I don’t know whether this is a dumb question or not, but here goes…
What is the difference between hornpipes, reels, airs, polkas, ect. that are used to classify Irish tunes?
It’s not a dumb question! 
http://www.whistletutor.com/beginner.htm#1
Here you can see some of the types of dance tunes, their time signatures, and hear samples so you can see how the rhythms are different. Hope it helps a bit.
Tune types are distinguished by their rhythms and speed. Individual cases are affected by the dances associated with them, so it is hard to set anything in stone.
Approximations (after Terry Moylan):
Hornpipes: 4/4 - 39-60 bars per minute
Single Jigs/Slides: 12/8 - 69 - 84 bars per minute
Double Jigs: 6/8 - 64 - 74 bars per minute
Slip Jigs: 9/8 - 64 - 74 bars per minute
Reels: 4/4 - 52 - 64 bars per minute
Polkas: 2/4 - 64 - 74 bars per minute
There are any number of good books on the subject. Time to do a little research, perhaps?
djm
djm, that speed information is interesting. I have been so curious about what to aim for, although I’m so far away from it that it hardly matters, so this gives me an idea of roughly how fast the tunes should go.
Okay, so see if I am right here. If a slip jig is played at 64 bars/minute (metronome set to 198 if I have one beat for every three 1/8 notes) and a double jig is 64 bars/minute (metronome set to 128 if I have one beat for every three 1/8 notes), then a slip jig is really played way, way faster than a double jig? It seems like such a big difference. Am I doing something weird here or is there really that big a difference?
Don’t get too hooked up on how fast tunes should be. There’s currently a debate on Irtrad-L about this and most posters are in agreement that there’s too much emphasis on excessive speed in an awful lot of sessions. As djm says, nothing is set in stone, and in particular I think it’s erroneous to think that everything should be played at a speed perfect for dancing - that may be a guide, but it’s an unnecessary constraint if you’re not actually playing for dancers, which most of us are not most of the time. I’d rather be playing something a bit slower than “usual” (whatever that is) so that everyone in the company can comfortably join in, than play hell-for-leather thereby excluding some people and robbing the music of its expressive and rhythmic nuances. Whatever tempo allows the ensemble to achieve good playing with a springy rhythm is the right one.
Steve
Speed isn’t everything. Take Kiss the maid behind the bar for instance. Some play it as a hornpipe (theme to Scrap Saturday) while others play it as a reel (Paddy Keenan, for instance). The hornpipe version is much more stocatto.
I would put a slightly different interpretation on it. I agree with Steve’s reasoning, but if there is to be some sort of standard speed to reach for when learning, I think that should be dance speed. It is, after all, dance music.
I think this is where a dose of honesty comes in. It is one thing to be able to play well at dance speed, but choose to play slower, versus play slow because one can’t play any faster (I know I certainly can’t … yet).
djm
Oh, yes, I definitely agree that you should not play a piece more quickly than you are able to. It would be nice to have it be my choice how fast I play something, but so far there is no choice and only one speed—very slow.
I was always just curious, though, about how fast the dancing really went. Pretty darn fast, apparently. I guess I could imagine two steps per second which would be 120 beats/minute, but three steps per second would be 180 beats/minute like a slip jig, and that sure seems fast.
I’m going to see if there are any video clips online of people dancing jigs. I have never seen that.
I’ve recently played for dancers. For what they call Hornpipes (double jigs), I played at 112 on the metronome. What they called light jigs (slow double jigs) I played at 76. Normally I play jigs at between 120 and 132, depending on the jig.
It’s really very simple.
Single jigs go Buttery-Buttery-Buttery
Double jigs go Buttery-Hattery-Buttery-Hattery.
Slip Jigs go Buttery-Fluttery-Hattery.
Reels go Phenomenal-Phenomenal-Phenomenal.
Hornpipes go Tumble-Bumble-Tumble-Bumble.
Polkas go Pretty-Ditty-Pretty-Ditty.
Slow airs don’t have a fixed beat, and tend best to be described as going the
way that their lyrics would go if they were being a song instead of an air.
Of course, you have to say the words just so for it to sound like the
timing of the words, and not every bar has a note on every beat…
Mostly, you really need to listen to the tunes being played to get the real
sense of the rhythm that distinguishes the types one from another,
and the phrasings that are particular to each tune.
–Chris
This doesn’t seem right to me. According to this page:
http://www.irelandsdance.com/info/musicdances/intro.htm
A slip jig is (standardly) played at 113 beats per minute. This also matches the beats per
minute of the majority of available dance-track CDs, and matches my memory of having
looked this up before.
