I’m having trouble nailing the rythm of slip jigs. I can play along fine, if someone else starts it, or along with a recording. However, when I play at home with my friend who is learning the bodhran, I have trouble getting the rythm right. I think I keep falling into 4/4. Does anyone have any pointers on getting slip jig right?
I think of slipjigs in 1. That is, I tap my foot only once per measure, and the other 8 beats come between that and the next foot tap. I doubt this helps you, though.
One way you might try is to think of it as a waltz. So, instead of 9/8, think of it in 3/4 but with a lot of eighth-note triplets. This might help if you’re comfortable with 3/4. I’m sure you’ve tried thinking of it as a jig with an extra beat every measure, so I won’t suggest that.
Hi Fishie
Is your friend playing the rhythm properly??. If he is learning maybe he is playing in 4/4 and this causes you to do the same. Maybe if you both played along to a recording, then this would keep you both in rhythm.
David
Just to confuse you even more 
I think of and play slip jigs with the same rhythm as double jigs. This means that it takes 3 measures of a slip jig to resolve itself, but it works. If you think of slip jigs in this way you will also find it easier to move from slip jigs to double jigs and back again.
djm
Oh, wow. I just tried that, and it blew my mind. 
I think we have pinpointed your problem..
I would love to blame the bodhran palyer, but he’s a trained drummer, so i get the feeling it’s me.
These pointers may help, especially both playing along to a recording. thanks for the help!
Plenty of drummers can be quite extensively trained without ever encountering 9/8.
If you can play to a record or solo but fall into 4/4 with the drummer, I’d double check that the drummer has a feel for 9/8.
Or you might have incorporated an extra beat or two–maybe you should slow yourself down and work out one or two favorite tunes with a metronome. It’s horrifying what you can learn abpout tunes you think you know well a play smoothly when you actually measure them.
Hi Fishie
If you have another friend that plays ITM, have them listen while you are playing with your bodhran playing friend. Then get him to go over what he heard with a fine tooth comb. It may not be pleasant getting your playing criticised, but at least it may pinpoint where you are going wrong.
Is there a CCE branch near you, if so maybe they have an experienced adjudicator that can do this and give you the approriate feedback.
David
Dig out all your ITM CDs and find the slip jigs, then just listen to 'em until they get under your skin. The playing along can come later. I always used to think of 'em as a jig-and-a-half…
Steve
I do not play enough Irish music to give ITM specific advice here but I have played percussion accompaniment for many many years on and off stage and so I hope something here in my comment may help you, “universal” rather than ITM specific that it may be.
If you are having probs with this 9 beat cycle, get your friend to drop out of the prescribed time signature and slow the thing right down to even as slow as 9/2. Now play around with the following arrangements of beats in a 9 cycle (very slowly as I said)
1 2 3 | 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 ||
and
1 2 | 1 | 1 2| 1 | 1 | 1 2 ||
and
1 2 3 4 | 1 2 | 1 2 3 ||
ask your friend to keep it siimple until you lock in to one of the patterrns that fits the piece the best. Then spped it up to 9/8.
I suspect the latter 2 patterns may fit the best. Let me know how you go either here or by PM. I am experimennting with you. Thanks.
Here is a slip jig. For me the simplest thing is to think of each measure as being composed of 3 groups containing 3 eighth notes each. If I were having serious trouble with the rhythm I would tap out nine beats, emphasizing the 1st, 4th, and 7th beats. I’d use my metronome. When I got faster I would switch to 3 beats/measure. I would be thinking “triplets”. I am a beginner, so this is a beginner’s approach.
I’d just like to make the annoyingly anal point that 9/2 is not necessarily any slower than 9/8. In fact, unless you change the tempo marking, they’re the same speed (just notated differently).
I think your point is well made, though. 
When I look at the 3 patterns, I would pick pattern 1. Is that right? I may not be understanding the patterns.
That’s how I count it. And, to my understanding, that’s how it should be counted. Otherwise the notes would be grouped together differently.
For instance, in a 9/8 measure, if the first 3 notes were barred together, then the next 2, and then the next 2, and the next 2, then you’d actually count 4 in that measure: |123,12,12,12|123,12,12,12| ad infinitum.
But, were the first 2 barred, then 3, then 2, then 2, it would be: |12,123,12,12|12,123,12,12|.
