Noticed something a little odd (probably everyone else knows this, but I’m slow ) - the “feel” of a particular type can vary greatly from others of the same general type.
What brought this on was a jig - “The Ten-Penny Bit”. I’ve been working my way pretty steadily through the Clarke book, but the next piece was “The Halston Furry”, with lots of 3rd-octave sections, and my kids were trying to sleep , so I decided to work on this jig instead.
What I noticed immediately was the rather driving and insistent feel of the piece compared to “Smash the Windows” or “The Blackthorn Stick”, even though they’re all jigs in 6/8 time. I switched back and forth between them to make sure I was playing them all at the same clip, but it isn’t speed - even when I play “Smash the Windows” at all-out really-too-fast speed it doesn’t have the pushing, almost angry feel that I get from “The Ten-Penny Bit”.
So - am I going nuts, or has anyone else felt this? (I know - not an either/or question )
No, you aren’t nuts. TenPenny and Smash are so entirely different.
I had such a time at first wondering why all jigs or all reels didn’t “feel” the same. My final thought was that there just wasn’t enough
catagories of tunes as some SHOULD be called something else.
Lolly
I think this is where your own musicianship comes into play. In my own case, the reels “Within a Mile of Dublin” and “The Tarboulton” sound better to me when done at a deliberate pace played with swing; on the other hand, I’m not satisfied with “The Foxhunters” or “The Four Courts” unless I get to play them at my best speed and with drive. Other people have their own tastes. At sessions, I do the best I can with what got started by whom and how. Good practice!
Congratulations! Your not nuts! (Unless all the rest of us are.) I’ve notice a simalar thing. Wonderful thing to that a similar type of music can still vary within itself so much or I think music wouldn’t be so interesting.
Dancers differentiate between single, double, and treble jigs. I can’t tell you in words what the differences are, but I know I can’t dance one kind of step to another kind of music.
I was recently on a website and was looking for slip jigs to play, but they were lumped in the same category as regular jigs.
…hello? slip jigs are in 9/8 instead of 6/8. isn’t that enough of a difference to warrant a separate category?
Not me - still working on getting single jigs down (and probably making a right hash of it).
What interested me about the tunes I mentioned is that they are all (in theory) much the same animal - 6/8 single jigs.
At first, I thought it was because “Ten-Penny” has all those pairs of notes in the A part (you know, the repetitive E-A-A, E-A-A measures). I still use minimal ornamentation and grace notes, so I was tongueing the E-A-A parts, which makes it feel less flowing than on “Smash” or “Blackthorn”, where I’ll often only tongue the beat and slur the second & third notes.
But then I played a couple of jigs - “Forgetting the Lesson” and “The Sheigh o’ Rye” - from A Dossan of Heather. Per the CD and the notes in the book, these should be, mostly, tongued. And they still sound much less driving (heck - positively relaxed) than “Ten-Penny”.
It isn’t the range - “Smash” actually goes up to high B several times, while “Ten-Penny” tops out at high A once in the A part (lots in the B part - but it’s the A part that gives that “driving” feel).
So at this point I don’t know. Kind of like the Attorney General’s report on pornography - “I can’t define it, but I know it when I hear it”
Yes, please. More specifically between single jigs and slides…they often sound the same to me. Now, I’ve had people say that a single jig is just a dancer’s approach, and yet everybody says that “Off She Goes”, for example, is a single jig.
Then again, “The Humors of Kilty Clogher” sounds like a slide (I think) in the A part and 1st half of the B part, and then a double jig in the 2nd half of it. I suppose this should be in the ITM Forum, but I’ve asked before, and nobody bit, really. So here you have it.
6/8 are double jigs: Ten Penny Bit is a double jig.
At first, I thought it was because “Ten-Penny” has all those pairs of notes in the A part (you know, the repetitive E-A-A, E-A-A measures). I still use minimal ornamentation and grace notes, so I was tongueing the E-A-A parts, which makes it feel less flowing than on “Smash” or “Blackthorn”, where I’ll often only tongue the beat and slur the second & third notes.
Try slurring the beat and tonguing the off-beat: Slur-tongue-tongue. Tonguing the beat is very un-Irishy sounding. Read Brother Steve’s section on Jigs.
