In some written-out Scottish trad, some of teh trhee note sets in jigs are dotted (dotted eighth-sixteenth-eighth), and sometimes not. I’ve been trying to listen and I can’t tell that this actually means anything in practice- all the music seems to be either very swung or very straight, without any variation within a given set- but that doesn’t seem to make sense given waht I’ve seen in teh music. Anyone kno wabout this? Thanks 
Hi TheSpoonMan
It could be that what you are looking at are 6/8 marches rather than jigs or jigs being played like marches, something that happens quite regularly.
David
If your kilt is on crooked or the wool is too scratchy it may affect your gait. That in turn could have a serious effect on the rhythm of your Scottish jigs.
djm
I can’t speak to the Scottish stuff. But in Irish jigs I often switch up between straight AAA and dotted A>AA for variety. It’s just another expressive tool. Same with hornpipes. I wouldn’t let someone’s written notation lock me into a particular interpretation. Unless the tune is, say, a march or set dance where the swing rhythm is what is expected.
I don’t know about kilts. But itchy underwear is another expressive tool.
Depends who plays it. Scots musicians will play tunes with a different accent from Irish musicians. It’s something to do with the rhythm, but more to do with the emphasis. As MTGuru says, the written music does not have the capacity for reporting this. But experienced musicians will know the difference between what’s written and what’s played.
I generally swing my jigs. At least a good portion of the phrases within a jig. Long-short-Medium(and when playing fiddle, I accent groups of three so: accented-not accented-somewhat accented). I used to do Long short short exclusively, before I knew any better. Articulation also makes a big difference in how a tune feels. About 6 months ago I discovered that jigs indeed have a back-beat, and now I’m going back through the tunes I know and retooling them with a variety of note-length changes and articulations. Variety = good.
Nope, they were listed as jigs, tho I have made that mistake before 
I can’t speak to the Scottish stuff. But in Irish jigs I often switch up between straight AAA and dotted A>AA for variety. It’s just another expressive tool. Same with hornpipes. I wouldn’t let someone’s written notation lock me into a particular interpretation.
Aha. That makes sense, though I’d still like to know what’s normal for Scottish music there. But this helps. Thanks
Can anyone suggest any solo or close-to-solo Scottish instrumental cds that might be good for learning? It deosn’t seem as plentiful on the internet as Irish.
Hi TheSpoonMan
You have not specified what particular instrument.
Pipes - Fred Morrison is my favourite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKFD2e23hzE
For border repertoir Matt Seattle’s recordings might suit see
http://www.dragonflymusic.co.uk/
For Harp Savourna Stevenson has some nice stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeqL44F9hDo
For fiddle there is Ally Bain of course, also Chris Stout is nice as is my favourite Duncan Chisholm
Chris Stout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN2FgHN26e0
Ally Bain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW9lE65MH3w
Duncan Chisholm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RObNXnC08Hk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD3SNEqw5ZQ
For whistle - Julie Fowlis is the up and coming player, but she is first and foremost a singer
Puirt a’ bhèil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILpAWJEL4L8
Julie and Duncan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d-5wCYhHuA
Jigs and reel on Whistle and fiddle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lopedl7w4Fg
David
Oh, any instrument is excellent, as long as I can hear it clearly. I do harmonica and mandolin mostly, but anything will teach me. That all looks excellent. Thanks!
Then Donald Black is yer man.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7R3vZclR2M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQP9h3gF6g
David
Oh, beautiful! Danke schoen!
For mandolin, Kevin McLeod’s yer man. He’s made I think 3 CDs along with Alec Finn of De Danann. [ Kevin was their “roadie” for a few years]. There are also recordings - 2 , I think, - by “Dagger” Gordon from near Inverness, but they might prove harder to obtain.
Iain McInnes has an excellent CD - mainly small-pipes, and great tunes.
Another 2 Iains - MacDonald and MacFarlane made a very good duet recording of fiddle along with various pipes, flute and whistle.
Any of these recordings would probably be available from “Greentrax” - do a “Google”.
Coming from the standpoint of a long-time Highland piper, the playing of jigs dotted-and-cut, what GHB players call “pointing” or “pointed”, is the older way of playing jigs on the Highland pipes, and all the older generation of players played that way. This pointing was not at all uniform, but varied in an amazingly subtle way. These sophisticated nuances of pointing was and is what seperates excellent pipers from mediocre ones.
