I like jigs. Sorry all real musicians out there. After 3 or 4 reels they start to sound the same. Bands that play all or nearly all reels start to become musical wallpaper IMHO. And the B parts of so many reels are SO similar sounding. Da da-da da daaaaa.
There are some good reels, and when well played a good reel can be vey exciting. But so many unmined treasures in the jig department.
I’m with you old chap…I love reels, but I find it’s a shame that most sessions I’ve ever been to focused on them 90% of the time.
I have always been a Jig guy myself but I do enjoy Reels a lot and now that I can play them with some decency I like them a bit more but Jigs just feel so much more natural to me.
Triple time is where it’s at. The only thing better than a double jig, waltz, or mazurka is a slip jig – triple-triple time!
No reels, hornpipes, or polkas were harmed in the composition of this message, nor was any harm to them intended.
I am totally inexperienced but I know what a jig is and what a reel is. I would be interested in what people think about why reels seem to be so very much more popular.
Bloomfield told me that all reels are different and that you have to sort of figure out what is going on in order to emphasize the right notes. (I am probably expressing his idea very poorly or inaccurately, sorry) This made me think that reels are more complex than I thought.
I know that I have been able to play a jig fairly slowly and get a little swing going and that I have a reel I have been playing forever and it sounds like nada. I just can’t find what it means.
So I am wondering if reels are somehow more complex musically and that is what makes people so fond of them. I know nothing about anything but I’m interested in what people think.
I really favor jigs also, but it’s hard for me to imagine that reels “all sound alike.” The Man of the House does not sound like the Dunmoor Lasses, does not sound like Flagstone of Memories, etc.
Maybe the problem is too many folks trying to set land speed records when playing them. I am an amateur player who plays mostly for my own enjoyment and, although trying to get up to respectable and appropriate speeds (I’m not playing for dancers - they’d beat my brains in), I play more for the “feel” of the tunes. As Bloomie said, I do find each to be somehow unique. There is one favorite reel in particular that I think sounds beautiful when played more slowly; someone once played it for me really fast and I didn’t recognize the tune - it may have been “correct” in that the notes were all played and the number of beats per second was in keeping with “proper” reel speed, but it was sorely lacking in clearly articulated phrasing and feeling, soul or whatever you’d care to call it.
Philo
The thing about this music generally I find is that the more I understand, the less I understand: Instead of becoming simpler and clear, with each little step I take a mile of complexity opens up.
Nowadays I think that while reels aren’t easy to play at first, but once you get to a certain level, you can do a fair job at them. Jigs on the other hand are hard, very very hard to play well.
Interesting.. . .
My thought is that jigs are initially more “user friendly” and jump up and grab you quicker. Reels, though, when you learn them, can be very rewarding. I can pick up jigs fairly quickly, reels take more work.
Blooms - what about jigs makes them difficult to play well? I am curious as to your thoughts.
My guitar-playing friend and I are putting together a set for a freebie gig on Saturday (goodness–our first time to “play out”!) and a lot of the tunes that I sort to the top of the pile are jigs. Gotta love 'em–flowing jigs, marchy jigs, jiggity jigs. I’m tossing in fossilized jigs like Kesh and new compositions like Indian Point.
To add variety, I’ve got favorite reels and waltzes.
My problem (or challenge) is that my favorite tunes are in minor keys. Playing in primarily one key–minor or major–is what I think may make tunes all sound the same.
So I’m being careful to have a variety of meters and a variety of keys. Guitar-playing Bill is keeping his capo handy, since I’m on the Boehm flute mostly and going off into F and B-flat territory for variety.
M
[pedantic tangential diatribe]
My advice to anybody that finds anything about Irish music complicated (and I know I’m starting to get boring trotting out this line of thought all the time) is to remember that it isn’t. It really isn’t. (And if it seems to be complicated, just keep buggering on. One day you’ll wake up and realize the truth of it.)
In Ireland you can meet children in their early teens who can play this music better than any of us here will ever be able to, and it’s safe to assume that they haven’t spent years analyzing the ins and outs of the tunes they can play so effortlessly. Of course the poor things can’t hold learned discourses about what they’re doing, but really, does this matter?
