Reels, reels, & more reels

[Whistlepeg]

In Ireland this summer, at one of the pub sessions I attended in Ennis, most of the tunes played (95%or more) were reels. There was the occasional jig but not much else.
In fact at one point there was 40 minutes straight of reels. Another thing I found interesting was the tendency to play several reels in a row (each about 3 or 4 times) in the same key.
Does anyone know - is this a trend among the younger players in Ireland, or elsewhere for that matter? Or was this just a particular session? What about the sessions you play in? Anyone out there playing mazurkas, barn dances, flings etc at sessions????
By the way, I did get to some other mighty sessions with much more variety, but the players were almost all "mature" in age.

[Azalin]

I think reels are dominant in most of sessions in Ireland. The average would be something like 50% reels, 40% jigs, and the rest. But this is in my experience, the reality could be totally different. I don't think that 90% reels is very common.

[DaveAuty]

Last weekend I went to the Ennis Trad weekend...what a fantastic few days of music!
There was predominance of reels and I noticed that as the evenings wore on (and the Guinness went down) the music got progressively faster, even the jigs were going hell for leather!!

A lot of the musicians were young, although one pub session where we had a pint, an old fella of about 75 sang among others a local comic song called ‘The Ennis Fleadh’ which was a gem. I am sure there were plenty of other older musicians around but I didn’t see many.

Almost without exception the quality of the playing was top class so for me it didn’t matter that the tunes were furiously fast. I have been told that Clare music was played at a slower pace...but I didn’t hear many people playing slowly. All that fast playing of course didn’t detract from the lift and flow of the music.

There were other tunes but they were mostly during the gigs where the playing was more structured for a sitting down audience.. Well mostly sitting down, at the Altan concert there were people flying about everywhere!


Dave.

[Tyghress]

At the sessions I play in it is heavy in reels, has a good number of jig sets, and usually a set or two of polkas, a march or waltz, a set dance or mazurka, and a few (and occasionally a few too many for me) songs.

Speaking of reels, is there a standard suggestion for tongue/slur, the way 'slur tongue tongue' is a basis for jigs?
_________________
Tyghress
...And I go on, pursuing through the hours,
Another tiger, the one not found in verse.
Jorge Luis Borges

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: tyghress on 2002-11-17 15:00 ]</font>

[Whistlepeg]

Tyghress,
According to Mary Bergin (I spent a wonderful week with her in the Catskills a couple of summers ago, what she suggests is:

Reels: tongue 2nd & 4th of each group of 4 eighth notes (.) slur over the beat & over the bar.
. . . . . .
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 /1 2 3 4 / 1
Ha-ta-ha-ta Ha-ta-ha-ta/Ha-ta-ha-ta Ha etc.

Ornamentation changes the pattern. If you tongue the first note of an ornament (which is usually on a 1 or 3 of a group of 4 eighth notes) you would not tongue the 2 or 4 following. Again, this is just a suggested pattern based on what I gleaned from Mary's playing. In my experience, most traditional Irish whistle players use this pattern to some extent. Even players who tongue a lot more than Mary will slur over the barline/beat to get the flow of the trad. rhythm. Hope this helps a bit.

[Whistlepeg]

A very strange thing happened to my previous post. The dots don't line up where I want them to. When I go to edit the post, it looks fine and doesn't need changing. Gremlins in my computer?
Try again:
. . . . . . . . .
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 / 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4/ 1 2etc
hatahataahatahataaahatahataahatahataahata
It looks weird on paper, but it works.

dots still wont line up...oh well.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Whistlepeg on 2002-11-18 20:44 ]</font>

[StevieJ]

That's cos the edit window uses a monspaced font, whereas posts are displayed in a proportional-spaced font. Let's try a little html. If this works you can try to edit my post to see the tags.

<pre>
. . . . . . . . .
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 / 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4/ 1 2etc
hatahataahatahataaahatahataahatahataahata
</pre>

I don't know about you, but I rather got the impression that Mary has dissected her playing, esp. tonguing patterns, in order to able to explain what she does to students. I haven't tried analyzing her tonguing patterns, but I have a hunch she uses a lot more variety than she thinks she does.

Have you met anyone who has systematically applied a prescribed tonguing pattern (or bowing pattern)?

[Jens_Hoppe]

*cough* Whistle-specific subject on the irtrad forum *cough*

That being said, I agree that the tongueing pattern shown above makes good sense, it corresponds to what I usually use. Of course, one wouldn't want to play an entire tune with just this pattern; variation, eg. reversing the pattern once in a while (where if feels natural), doing a half or a whole bar without tongueing here and there, and in general keeping the tune lively, is what I prefer.

Jens

[Whistlepeg]

Different instruments have different ways of producing that "certain Irish something" that we call style. Tonguing(or not)& breathing is a big part of it with whistles, but what about other instruments? I think that playing another really makes you think about style.
I am learning concertina and the in/out of the bellows really helps get that phrasing.
Fiddles, pipes, banjos - all have a particular technique they use. I find it really interesting!