Would it be right to think that as the dancers would sometimes like a particular dance to go on longer than an individual tune would (usually an A and B part, played three times), that new tunes were introduced, in sets?

Was this introduction of sets to enable the dance to continue and to prevent the musicians from becoming bored, or was this to mark changes in the dance?

What were the conventions for this? Where all tunes in a set, the same dance or did they have to be all reels or jigs or all polkas?

Now that these tunes are not played exclusively for dancing, the practice continues but do the same conventions now apply? And if they don't, should they ?

I play music for ritual dancing (sword) on a regular basis. In general, one tune is required - whether it be AB or ABC in structure. However, this gets boring - partly for the listeners but particularly for the musicians who may have to play the same tune through 20 or 30 times.

To alleviate the boredom, the musician will choose another tune of the same type (jig, reel, polka etc.) which appears to fit and can be easily changed to from the first tune. After a while, the set becomes fairly fixed - especially if there is more than one musician because then the sequence can be memorised and only the word "change" used.

There are other reasons for putting tunes into sets, though. Hornpipes are often grouped into sets called "breakdowns" to allow a musical progression. Some tunes (e.g. the "bacca pipes jigs" were composed as a set in the first place.

Cheers!

IanC

Here in Australia (I am in Sydney, which considers itself ALL that matters in Australia ... while the rest doesn't) the Bush Dance / Colonial Dancing /?? scenes are fairly active. I am currently organising music and musicians for our Heritage 2000 ball (with ~30 folk musicians from around sydney and surrounding districts).

The general feeling amongst the dancers is that the average dance should be around 256 bars (about 4 - 5 minutes). With the average schottische, reel, waltz or jig running to 32 bars, this means most organised sets have 4 tunes, usually in adjoining keys in the cycle of fifths and always of related form - unless the dance has different tempos for different parts, as in the Virginia Reel, which usually goes to successive reel, jig and march tunes.

When organising a set, I will consider the pool of appropriate tunes, arrange by keys to suit expected instruments and players (sometimes changing keys to suit specialised groups like my own Backblocks who work around G/C button accordions and Anglo concertinas).

If there is a "signature tune" (formal or customary) I would put it first - and maybe repeat it at the end, making a 3-tune set. If the signature tune represents the best tune for the dance, I look for similar character with interesting variation in the other tunes.

A good traditional player can bend ANY tune to ANY dance, given a chance (and many would, if only as a "party trick", but none of us grow up with that level of involvement and some arrangement become necessary.

The "session" scene can revolve around the same pool of music, but is free from the threat of being mobbed by irate dancers who object to the choice, speed, or appropriateness of the tunes. Down the Irish end of the session bar (I'm psyching myself up for Easter's National Folk Festival in Canberra) it can get pretty feral!

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the Virginia Reel, as danced here is one that goes much longer than average: 7 times through the set of reel, jig and march ... about 9½ minutes ... usually the last dance - and you hope they will all be exhausted and go home!

Regards,

Bob Boltom

Since set dances all sort evolved from middle ages court dance, it is likely that the custom came from that time, as well--

My experience has been (though I have played more Eastern and Central Erpean folk music than anything else) is that often the grouping of tunes and dances differs from one community to another--even when the dances and the tunes themselves are the same--

My $.02

Rich

Bert: Actually I reckon it can be a hard slog playing a real dance tune with no dancers (in fact I have several similes in mind ... but none exactly polite conversation - solitary offences ... ). I keep telling musos that if they are not watching dancing (not dots and scratches), they aren't playing dance music!

That Virginia Reel I mentioned above is a good example. I have just assembled a double CD of the Heritage Ensemble/i> that accompanies our Bush Dance book and I had to scrap the first Virginia Reel they did because 9½ minutes of dance music without the reference to real dancing got lost. Nowadays when the Ensemble practices for the Heritage Balls, we have dancers there - for advice and inspiration.

Of course the situation in "Irish" sessions is something different again. There are "session" versions of tunes that no one in their right mind would dance to, even though they are allegedly the same tune.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

The obvious question that I am now asking myself is.... Why were the dances not shorter or the tunes longer?

