To the above forum entry, I have only this to say:
YIKES!!! 
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.
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
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.
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/may03/01-flatley26.shtml
PD.
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
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
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
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
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
would it not be true to say that players settle on a tempo that suits their temperament and way of playing, and that there’s no point in trying to dictate how fast tunes should be played? I’ve seen Paddy Keenan play at blistering, superhuman speed without his playing being deleteriously affected. I’m not sure if individuals choose to play at any particular speed or in any particular style - I think that to some extent people sometimes just play the way they can
The whole joy of music is that there is freedom of expression, without this playing stops being art and start becoming automation. You can put your own feeling into a jig, reel or what ever. The subtle differences can be heard and played to give a great rendition of the tune and it can still be in time and traditional.
The question at the start of the thread was “How fast should they be played on the pipes?” I’m sorry but I missed the “for dancing” part of this question.
I agree that having a standard set of tempos is a good idea for dancing and for players to have something to aim for but the idea of having to keep everything strictly to a set tempo is stupid.
What ever you are playing play it at a speed that keeps the tune clear and that people can play and dance to, if they want to play and dance. Always think of the tune and make sure you are playing the phrasing at a constant speed. As for an exact speed that’s only for competitions and thats not where you do the majority of your playing, no matter who you are.
Within any category of dance tune type, one tune will not have the same ideal inherent speed for a particular piper and their own style as another.
This becomes immediately apparent when you attempt to join tunes which are not familiar to you as having being played as a set together before - they will not necessarily work with each other just because they are reels.
For my style, I have to be very careful which tunes I put together. If I don’t, I tend to ruin a second or third tune which needs to be played more carefully or more briskly.
David
[quote=“Borderpiper”]The whole joy of music is that there is freedom of expression, without this playing stops being art and start becoming automation. You can put your own feeling into a jig, reel or what ever. The subtle differences can be heard and played to give a great rendition of the tune and it can still be in time and traditional.
The question at the start of the thread was “How fast should they be played on the pipes?” I’m sorry but I missed the “for dancing” part of this question.
I agree that having a standard set of tempos is a good idea for dancing and for players to have something to aim for but the idea of having to keep everything strictly to a set tempo is stupid. [quote]
Nobody was or has been saying that ye can’t put your own feeling into the music.
The pipes were the major instrument along with the harp for dances in Ireland superceded later(much later )by the fiddle accordion et al…
The music in Ireland was for the dance,be it wake marriage or hooly.
Thats how it was ..simple fact,are ye with me so far because ye seemed to have wandered off in your contribution…
In order to dance ye need tempo,thats why Ceol Rince(dance music)nEireann(of Ireland)note not of Scotland or Timbuktu gave the tempos for the various most common dances in use in Ireland at the time.
In order to become a proficient player on the Uilleann Pipes and recognised as such by your peers ye have to know the difference between the tempos and more importantly be able to play them.
Ye can do what ye like after that.
ye sound as though you are doing it the other way round to me!!
So please don’t go around saying something is STUPID just cos ye don’t agree with it..that is supreme arrogance,remember everything is there for a reason and don’t forget the correllation between dance and music/pipes in Ireland may not be the same as ye are blasting away on yer Borderpipes or whatever in Glasgow.
How come we have not met up? As I said on an earlier thread we have a class in St.Rochs school Royston on a tuesday night term time,why don’t ye stick your neck in I won’t snap it,promise!
As for all ye other exponents of the mystical musing on the pipes to your own freedom of expression thingymajig,ermm… do whatever ye like!But do remember that when ye started on the pipes ye accepted as fact that ye had to hold the set a certain way and finger it to get the notes a certain way(freedom of expression?)So it follows that if ye are playing the pipes the way they are meant to be played then ye will have tempos to guide ye along(freedom of expression?)
I am getting really quite bored with this repeating the obvious,are ye all thick or what??
Slan go foill
Happy All Fools Day
Liam
The harp was never used for dancing, according to Breathnach et al. The use of the fiddle predates the Union pipes, although not the Piob Mor. Do your homework.
Play at a slow tempo, even if it is your aspiration to play fast eventually. Robbie Hannon started out playing at a very lazy tempo, before speeding up. You have to walk before you can run.
In Sean Nos dancing, the dancer often requests a specific tune such as Miss McLeods Reel of the musician, and will dance that tune with their feet, to a more or lesser degree, depending on the level of their skill as a dancer. It is incredible to watch, and can on occasion display great interaction between dancer, musician and tune.
LeR
The hours of sitting practicing plus the free Guinness in the pub sessions aren’t kind to the waistline…
- Michael Eskin
…
What’s this about FREE Guinness?
Yep, you come to my session on Tuesday nights, and you can have all the Guinness you want free, all night…
There, now, will you come visit us in San Diego?
M
I was less than an hour ago sitting at the end of his bass drone, listening to him play a set of fast reels, which I ticked off at 128 bpm, as he tapped it on the floor. That’s half-timing it of course, tapping on 1 and 3 only, so it would be 256 bpm in 4/4.
That was pretty fast.
Royce
Kevin that is simply not true!!At the time of the introduction of waltzes to Ireland the catholic church thinking the dance too intimate decreed from every pulpit in Ireland the the pipes were the devils instrument and should be banned, almost overnight the fiddle became the instrument to have and as time went on the affordability and availability of the fiddle ensured its dominance and the decline of the pipes.Note it was the pipes and not the fiddle that was banned the Irish pipes were the favoured instrument in Ireland long before the fiddle sneaked in.As for Breathnach[ ET AL] (who might they be?)the argument is more about what the Irish harp sounded like as no one really knows,there are plenty of pictures showing harps being played at dances…
Slan Agut
Liam