So at this point I don’t know. Kind of like the Attorney General’s report on pornography - “I can’t define it, but I know it when I hear it” >
I think you mean Supreme Court Justice Jackson (RIP).
Point two: Why I need to work with a competent teacher. I’ve been working my way through the Bill Och’s tutor and he spends very little time on the Irish style, so I’ve been falling back on earlier (classical music) bad habits. I’ll practice these two as you suggest.
Point three: I shoulda known that one! Damn lysdexia!
Pardon me while I crawl off into a corner and whimper a bit . . .
In practice, the difference between 4 bars of 12/8 and 8 bars of 6/8 is pretty darn minimal.
I was weirded out by the E-A-A comments above, until I realized that (some?) people were talking about a completely different Tenpenny Bit than the one I know. The one I play is from Peter Horan (and Paddy Killoran?) and is pretty similar to the second setting in O’Neill’s. (It’s the Tennpenny Bit on Music at Matt Molloy’s.)
Though now that I look in the book, I see the first setting in O’Neill’s does have an E-A-A moment three times in the first part (but never twice in a row?) and then has the same second part as the one I know.
I’m guessing from the doubled E-A-A mention that people are actually talking about the tune which is AKA “Three Little Drummers” – A part starts eAA eAA, B part starts eaa eaa?
Mind you, the Tenpenny Bit I know is a very driving jig, so all the original comments seem to fit.
I’m a TenPennier, I adore both of those jigs. The “other” 10p jig - the one
on the Matt Molloy and also done by Tony DeMarco and Brian Conway,
was the first one I learned of the 2.
About the E-A-A E-A-A one, well I’m currently still working on moving my
B and A taps to the left (top) hand and this is just another darn tune
where I have to dissect it instead of just playing it..
I saw tonguing mentioned for this and I thought I’d say its better to tap
(with your top hand ringman, that’s what I’m working on).
As for the subject of this thread, yes yes the driving-ness of these jigs is
just the best.
While I’m at it, in our session (we play them together with Ned Coleman’s
jig first) it was commented that there is and was no 10p bit in Ireland.
Anyone know what is the title of these tunes from?
Sorry for bad grammar and rambling, been up since 5am today.
Most are, but there’s a smaller number of slides in 6/8 too. Basically, the slide has a faster tempo. To me, a slide “feels” like a polka, it has that one-two beat, and about the same tempo as a fast polka. Depending on where a person is from he/she may call something a jig or a slide.
Hmmm. The “TenPenny Bit” that I know is from one of the Walton’s collections - marked “Book 2”; it has 24 tunes, I think - the first couple of tunes are “The Wild Rover” and “Planxty Irwin”.
But it sounds close - the first two measures of the A part go eAA eAA, the first two measures of the B part go eaa aga. Ring any bells?
I’ve been practing this with the more traditional slur/(tap/cut/tongue)/(tct) pattern as Bloomfield suggested - does sound a lot better this way, to my ear.
And Peter Laban - re “Smash”, I didn’t know that. Now I’m going to have to try playing it as a Morris tune, just to see if I can - the jig version is one of my favorites.
I’ve never heard this played as a Morris tune. What Morris tradition uses this for a dance? I didn’t see it anywhere in the Bacon book (A Handbook of Morris Dances). Some traditions do dances to the tune “Princess Royal” a.k.a. “Miss MacDermott” by O’Carolan. Does this make it a “Morris” tune that the Irish play as an O’Carolan piece? My observation of Morris tunes is that a good many of them are borrowed from other traditional sources. In the world of Morris tunes you will also find “Haste to the Wedding”, “Cock o’ the North”, “Rakes o’ Marlow” (Rakes of Mallow), etc. The feel of these tunes is changed to fit the dance. Being a veteran Morris dancer I can see how “Smash the Windows” might be used for a Morris dance but the meter would have to be significantly altered to make it work. So…in short, Peter, I don’t know where you got your info from but I just don’t buy it
) - the “feel” of a particular type can vary greatly from others of the same general type.
, so I decided to work on this jig instead.
I’ve notice a simalar thing. Wonderful thing to that a similar type of music can still vary within itself so much or I think music wouldn’t be so interesting.
