Anyone know roughly how fast or slow this should be played?

I seem to remember it as being fairly brisk.

Being a folk tune it is highly succeptible / amenable to interpretation and the speed will depend on what effect you are after, what instrument(s) you're playing it on, what arrangement etc.

Having said that, it is a dance (or at least I'm fairly sure it is). If you hum along at a fairly average speed you'll find yourself tapping your foot at about 95 (90-100) bpm (or at least I do!)

About 100/crotchets a minute felt right to me...it can be a little faster but as its a country dance take it a speed where it can be danced to.

The times I've played this, it's been at, give or take a bit, crotchet=100 Nat.

Thanks. I'm playing it on the piano just to demonstrate something in a presentation tomorrow, that's all.

We have a ceilidh band - used to play 40-50 gigs a year in our foolish youth but now only play a few for friends.

Often when we play The Keelrow for dancing it starts off very slowly then builds gradually to a frenzy as the dancers frantically try to keep up. Great fun to watch from my position behind the drums! I think it's fairly common for it to be used that way at dances.

Argh, I learnt fourth position on the cello on 'The Keel Row'. Or "the *!@/?** Keel Row", as I used to call it.

Just hearing it makes me twitch.


Apropro of nothing much...

Isn't it funny how we've all independently gone through this piece and come up with such similar tempi!

As a former Highland dancer, we often used The Keel Row for a reel and srathspey and in the Kerrs Collection the speed is marked at 116 minums per minute, but as with so many things, I suppose it depends what you want to use it for.

It's done now, but thanks.

Hope it went well.

If you're playing it as a hornpipe, take it at roughly 90 minims per minute and lean heavily on triplets,

If you're playing it as a reel, around 128 minims is about a fair pace for it, I'd say. Lean off the triplets and use as much rolling ornamentation as you can.

Allan

Edit: Just seen that you finished it already, oops!

Of course there is the dispute whether Keel Row is scottish or Northumbrian, and I wonder if that would have any bearing on the tempo?

It appeared in print in a Scottish book, but some say it's from Tyneside.

It's likely to be Northumbrian given that it has a very hornpipe-like structure - although some play it as a strathspey, it doesn't have the right rhythm really and you can feel that if you play it that way, and of course hornpipes aren't all that scottish traditionally. Of course, if you play it as a reel, then you could argue that it's scottish, but traditionally that would make it a rant in Northumbria, and it doesn't have at all the structure of a rant - so my guess is it's a Northumbrian hornpipe, hence my suggestion of 90ish minims. If playing as a rant, around 70 might be acceptable, if you want to consider it a scottish reel - aim for at least 110 minims.

That said, if you're playing for dancers, they'll set the tempo, if you're playing in a session, it will likely hit the 130 minims by the end of the evening, so get it in early is my advice!

Allan

A rant? Not heard that one before (though it is my ambition to write a dump). What's a rant then?

Kathleen 'Divine' Ferrier sings a version of it in her folks songs renditions. Fantastic. Not to everyones taste -but I still think the reaction of my American friend who ran out my room shouting 'Aw gawed no' was a bit rude. I have to listen to miles of Honky Tonk when 'over there'. Hurrumph.

A rant is a Northumbrian tune style, somewhat slower than a reel with a slightly hornpipey feel to it (or it would have if we threw in more triplets and dotted it more) - it doesn't sit well with the same off beat stress as a reel does and doesn't carry as well at high speeds in the way that reels do.

The Morpeth Rant is probably the most famous one, although there are many versions of this tune and the name is more likely that of a dance than of one particular tune.

More or less, you can play a reel as a rant, but you can't play a rant as a reel without some considerable re-working. You can play a rant as a hornpipe, however.

Hope that goes some way to explaining it!

Yes, it does. Very interesting - thank you for that.

But it is more fun to speed up towards the end...
Just out of interest, how do you play turns/mordents? The note pattern can vary... I'm playing (if the original note is D) E-D-C-D, but I'm not sure if that's the best version. Silly question, I know...