Talk:Reel (dance)

page movement
i moved this article to reel (dance) because i belive that the dance is not the primary meaning of the word (and yes i had to change a hell of a lot of links to piped links. no doubt people will tell me if i screwed anything up)

incorrectly called a reel
The tune he plays might be called MacLeod's Reel by Mr. Morgan, but it is in 6/8 time and therefore a jig.  Funny enough Microsoft's Encarta has also carried a wrong example for a reel through the years. They have a polka as a media sample for the reel. A far as I know it has not been changed yet.  Hauke, 24. Feb. 2004


 * Thankfully we can fix errors a bit quicker than Encarta :) Thanks for pointing the mistake out - I'll move the sample to the jig article (may as well put it to use). --Camembert

Reels in Scottish country dancing
I'm not sure what this passage is saying, but I think I disagree with it: :) "The group of thirty-two bars (four times eight) is itself repeated three or four times before a second reel is introduced. The grouping of two tunes or more in this manner is typical in all dance tunes." In Scottish country dancing, a 32-bar dance is usually danced eight times through (so each of four couples will get to dance it twice from first position), and the band will typically play three or four 32-bar reels during the dance. Typical tune progressions for an 8x dance are 1-2-3-1-2-3-2-1 (for three tunes) and 1-2-3-4-2-3-4-1 (for four).  The band usually begins and ends with the same tune, often the "title tune" for the dance.  As you can see, tunes are rarely played over again immediately; the tunes are repeated, but they're spaced out. --Jere7my 01:17, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Feel free to edit the article to clarify it, or to propose a change here for others to look at. Just make sure that your change doesn't remove the information about how things are done in Irish music and dance. Argyriou 01:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Incomprehensible for a layman
So what, in layman's terms, makes a reel a reel? In what way does it differ from other well-known dances/music? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 10:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Reels are played in 2/2 time, though often noted in 4/4
I agree this article is not clear.

From a ceilidh dancers point of view a reel is a tune in 2/2 time, they only count two beats per measure and each of these has 4 associated 8th notes. Considering them in this way typical playing tempos for dancing are around 105 to 115 BPM.

If a reel is considered to be in 4/4 time the tempo would have to be doubled to maintain the same playing speed. The tune would now be played at 220BPM. Ceilidh dancers do not think of these tunes with this many subdivisions. Irish 'riverdance' type dancing may do, though I do not have enough experience with it to comment.

My experience with playing these tunes also aligns with the notion of thinking in 2/2 time. If a reel is considered 4/4 and all of these are emphasized the result does not sound like a reel. It sounds rushed.

2 beats per measure with 4 8th notes per beat makes the music sound 'fast' and 'lively'. By comparison hornpipes are played in 4/4 time and are consequently played half as fast. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:3401:DE00:243F:3FEC:15A4:A8A2 (talk) 11:21, 6 November 2016 (UTC)