In my humble and uninformed opinion, single jigs are 12/8 (Merrily Kiss the Quaker) and double jigs are 6/8 (Saddle the Pony). And if you can’t hear the difference, the musician doesn’t know what he’s doing.
The confusion may come from …
single reels: don’t repeat parts (Wind that Shakes the Barley)
double reels: repeat parts (Maid Behind the Bar)
I would also be careful with statements that the eight note (or quarter note) is the basic rhythmic unit. That seems too focused on musical notation and the difference between simple and compound meters has already been mentioned. Listen to beats per measure. Double Jigs have two, slipjigs three , and single jigs (or slides) have four.
[Insert customary and appropriate waivers, disclaimers and qualifications. And I would like to say that I am drunk. Stoned. Completely sh!tfaced. And it’s not even sundown. Whaddadisgraceandthelittlechildrengoinghungryandthepoorwomancryinghereyesout]
/bloomfield
[ This Message was edited by: Bloomfield on 2002-07-01 14:02 ]
On 2002-07-01 13:59, Bloomfield wrote:
I would also be careful with statements that the eight note (or quarter note) is the basic rhythmic unit. That seems too focused on musical notation and the difference between simple and compound meters has already been mentioned. > Listen > to beats per measure. Double Jigs have two, slipjigs three , and single jigs (or slides) have four.
I would say the same thing about measures that you said about the basic rhythmic unit. It’s too focused on conventional musical practices and the measures may not respect the phrasing of the tune. Think about a jig, say The Rakes of Kildare. It seems to be phrased this way:
|(Da da da Da da da|Da da da Daaa) (da|Da da da etc…
The vertical lines are bar lines but the parentheses enclose the way the tune in phrased. The final da of the second measure leads to the first Da of the third measure and is part of that phrase. At any rate, I don’t know how much any of this helps the original poster. As Bloomfield pointed out listen to actual jigs and reels. You can find them on the web.
On 2002-07-01 15:21, SteveK wrote:
I would say the same thing about measures that you said about the basic rhythmic unit. It’s too focused on conventional musical practices and the measures may not respect the phrasing of the tune. Think about a jig, say The Rakes of Kildare. It seems to be phrased this way:
|(Da da da Da da da|Da da da Daaa) (da|Da da da etc…
The vertical lines are bar lines but the parentheses enclose the way the tune in phrased. The final da of the second measure leads to the first Da of the third measure and is part of that phrase.
That’s what they call an anacrousis or upbeat. I can’t see any contradiction with “classical” music theory.
On 2002-07-01 15:29, Duckrasta wrote:
I have to say, I was lost after about the first four posts…
I think you should stick with reading only the first post, and call it a day.
If you think this thread is confusing, there is an current topic at the Concertina.net message board that is much more confusing. It compounds our troubles with trebble jigs from english country dancing. OI!
Thanks you for your explanation but I find that I’m a little more confused now than I was when I thought I understood (isn’t that always the case?).
What exactly is a setting then? What makes a setting by one person different than from another? Is the setting determined by the player or by some “setting maker” much the same as an arrangement is determined by an arranger?
As I understand it, everyone learns their own ‘setting’ because it’s the set of notes they learn first for a given tune… then, people get together at a session and they maybe don’t all have the same setting, so on the first repetition it’s a little rough, but they listen (and this is one of the reasons it’s so important to learn to play be ear) and they copy bits from each other, usually from the session leader or the strongest player, but sometimes just because they sound good, and maybe on the second or third repetition they converge on the same setting… or not, it doesn’t always work. When you have a core group of musicians, of course, they get to try every week to get closer to having the same setting. I’m told that when a bunch of musicians set down in a session and have the settings converge to something really sweet sounding, that this is one of the great rewards of playing in the session environment.
Anyway, being a beginner, I’ve never experienced this… my settings come from being taught a tune or picking a tune up for sheet music, and hopefully soon from picking up music from recordings; I have made my own settings though, by stealing a bit from one setting and a bit from another (you get phrases that are the same, and phrases that vary, and the varying phrases don’t have to all come from the same source!) Search through the abcs available, and you’ll probably find a lot of tunes have many different settings available. Sometimes there’s settings that are drastically different from each other, almost unrecognizeable as the same tune. I try, sometimes, to learn other settings than the one I originally learned, and to be able to switch phrases in and out on the fly… this makes for fun variations, and will be a good skill if/when I get into sessions ('oh, they’re playing -that- way, got it… ').
Anyway. I hope that’s more accurate than my timing comments and helps some! Having not really been there, I can only go by what little I know and what more I’ve heard.
Certainly a person can take a tune and have their own setting. I don’t have any of my own that I play in public yet, I may not decide to try for quite a while. In many cases though, parts of a tune are completely different. I would not call a monor variation that someone plays as a setting. Accept it as part of a tune that is a completely different melody between settings of a tune.
Some of the major settings just evolved in one town or county. I’ll use the Drowsy Maggie example. I play the setting that you’ll find in L.E. McCullough’s 121 F.I.S.T. I heard Drowsy Maggie start up at a session where I had not attended. I started in on the A part. The version they played is what I call the “Box Setting” as I hear concertina and accordion players play this more frequently than other instrumentalists. In this case there is no way to resolve the B parts of the two settings. Visitors will have to play the version that home team is playing. In my case, I recognized it, but could not play the B part. Hence, I played the A part aloud, and air whistled the B part which I did not know. I was not able to pick it up before the tune was over so we moved on to the next tune.
There is really no setting manager. One session will usually play one setting with regularity. If the musicians like different settings they usually discuss the which setting they want to play. In some cases I’ve seen real crack musicians take about a half note rest to recognize the version that is being played and have started in on the setting being played before the second measure.
