strathspey@strathspey.org:63098

Anselm Lingnau

Re: Are Hornpipes and Reels the same thing?

Sept. 10, 2012, 3:48 p.m. (Message 63098, in reply to message 63094)

Alasdair Graham wrote:

> Has an error been made in both MiniCrib and the SCD Database?

No, as far as the database is concerned – but this is a bit of a convoluted 
issue.

Let me start by telling you a little story. When I was a very new dancer in 
the early 1990s, I attended a ball where I felt compelled to essentially hide 
in the toilet when »The Sailor« came up on the programme because I frankly had 
no idea what a »hornpipe« was, and I wanted to spare myself the embarrassment 
of finding out on the dance floor that the dance would call for some special 
technique that my class hadn't covered yet. (I have since been in similar 
situations where I ended up partnered with somebody who was apparently 
prepared to swear holy oaths that they had never before in their lives done 
that strange dance form called the »strathspey«, so that does seem to happen 
in real life.) I was surprised to find out that the dreaded »hornpipe« was, to 
all intents and purposes, just another reel. Silly me.

So there you are: There is no difference in current SCD technique between, 
say, »General Stuart's Reel« and »The College Hornpipe«, and thus from a 
dancer's point of view there is no conceivable reason to divide reels into 
»reels« and »hornpipes«. You may argue that hornpipes are danced to hornpipe 
tunes, but we don't call the dance »Corn Riggs« a »Scotch measure« because the 
tune is a Scotch measure, or the dance »The Australian Ladies« a »pipe march« 
because the tune is a pipe march. All of these dances are summarily called 
»reels« because they are danced like reels.

Speaking of music, the hornpipe is a genre that is very difficult to nail 
down, which may have to do with the fact that in its original sense, 
»hornpipe« stipulates a type of musical instrument rather than a dance. In 
Playford's time hornpipes tended to be fairly stately pieces in 3/2 time, and 
George Frederick Handel's »Water Music« contains a »hornpipe« that is more up-
tempo but still in 3-time – it sounds nothing like anything Scottish dancers 
would recognise. At some point in time hornpipes switched over to 4/4 time, 
and today a tune might be called a »hornpipe« if it has the word »hornpipe« in 
the title, or the title carries some other sort of naval connotation, or 
contains musical phrases that end in a marked POM-POM-POM every so often (but 
then again there are tunes that defy all these criteria and are still touted 
as hornpipes, while there are also tunes that by rights ought to be called 
hornpipes according to these criteria but aren't). Today's Irish musicians 
play hornpipes at a markedly slower speed than we do reels, and in a »dotted«, 
or »swing« style; if you consider the music for the Garry Strathspey 
(incidentally called »The Jigtime Polka«, how's that for mixing genres?) you 
wouldn't be too far off the mark.

The issue is complicated further by Rob Sargent, who seems to have made it his 
life's work to popularise *actual* hornpipes danced (with largely unspecified 
technique) to hornpipe tunes played closer to the Irish style. There are now 
recordings of such music for SCD purposes. So, since in the database we now 
need to distinguish *actual* hornpipes as per Rob Sargent from »vanity« 
hornpipes that for the purposes of SCD are in fact reels, I have decided to 
call a spade a spade in the database and to label all the reel-type hornpipes 
as reels, thereby freeing the »hornpipe« designation for Rob Sargent's actual 
hornpipe dances (we will have to see whether the style catches on).

In effect, it does not matter to the database whether dance authors want to 
call (some of) their reels »hornpipes« just because they use hornpipe music 
played as reels. We will call them »reels«, in the same way that we don't call 
dances like »The Australian Ladies« pipe marches or dances like »Ian Powrie's 
Farewell to Auchterarder« two-steps just because their tunes happen to be pipe 
marches played as reels or two-steps played as jigs. Hence this is not an 
error; call it a deliberate step towards reducing confusion. I would even dare 
say that if everybody went along with this in their publications it would be a 
good idea in general.

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Mainz/Mayence, Germany ................. xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Majorities are not willing to make the effort to rule themselves. They are
content to drift and be amused and follow false gods that promise something
for nothing. They must be led--sometimes driven--by minorities.
                            -- Ralph Parlette, *The University of Hard Knocks*