2022 Summer 1 | Tune Challenge | Self Study

Tune in! You are invited to join me for a special summertime tune exploration on daily at 9am. We will be exploring the the connection between steps and tunes.

Summer tune challenge! You pick, a tune a day, a tune a week or a tune a month. You’ll never be able to dance them all, but this summer you can at least get close with our tune challenge.

My own challenge is a tune a day. Every morning I’m going for one hour of dance practice in order learn and create steps to accompany a collection of traditional Irish tunes. They won’t all be gems, but my goal it to get better and better at creating steps for tunes. Over the summer I will share those steps and tunes with you.

From Daily from 9AM-9:30AM PST join me for some friendly guidance on dancing the tune.

Tune Challenge (Guided Chaos) – 25 min

This tune challenge came about from the idea of learning a tune a day. The summer goal is to work on learning by ear a tune a day and creating steps to go to that tune. The sessions will be 25 minutes of guided tune learning and step creation. We may not get through a whole tune in the 25 minutes. The idea is to build your skills learning to dance by ear and to build your repertuar of traditional Irish tunes. I will be dancing everyday and you are welcome to join me live daily or weekly. Up to you how many tunes you want to tackle this summer. 

I approach my personal sean-nós dance practice like a musician. I think of myself as a percussionist or a backer when dancing to tunes. That approach means I am not always the most visual stage dancer, but rather a session player and a player of tunes. 

Great backers in Irish music know the tunes. When listening to an album or a session it is a joy when the guitar, piano, bouzouki or bodhran player knows the tune. As dancers we are no different. There are so many tunes to learn and this can be a daunting task. My goal this summer is to guide you and myself through this process. I invite you to join me live or view the recordings at your leisure. 

Depending on my schedule there may be a few days that the practice is not live on zoom and I will encourage you to play one of the previous classes or practice your tunes on your own on that day. 

I call this guided chaos as we will be learning tunes by ear and each interrupting them into our feet. Utilizing sean-nós steps and vocabulary we will set steps to each of these tunes. 

Here are some of the tunes we will be drawing from:

Click on the tune name to reach the tune page where you can find music downloads and the zoom recordings for each tune. We will gradually work our way through these tunes.

1. Cooley’s Class Page | Play
2. Silver Spear Class Page | 80 bpm & 100 bpm
3. Winnie Haye’s Class Page | 80 bpm & 100 bpm
4. Cuz Teahan’s or Road to Glountane | 90 bpm
5. An Rógaire Dubh Class Page | Preston Fast & Betsy slow, Betsy faster
6. Sligo Duke Page | 80 bpm & 100 bpm
7. James McMahon’s | 80 bpm
8. John Brennan’s | 110 bpm
9. When Sick Is It Tea You Want | Play
10. Miss McCleod’s | 80 bpm & 110 bpm & Preston
11. The Battering Ram | Preston
12. New Mown Meadow | 80 bpm & 110 bpm
13. Na Ceannabháin Bhána | 80 bpm & 120 bpm
14. Chief O’Neill’s Hornpipe | Play
15. Lucy Campbell’s | Play
16. Tatter Jack Walsh | 100 bpm & Preston
17. Donegal Traveler | 80 bpm
18. Maids of Castlebar | 80 bpm
19. Molly Bán | 80 bpm
20. Sweets Of May | Preston
21. Mountain Lark | 80 bpm
22. P Joe’s | 80 bpm
23. The Gullane | 130 bpm

Tunes to try on your own

1. Strike The Gay Harp | Play
2. Reel of Bogey | 80 bpm
3. The Quilty | 70 bpm
4. Raveled Hank Of Yarn | Play
5. The Return of Spring | Play
6. Toss the Feathers | Play
7. The Blacksmith | Play
8. Pipe On The Hob | Play
9. Lark In The Morning | Play
10. Hag At The Churn | Play
11. Jackson’s Morning Brush | Play
12. Foxhunters Reel | Play
13. Dublin Reel | Play
14. Dublin Lads | Play
15. Devaney’s Goat | Play
16. Dogs Among The Bushes | Play

Tune Challenge: Week 1

Week 1 Playlist – here is a Spotify playlist of the week one tunes played by a variety of artists. Week one included: Cooley’s, Silver Spear, Winnie Haye’s, Cuz Teahan’s, An Rógaire Dubh, Sligo Duke, James McMahon’s and John Brennan’s.

Here is a playlist to practice to with all of the sites recordings for the week.