Regarding medleys and such. I am not sure how much this has to do with dance tradition. Just dealing with Irish/Scottish/English/Colonial type dances, it seems to me that each dance had a corresponding tune (i.e. The Chorus Jig was danced to the tune of the same name--not a jig by the way; Rufty Tufty could only be danced to Rufty Tufty; etc.) A lot of the Irish set dances like The Black Bird have not only have specific tunes that go with them, but the tunes themselves are bent, i.e. they don't fit into the standard 32 bar, 64 beat, AABB framework. These older dances have certain figures in them which require specific musical phrasing to fit them.

That said, I don't think that the making of medleys is a modern convention either. Just looking at the names of certain tunes backs this up. There are a lot of tunes that have the word "rakes" in them, The Rakes of Mallow for example. I used to think this referred to rakish young men. In fact, a rake is a medley of tunes. Similarly, the word "humours" as in the Humours of Ballyloughlin. To humour a tune is to play it thru several times with different variations. So I think there is evidence to show that the players of traditional music have been using medleys for quite a while. But I think it is more a way of showing individual virtuosity as a traditional player, than to accomodate longer dances.

BeauD

Shambles: .... Why were the dances not shorter or the tunes longer? Dances have form and tunes have form - sometimes they fit together perfectly - but usually this is when there is a specified tune for a dance of distinctive form.

Most social dances have a fairly standard length - often 32 bars and the tunes most used are also of that lengths. The set is not to fit a number of tunes to the dance but to provide a variety of tunes (most to circumvent boredom among the musicians ... most of the dancers don't notice tune shifts and would dance to the beat of and old tin drum ... if it was spot on beat!).

Sometimes dances are split between different rytrhms - or work best played that way. The Virginia Reel (at least the way we do the Australian variant) works best to successive 32 bars of reel, 32 bars of jig and a 16 bar march (with options of squeezing in extra 4 bar segmants if the dancers are slow or inexperienced. That said, there are some musicians who play reels straight through ... but vary their playing to suit each section (and some who don't!).

There are quadrilles and other 19th century 'set' dances that may use as many as 5 different types of tunes during the 'set', but these can really be thought of a 5 different dances loosely associated by being in a 'set'.

There is also an old tradition of doing dances to song tunes, where the length of the dance was the length of the song ... and the singer had better develop the shanty singer's knack of dropping or adding in verses to make the length match the expectation.

In Australia, we have a composite dancing tradition that has, over a scant two centuries, blended traditions ranging from peasant dances of Britain and Europe, ballroom dances straight from the salons of Paris, National traditions of our many varied settlers and a body of new composed dances from the explosion of publishing in the Industrial Age. What comes out the other end is perhaps a new national tradition ... if we can tell the difference!

Regards,

Bob Bolton

I've played for contra dances here in the US for some 25 years and almost all the bands I've heard or played in strung tunes together during any particular dance.

How long a dance lasts depends on the length of the contra lines. Usually, callers continue a dance until every couple has a chance to travel the length of the line in both directions. So, if the line has 6 groups of 2 couples the tune would be played 12 times (or 2 tunes 6 times each or 3 tunes 4 times each or 4 tunes...you get the picture).

In recent years I've been playing guitar in a duo called 'Stump Tail Dog'. We like to play anywhere from 2 to 4 tunes per dance. While we often switch keys between tunes, we don't stick to an ordered progression of keys.

Since contras aren't set dances, callers may suggest jigs, reels, rags etc. but the band selects the tunes. They need to be "square". That is AABB, 8 bars (16 beats) per section. Sometimes switch from jigs to reels in the middle of a dance. It tends to give the dancers a kick into high gear.

US New England or midwestern style tunes, Irish tunes, Scottish tunes, French Canadian tunes, Mexican tunes...music from anywhere can work if it fits the beat structure.

Probably 25% of our tunes are written by the fiddler (not me) who is a fine and prolific writer. His stuff sounds like traditional US music so dancers usually don't know what the hell we're giving them.

Whatever works for the dancers is fine with us.

Best regards, Ray