The Donegal fiddle tradition is the way of playing the fiddle that is traditional in County Donegal, Ireland. It is one of the distinct fiddle traditions within Irish traditional music.
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. Of Scottish origin, reels are also an important part of the repertoire of the fiddle traditions of Britain, Ireland and North America. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure.
The jig is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It first gained popularity in 16th-century England, Ireland, Scotland, and other parts of the British Isles, and was adopted on mainland Europe where it eventually became the final movement of the mature Baroque dance suite. Today it is most associated with Irish dance music, Scottish country dance and the Métis people in Canada. Jigs were originally in quadruple compound metre,, but have been adapted to a variety of time signatures, by which they are often classified into groups, including double jigs, slip jigs and single jigs.
Irish dance refers to a group of traditional dance forms that originate in Ireland, encompassing dancing both solo and in groups, and dancing for social, competitive, and performance purposes. Irish dance in its current form developed from various influences such as earlier native Irish dance, English country dancing and later possibly French quadrilles, as it became popular in Britain and Ireland during the 19th century. Dance was taught by "travelling dance masters" across Ireland in the 17th and 18th centuries, and separate dance forms developed according to regional practice and differing purposes. Irish dance became a significant part of Irish culture, particularly for Irish nationalist movements. From the early 20th century, a number of organisations promoted and codified the various forms of dance, creating competitive structures and standardised styles. Irish dancers who compete for competitive reasons dance in a dance style that is more modern than traditional Irish dance. It is mainly done solo, but there is some team dancing in groups of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16 and even numbers onwards.
The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are closely modelled on similar historic instruments, the modern Scottish smallpipes are a modern reinvention, inspired by historic instruments but largely based on Northumbrian smallpipes in their construction.
The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from Northeastern England, where they have been an important factor in the local musical culture for more than 250 years. The family of the Duke of Northumberland have had an official piper for over 250 years. The Northumbrian Pipers' Society was founded in 1928, to encourage the playing of the instrument and its music; Although there were so few players at times during the last century that some feared the tradition would die out, there are many players and makers of the instrument nowadays, and the Society has played a large role in this revival. In more recent times the Mayor of Gateshead and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle have both established a tradition of appointing official Northumbrian pipers.
Slip jig refers to both a style within Irish music, and the Irish dance to music in slip-jig time. The slip jig is in 9
8 time, traditionally with accents on 5 of the 9 beats — two pairs of crotchet/quaver followed by a dotted crotchet note.
Here Northumbria is defined as Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, and County Durham. According to 'World Music: The Rough Guide', "nowhere is the English living tradition more in evidence than the border lands of Northumbria, the one part of England to rival the counties of the west of Ireland for a rich unbroken tradition. The region is particularly noted for its tradition of border ballads, the Northumbrian smallpipes and also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions, particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England, as well as Irish immigrants.
In music, notes inégales is a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. The practice was especially prevalent in France in the 17th and 18th centuries, with appearances in other European countries at the same time. It reappeared as the standard performance practice in the 20th century in jazz. The phrase notes inégales means "unequal notes" in French.
Billy Pigg was an English player of Northumbrian smallpipes. He was a vice-president and an influential member of the Northumbrian Pipers Society from 1930 until his death.
A treble jig is an Irish dance which is done in hard shoes. It is also known as the "heavy jig". It is performed to music with a 6/8 time signature. The dance is usually 40 bars to 48 bars in length, but is danced for 32 bars if one is in beginner to prizewinner. The dance is one of the two main hard shoe dances, the other being the hornpipe, and is done by most dancers.
Clog dancing is a form of step dance characterised by the wearing of inflexible, wooden soled clogs. Clog dancing developed into differing intricate forms both in Wales and also in the North of England. Welsh clog dancing mainly originates from various slate mines where workers would compete against each other during work breaks. Northern English traditional clog dancing originates from Lancashire, Yorkshire, County Durham, Northumberland and the Lake District.
The Sailor's Hornpipe is a traditional hornpipe melody and linked dance with origins in the Royal Navy.
The William Dixon manuscript, written down between 1733 and 1738 in Northumberland, is the oldest known manuscript of pipe music from the British Isles, and the most important source of music for the Border pipes. It is currently located in the A.K. Bell Library, Perth, Scotland. Little is known of William Dixon's biography, except what has been learned from this manuscript, and from parish records in Northumberland.
Will Atkinson was a noted traditional musician from northern Northumberland. He started off as a player of the English diatonic accordion, but was best known as a harmonica or moothie player. His playing was distinguished by a very clear sense of rhythm, with a definite lilt. He was a major figure in Northumbrian music. He was also the composer of several tunes that have entered the tradition and are played at gatherings and sessions.
From 1770 to 1772 a man called William Vickers made a manuscript collection of dance tunes, of which some 580 survive, including both pipe and fiddle tunes. The manuscript is incomplete - 31 pages have not survived, though their contents are listed at the beginning of the book. In the mid-19th century, it belonged to the pipemaker John Baty, of Wark, Northumberland, and it now belongs to the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is kept in the Northumberland County Record Office at Woodhorn, Ashington.
The Henry Atkinson manuscript is an early violin tunebook written in Northumberland. It is the earliest fiddle tunebook to have survived from northern England, and hence an important source for Northumbrian music in the late 17th century. The title page carries the inscription, in a fine hand, Henry Atkinson, his book, 1694. 1694 is presumably the date the book was begun. A small 5 is apparently written below the 4, suggesting that the book was continued into the following year.
Robert Whinham (1814–1893) was a fiddler, composer and dancing master from Morpeth, Northumberland. Many tunes composed by him are still played, notably the Remember Me hornpipe, Whinham's Reel, and The Cambo March. A 1995 book on his life and music, called Remember Me by Graham Dixon, summarises most of what is known about him.
Archie Dagg was a shepherd and traditional fiddler, piper and composer from central Northumberland. He was born at Linbriggs, in Upper Coquetdale, and except for his time in the Army at the end of the First World War, lived all his life in that region. In the late 1930s, he was a member of the English Sheepdog Trials Team; when competing with them in Scotland, he would play Scottish tunes on the Northumbrian smallpipes, and found he would get a steady supply of free drams.
The Traditional Tune Archive (TTA) is the searchable digital library of traditional music from Ireland, Great Britain and North America organized alphabetically, by tune title, with alternate or additional titles and variants cross-referenced, music in standard and ABC notation, annotated information on history and context, along with references and internet links for further reference.
