set
Vol 5 - The Jenny Lind, The Conamara Set, The Corca Dhuibhne Set
Vol 6 - The Castle Set, The Mazurka Set, The Orange and the Green
The music is played by mixed instruments; pipes, fiddles, flutes, boxes of various types, and different mixes for each set.
The cassettes are available from NPU or Ossian. There are also two books, the Blue book and the Yellow book, from Ossian for those who want the sheet music. There are several books describing the dance steps available for all these sets.
I got my copies from Ossian USA, so I’m sure Ossian in Cork must have copies still available.
But the question was about ceili dancing NOT sets was it? There’s great music for the sets to be had from loads of sources. The NPU ones are OK but I’d prefer the series done by Tommy Mccarthy,Eamonn McGivney and Michael Tubridy for the Clare sets [with a bit of help from Junior Crehan] and Denis McMahon, Paudi Scully and Timmy O Connor for the Sliabh Luachra sets.
I didn’t, by the way, realise anybody still did these ceili dances.
Thanks all for that, you’ve been great. Just looking at deirdre’s post, could you suggest any cd with all of those on it? if so would be great
Go raibh míle maith agaibh
here’s an easy way to tell a jig from a reel. listen to the beat, if it’s “bicyle, bicycle, bicycle” it’s a jig, if it’s “motorcycle, motorcycle, motorcycle” it’s a reel.
When my wife and I first started set dancing, all the tunes sounded the same to me- well, at least the reels and jigs did. The hornpipes sounded different, as did waltzes
The way that I finally started to get a grasp was by listening to some of the recordings of the different ceili bands. Because they play for dancers they seem to have a driving rhythm that’s a bit more distinct than many other recordings.
One of the cd’s that really worked for me in this regard is Foxglove, by Moving Cloud. I’m sure that other folks can provide other and probably better suggestions.
