[scots-l] Jig classifications

[AIKUNTZ]

This probably has been asked before on this list, but what are Scottish 9/8 tunes referred to as? Slip Jigs? Jigs? 9/8 Jigs?  Are the Irish classifications of slip, single and double jig being used for Scottish tunes in modern times, and if so when did the practice begin? Similarly, are 3/2 hornpipes referred to as "Old Hornpipes" or is there another term that is in common use?

Thanks for the help.

Regards,
Andrew Kuntz

Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Tappan]

Title: Re: [scots-l] Jig
classifications


Andrew Kuntz wrote,

This
probably has been asked before on this list, but what are Scottish 9/8
tunes referred to as? Slip Jigs? Jigs? 9/8 Jigs?

I've heard all three in reference to Scottish 9/8 tunes.

 Are
the Irish classifications of slip, single and double jig being used
for Scottish tunes in modern times, and if so when did the practice
begin?

I've only heard single and double jigs in reference to Irish
tunes, not Scottish.

Similarly,
are 3/2 hornpipes referred to as "Old Hornpipes" or is there
another term that is in common use?

3/2 hornpipes themselves aren't all that common where I live; I
guess we'd just call them hornpipes. I'm guessing the time signature
may scare fiddlers away from them.

I'd love to hear others' takes on these questions. I have a
feeling that my information may be limited because of my location in
S. Calif. Thanks for bringing up the topic - I don't remember it being
addressed before.

Jan Tappan

Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Jack Campin]

> This probably has been asked before on this list, but what are Scottish
> 9/8 tunes referred to as? Slip Jigs? Jigs? 9/8 Jigs?

Jigs or 9/8 jigs.

> Are the Irish classifications of slip, single and double jig being
> used for Scottish tunes in modern times

No.

> Similarly, are 3/2 hornpipes referred to as "Old Hornpipes" or is
> there another term that is in common use?

The tunes themselves are not in common use - I've never encountered
one at a ceilidh or heard of one being danced to on Robbie Shepherd's
programme.  "Double hornpipe", or "triple hornpipe" which confusingly
means the same thing, are the usual terms insofar as they're mentioned
at all.  (I play a few of them - drives guitarists nuts trying to find
an accompaniment pattern).

The "Baggpipe Tune" from c.1675 on my Dalkeith site is one (I think
it's the oldest-notated Scottish tune for bagpipes).  It takes a while
to figure out how to play it effectively.


-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
   *   homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish 
traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts.


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Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Bruce Olson]

Jack Campin wrote:
> 

> > Similarly, are 3/2 hornpipes referred to as "Old Hornpipes" or is
> > there another term that is in common use?
>> 
> -
> Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760

It almost seems like we should qualify our definitions as jig
(dance) versus jig (tune) since the same word is used both in
commentary on dances and on tunes, with, often no correspondance.
Most 18th century jigs were for country dances, not for jigs (as
dance).

Hornpipe as a country dance c 1565:
   
Here's an extract (from the Scarce Songs 1 file on my website) of
an English imitation of a Scots song of a wooing and wedding of
about 1565. Here we have some description of the hornpipe dance
that the piper played. It's obvious that a hornpipe (dance) at
that time was nothing like the hornpipe of the 18th and later
centuries.

  Dance [earliest description of hornpipe?]

"Now play us a horn pype," Jacky can say;
 Then todle lowdle the pyper dyd playe.

Harry Sprig, Harry Spryg, Mawde my doughtare,
Thomas my sone, and Jone cum after.

Wylkyn and Malkyn and Marryon be nam,
Lettes all kepe the strock in the peane of shame.

Torn about, Robyn; let Besse stand asyde;
"Now smyt up, mynstrell," the women cryde.

The pyper playd with his fynggars and thommes;
Play thick and short, mynstrell; my mothar commis.

"I wyl dance,' said one "and I for the wars;
Dance we, dance we, dance we!"
"Heighe!" quoth Hogkyne, "gyrd byth ars,
Letts dance all for compayne."

"Halfe torne, Jone, haffe nowe, Jock!
Well dansyde, be sent Dennye!   [St. Dennis
And he that breakys the firste strocke,
  Sall gyve the pypar a pennye.

In with fut, Robsone! owt with fut, Byllynge!
  Here wyll be good daunsyng belyve;
Daunsyng hath cost me forty good shyllynge,
  Ye forti shillynge and fyve.