Yeah I know, the difficulty comes when you learn not only your instrument but also the musical language as an adult, and by then you can’t just listen, absorb, and do the way a child does. You will insist on thinking about it, it’s just how we adults do things. I just think it’s a good idea to keep the childlike learning part of your brain using up most of the CPU power and not to give the rational mind too many resources.
Bear in mind - analyze to death and you end up with… The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle? 
[/pedantic tangential diatribe]
I am very fond of jigs too. Non-ITM audiences respond better to jigs too, but what do they know…
I like jigs a lot too. They seem easier to get my fingers around and easier for me to embellish and find little variations. I also find them INFINITELY easier to breathe.
However, I don’t get a ‘rush’ from jigs the way I do from a tightly played reel. Last night was the standard mix of reels and jigs with the spice of a polka set, a march set, an O’Carolan, and germans. There was a crowd who seemed very appreciative, but they positively ROARED at our rendition of Gravel Walk. And yes, it was played at a blazing tempo.
Unapologetic,
Tyg
Reels that I -know- certainly don’t sound the same, but I string of reels that I don’t know does quickly start to sound like, ‘low octave pedal, little fillip, low octave pedal, little fillip, high octave pedal, descant, high octave pedal descant’ Or something like that. Of course there -are- reels that don’t pedal anywhere in them, there -are- reels that don’t have any long descants, they tend to stand out a bit. (I don’t think there are any reels that have -neither- pedals nor descants… ) And of course, really, the tension in the melody is changing as the actual notes being played change, and especially across key changes. A similar pattern and rhythm on E-modal sounds quite different from G-major.
Of course, for any tune that I actually -known- it jumps right out of that and sounds -completely- different from that ‘sameness’. Obviously, because I choose the best, most unique sounding reels to learn… err… or not. The real issue is, I think, is one of mental saturation, not being able to identify all the unique elements after bit. I’ve also noticed that the -first- couple of reels I don’t know sounds really unique and interesting… it’s the 8th one I don’t know that sounds ‘just the same’. (Of course, more and more, reels jump out of the mix as being naggingly familiar, either because its one I know-to-hear-it-but-not-play or they’re very similar to one I do play. The reel sets on CDs I own never have the ‘sounding the same’ problem either…)
In a colossal display of ignorance and unwillingness to do research:
What’s a descant? I know it as a counter melody…but you seem to use it in a different context.
“Pedal” I know…that’s when a tune has a phrase where every other note is the same, and the inbetween notes tend to go up or down the scale.
Thanks,
Tyg
Hehe. Maybe I should have said “subtlety” rather than complexity.
What’s harder about jigs? The lilt and phrasing. But that’s only because my mother didn’t lilt jigs while she nursed me.
descant \DES-kant, noun:
\DES-kant; des-KANT; dis-, intransitive verb:
[T]hese to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung.
–John Milton, Paradise Lost
The same goes for hornpipes, by the way. Lots of people only learn 2 or 3 hornpipes, which is a shame…it’s true, there are some corny-sounding hornpipes, but there are some truly brilliant ones as well. And most hornpipes sound great on the whistle.
I also have fun playing reels as hornpipes. Some come out really nice, and quite different from the reel-sound.
Also -many reels work well as slow aires (as do some jigs).
Some tunes that are now played as reels used to be played as hornpipes. The Scholar, which is normally played as a reel these days, is listed in O’Neill’s as a hornpipe. I think there’s some debate about whether it was originally composed as a hornpipe or reel…I believe it’s a tune composed by James Hill, who titled it “The South Shore.”
I suspect Rolling in the Ryegrass started out as a hornpipe.
Rolling in the Rye Grass is actually one I play as a HP!
I alternate one round as reel then go into a hornpipe the second time around. It’s fun.
I do the same type thing with The Green Gates.
Huh. I started it at session recently, and someone said “Rhygrass isn’t a Hornpipe!”
I was surprised, that’s just how my teacher had taught it to me. Glad its not just me!