Cynthia Cathcart writes: | Now, here is a question that I am a bit hesitant to ask, because it reveals a | certain ignorance on my part, but, here goes. Please be kind to me if you | decide to answer!
Isn't that why lists like this exist? | Some of the tunes in Charlie's book are in 6/8 time, but are labeled as | reels. Now, I was taught that all reels are in 4/4 time, no exceptions. (Of | course, I was also taught by the same source that they are all fast, which I | question. I mean, really, mm130 to a half note?) So. Are these mis-named | reels in Charlie's book which are really jigs? Or do I need to change my | understanding of what a reel is? This is an ongoing point of confusion. In at least some cases, the term "reel" gets applied to things in other rhythms because it's also a dance term. It's a name of a kind of dance figure. Dances are often strongly associated with specific tunes, and a dance's name easily gets transferred to its tune. One of the best-known cases is the dance called the Duke of Atholl's Reel, and by some chance it does contain a reel figure. This dance is invariably done to a jig-time march called the Athole Highlanders. (Pay no attention to the spelling variant. ;-) It's fairly common, at least around dance musicians, to hear the tune called the Duke of Atholl's Reel, although it is a jig. There's another dance called the Cumberland Reel, and its standard tune is also called the Cumberland Reel. It's a jig. There are alternate names for the tune, but most books seem to give only this one. Similarly, there's a well-known strathspey dance called Invercauld's Reel, and the standard tune has the same name. A couple years ago, a gang of SCD troublemakers devised a dance that they called the Strathspey Reel, and said that it should be done to jigs. The point was to satirize the naming confusion, of course. It should be noted that the term "Strathspey" is not just a musical/dance term for a rhythm; it's also a place name. It's actually just Gaelic for "Valley of the [River] Spey". So "Strathspey Reel" is a perfectly valid name for a jig, if it has a reel figure and has some vague association with any place near the River Spey. In some dance crowds (e.g., Morris), the term "jig" means a solo. It can be an entire solo dance, or a section in which only one person does some sort of show-off dancing. Such a jig can be done in any rhythm. It's all just to keep everyone maximally confused. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
