Popular traditional songs for Irish Dancing?

Stratocaster

Quick question, can someone list out a few popular traditional Irish songs a band could play to accompany Irish Dancers?

banjopaul

Well firstly, Irish dancers dance to tunes, not songs.. songs have words, tunes don't. What to play depends on what type of dancers they are, ceilí dancing, set dancing, sean nós dancing, or more riverdancy type of stuff. Best thing to do would be to ask the dancers what they usually dance to. You'll probably need sets of jigs and reels, and maybe hornpipes, mazurkas or marchs.
Best of luck!

Stratocaster

banjopaul wrote: »

Well firstly, Irish dancers dance to tunes, not songs.. songs have words, tunes don't. What to play depends on what type of dancers they are, ceilí dancing, set dancing, sean nós dancing, or more riverdancy type of stuff. Best thing to do would be to ask the dancers what they usually dance to. You'll probably need sets of jigs and reels, and maybe hornpipes, mazurkas or marchs.
Best of luck!

Thanks Paul, your correct "tunes" would be a better word. The dancing would be Riverdance type and it would be great to get a few ideas on tunes that could be played within a band if its at all possible. Lets say the band consisted of bass, drums, guitars and keys is there any tunes you would recommend in this situation?

I have been listening to some of the popular riverdance tunes and the arrangements are very complex with many different instruments.

banjopaul

Well with the instruments given there your kinda restricted to be honest.. You'd reallly need instruments capable of playing fast single note melodies, so unless the guitarist is very good a finger picking tunes, or flat picking them either, or your pianist is like Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin your might be a bit out of luck!
Check out these and see what you think, this type of stuff wouldn't be the norm at all though.
Guitar(Classical mind):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goc_1h8neAI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utd9CxoS9PE

The set up you have would be much better suited to more ballady kind of stuff though to be honest, but sure maybe you can break the mould and come up with something new!

Stratocaster

Thanks Paul, thats impressive playing above. I could get the strumming down but my finger picking skills wouldn't be up there. Spent a bit of time trying to figure out the Riverdances Dueling Violins to be played on guitar but I dont think it would have the same effect. Unfortunately I've not paid too much attention to trad music, just the odd session in the pub. Your right I should move onto something more ballad type as I belive the Riverdance stuff is not "real" trad music, its arrangements are slighly different.

The proposed show may included some original Riverdance members and I have been asked to start thinking of some Irish tunes I could play on guitar along with the band.

With this information is there any obvious songs you would select? Since the dancers come from a proffesional back ground would they also be cabable of dancing to the more tradional Irish ballads?

banjopaul

Stratocaster wrote: »

Thanks Paul, thats impressive playing above. I could get the strumming down but my finger picking skills wouldn't be up there. Spent a bit of time trying to figure out the Riverdances Dueling Violins to be played on guitar but I dont think it would have the same effect. Unfortunately I've not paid too much attention to trad music, just the odd session in the pub. Your right I should move onto something more ballad type as I belive the Riverdance stuff is not "real" trad music, its arrangements are slighly different.

The proposed show may included some original Riverdance members and I have been asked to start thinking of some Irish tunes I could play on guitar along with the band.

With this information is there any obvious songs you would select? Since the dancers come from a proffesional back ground would they also be cabable of dancing to the more tradional Irish ballads?

Well to be honest Riverdance is much closer to real trad than ballads are, its basically just a medley of tunes composed in a trad style, starts with a slip jig if i remember rightly, they're given a bit of a classical fusion.
To be perfectly honest if your going to be doing a show like that, and performing to the public, you'd need to get people who can play trad music in on it. Playing trad properly takes a lot of time and practice, so it might help to get someone with a bit of expertise to help you out at least.
Do you mind if i ask how it is your doing this show with no background in trad? I don't mean to be offensive or anything, far from it! I love seeing people interested in the music! Just curious is all.

And no the dancers wouldn't be able to dance to ballads, doesn't really work like that I'm afraid!:)

lotdpd

hey guys good thread......

coming for a dancing background and still dancin by the way, couple of songs you could use if its still songs u want to use would be ,

Follow me up to carlow, galway girl, tell me ma.

To be honest any really good professional irish dancer could adapt to dance to nearly any type of music that has a beat, i know i can anways.....

Anything else i can help you with just drop me a pm