Torn rownde, Robyne! kepe trace, Wylkyne!
  Mak churchye pege behynde,"
"Set fut to fut a pas," quod Pylkyne;
  "Abowt with howghe let us wynde."

"No, Tybe, war, Tom well," sayd Cate;
  "Kepe in Sandar, hold owte, Syme.
Nowe, Gaff, hear gome abowt me mat;
  Nyccoll, well dansyde and tryme."

"A gambole," quod Jocky, "stand asyde;
  Let ylke man play his parte.
Mak rom, my mastars; stande mor wyde;
  I pray youe with all my harte."

Hear ys for me wightly whipte,
  And it wear even for the nons;
Now for the lyghtly skypte,
  Well staggeryde on the stonnys.

"Be sweat sent Tandrowe, I am weary." quoth Jennye,
  "Good pypar, holde thy peace;
..

How does a hop jig differ from a slip jig?

Bruce Olson
-- 
Roots of Folk: Old British Isles popular and folk songs, tunes, 
and broadside ballads at my no-spam website 
http://www.erols.com/olsonw";> Click here for homepage (=
subject index) 
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Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Steve Wyrick]

Jack Campin wrote:

>> Similarly, are 3/2 hornpipes referred to as "Old Hornpipes" or is
>> there another term that is in common use?
> 
> The tunes themselves are not in common use - I've never encountered
> one at a ceilidh or heard of one being danced to on Robbie Shepherd's
> programme.  "Double hornpipe", or "triple hornpipe" which confusingly
> means the same thing, are the usual terms insofar as they're mentioned
> at all.  (I play a few of them - drives guitarists nuts trying to find
> an accompaniment pattern).

There are none in Scottish country dancing (no surprise I guess, since the
RSCDS barely distinguish between (standard) hornpipes and reels, and have
also dropped the 9/8 jig, except for Strip the Willow); I've never
encountered one in step dancing, either, and wonder does anyone still dance
them (highland, step or other)?
-- 
Steve Wyrick -- Concord, California


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Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[AIKUNTZ]

Thanks to Jan, Jack, Bruce and Steve for their replies to my query about jig classifications. Bruce, the slip jig has been described as having a "pineapple, pineapple, pineapple" rhythm (i.e. three groups of eight notes), while the hop jig sounds like "humpty, humpty, humpty," similar to the difference between a double and a single jig (i.e. the latter featuring a quarter note followed by and eighth note pattern rather than eighth note groups). 

Regards,
Andrew Kuntz

Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Matt Seattle]

Just found what I was looking for to answer the 3/2 hornpipe thread..

The same words are/were used for different musical forms at different times in
different places. Here's an extract from my Intro to The Master Piper (Wm
Dixon's tunes), it's quite long so delete now if this doesn't interest you:

The 3/2 measure is largely unfamiliar today, though there has been a revival
in interest in the last decade or so. My own first brush with it was John
Offord’s collection John of the Greeny Cheshire Way - The Famous “Double”
Hornpipes of Lancashire and Cheshire. The expression “a particular species of
the ‘double hornpipe’ ” was used by Stenhouse to describe tunes like Go To
Berwick Johnny. It has caught on, but it contradicts usage elsewhere. It may
never be possible to get right to the bottom of the nomenclature of the
various types of hornpipe, but it does not ultimately matter. The important
thing to realise is that there was a dance called a hornpipe which was danced
to music in 4/4, 9/4 and 3/2 at the same period in history. Whether it was one
dance or, more probably, three related dances or three completely different
dances is another question, but it is time to refute the oft-repeated
assertion that 4/4 (or 2/2) hornpipes displaced or replaced 3/2 hornpipes.
They certainly survived longer, but that is another thing entirely. The
displacement theory is contradicted by the appearance in Playford’s
Division Violin as early as 1684 of A new Horn-pipe in cut time, a tune easily
identifiable as Dumbarton’s Drums, often described later as a “Scotch
Measure”. The exact meaning of the latter term is yet another question: tunes
labelled thus are rhythmically indistinguishable from early 4/4 hornpipes, but
melodically they make much use of gapped-scale passages.

