Area of Study: Musical Traditions of Ireland (Irish and Ulster Scots)

Two lists, or one question

This area of study covers the traditional music of Ireland, both the Irish tradition and the Ulster Scots tradition, and it usually arrives as two lists: around a dozen instruments and about eight dance forms. That is a great many nouns and almost no understanding. The forms are told apart by their RHYTHM, not by their tunes. A jig and a reel can use very similar notes. What makes one a jig is that the beat divides into THREE, giving that rolling, lilting feel. What makes a reel a reel is that the beat divides into TWO, giving an even, driving one. That turns a memory problem into a counting problem, and counting works on a tune you have never heard before, which is exactly the situation a listening question puts you in. So carry one question through the whole module: how does the beat divide, and how fast is it going? The elements themselves, and how any of this is written down, are other modules on this course.

Five words used precisely

The first two are the pair that sorts every dance form on the list, and the last one explains why two recordings of the same tune are not the same.

Two that divide into three

Five traditional dance forms. Tap the TWO that are in compound time, where each beat divides into three.

• Reel: even, continuous and driving, usually quite fast
• Jig: a rolling lilt, often described as sounding like a repeated three-syllable word
• Polka: brisk and bouncy, with a clear two-in-a-bar feel
• Slip jig: the same rolling division as a jig, but with an extra group in each bar, giving a swinging, slightly lopsided lift
• Hornpipe: stately and swung, with a strong long-short pattern on an even underlying beat

Two recordings, different notes

Two players record the same well-known reel. The notes are noticeably different in places, and some decorations appear in one and not the other. What does this tell you?

• That this is an aural tradition where tunes are passed on by listening and varied in performance, so both are legitimate versions rather than one being wrong
• That one of the players has learned it wrongly
• That they are actually two different tunes with the same name
• That the one with more decoration is the better player

Divides in three, or divides in two

Every dance form on this list sorts into one of these two columns, and getting the column right narrows the answer to two or three possibilities before you have thought about anything else.

Five instruments, five different jobs

Identifying an unfamiliar tune

A listening question plays a traditional dance tune you have never heard. Put the steps in the order that gets you to an answer fastest.

• Find the main pulse and tap along with it
• Listen to how each beat divides: in two, or in three
• Judge whether it is fast, moderate or stately
• Notice whether the rhythm is even or swung
• Use those three together to narrow the possibilities to one or two forms
• Check against the instruments and texture, which may confirm the tradition it sits in

What a strong answer does here

Three habits, and the first is worth more than knowing any number of tune names. Describe what you can hear, in the terms the question uses. Naming a form is one mark. Saying that the beat divides in three, at a moderate tempo, with a drone underneath a decorated melody, is a description that earns whether or not the name is right. Place instruments by function when you cannot name them. An examiner can credit a candidate who says a sustained note runs underneath throughout, even if the instrument producing it is not identified. Function is audible; names are memory. ⭐ And treat variation as a feature, not a fault. Because this music is passed on by ear, two performances of the same tune differ, players decorate differently, and repeats are varied deliberately. A candidate who writes that a performer has changed the tune incorrectly has misunderstood how the tradition works; one who writes that the second time round is ornamented differently has understood it exactly.

What job is that instrument doing

For each description of what is heard, decide what job that instrument is doing. Three lives.

The recipe nobody wrote down

Somebody cooks a dish their grandmother used to make. They learned it by standing next to her and watching, over years. It was never written down anywhere. Now ask two of the grandchildren to cook it, and you get two different dishes. One uses more of one thing, one leaves out a step that turned out not to matter, one adds something that was never in it at all. Neither of them is cooking it wrongly. There is no card in a drawer to be wrong about. Now try writing it down. You can capture the ingredients and the order, and you cannot capture the bits that made it: how long she waited before adding the next thing, what she was looking for when she decided it was ready, the adjustment she made without noticing on a day when something was slightly different. ⭐ The written version is genuinely useful and genuinely incomplete, and anybody who learned it the other way can hear the difference immediately.

What earns marks in a listening answer

A listening question plays a traditional tune and asks candidates to describe what they hear. Select every response that would genuinely earn marks.

• Stating how the beat divides, and what that makes it
• Describing what each instrument is doing, even without naming it
• Noting that the repeat is ornamented differently from the first time
• Naming a specific well-known tune it might be
• Saying it sounds traditional and lively

Finish the traditions sentences

When each beat divides into three, giving a rolling lilt, the music is in _____ time, and the jig family lives there. When each beat divides into two, giving an even drive, it is in _____ time, which is where reels, polkas, hornpipes and marches sit. A continuous sustained note held under a moving melody is a _____, and a single player can produce one at the same time as the tune. The small added notes and decorations a player chooses around the melody are _____, and they are not written into the tune. Because this music is passed on by listening rather than from a page, it is an _____ tradition, which is why two performances of the same piece differ. The single most decisive thing to listen for when identifying an unfamiliar dance form is how the _____ divides.

Build the listening answer

A tune is played and you are asked to describe it and suggest what it is. Assemble the answer that would earn most.

Four listening decisions

A student is working through the listening section of a paper. Each stage plays something and hands them a decision.

• A tune is played and they do not recognise it at all. Decide what to do first.
• They hear a swung, long-short rhythm and immediately write that it is in compound time. Decide.
• On the repeat, the melody is decorated differently and one phrase is changed. They are about to write that the performer made a mistake. Decide.
• A question asks them to compare the textures of two extracts. In one, a single instrument plays a melody with a constant note humming beneath it. Decide how to describe it.

Explain how to identify a form

Somebody says this area of study is just memorising instrument names and dance names. Explain what you would actually listen for, and why it works on a tune you have never heard.

• State the single most decisive thing to listen for, and what it tells you
• Give ONE form from each of the two rhythmic groups, and say what each sounds like
• Explain the trap that catches people on a swung rhythm
• Describe how instruments can be placed by what they are doing rather than named
• Explain why two performances of the same tune differ, and why that is not a mistake
• Finish by explaining why this approach works on an unfamiliar tune and memorising names does not