Re: [Musicians] Dots & Jigs

Jigs have certainly not fallen out of the contra and New England square dance repertoire. Just listen to Rodney Miller, Mark Simos. Andre Brunet, Eden MacAdam-Somer, Claude Ginsberg, Cathy Whitesides, and many more modern contra dance musicians, and they'll mix jigs with reels, no problem. I realize that one problem with these Americans is, uh, happily, they're still alive. But in the Trad Square world, such tunes have fallen out of favor. Kathy Anderson, that great square dance caller, said for Southern patter squares, "I call in 2/4, not in 6/8," thus a preference for reels for fast Southern squares. Other bands I work with never play jigs. At an early dance weekend I asked the band, who stuck with Old-Time reels, to play Rory O'More, as it's a great dance, and a wonderful tune. They grudgingly acquiesced, and threatened to do it, but with bags on their heads. I never asked them to play a jig again... Here in the bay area, when our local David Brown is playing 5-string banjo, if a jig gets started he pulls our a flat pick and wails! Stefan Curl, another wonderful banjo player, has worked out jig playing claw-hammer style, as has virtuoso Steve Baufman. I figured I can call in either 6/8 or (the more natural) 2/4. I've often thought it was weird: play a recently composed tune by a died-in-the-wool "Old-Time" musician and it's "old-time." Play an Irish tune that's been played for more than a 100 years, and, well, it's not "Old-Time," it's Irish... Erik Hoffman -----Original Message----- From: Musicians <musicians-bounces(a)lists.sharedweight.net> On Behalf Of Thomas Verdot via Musicians Sent: Friday, May 17, 2019 5:32 PM To: Meg Dedolph <meg.dedolph(a)gmail.com> Cc: musicians <musicians(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Subject: Re: [Musicians] Dots & Jigs I used to play with a great banjo play (Clarke Buehling) who played jigs but getting them up to dance tempo doing any sort of down-stroke is hard. It was done in the 19th century however & these show up in the old banjo tutors of that era. Tom V. On 5/17/2019 7:21 PM, Meg Dedolph wrote: _______________________________________________ Musicians mailing list Musicians(a)lists.sharedweight.net http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/musicians-sharedweight.net