Sean-nós & Set Dance with Maldon
Specializing in easy to follow step by step instruction for all levels
Week by Week
| Tune | Steps | Resources | |
| Week 1 – Jan 7 | Reels: Jackie Colman’s Monaghan Twig | Improv with Sir George MacKenzie / Monaghan Twig / Seán Sa Cheo | |
| Week 2 – Jan 14 | Marches: Bonaparte Crossing The Alps The Battle Of Aughrim | ||
| Week 3 – Jan 28 | Jigs: Bill Hearte’s Jig Out on the Ocean | ||
| Week 4 – Feb 4 | |||
| Week 5 – Feb 11 | |||
| Week 6 – Feb 18 | |||
| Week 7 – Feb 25 | |||
| Week 8 – March |
Week by Week
| Set | Steps | Battering | |
| Week 1 – Jan 9 | Clare Plain Set Figures 1 & 2 Videos on week 1 tab | 3’s Advance & Retire Step Videos on week 1 tab | Heel drop in the 3’s and Advance & Retire steps Videos on week 1 tab |
| Week 2 – Jan 16 No class at PCC campus! | You are invited to attend the 3rd Friday Dance at Waverly, 3300 SE Woodword St. Portland, OR | Free to all PCC Irish Set Dance Students | |
| Week 3 – Jan 23 | Clare Plain Set Figures 2,3,4 | 3’s Advance & Retire Step | |
| Week 4 – Jan 30 | Corballa Set | 3’s | Jig step |
| Week 5 – Feb 6 | Cashel Set | 3 | Slide (Jig step) |
| Week 6 – Feb 13 | Corballa Set | 3 | Jig step (123,123,123) Step heel step |
| Week 7 – Feb 20 No class at PCC campus! | Kilfenora Connemara Clare Lancers Merchant Armagh Lancers | You are invited to attend the 3rd Friday Montlhy Céilí Music: Erik Killops Waverly, 3300 SE Woodword St. Portland, OR | Free to all PCC Irish Set Dance Students |
| Week 8 – Feb 27 | Kilfenora Connemara Clare Lancers Merchant Armagh Lancers | 3’s | |
| Week 9 – March 6 | |||
| Week 10 – March 13 |
In the first class we learned the frist two figures of the Clare Plain Set from County Clare, Ireland.
What we covered in class:
Ballyvourney slides (4 slides 4x each)
North Kerry
3rd Friday Céilí Dance List
Merchant
Armagh Lancers
Moycullen Set (Galway)
Welcome!
On this page you’ll find resources and links to accompany the workshop Playing for Irish Set Dances | The Kilfenora Plain Set, hosted by Maldon Meehan and Betsy Branch.
This workshop is part of a series leading up to the 3rd Friday Céilí on May 15th. For this céilí we’ll have an open band, and we’re inviting both adult and youth musicians to join us. You’re welcome to play for any of the sets, whether or not you’ve attended the workshops.
During the workshops we’ll be crowd-sourcing tunes from participants and finding common repertoire that suits the dances, the regional styles, and the lift of each set or county. We are delighted to be teaching this series and genuinely excited to see what grows from this project.
When it comes to set dancing, sometimes it’s the player who makes the dance—and sometimes it’s the tune itself. More often than not, it’s both.
On this resource page are a few links and examples of music and musicians for the Kilfenora Plain Set and for Clare set dancing in general.
Right now our workshop is focused on the Kilfenora Plains Set, but some of these tunes can also work nicely for other Clare sets.
I have extensive Spotify and YouTube playlist resources available. You’ll find direct links to the Clare and Kilfenora resources if you’d like to save them to your own accounts. They’re also embedded here so you can play them right on this page.
Recources:
Set in General Dancing:
Kilfenora Set – Callers notes, links and more. This is a document that I use when calling and teaching the Kilfenora Plain Set. You will see this dance writen as “Kilfenora”, The Kilfenora Plain Set and Kilfenora Plain. It’s all the same set.
Clare Dancers:
Folder “Music for May 15 Ceili.” – all practice recordings can be found in this folder.
Links go directly to where they are dancing/playing the Kilfenora Plain Set if you want to dive into the dances more. The tunes are not listed, but you may know some of them and want to included them in your own Connemara set list. Please let us know tunes you find.
Welcome!
On this page you’ll find resources and links to accompany the workshop Playing for Irish Set Dances | The Connemara Reel Set, hosted by Maldon Meehan and Betsy Branch.
This workshop is part of a series leading up to the 3rd Friday Céilí on May 15th. For this céilí we’ll have an open band, and we’re inviting both adult and youth musicians to join us. You’re welcome to play for any of the sets, whether or not you’ve attended the workshops.
During the workshops we’ll be crowd-sourcing tunes from participants and finding common repertoire that suits the dances, the regional styles, and the lift of each set or county. We are delighted to be teaching this series and genuinely excited to see what grows from this project.
When it comes to set dancing, sometimes it’s the player who makes the dance—and sometimes it’s the tune itself. More often than not, it’s both.
On this resource page are a few links and examples of music and musicians for the Connemara Set and for Connemara-style dancing in general—whether you’re playing for a sean-nós dancer or for other sets.
Right now our workshop is focused on the Connemara Reel Set, but these tunes can also work nicely for other Connemara dances:
All of these traditions can share the Connemara step—or a close cousin of its rhythm and lift—which means the same core repertoire can give dancers that shared pulse and drive that makes them want to dance their Connemara steps.
I have extensive Spotify and YouTube playlist resources available. You’ll find direct links to the Connemara resources if you’d like to save them to your own accounts. They’re also embedded here so you can play them right on this page.
Recources:
Set Dancing
Connemara Set – Callers notes, links and more. This is a document that I use when calling and teaching the Connemara Reel Set. You will see this dance writen as “The Connemara Reel Set”, The Connemara Set, The Connemara and Connemara. It’s all the same set.
Folder “Music for May 15 Ceili.” – all practice recordings can be found in this folder.
From Betsy: To sum up, here’s where each tune goes for the Connemara dance. Each set has 2 recordings: 84 bpm, and 108 bpm (for the reels) or 116 bpm )for the polka).
Figure 1: Miss McCloud’s (G) 3x / Miss McCloud’s (A) 2x
**Note on Miss McCloud’s: there are millions of versions of this! I chose an opening phrase that I heard on lots of recordings of dances. This tune is much easier in G if you play whistle or flute. It’s much easier in A if you are a fiddler. So that’s why both keys are represented! Whatever version you play will be fine. (For you whistles and flutes, I recorded the 1st time through in A with no G#’s. In case you want a variation that works without that note!)
Figure 2: New Mown Meadow (Em/A) 3x / Silver Spear (D) 3x
Figure 3: Miss Monahan’s (D) 2x / Humours of Tulla (D) 4x / Miss Monahan’s (D) 1.75x (AAB)
Figure 4: Maggie in the Woods (G) 3x
Enjoy, and let me know if I screwed anything up!
links go directly to where they are dancing/playing the Connemara Set if you want to dive into the dances more. The tunes are not listed, but you may know some of them and want to included them in your own Connemara set list.