I have been through the analyse too deeply bit and have come out the other end with the broader perspective of irish trad music…90% reels and 10 % jigs !..there is a whole range of legitimate irish trad out there to play and enjoy…read ‘pocket history of irish traditional music’ which i got today…I’m sure you all have…there is an interesting (i think) excerpt from this book on some comments i have submitted under ‘traditional Irish’ bit of C & F…give me the jigs, the reels…love em but love the hornpipes, polkas etc…never yet though found that all reels sound the same ! If you havn’t got this book it’s worth getting …it put me on a different emotional plain in my understnding of irish trad and tonight i somehow seem a better irish trad player…do i need treatment or what…blessings…Les.
I have found the Tin Whistle version of Grey Larson’s (sp) book to be very helpful. I’m sure if I ever had a chance of playing the whistle well, using this book has destroyed it----at least that’s what a number of veiled comments on this forum have implied. On the other hand, after trying a number of tutorials, all of which were somewhat helpful, I found this book was the most helpful for me. Never having played a wind instrument, I really would have had no idea from listening to a CD what the musician was physically doing or what I was actually hearing when, say, a cut or strike was played. This book really made it clear for me.
Cynth, of course there is an immense amount of valuable information in that book and I have no doubt it is proving helpful to many people - especially people learning Irish music in isolation or coming from another musical background. So let me apologise for the rather snide dig at another teacher’s work.
The sheer thoroughness of Grey’s work is mind-boggling: 150-odd pages of minute analysis of ornamentation that requires, presumably, many months or years of intense study to master.
My point is, I suppose, that I’m not convinced that that kind of analysis is a very effective way of learning this stuff. I’m open to having my mind changed - but I’ve had a lot of students over the past 15 years and my experience has convinced me that in general analytical thinking is a major barrier to progress.
Thanks StevieJ. I can certainly understand disagreeing with someone else’s approach and saying so. It is sometimes the little maybe making fun part that bothers me—that’s what makes me feel I must defend. I know that not everyone benefits from his approach, but I appreciate your pointing out his thoroughness. 
I find memorizing jigs is a lot easier than memorizing reels, anybody else?
Well, there’s fewer notes in every bar …
M
AMEN to the above. Nothing, but Nothing beats a slip jig.
Reels are my least favortie.
[quote=“chas”]
No reels, hornpipes, or polkas were harmed in the composition of this message, nor was any harm to them intended.[/quote]
I used to not understand reels. I could play them well enough to fool those who don’t know about trad., but I couldn’t fool someone who knew about trad. For some reason I just didn’t “get” them. I still haven’t figured out what wasn’t clicking in my head about them, but one day I listened to a recording of one reel (forgot which one it was), but that reel made the lightbulb go on in my head. I caught something in that reel that I hadn’t caught in any others before. Now they make sense!
I agree that slip jigs are the most fun. Now I like playing reels, but too many of them in a row… I dunno, they don’t start to sound the same, but I think that they kinda loose some of their magic. I also think that jigs are really difficult to play well. I think that its because there are so many different ways they can be played (rhythms, speeds, emphasis, etc.), but very few of those ways really bring out the tune in the way it was meant to be. I think jigs have a very delicate balance. Play them too fast, they’re just a jumble of meaningless notes. Too slow, they don’t have any life. Not enough emphasis on the right counts, no internal beat. Too much emphasis makes them pounding. Then, how much do you lenghthen the first note of the beat and shorten the second? Then, you have jigs that are slower and jigs that are faster, so you can’t just play them all at one set tempo. etc.
I think the hardest thing about jigs is that you have to experiment with them to figure out how to play them as a tune, rather than strings of notes. I think that all too often, the emphasis is put on speed, rather than making the notes into meaningful music. So many airs become fast waltzes and hornpipes become reels, but is anything gained musically by playing them faster?
I really like the Teada Cd " Give Us a Penny and Let Us Be Gone " not only because they are fine musicians but because I get to hear jigs, reels, hornpipes, airs,set dance,slip jig, single jig, Highland Fling, Barndances, march and even SONGS. While many prefer reels or gettin jiggy , I have always liked the songs the best.
If you think all the reels sound the same, then its probably time to learn a bunch more reels that don’t sound like the ones you already know…
I really like the Wicklow Hornpipe, found in the L.E.McCullough tutorial book. It’s fairly easy and it sounds great.