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