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strathspey@strathspey.org:45395

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Steve Wyrick

Steve Wyrick

Re: Reels and Hornpipes

May 26, 2006, 3:58 p.m. (Message 45395, in reply to message 45392)

James Tween wrote:

> The way hornpipes and reels are played in the SCD style, there is no real
> difference to me and I'd happily mix reels and honpipes in a set of tunes,
> or dance a reel to a hornpipe track, or vice versa.  There are three paces
> of dance -- reel, jig or strathspey -- and they may vary in speed, and
> straths may be slow airs or more Highlandy, but there are only really these
> three.
> 
> A hornpipe in Scottish step dancing, Irish, Welsh and English traditions is
> usually most like a Highland-rhythm strathspey.  It typically has a dotted
> rhythm -- 4/4 with bars split into dotted quaver / semiquaver -- but does
> not have the reverse comibnation (semiquaver - dotted quaver) as you find in
> a lot of bouncy straths.  In the English ceilidh style, most hornpipes are
> danced slower with a step-hop step, and is about the same speed as a decent
> paced Highland strath, and if we've ever had nights with English ceilidh
> dancers doing SCD, they often find it easy to think of a strath as a
> hornpipe.  Saying all that, you can get hornpipes with straight, undotted
> rhythms, but they are usually played at the same kind of steady pace.
> 
> When I catalogued a load of SCD CDs, I just grouped hornpipes with reels.
> 
> I wonder if any of that makes sense.
> 
> - James - 
> 

Personally I don't really like this idea of not differentiating hornpipe and
reel tunes in SCD.  When I play hornpipes I always try to put at least a bit
more of a lilt in them, to try to keep the bouncy feeling.  I also don't
really like mixing reels and hornpipes in a set (or reels and Scotch
measures, for that matter).

Regarding distinguishing characteristics for hornpipes if a tune identifies
itself as a hornpipe, I can generally hear the things in it that make it a
hornpipe however as others have said, there doesn't seem to be a foolproof
method for identifying a hornpipe from hearing it... -Steve
-- 
Steve Wyrick -- Concord, California

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