Re: compound time signature with non duple denominator

[David Wright]

On Fri 04 Nov 2016 at 21:09:20 (+0100), Hans Åberg wrote:
> 
> > On 4 Nov 2016, at 20:31, David Wright <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri 04 Nov 2016 at 10:55:45 (+0100), Hans Åberg wrote:
> >> On 4 Nov 2016, at 03:21, David Wright <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> > (in a different timezone)
> > 
> >>> My own experience of dancing is mainly
> >>> in the Scottish Country Dancing tradition, where such rhythmic
> >>> irregularities would be of no help at all. In a tradition where
> >>> 8-bar phrases rule, a dance like The Wee Cooper of Fife is highly
> >>> irregular, having four 10-bar phrases.
> >> 
> >> I have encountered Mairi's Wedding, 8x40 reel:
> >>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairi%27s_Wedding
> > 
> > Mairi's Wedding is completely regular; it has five 8-bar
> > sections, which happens to sum to 40:
> 
> But they have to play it A B A B B, where each letter is a 8-bar section.

For that original tune, that's the usual sequence. But why "But"?
Lots of tunes are expanded by repeating an 8-bar phrase if they're
shorter than the dance demands. The dancers couldn't care less so
long as the music changes after the correct number of bars.
The next tune (you need several if you're not going to bore people
with eight times through) might be a tune that has a different
length and structure. Then there are loads of 48-bar and 64-bar
dances. None of this variation makes a dance irregular.

There's a useful introduction at
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/Scotland/PlayingForSCD.html

Cheers,
David.