But most slipjigs that I’ve seen look to be counted |123,123,123|123,123,123|.
Does that make any sense? I guess the point is you interpret by the way their grouped (that is, barred together). At least, that’s how it works in a classical setting… 
(I hope I didn’t just show my trad ignorance.)
We’re thinking the same way. I think thinking in 3’s makes sense. I can’t actually grasp the other possibilities—I think I’d have to see some music to get it. But I don’t think that music would be a slip jig.
Hi Cynth
The Butterfly is a lovely slipjig,(one of my competition slip jigs), but a beginner bodhran player would only hit 8 beats out of the 9 i.e. 1-3 123 123 for this tune, maybe this is what is putting Fishie off and he is actually playing the tune correctly.
Maybe he should record what they are doing and post it here, then we could see if there is a problem, and what to do about it.
David
As I said earlier I don’t play enough ITM and well enough to know but I know about rhythms to fit in with a lot of music. (My rhythm understanding is from an Indian perspective and I have heard tabla maestros play to Irish music and Greek music with success even though they aren’t conversant with those traditions).
If you and Douglas and others say that the 9 unit cycle in slip jigs is predominantly 123 /123/123 then I have learnt something that will help. Particularly significant because my Irish sitarist friend is forever pulling out his guitar and his banjo and prodding me play Irish flute music with him. I have been able to improvise stuff with him to his great delight but he has set me an assignment to learn a couple of slip jigs by NEXT TIME!
However, it is not necessary for the drummer to play a 3-3-3 rhythm to meet the needs of a 9 unit cycle. The drummer could play something like (for example only) a tabla (matta taal) cycle of 9 expressed (in matrix) as
2-1-2-1-1-2. AS I DON"T KNOW WHAT A SLIP JIG REALLY IS (technically) other than it being a piece in 9/8 which sounds like a waterwheel that doesn’t quite make its full round I don’t know whether such a rhythmic accompaniment would be appropriate to this tradition. But I do know that 3-3-3 is rhythmically pretty simple and basic and I can’t figure out why fishie got confused with it UNLESS (and I speculate) his bodhran accompanist was playing a different pattern BUT STILL withing the 9 unit cycle. And this is why I suggested some of the other drum patterns thinking that this is what might have been happening in fishie’s case.
Only yesterday I was at an acoustic concert where the tabla player was doing daadra ( a 6 cycle = 3-3) but the effect of his intricate patterning made it sound like 4-2. So what is basically a pattern that goes
Dha Dhin Naga | Dha Tin Naga
became something like
Dha Ga Dha | Ga Tita Tirikita
which (putting aside the notional niceties of indo rhythm theory) evinced the following
Dha Ga Dha Ga | Tita Tirikita
NB. I am just giving the matrices here - the drumming was much more intricate than this.
Maybe I’m extrapolating this too far, but I’m guessing Talasiga is talking about setting the beat to match the phrasing of any particular slip jig. That would mean altering the beat from one slip jig to the next, as the phrasing is seldom the same. But this would negate the fact that slip jigs are dance tunes and must, beyond anything else, maintain a steady and constant repeating beat.
Its easy to get lost in slip jigs by following the rhythm of the phrasing, but these phrases are not always constant within one tune, let alone going from one slip jig to the next. I would suggest listening to expert players of ITM, and notice how easily they slip back and forth between double jigs and slip jigs. The simple beat of 123123 works, whether it is 6/8 or 9/8.
djm
No, I wasn’t talking about that. Yes, I have noticed that the phrases are not always constant within the one tune. I was merely trying to work out why, if the slip jig is 3-3-3, fishie got so confused with it when playing along with a purportedly good bodhran player.
Of course I realise that the slipjig is a dance form and that the rhythm must be constant BUT, speaking “universally” again and not pretending to be ITM specific, while the percussionsist’s articulation (forgive me for using that word!) must be consistent with the notional rhythmic pattern underpinning the piece it need not be copycat and ditto for the dancer’s steps. I also wonder if this is the case in ITM.
I suspect that if, in slipjig, we must articulate 3-3-3 at every level (drummer, melodist and dancer) then fishie’s accompanist was playing a rather intricate expression of it and fishie needs to suggest to him or her to play a very simple bodhran accompaniment until fishie gets hooked.