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Are Hornpipes and Reels the same thing?
Alasdair Graham
Sept. 10, 2012, 2:53 p.m. (Message 63094)
While looking up the original instructions for one of John Drewry's dances, which he specifies as being a HORNPIPE, I discovered that the SCD Database on the Strathspey Server lists it as REEL, as does MiniCrib. I then checked the other three HORNPIPES in John's Canadian Book and they too are listed as REELS in both MiniCrib and the SCD Database. The old version of a music database I have lists two of them only. Both are shown as HORNPIPES there with the original tune listed as a hornpipe. Has an error been made in both MiniCrib and the SCD Database? Alasdair Graham Dumbarton, Scotland Looking for a dance? Call up http://www.dancediary.info to see if something suits. Ceilidh Dance Pages Country Dance Pages & Newsletter.
I am perhaps not the best person to answer this, Alasdair, but Hornpipe tunes are basically reels with certain characteristic features. Just as you can dance a Strathspey to an Strathspey tune, an air or any other tune in 2/2 or 4/4 time played at the right tempo, you can dance a Reel to a Reel tune or a Hornpipe. Once you know what to listen for you will be able to tell if the reel is danced to a hornpipe or not. Hope that helps Wouter Joubert Pretoria South Africa
In my book, they're not the same (musically speaking). Both (today) have time signatures of 2/2 or 4/4 (although a couple of centuries ago there were hornpipes in 3/2). Sticking with today's conventions, hornpipes for SCD are played at the same speed as reels, and are recognizable (in 4/4) by the three emphatic quarter-note (crotchet) beats in the last measure, whereas a reel (in 4/4) has a final measure containing (typically) four smoothly flowing (legato) eighth notes followed by a half note (minim). To confuse the issue slightly further, the same hornpipe tunes played for Irish and English dancing go much slower (a hair or two faster than a strathspey played for SCD, and at about the same tempo as music for the Sailor's Hornpipe in Highland dancing). Dance-wise, I'm not sure that it makes much difference if the band plays a "hornpipe" or a "reel," except that if you as a dancer associate a hornpipe tune with a given dance (e.g., The Sailor) you will certainly sense that something is off if the band plays a reel. And I guess that when John called a dance a "hornpipe" he was specifying the character of the music rather than the character of the dance, just as he might have done if he'd called the dance a jig rather than a reel. Finally (and this is maybe best left to another thread), it gets my goat when a polka tune (such as those played for Trip to Bavaria) is described as a reel. Best of British luck with this one. This was just my two cents' worth. Mike Briggs 1519 Storytown Road Oregon WI 53575-2521 USA +1 608 835 0914 (o) +1 608 770 2304 (m) +1 608 237 2379 (f)
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*
If Hornpipe music is played as Reel music is that not because the musician can’t/doesn’t know how to play a Hornpipe? Similarly, if current SCD technique doesn’t differentiate between a Hornpipe and a Reel is that any reason to change the dance type (as published) to fit in with the limited SCD repertoire? However, I see where you are coming, from with your tag line, and I’m not sure it is the preferred course. A note attached to each such dance to explain your change would be my option, for what it is worth. Alasdair Graham Dumbarton, Scotland
It's often because the dancers require the music to be at a specific tempo which, depending on the tune, isn't always conducive to adding the dotting that people think of as giving the hornpipe its character. But I think historically there was a wide range in the tempos and amount of dotting used for hornpipes. If you look at tunebooks from the mid-late 1800s, which appears to be a heyday for that style, you see a big range in styles of notation, which I believe extends to the way the tunes themselves were played (which I think relates to the style of the dance they were used for--everything from quicktime social dances to solo clogs to stage shows...). -Steve
Alasdair Graham wrote: > if current SCD > technique doesn’t differentiate between a Hornpipe and a Reel is that any > reason to change the dance type (as published) to fit in with the limited > SCD repertoire? The – RSCDS-style – SCD repertoire may be »limited« but it is what we have, so this is what the database deals with. There is no point in catering for types of dance that Scottish country dancers do not actually do. Conversely, there is no point in muddying the waters about the types of dance that Scottish country dancers *do* actually do by introducing arbitrary and useless distinctions. Also, as I said, Rob Sargent is trying to reintroduce hornpipes as hornpipes (rather than glorified reels), and having both »real« hornpipes and »vanity« hornpipes with no reliable way of distinguishing the two doesn't help anybody. The other option – slowing down »The Sailor« &c. and playing them as »real« hornpipes, like Rob Sargent's dances – isn't going to fly because there are nearly 90 years of RSCDS-style SCD tradition to the contrary, and many of the dances in question wouldn't even work that well if slowed down. > If Hornpipe music is played as Reel music is that not because the musician > can’t/doesn’t know how to play a Hornpipe? Musicians are service providers. I think I can speak for my musician colleagues when I say that we would be 100% happy to play slow dotted hornpipes for dancing if they were actually called for at SCD functions, which (again modulo Rob Sargent) they aren't. We do play »The Jigtime Polka« for The Garry Strathspey, which is basically the same thing, complete with the slow tempo, the dotted rhythm and the POM-POM-POM at the end of a phrase, so if I were a less tolerant person than I am I might take the »musician can't/doesn't know how to play« as arrogance bordering on insult. > However, I see where you are coming, from with your tag > line, and I’m not sure it is