{"id":1566,"date":"2011-11-12T13:17:25","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T13:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldtownschool.org\/connect\/fiddleclub\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2014-04-21T08:21:46","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T13:21:46","slug":"reels-rants-and-polkas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/2011\/11\/reels-rants-and-polkas\/","title":{"rendered":"Reels, Rants and Polkas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next fiddle club meeting will be
\nSunday, November 20 at 6:30p
\nAtlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)<\/span>
\nWe’ll play a few English ceilidh (pronounced ‘kaylee’) tunes, which will be posted soon. And we’ll try them out with a couple of easy dances. Invite your friends and family to come along and dance. No admission fee. No registration required.<\/p>\n

The story thus far. Long ago in a galaxy far away I started playing the fiddle and calling square dances, because I thought that was the most fun a group of people could have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Al
\nAl Smitley & Paul Tyler re-enacting frontier life in 1836 Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, Noblesville, Indiana – 1981<\/td>\n		\"\"<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Way back then, I had the glimmer of notion that the American square dance was just one type of set dance among many. Even then I knew the fiddle was the universal instrument. But over the next thirty years, I concentrated on playing for and calling American square dances, in part, because they were easy for folks to learn, and required only a walking step. No aspiring dancer had to learn to do anything special with his or her feet.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nBut in the meantime, in merry old England, a set dance revival was growing that attracted thousands of people young and old, and several dozen high energy dance bands to a scene called Barn Dancing. In the last ten years it’s also become known as Ceilidh dancing, borrowing a term for similar explosion of old time dancing in Scotland. The dances are for sets of 4 to 6 couples, or for lines for “as many as will,” or for circles made up of couples or groups of 3. The dances are all easy to learn and great fun to do.<\/p>\n

And part of what makes English Ceilidhs such big fun, is that the dancers use a few special steps that bring them to a closer connection with the music. These steps are the setting step (for reels), the rant step, and the polka. We’re going to try them out at the next meeting.<\/p>\n

Here’s some tunes. My current favorite reel is Beatrice Hill’s 3-Hand Reel<\/a>. Click the title for a slow version I posted on the Old Town School’s Flog, and click this link for the notes<\/a>. If you want to get inspired, listen to this live version from the Old Swan Band, the top-of-the-heap band for English ceilidh.<\/p>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

Another great, and easy, English reel that has been played in Old Town fiddle classes is Albert Farmer’s Bonfire Tune<\/a>. And for the right feel for an English reel, take a look at this video of the Old Swan Band playing “Speed the Plough”<\/a>. For the last figure each time through, the dancers do a simple polka step (and-a|1 & 2 and-a|1 & 2).<\/p>\n

Another step from the old-time polka (also known as a schottische), is the step-hop, step
\n-hop (1 & 2 &|1 & 2 &). At an English Ceilidh, reels and polkas dance alike, as seen in this video of the Old Swan Band playing a couple of well-known polkas learned from Walter Bulwer of East Anglia.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/youtu.be\/Xymt2p2Weyg<\/p>\n

Check back in a day or two for part 2 of this post. I’ll provide some sounds and video for the reel setting step and the rant step.<\/p>\n

Paul Tyler, convener<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next fiddle club meeting will be Sunday, November 20 at 6:30p Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln) We’ll play a few English ceilidh (pronounced ‘kaylee’) tunes, which will be posted soon. And we’ll try them out with a couple … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[94,108,93],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-barn-dance","tag-english-fiddle","tag-square-dance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3855,"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/3855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drdosido.net\/fiddleclub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}