Friday, July 16, 2010

One way to tell the difference between a jig and a reel

In an Irish Times review Friday, July 16, of the Traditional Irish Music Pub Crawl in Dublin by Siobhán Long:
Onwards we amble to the Ha’penny Bridge Inn, the first of two family owned pubs which offer punters a decent taste of native Dublin drinking houses, though neither have a particular reputation for traditional music. The upstairs room in the Ha’penny Bridge Inn assumes the air of a cosy speakeasy (albeit one bathed in evening sunlight). Here Trish [one of the two actors narrating the show] advises us to distinguish a reel from a jig by testing the rhythm to see if it mirrors the three-syllable “butterfly” (a jig in 6/8 time) or the four-syllable “caterpillar” (a reel in 4/4 time). A veteran of Lord of the Dance , Trish is a fiddler with a colourful history and deliciously gossipy tales of life on the road with the Flatley entourage.
Headline: "Between the jigs and reels." Looks like the copydesk liked it, too.

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