the preferred course. Suppose you were a dance teacher searching the database for reels incorporating a promenade and hello-goodbye setting. You would probably expect »The College Hornpipe« to show up in the results even though it is notionally a »hornpipe«, and that dance would probably serve its purpose in your class admirably in spite of that fact. So there is no point in keeping »hornpipes« a distinct category from »reels« because it either makes things more difficult for database users since they must remember to search for »reel or hornpipe« when they really mean »anything reel-like«, or more difficult for database implementors (me) since they must special-case »hornpipes are really reels« in various places – which is a particular hassle now because, post Rob Sargent, this actually means »SOME hornpipes are really reels«. Please give me a reason why hornpipes should deserve special treatment while other styles such as »pipe march«, »Scotch measure«, or »polka«, all of which occur as *musical* styles that have been co-opted for reel-technique dances, don't. The reel/hornpipe distinction doesn't serve any purpose other than to confuse new dancers, and the sooner we get rid of it the better. Incidentally, while we're on the topic of the SCD database: One improvement that is being considered is adding musical »genre« information for tunes and recordings. The main purpose for this would be to make it easier to distinguish between »regular« strathspeys and slow-air/song-tune/pastoral strathspeys, but it would serve just as well to distinguish between »real« reels, »vanity« hornpipes, and »real« hornpipes. This is our chance to put the distinction where it belongs, namely at the »music« level rather than the »dance« level, and if we do it right then people who are looking for hornpipe *dances* because they enjoy the *musical* style will be even better off than they are now, because many reels use hornpipe music without actually being called hornpipes. > A note attached to > each such dance to explain your change would be my option, for what it is > worth. You may be interested to hear that when I made the actual change (last December), only 12 dances needed to be considered and only 4 of those were actually changed from »hornpipe« to »reel«, so having vanity hornpipes classified as »reels« in the database goes back a long way – probably all the way to Alan Paterson, if not Keith Napier (I'm in the office now so can't check my – paper – copy of Napier's Index). The fact that apparently so far nobody except you has seen fit to challenge this design decision should tell us something. If you want to contribute an exhaustive list of dances that are in the database as »reels« but should be labeled as »really a (vanity) hornpipe«, then do feel free. I'm a strong subscriber to the philosophy that it is always best if those people who feel most strongly about something do the work to get it accomplished, so please send me a file containing the database IDs of the dances in question and I'll be happy to add the notice ;^) Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau, Mainz/Mayence, Germany ................. xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Using MS-Word is like smoking; emailing those files is like blowing smoke into other people's faces. -- Jeff Goldberg, paraphrasing Juhapekka Tolvanen
For me a hornpipe is a slowish piece with a strong dotted rhythm for example the High Level Hornpipe or the Trumpet Hornpipe (that used to introduce Captain Pugwash - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lk2ILzWZPQ). That said, dances like Clutha or The Sailor, which are often called hornpipes, have a sort of 'and a one two three' rhythm which historically was called a Scots Measure (this was the original description of East Neuk of Fife and Flowers of Edinburgh which fit this pattern). So I think we should distinguish between the dance we call 'a reel' which can be danced to any 4/4 tune played at the right speed and the tune called 'a reel' (like Sleepy Maggie) which has a particular fast 4/4 rhythm. I see little point in distinguishing them in dance descriptions as it doesn't seem to make any difference to the tunes that are played! Jo
If you play a lot of reels and you play a lot of hornpipes you will begin to notice and hear the subtle differences between the 2. Therefore if you are creating a set for a dance labeled hornpipe you will be more correct if you use tunes that are hornpipes. Note I am saying more correct. You can still have a good set of reels that will work. Chord patterns in the B music of hornpipes are often different from those of reels. For instance: The Davy Hornpipe used for The Sailor Key of G; B music G - C - A7 - D - G -D7 - C - D7 - G - D7 - G That little A7 zinger provides a lift. Another difference: There are many fewer minor hornpipes than reels. We can also subdivide reels into 16 bar reels and 32 bar reels. I know one musician who feels that reels are 16 bars and anything else is a hornpipe. Have I added anough confusion for the day? Sylvia Miskoe, Concord, NH USA
Sylvia Miskoe wrote: > Therefore if you > are creating a set for a dance labeled hornpipe you will be more correct > if you use tunes that are hornpipes. Note I am saying more correct. That's probably a good idea in any case – not just with reels vs. hornpipes. I usually try to stay »in style« by combining traditional reels with traditional reels, modern reels with modern reels, pipe marches with pipe marches and so on. Even more so with strathspeys! But for sure it isn't an argument in favour of calling some reels hornpipes. We don't call some other reels pipe marches, either. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau, Mainz/Mayence, Germany ................. xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx Typically, when put into this state, the CPU will stop clocks and power down part or all of its circuitry until the next interrupt arrives. That results in the production of far more nothing per watt than busy-waiting. -- Jonathan Corbet, on what modern processors do when there is nothing to do