The Quakers Wife

[DrPhill]

@StevieJ

It’s just how I would sing them Phil. I suppose it only works if you know how the tune goes. But then, that applies to conventional notation too. (We think it shouldn’t, of course, but if it didn’t, everyone who can read music would be able to play Irish tunes perfectly just from the sheet, and we know that isn’t what happens.)

This may help you decipher my “notation”: when you see two monsyllables paired together (dum-tee, da-ti) it’s a crotchet-quaver pair. The rest are groups of three crotchets, except for the last syllable in the second example, which is a crotchet and would normally be followed by a quaver, but since that starts the next phrase I left it out.

Edit: the fact that it doesn’t match your dots doesn’t matter. I was just trying to demonstrate how you get two main beats (the syllables in bold) fall in the bar. But if you’re not familiar with the sound of lilting, I can see it’s not going to be of much help.

Do learn to lilt - it’ll help your playing.

I was not being entirely serious - I got your point (that 12/8 implies half the number of accented beats of 6/8) from the words. I tried as a mental exercise to match your lilt-notation to the dots but failed. It seems that you have slightly different dots; I have: |GAB D2 B c2 A BGE|GAB DEG ABA AGE| .

So I guess the DA-di yapuhtum is “A2A AGE”? or similar. I wont even try the ‘students exercise’.

As for learning lilting - I do not think the world deserves that.

[jemtheflute]

I have nothing to offer on the jig/slide debate, but with reference to Phill’s underlying quest to learn to play MKTQW, here’s one I made earlier - which may (or not!) be helpful.

[benhall.1]

@StevieJ

I’d say that slides written 12/8 in fact have 2 strong beats per bar, not four. I’d think writing it in 6/8 and playing with 2 strong beats would give you a very different feel.

Slides rattle along: sort of

DIDdle-dee Dum-ti DA-ti diddle-dee | DIDdle-dee diddle-dee DA-di yapuhtum | (Quaker’s wife)

YUM-tee diddle-dee DIDdle-dee diddle-dee | DA-ti dumpuh-tee DA-ti dum | (OK who can guess this one?)

I disagree.

For slides that ought to be written in 12/8 (as opposed to those tunes, whatever they’re called, that could be 12/8 or 6/8 depending …) I hear a clear, distinct, four beats to the bar. Try as I might, I cannot hear the two beats that you’re referring to, Steve. It seems to me that, whenever you have four beats in a bar, you will always have a certain, slight, additional stress on the third of those beats. As a sort of default, as it were. But there are often all sorts of other possible cross-beats going on, depending on the dance. Going back to the dancers, for some dances, there is a very clear | ONE-two-three-four | ONE-two-three four | rhythm to a slide, and sometimes there are parts of the dance that might emphasise others of the four beats, like the third (maybe). But, to my ears, that doesn’t equate to having two beats in the 12/8 bar.

I do agree that a tune that is properly in 12/8 will likely sound different to a tune that is properly in 6/8. But I don’t think writing something out in 6/8 necessarily implies that you should play it with two strong beats per bar. One of them will be weaker, in any case. But I might be misinterpreting you here …

And, finally, I’ll revert to the dancers yet again. They’ll let you know what they want. And if you’re not playing for dancers, I’d suggest you play it how you feel. It’ll sound convincing … or not, depending on the quality of your own judgement.

[StevieJ]

It probably comes down to differences in our understanding of what constitutes a strong beat, Ben. I would generally tap my foot twice in a 12/8 bar, or tap my right foot on beats 1 and 3 and my left foot, a little softer, on 2 and 4. Perhaps the main thing that Phil needs to remember is that a slide has a completely different feel from a double jig.

Asking the dancers is all very well but… while most of them will certainly tell you if you play a slide in a way that is no good for dancing a set to, not many would be able to give you an instant understanding of what is required. I would have thought that before you get to the stage of playing slides for a dance, you should have listened to an awful lot of slides being played by musicians who do play for set dancers.

[benhall.1]

@StevieJ

It probably comes down to differences in our understanding of what constitutes a strong beat, Ben. I would generally tap my foot twice in a 12/8 bar, or tap my right foot on beats 1 and 3 and my left foot, a little softer, on 2 and 4. Perhaps the main thing that Phil needs to remember is that a slide has a completely different feel from a double jig.

Asking the dancers is all very well but… while most of them will certainly tell you if you play a slide in a way that is no good for dancing a set to, not many would be able to give you an instant understanding of what is required. I would have thought that before you get to the stage of playing slides for a dance, you should have listened to an awful lot of slides being played by musicians who do play for set dancers.

All of which I agree with (apart from the foot tapping ).