The clearest distinction between the three types of hornpipe is found in a
Scottish collection by Charles Stewart published as late as 1799. Stewart is
significantly known to have worked as a “Musician to Mr. Strange”, a dancing
master, and he distinguishes between “Treeble” hornpipes in 4/4, “Double”
hornpipes in 9/8, and “Single” hornpipes in 3/2, though he makes a common
mistake in giving the latter a 6/4 time signature. The distinctions seem more
likely to be related to dance steps than to the mathematical qualities of the
time signatures, which they flatly contradict. Stewart’s distinctions would be
unequivocal were it not for his second collection which has two 3/2 tunes, one
of which he calls a single and one a double hornpipe.

An English origin is usually ascribed to the 3/2 hornpipes, and they were
certainly popular in England early in the 18th century and before, but it is
not now generally realised how popular they were in Scotland, and also how
much later they seem to have been current there: fiddlers were certainly
writing and publishing 3/2 hornpipe tunes very late into the century and even
into the next. A few of the more popular tunes also turn up in Irish pipe
collections of the 19th century, where they are usually described as Irish.
All this proves that they once enjoyed a wide currency and had been long
enough established to be thought of as native all over the British Isles. But
Jimmy Allan thought that “this peculiar measure originated in the borders of
England and Scotland”, and Stenhouse said that the tunes had been played “time
out of mind” in Scotland; there are Northumbrian and Scottish songs to many of
the tunes, and it is a fact that the form has survived longer in
Northumberland than anywhere else: singers and pipers did not need a revival
to teach them Dance Ti’ Thy Daddy and Lads Of Alnwick. Although none of this
proves a Border origin for the form it should certainly lead Border pipers to
take it very seriously.

Although the oldest known 3/2 hornpipe tunes are for keyboard or fiddle the
term “Bagpipe Hornpipe” is employed by Daniel Wright for some tunes in 3/2 and
9/4. These do not fit the compass of a limited-range chanter: perhaps they are
fiddle adaptations, or perhaps they belonged to the pastoral pipe repertoire.
But whether for bagpipes or not, most of the 3/2 and 9/4 tunes employ the same
kind of two-chord structure that is common in pipe tunes, and it seems likely
that it is this structural feature which is signified by the term ‘bagpipe
hornpipe’. As a musical genre - a tune type - they have the effect of a ‘reel
and a half’, and are quite wonderful to play. In the light of William Dixon’s
collection, it is now possible to come up with a list of surviving bagpipe
hornpipes which can actually be played on the Border pipes. (end of extract)
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Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Toby Rider]

Matt Seattle wrote:

Just found what I was looking for to answer the 3/2 hornpipe thread..

The same words are/were used for different musical forms at different times in
different places. Here's an extract from my Intro to The Master Piper (Wm
Dixon's tunes), it's quite long so delete now if this doesn't interest you:
The 3/2 measure is largely unfamiliar today, though there has been a revival
in interest in the last decade or so. My own first brush with it was John
Offord’s collection John of the Greeny Cheshire Way - The Famous “Double”
Hornpipes of Lancashire and Cheshire. 


 Just the idea of 3/2 makes me scratch my head and furrow my brow :-)
 I take it that the 3/2 tunes were primarily Northumbrian/borders 
phenomenon?





--

- Toby A. Rider ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

"The only two things in life that make it worth livin'
Is guitars tuned good 'n' firm-feelin' women" - Waylon Jennings.
- Toby's Understated Homepage: http://www.blackmill.net/toby_rider/
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- Larry Elder.com: http://www.larryelder.com/
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Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Matt Seattle]

Toby Rider wrote:

>   Just the idea of 3/2 makes me scratch my head and furrow my brow :-)
>   I take it that the 3/2 tunes were primarily Northumbrian/borders
> phenomenon?

Yes and no Toby, see the rest of my post. Surviving Scottish examples are
mainly in song versions - The Dusty Miller, Wee Willy Gray, Ay Waukin O (this
often in 4/4, but sometimes 3/2). Also I think Battlefield Band recorded
Presbyterian Hornpipe. There are lots of other Scottish examples in mss and
old printed books, some of them are v interesting with quite radical
syncopation. Dusty Miller and Go To Berwick Johnny are the ones which crop up
most, and with Lads of Alnwick are still common in Northumbrian sessions.
They're not really alien sounding, and they motor!
Cheers
Matt
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Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications

[Steve Wyrick]

Matt Seattle wrote:

> Just found what I was looking for to answer the 3/2 hornpipe thread..

This is great, Matt; thanks for posting!
-- 
Steve Wyrick -- Concord, California


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