My session flips between the two part setting and four part setting of the Foxhunters jig (a slipjig actually). The others must colaborate the dates of switching prior to sessions , becasue I am usually left playing the other setting when they do switch. By luck, the settings sound well when played together. I usually plough through the first time and change on the setting being played by the second time around.
My session flips between the two part setting and four part setting of the Foxhunters jig (a slipjig actually).
Two part setting…? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a two-part setting, though I’ve heard two different 4-parts (F-D-F, F-D-F vs. F-F-D, F-F-D, and some other changes) … or maybe that’s a ‘minor variation’ …
Is the 2-part describable based on the 4 part or is there a resource you can point to? (Audio or dots) My curiousity is roused now… Must hunt the foxhunter…
Two part setting…? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a two-part setting, though I’ve heard two different 4-parts (F-D-F, F-D-F vs. F-F-D, F-F-D, and some other changes) … or maybe that’s a ‘minor variation’ …
Is the 2-part describable based on the 4 part or is there a resource you can point to? (Audio or dots) My curiousity is roused now… Must hunt the foxhunter… >
–Chris
The two part Foxhunter is the one I was taught. It is the one Cherish the Ladies do as a song. It is also in both Geraldine Cotter’s tinwhistle and piano tutors. Jerry O’Sullivan also worked on it with me years back.
The 4 part version which is supposedly in O’Neils, but I couldn’t find it off hand (Maybe Kraussen changed the name so the rest of the world used the names he prefers).
Also, if you are giving me the first bar of each, that would just be a minor variation, neither of which I am familar with. Calling that a setting makes the term setting too broad to be useful in my book. Changing a couple of notes is a variation. Something that ought to happen naturally when playing a tune. Changing every note in a part (replacing it) or adding other parts is a useful definition for the term setting.
Both settings that I know have the same A and B parts, but the second one adds a C and D part. The C part is the same as the A part but one octave higher. The D part begins with a decending G scale and finishes up like the B part.
I am not
The two settings I know both start out
(If I understand ABC right, this is my first try at that animal).
~F3 FDF G2E|~F FDF E2D|~F3 FDF G2B|AFD DEF E2D
Edit to fix the ABC.
[ This Message was edited by: Mark_J on 2002-07-03 11:59 ]
and this second part:
|:B3 BAG FGA|B2E E2F G2B|ABc dcB ABc|d2D DEF E2D:|
Which is, I think, just a minor variation on yours, so the two-part setting is maybe just the first two parts of the 4-part setting I have. (My third part is just the second part an octave up, and fourth part a variation on the second part that makes sense if you coming down from the higher octave.)
If you know of any drastically different parts, that’d be cool, but I’m guessing that’s pretty much the core of the tune.
The bbc virtual session has the other melodic variant I meant, which starts,
|F3 FED G2E|
which only goes to show that my ear isn’t worth anything yet. (The bbc variant is, by sound, exactly what other human players have played as ‘the other variant’, but the sheet music obviously doesn’t look like what I thought a couple posts back that they were playing).
It’s a great tune anyway. I think I’ll go try to play it with the virtual session for bit… the variation will do me good.
Jig: anything that has the rhythm and tempo of the Irish Washerwoman. If you can repeat the word paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde four times in time to the music before the music repeats, its a jig.
Reel: anything where you can’t really HEAR three out of four notes (or six out of eight for the purist) but something inside you knows they really are there. Reels are too fast for human hearing.
Slipjig: any tune that sort of sounds like you could do the paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde thing, but you really can’t…there is some part of the tune that slips away and makes it the right rhythm but the wrong length.
Hornpipe: anything that sounds like a sailor walking looks.
Polka: remember The King and I? “Shall We Dance?” is polka…ONE two three and ONE two three and. Further, it was mentioned in an earlier thread that BY DEFINITION a polka should be pickupable in three renditions. With enough beer under your whistle, this is truth.
Slide: think jig with half the notes removed.
Waltz: if you need a def’n, you shouldn’t be playing ANY instrument.
Now…anyone want to tackle mazurkas, schottishes, strathspeys and the like?
On 2002-07-02 22:25, Mark_J wrote:
[
The 4 part version which is supposedly in O’Neils, but I couldn’t find it off hand
Actually it is O’ Neill’s Music of Ireland but only as part of the Foxchase from which it was lifted.
Seamus Ennis used a two part version in G for his version of the Foxchase, I have him on tape saying ‘that’s a job of my own’. He also ‘re-worked’ The Lament for the Fox for his Foxchase.
The whole thing [foxchase and related pieces] is based on an older song ‘An Madhrin Rua’ The little red dog, which is the Irish name for the Fox.
I’m already eating into the weekend, and don’t want to waste any more time trying to figure out where this thread is going.
But MarkJ, I think you’re throwing the fox off the scent by your reference to eighths. The common point about jigs is that they’re all in triple time, i.e. the notes are in multiples of three: double jigs in 6/8, slip jigs in 9/8. Single jigs or shlides cause some confusion because the 3/8 time is grouped into multiples of four, giving you 12/8? Is that clear? (don’t bother answering).
Congratulations, Tyghress, you’re onto something big. If aspiring bodhrán players were told that they have to say paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde (God bless “cut and paste”, BTW) instead of “rashers and eggs and lashings of sausages”, that’d sort out the sheep from the goats pretty fast.
[ This Message was edited by: Roger O’Keeffe on 2002-07-05 12:27 ]
, becasue I am usually left playing the other setting when they do switch. By luck, the settings sound well when played together. I usually plough through the first time and change on the setting being played by the second time around.