After my recent experience of being unable to play even tunes that I know fairly well, such as Cooley’s Reel, at “session tempo” I had a look at this site:
I’m interested in your opinions on the “regular tempo”, especially on the reels, which tend to be the tunes that get accelerated during session play. For example, I can play “Earl’s Chair” at this “regular tempo,” but I’ve never heard it played that slow in a session. I had another thread about that tune. “Cooley’s Reel” is another that is always played much faster than what’s on this site. Granted, the site is called “slow sessions”, but I have the idea that “regular tempo” is supposed to be the non-slow version.
The site is useful for learning tunes anyway.
My other question is this: When you’re playing in a session and you notice that others are playing a different setting, how quickly are you able to suss out what they’re doing and adapt your own playing? I’m just curious.
I sampled some of the tunes, and I’m perfectly happy with the regular tempos. Many sessions I’ve been to have played 'way too fast for my taste, and that’s not just sour grapes because I can’t always keep up. I find that something is lost when tunes are played too fast. These are dance tunes, after all.
I wonder if the original message was “Dancers need a steady rhythm rather than a spastic spewing of notes” and it’s just gotten corrupted. Certainly for many advanced beginners, not keeping a steady rhythm and playing very quickly seem to go hand-in-hand – cutting beats just a bit short and then speeding up everything else to try to compensate. Slowing them down does sometimes help the situation.
(I’ve long thought that the “No harmony in Irish music” thing is a similar corruption of the true observation that melody instruments always play the melody.)
Well, it is definitely one of those internet clichés that is put forward often. Mostly without thinking how it actually relates to reality.
Here is one of my favourite dancers, Aidan Vaughan, demonstrating a few steps, listen to the tempo of the music (or, alternatively, play along) to get a feel for it. Here is another example of the battering steps, playing for a battering set teaches you about rhythm, it’s brilliant.
Some seven or eight years ago I took my son to set dancing classes with Aidan for a while, an hour a week. He was using the same ceiliband recording at the time, I heard it so often I can dream it. Anyway, ignore that last bit, just thinking out loud..
My wife, a music major, has very definite thoughts on what “dance tempo” means. Too slow or too fast (i.e., outside a specific range of tempii) doesn’t work for dance, regardless of style, genre, or any other considerations, it seems.
A dancer once told me that the more experienced the dancers, the slower they want the tempo, because more experienced dancers have more complicated stuff they want to do.
I’m not much of a dancer, but I would enjoy reading the thoughts of people who perform Irish dance!
A dancer once told me that the more experienced the dancers, the slower they want the tempo, because more experienced dancers have more complicated stuff they want to do.
That is true for stepdancers , especially the competitive ones (the ones who ‘do’ Irish Dance in full rig out) but it doesn’t hold true for set dancing, which would generally happen in more social settings. Again, look at what Aidan is doing in the videos. Dancers are certainly particular about the speed they like to dance at.
WOW. That first one is one of my standard tunes, and while I think I can play it as fast as they were going, I’d certainly not choose to. And I was completely unable to sync up with them; I’d play along but find myself a beat behind after eight bars.
I was at a booklaunch at the backarse of Cooraclare just before christmas. Some of us were asked to join to play for a few sets, the lads there (a drummer and an accordionplayer) flew off at that speed. It takes a few tunes to turn the switch and just go with it (especially tunes you haven’t played for ages).
I have sat hundreds of nights playing for dancers and if you have good ones it’s just great, well two or three sets (and I mean a full Caledonian, not a ‘set’ of tunes here) a night anyway. A whole night of it is a bit much.
Maybe this is the answer to my question, in a nutshell.
I’ve played in sessions where there were dancers, but only a few times, so I don’t have much experience with it. The “regular tempo” in most of the tunes at the Toraigh site that I linked to is comfortable for me, but probably too slow for dancers.
Maybe this is the answer to my question, in a nutshell.
Not necessarily. There are local differences where it comes to speeds. I have the impression the speed at which sessions in the US move is higher than they are here on the Back of Beyond. So there’s that too but I say that in the most general of terms, you’ll find people doing things different from one place to the next.
Depends, of course, on the session. My experience is that US sessions are often pretty fiddle-driven, which can lead to excessive speed especially when there’s a competitive undercurrent. There’s certainly a place for that, but all too often it turns from friendly session into personal performances or head-cutting. That’s often fed by attention from spectators, who usually know more about flash than the music itself. Other times, things can be pretty mellow. Generally, session speed just depends on who shows up, and the chemistry that’s going on that day.
FWIW, the dancers who show up at our public session from time to time do seem to favor pedal-to-the-metal, so it’s really nice to be able to hold your own at quick tempos, within reason.
I think it very much depends on the session. Also, colomon said it perfectly: “Certainly for many advanced beginners, not keeping a steady rhythm and playing very quickly seem to go hand-in-hand – cutting beats just a bit short and then speeding up everything else to try to compensate. Slowing them down does sometimes help the situation.”
Many fast sessions in NA, in my experience, tend to also be relatively intermediate or beginner level. The best musicians can, and do, play fast, but it’s a different feeling altogether (lively or fast, but not at all rushed), but they also play at moderate and even slow speeds. I’ve encountered the same thing in Ireland, too, so I don’t really think it’s that big of a difference, just that there’s a higher concentration of good and great musicians in a smaller area.
There’s a lovely group of set dancers here who are actually really into the music, and they don’t require the music to be super fast.
Just a general observation here… sessions around here vary widely based upon which musicians show up whether fast or slow players. Also, from the quote above, the rhythm and speed can vary greatly of the dancers as well, whether seasoned dancers or newer, less skilled dancers are on the floor.
Competition is another matter, session standards too, and slower learning situations can vary by experience levels and perhaps even age musicians as well as dancers. Its all fun though.
Well I heard the old flute player (since departed) Jack Coen (sp?) use that phrase, and he was adamant that most people were playing the tunes too fast. I’m not a fine enough player to argue either way, but I do know that most really fast sessions I’ve played in lack any sort of real lift in the playing.
There’s an element of ‘young people these days..’ in that. You hear a lot of older players say that. I have known several older players who made similar noises. And then I heard recordings of them made thirty or forty years before. That put a bit of perspective on it.
Most likely these things are more about lift and internal rhythm than speed (as was suggested above). Older players did have nice ways to put rhythm on their music while the trend seems to be towards a more linear way of playing these days. I heard someone blame that on modern group/session playing, with melody players leaving all the rhythmic interest to the accompanying string section.
Anyhow, all I can observe is what I said above: dancers generally want a fairly brisk pace. ‘They are dance tunes’ is not a particularly well thought out argument in favour of playing more slowly when viewed against the reality of present day social and sean-nós dancing in Ireland.
I find it interesting that there are people who use the argument that “it’s dance music” to argue for playing slower. I’ve always heard, in person, the exact opposite. Especially by people who aren’t ready to play that fast…
musicians as well as dancers. Its all fun though.
