4                                                                                     The Co. Champaign Irish Tunebook, Vol 1

64, or the principal stress may be delayed until after the end of the measure, as in No. 53; the parts
of such reels begin on the downbeat. (There are some exceptional patterns, as in No. 57.) Notice
the correspondence between these cadences and those of double jigs.

      "Single Reel" or Polka

      Since the cadences of reels resemble those of double jigs, is there a counterpart to the single jig
with a principal stress on the first beat of the bar in the cadence--among the dance tunes having
an even number of pulses per beat? The answer is yes. These tunes, coming mostly from Clare and
Kerry, are called polkas and are usually notated in 2/4 time like the Central European polka. How-
ever, many of the tunes known as polkas in Ireland are also found in Scotland and Appalachia (under the
name of reels, quicksteps, and so on), demonstrating a common heritage that goes back long be-
fore the Irish became aquainted with the continental dance. Breandan Breathnach once described
a tune as being a "single reel or 'proto-polka'"; hence the title of this section. ("Single reel," how-
ever, is often used today to mean a reel with only four bars per strain.)
      Often a polka and a slide will have a strong melodic correspondence, as in Nos. 36 and 98 or
Nos. 39 and 96. This correspondence is a reason for rejecting 12/8 notation for the slide.
      In this book, for technical production reasons, the polkas have been notated in 2/2 rather than
2/4. That is, the underlying pulse is represented by an eighth note, as in the other classes of tunes,
rather than a sixteenth.

      Hornpipe

      The hornpipe as we know it, with four counts per measure, arose in the 19th century; the Baroque
hornpipe was in 3/2 time; as in the Water Music. Named after an instrument already obsolete, the
hornpipe did not acquire a settled Gaelic name. O'Neill calls it a xxxxxxxx, which means "bas-
soon, drone, flute"; today the standard Gaelic name is xxxxxxxx.
      A hornpipe strain begins on the fourth quarter of the measure, and the principal stress in the ca-
dence is on the third quarter, just as in a large class of reels. Indeed, many American fiddlers play
as reels (breakdowns, etc.) tunes that Irish musicians know as hornpipes, such as No. 87. Often the
cadence of a hornpipe will consist of three plain quarter notes, as in No. 83; this too can be found
in tunes that American players call reels, such as No. 93. In this book that tune is counted among
the hornpipes despite its title.
      The difference for Irish players is that a hornpipe is played more slowly that a reel, and there
are four counts per measure rather than two. In each count the first pulse is emphasized and length-
ened. Therefore, where a count in a hornpipe is written as two eighth notes, play it as a triplet con-
sisting of a quarter and an eighth:



  Modes and Harmonies

      To some purists, adding harmonies to Irish music is crass pandering to oursiders with no respect
for the tradition. Nevertheless, even seventeen years after its breakup, people are still drawn to the