However, a big fad in the Highland piping world over the last decade or so has been to borrow Irish jigs and to compose new GHB jigs in what the Highland pipers conceive of as the Irish style, that is, perfectly even eighth-notes, what GHB players call playing “round”.
Most of the jigs you’ll hear from good pipe bands these days are these “Irish style” jigs played “round as a hoop”.
Initially most of the Irish jigs I heard Highland pipe bands play were borrowed from old Planxty albums (just why the GHB world only knew about those, I can’t say.) Then came along great bands from Ireland (both Northern and Republic) like Field Marshal Montgomery and Saint Lawrence O Toole who introduced a large number of authentic good Irish jigs into the GHB repertoire.
Strange that they would call it “Irish.” Playing jigs straight or round doesn’t sound Irish at all.
The old-school Highland pipe way of playing jigs with strong pointing seems to be pretty much dead. I spent a couple weeks in Scotland last August competiting at various Games with our pipe band, including of course the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow (with well over 200 bands from all over the world), and attending a number of concerts of solo piping, and I don’t think I heard any jig played in the old pointed way. It might still exist in solo competition.
The heavy pointing in reels however is alive and well and is the ONLY acceptable way to play reels in the MSR (March, Strathspey, and Reel) competition either band or solo. Reels are slowed down and played with heavy dotting and cutting (the “Scotch snap” as it’s called in classical circles). In effect, reels are very similar to strathspeys on the pipes.
Now, Scottish fiddle and accordion bands play reels in the Irish way, nearly or completely even. And, there’s been a growing fad in the Highland pipe band scene of playing reels even (round) but only in the “Medley” competition. (Pipe bands compete in two sorts of competitions, the MSR and the Medley. In the Medley you have a fixed amount of time and can theoretically play anything you wish- a selection of tunes from the Star Wars soundtrack if you want- but in effect all bands create their medleys by choosing one or more from each traditional category Hornpipe, Jig, Air, Reel, Strathspey, and sometimes March.)
About the eveness of Irish jigplaying, I spent about an hour yesterday playing my uilleann pipes along with a bootleg tape of Paddy Keenan playing a number of jigs, all played with dead-even metronomic precision. Even his rolls (which some Irish players play dotted even though the body of the tune is played straight) are dead-even.
Are you sure that Scottish reels were always played pointed? I know I’ve heard recordings from 20, 30, 50+ years ago where the reels are played pretty even. I can’t see that just being a fad from this decade, tho I’m sure your’e right in saying that. I also think of American fiddle tunes, insofar as they’re related, which are often ridiculously straight, even hornpipes and barndances and such.
Well I have some of the earliest recordings of Highland pipers from the turn of the century, through today, and competition reels are always pointed. Also, they’re written than way in all the Highland pipe books.
The recent fad is to play reels “round”, but note that reels cannot be played round when the reel is part of the MSR. Those “big” competition reels are always and have always been played pointed. When you hear reels played “round” is in the “medley”.
You can go on YouTube and see any number of videos of pipe bands playing MSR’s which will bear this out.
There’s another oddity to Highland pipe repertoire, and that is the “hornpipe”. Now, in Irish music a hornpipe is strongly dotted/pointed. However, starting I think in the 1960’s, the Highland repertoire developed a new idiom which they illogically called “hornpipe” but in fact was more like a reel, being eight straight eighth-notes per bar. Then, these so-called “hornpipes” became more mutated when a certain amount of Bulgarian influence came into the Highland pipe scene through the medium of Planxty (remember I told you how Highland pipers seem to know only about old Planxty albums). But the Highland pipers who were composing these neo-hornpipes didn’t understand the various Bulgarian dance idioms (rutchenitsa, daichovo, etc)- they just thought the timing was somehow random. Now, there’s even a new wrinkle, that of taking a jig and turning it into a “hornpipe”. The result has all sorts of syncopation and sounds really cool. To hear this, go to YouTube and hear the LA Scots (Los Angeles Scottish) pipe band begin their medley with a “hornpipe” version of The Atholl Highlanders.
Aah, I see. Yeah I meant fiddle and box recordings where I heard the reels straight… maybe it’s more of a thing outside the piping tradition specifically?
Now about Scottish fiddlers playing reels straight vs dotted (round vs pointed in GHB-speak) I attended a workshop by the great Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser, and he discussed this issue. In his playing at least reels are pretty much straight but he does “point” the last bar or two of each four-bar phrase in a subtle way.