I think comhaltas has published something about this on the web, but I can’t find it today.
I understand that Hornpipes also have the same characteristic last measure for both the
A part and the B part. This measure seems to almost always be 3 quarter notes, the second
and third of which are the same note, and more emphasized than the 1st.
Listen to Rights of Man, or better yet, hum the theme to Popeye (“Sailor’s Horpipe”), and listen
for this rhythm. You say: “Tumble-Bumble, Tumble-Bumble, Tum Bum Bum”
Supposedly, this is an important measure when dancing a hornpipe, but I’m not sure why
I’ll have to watch the dancer better next time we’re playing one…
I remember back on one of the previous incarnations (wrong word?) of the board, Peter Laban answered the question of what the difference between a hornpipe and a reel are by saying a hornpipe ends in three quarter notes.
I remember a lot of people were upset because they thought it was a flippant answer, but the more I have been exposed to the music the more I understand his answer.
See, hornpipes are generally played with a sort of swing (almost a dotted eighth - sixteenth figure instead of two eighth notes), and are generally played slow, and are generally played in four (4/4).
And reels are generally played straight, with no swing, fast and in 2 (2/2 not 2/4 – this is why a lot of reels look like they are in 4/4). But for each type I could name an exception.
So the more I know, the most consistent difference I see, is that hornpipes end with that three quarter note figure. Of course, even that isn’t completely consistent, so to be more exact I should say they end with a sort of note/chord progression that firmly establishes the key (see boys of bluehill -DF#D, harvest home DF#D, off to california -AF#G or AGG)
I’ve always liked “chugga chugga chugga chugga” for reels, and “dumb dumb dumb dumb” for hornpipes (no, I don’t like hornpipes much). 
djm
My Glutton-For-Punishment beloved just played for a feis and everything was 113 except for some weird animals called treble hornpipes which were roughly half that (I still can’t figure out the why, but there ya go).
I’ve played for dancers going as fast as 120 before, but it wasn’t pretty. 
So Cathy, for a reel in 4/4 time, would you have 4 beats/measure or, as some people have recommended to me to play, 2 beats/measure? I know what the time signature means, but I guess since reels are so fast some people play in “cut time” and play four 1/8 notes per beat. So my question is, if the metronome is set at 113 and you are playing a reel for dancers, are you playing two 1/8 notes per beat or four 1/8 notes per beat? The answer is probably obvious but I’m so far from playing at these speeds that I don’t have any feeling for that high a setting.
Reels are supposed to be played in 2/2 (so called “cut” time). So 113 would be for two groups of four eighth notes. (Or two quarter notes for each beat)
To further confuse matters, this could be written as 2/4 and it would be two groups of four sixteenth notes (or two eghth notes).
I have seen hornpipes written in 2/4, but to me this is confusing, because I’ve always thought hornpipes were four beats to a bar, not two.
When you get right down to it, I find it’s confusing that there is a 2/2 and a 2/4. What’s the difference? Or the point?
Same with 6/4 versus 3/4, or 3/2.
Why? WHY? ugh…
Thanks, Nico. That is what I had feared. I just tried tapping four times per beat with the metronome set to 113. Boy, that is fast.
Ooops! Sorry for the delay in responding – just like in school I put off the math-related questions until the last possible second.
2/2 means 2 beats per measure, and the half note = 1 beat
2/4 means 2 beats per measure, and the quarter note = 1 beat
But, 2/4 is not the same as cut time – because cut time is 4/4 cut in half, therefore 2/2.
Anyway, the bottom number in a time signature is the value of the note that gets a beat; the top number is the number of beats per measure.
Hence, 6/8 is 6 beats per measure, with each 8th note being worth one beat. 3/4 is three beats per measure with the each quarter note being worth one beat, and so on through all those fun sigs like 3/8, 7/8, etc., which are vital for the cool syncopated stuff jazz & some classical composers like.
But fiendish, isn’t it? 
And yes, Cynth, that’s the main reason for cut time … it’s tough to tap your toe at 226 for very long!
I know, it’s weird. And for what it’s worth, you have every right to be confused. When they’re written that way you get many tiny measures and a whole lot of downbeats which, depending on the player, can mess up the overall rhythm. So generally, Irish music that’s written that way is viewed as … well, kind of wrong, because the beat emphases would be all wacked out. Ditto on the hornpipes … sometimes I think it just has to do with the transcriber not knowing any differently, especially if the transcriber is from a classical-type background where 2/4 is fairly common.