I’ve been playing for about a 2 years and I still don’t know what a jig, reel, hornpipe, polka or slow air is. What is the defination of these? Are these traditional irish music?
By the way Merry Christmas.
A jig is a (usually fast-paced) dance.
Reels, polkas and hornpipes are “sort of jig-ish”, but have different time signatures. You can dance to them, too.
A slow air is a song (with words) based on “old style” Gaelic singing.
That’s what I read on the Internet, so it must be true.
You may ask what is the difference between an air and a ballad? I don’t know. I wanted to ask that a long time ago but…er didn’t.
So if it’s time signatures that separate the jig, reel, hornpipe, polka and slow air what are their respective signatures?
This is important information. I wonder if there’s a way it could be written up, with soundclips even, and posted somewhere. It could be part of the C&F main site, or if it’s somewhere else, there could be links to it. If something like that already exists, maybe a link to it could be put in a conspicuous place on C&F.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Yes trad Irish music include those dance forms
Jigs: butterfly, butterfly
Reels: rutabaga, rutabaga
Hornpipes:bouncy-bouncy, bouncy-bouncy
Polka - Sounds really fast but are real easy to play
Slow airs can be almost any time signature, but generally they are played slow and very rubato and expressively
Watermelon tastes better than rutabaga. 
I had some rutabaga and watermelon yesterday and I thought that the rutabaga was better (not a watermelon fan but I love the cantelope family of melons), myself. 
I like parsnips too!
Cantelope and parsnips don’t have 4 syllables, though. 
Mostly, the names refer to dances,
Reel: 4/4 and very fast
Highland: 4/4, not quite as fast as a reel
Hornpipe: 4/4 with a strong “lilt”, rapid, but not fast, bouncy and happy.
German: 4/4, similar to hornpipe
Jig: 6/8
Slip jig: 9/8
March: 2/4
Polka: 2/4
Waltz: 3/4
Mazurka: 3/4 Don’t see these too often, but they’re very easy to pick out when you hear them.
Air/Song: No specific time signature
Beautiful, descriptive…
You know, they do something similar to teach heart dysrhythmias…
Ken-tucky, Ken-tucky
Tennessee, Tennessee…both describe ectopic beats, one in-between lub and dub, one after.
And don’t forget a slide…one of my favorite types of jig. Slides are in 12/8
You’ll also hear the terms “double jig” and “single jig.” A double jig is probably the kind you’re most familiar with, as it has the typical repeating triple eighth note pattern (think “The Irish Washerwoman”). A single jig is also 6/8, but has a repeating eighth/quarter pattern (think “I saw three ships come sailing in”).
Redwolf