Right, I am in Newfoundland! The festival was the First ever" Felie Seamus Cragh " Seamus past away 2 years ago. He lived in St. John’s for 5 years and he came back often. He had a huge impact over here! He was dearly loved and is dearly missed! It was beautiful to see his good friends Jackie Daly, Matt Cranich, and Conal O’ Grada come here and honour him like that! They played together, along with Paul De Grae, on the finale and they were spectacular! It was an extreme honour to see them together! The wrap up session was out of this world! Even though they were all “on the craic” all weekend, they played like Demons. Awesome stuff! There will be another and many more to come! Maybe you can make it next year! We Newfs are a friendly bunch and I always have an extra cot, bed, floor, van etc!
That is a very good one! " Pop Goes the Weasel. That’s a slide! I know Fiona very well. She is a dear friend and an awesome fiddler." She a native Irish speaker and she would melt you heart to listen to her in Irish!
OOPS! So much for putting the discussion to bed 
I thought that I would call myself on it before someone calls me on it! 
I’m not optimistic about the scheduling for the next couple of years, but if y’all keep having the festival, eventually I will make it over for it. (My wife and I have started talking about maybe trying for the Trails, Tales, and Tunes festival next year, that would maybe fit better with our personal schedules.)
Sol, if your festival-going will interfere with Perl 6, some of us would rather you stay home. 
Maybe at the festival you heard Jackie and co. play a polka set for dancers… typically the third figure is played to slides and the fourth to fast hornpipes. As he said, they sound nothing like each other.
The thought had struck me after my last post that the only way a hornpipe could resemble a slide is on paper - and that provided the hornpipe was written in 12/8 , which nobody does anyway even if it might be rhythmically more accurate. More proof, if any were still needed, that transcriptions are only of so much use: even tunes with (potentially) the same time signature, from the same tradition, sound completely different. So yes, listen and play 
It’s taken ten years to get this far, it can handle having one part-time developer take a few days off now and then.
MTGuru, who are you really, who are so wise in the ways of Rakudo? And if you know about all that, did you see my latest tune? 
Chiming in late to say: this is a great topic, thanks all!
I’m glad to read that there’s a sorta-kind-almost commonality between slides and hornpipes. Years ago, as I was just starting to get into Irish trad, someone (not really a trad player) taught me Road to Lisdoonvarna by ear. It made me scratch my head in terms of rhythm; I thought it was a hornpipe. Later someone told me “No, it’s a jig” and I remember feeling flummoxed. Now I feel vindicated! Kind of. At least, now I know I’m not the only one who’s unclear.
I’ve discovered that I already have in my possession a DVD that might help me immerse myself in slides and polkas:
Years ago, I purchased a DVD, “Irish Set Dancing Made Easy (vol 1)” – I’m not a dancer, but I bought it on a whim, after my first (and only) ceilidh. The DVD has sat on my shelf for years. I almost gave it away, but I thought, “Maybe I should watch it through… some day… in case it has any great tunes.”
Lo and behold, the DVD has a Sliabh Luachra set, mostly polkas and slides, and the Clare Orange and Green set, which includes single jigs.
My theory is that watching dancers dance to the music will help me to grasp the appropriate rhythm. Right? I mean, since it’s dance music, in theory the dance steps should dictate the pulse, the pace, the emphasis etc, right?
Of course, since I don’t have in my head the “right” way to play these types of tunes, that means I don’t know whether the musicians on this DVD have it right either. The phrase “the blind leading the blind” comes to mind. But the dancers in the video sure look like they know what they’re doing. Perhaps I should mute the sound and watch their feet.
Slide?
Weren’t they a skinhead-pop band from london? Led by Noddy Holder?
Pop Goes the Weasel? For real?
I’m now learning Micho Russell’s Slide, and yeah, Pop Goes the Weasel. Yeah… Hmmm.
Not London. Wolverhampton.
Kipper tie?
Yes please. Two sugars.
I noticed a lot of recordings lately and at my session, a lot of times a hornpipe can be played at a slower reel tempo, with the notes played more evenly. (I’m sure it’s been going on forever, but I just noticed it.) For instance, Matt Molloy’s rendition of Poll Ha’penny.
So maybe there’s another way to differentiate between a hornpipe and a slide - if you can play it kind of reel-ish, it’s probably a hornpipe.
Of course, it gets complicated. There’s a reel version of Road to Lisdoonvarna … <>
I really wouldn’t say that the reel and the slide are two different versions of Road to Lisdoonvarna, or one being a version of the other, as they’re not in the same key, not really melodically similar in any way either, to me, they’re just two different tunes by the same name.
Could you have a different tune for the reel of that name than I do? I find the tunes I have to be indeed related, and no question.
[u]Here’s dots to the tune I have for the reel.[/u] Is this the one you mean?
That’s indeed the one I’m thinking of, and I find no relation between them, regarding key or modality, harmonic structure or melody. Are we talking about the same slide? The one in E dorian?
Oh yes, they’re the “same” tunes, transformed. But it might be hard to hear the similarity if you’re not used to listening structurally.
Here’s an exercise. Take the A part of the slide, and re-think it as a reel. Then compare this to what is usually the B part of the reel, transposed to E Dorian.
E2B B2A B2c d3|F2A ABA D2E FED (Slide)
EB BA Bc d2|FA A2 DE FD (Slide-to-Reel)
E2 BA Bc dB|AF F2 DF F2 (Reel)
Now the relationship should be clear. Do the same with tbe B part of the slide, and the reel A part transposed to E Major (e.g. D# and C#).
e2f gfe d2B Bcd|c2A ABc d2B B3 (Slide)
ef ge dB Bd |cA Ac dB B2 (Slide-to-Reel)
e3 e dB B2 |cA A2 dB B2 (Reel)
Again the similarity is pretty straightforward. But because we tend to hear tunes holistically, small changes - like minor to major - can alter the way we hear a tune, and even the melodic tendencies within the tune.
Melodic identity under transformation is tricky. Keys and modes and the ordering of parts are all fungible. It takes practice and “active listening” to hear the underlying contours and deep-structures, and not simply the notes. Also, individual perceptions may vary, including tolerance for what constitutes sameness and difference. But it’s not just guesswork. Have a look at Bryan Duggan’s Ph.D. work underlying Tunepal for an example of a systematic approach.
True. At least among seasoned ITM musicians this becomes a topic during moments of social leisure, and the repartee can be scintillating: “Is so!” “Is not!” “Is so!” “Is not!” “Is!” “Is not!” “Is too!” “Not, not, not!” “Surely you can at least see the influence.” “In all of five notes? Suuuure. NOT.” “Need I point out you have ears of cloth?” “Said the pot to the kettle.” “You know, if Paddy Keenan were here he’d back me up.” “If Paddy were here he’d tell you to please STFU and just play something.” “Sure he would. After agreeing with me.” " sigh Let’s just take his advice ahead of time, shall we?" "Grrr…all right, but only because he’d have said it…pause…
…IS." “Is NOT.”
