I remember that the first time I played for set dancers was while I was in Germany and had the guidance of Jackie Small. He suggested we run with polkas for the reel sets, winked and said, "They'll never know the difference and it will be easier keep a quick beat."
I do recall playing a few actual reels, and I remember having a conversation to pick them out that went something along the lines of "What is the most simple tune you can think of?" There was a gem in there called The Blacksmith (not Merry, or otherwise) that was still a nice tune but definitely about as simple as it gets.
If I'm playing for dancers now, I usually lead off with really simple single reels like that just to help get comfortable with the tempo.
And yeah, anything remotely interesting becomes an unplayable mess in a huge hurry, especially if the dancers have been pounding coffee for several hours before the dance.
It went just fine, but left me a bit disoriented, especially since my next stop was an evening party with some "just learning" friends, with those very basic reels played very slowly.
Finished by blasting normal tempos in the car trying to readjust.
Honestly, mediocre set dancers have a binge&purge relationship to speed. If you ask, they will almost always say "FASTER!", even if it's not really what they want. When a dancer doesn't bother to get in the 3 steps each bar (with some amount of battering in between), it's more interesting to dance at 180bpm than 120.
When I used to set-dance myself (a few years back), the hands-down favorite set-dancing musician was Matt Cunningham (http://www.mattcunninghamband.com/), yet he never really plays all that fast... In the end, I think dancers actually enjoy themselves more if you enforce a speed limit on your own playing (say 120bpm), and concentrate on things other than just getting the notes in.
Yeah, I could tell it was a non-precision demo, though the middle of a blocked-off intersection isn't the ideal dance floor. I'd agree, they didn't seem like they needed it any faster, but as a set-dance non-informed musician, it's not my job to make these decisions, I just follow the boss. Bosses.
I can't say it was pleasant, but it was educational - it's a fine thing to do every 3-4 years (because that's about as often as I'm asked) as kind of a mindwarp. Intersting to get a picture of what other people do with this music that's entirely different. And hey, I got beer and a t-shirt. ;)
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I suppose about 80% of what gets played at a typical Conor's session would be virtually unplayable at set dance tempo.... ;)
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I do recall playing a few actual reels, and I remember having a conversation to pick them out that went something along the lines of "What is the most simple tune you can think of?" There was a gem in there called The Blacksmith (not Merry, or otherwise) that was still a nice tune but definitely about as simple as it gets.
If I'm playing for dancers now, I usually lead off with really simple single reels like that just to help get comfortable with the tempo.
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It went just fine, but left me a bit disoriented, especially since my next stop was an evening party with some "just learning" friends, with those very basic reels played very slowly.
Finished by blasting normal tempos in the car trying to readjust.
Reply
Honestly, mediocre set dancers have a binge&purge relationship to speed. If you ask, they will almost always say "FASTER!", even if it's not really what they want. When a dancer doesn't bother to get in the 3 steps each bar (with some amount of battering in between), it's more interesting to dance at 180bpm than 120.
When I used to set-dance myself (a few years back), the hands-down favorite set-dancing musician was Matt Cunningham (http://www.mattcunninghamband.com/), yet he never really plays all that fast... In the end, I think dancers actually enjoy themselves more if you enforce a speed limit on your own playing (say 120bpm), and concentrate on things other than just getting the notes in.
Reply
I can't say it was pleasant, but it was educational - it's a fine thing to do every 3-4 years (because that's about as often as I'm asked) as kind of a mindwarp. Intersting to get a picture of what other people do with this music that's entirely different. And hey, I got beer and a t-shirt. ;)
Reply
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