Hop Jigs

What are folks favourite hop jigs?
I remember old discussions but recently
For many years I couldn’t hear the difference between hop jogs and slip jigs. Now I can but it takes trying to play one after the other to sort them out. Both are 9/8 but have different phrasing and some can work as both.
My favourite is the Tommy Potts one sometimes called The Loom.
Others I’m playing lately….
The Surround ……
I heard a great one called
“There’s a Man Here on Crutches” recently….
Coleman’s Foxhunters and Comb your Hair and Curl it……
Patsy Touhey’s Rocky Road to Dublin ….
One of Ennis’ the Dusty Miller
Cucanandy

Actually, I think of hop jigs as in 3/4 and slip jigs in 9/8. The difference between hop and slip jigs is subtle, but definitely there. It’s like how some tunes can be played both as a single jig (or a slide) and a double jig, depending on the feel you give it. Other hop jigs I know are "The Poomenade", "Michael Gorman’s" (from The Bothy Band"), and "The Boys of Ballisodare".

I’m partial to track 10: https://thesession.org/recordings/5480

I also like track 3 here: https://thesession.org/recordings/5448 , track 4 here: https://thesession.org/recordings/5684 and track 4 here: https://thesession.org/recordings/5509

My favorites:
https://raelachrecords.bandcamp.com/track/john-mcfadden-s-spatter-the-dew-hop-jigs

"Both of these tunes were recorded by fiddle player John McFadden on wax cylinder recordings produced by Francis O’Neill c. 1904. John McFadden (c. 1847 – c. 1913) from Carrowmore, near Newport, Co. Mayo, was lauded by O’Neill as one of the greatest traditional fiddlers of his day, an assertion justified by the beautiful crisp tone and nimble bow work which one can just about make out through the crackles! ‘Spatter the Dew’ is in O’Neill’s 1001 (no. 446)."

Edit: should read before posting.

Fig for a Kiss is a popular hop jig, of course. And it’s really hard to find the Butterfly played like a hop jig (since it’s written like a hop jig, not a slip jig), but there’s a good example here starting at 2:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcjDeLxfeok

play video

Can someone define "hop jigs" then: it’s a new term to me, and still not clear to me (sorry!) after reading the above posts.
I know that in English ceilidh dancing they tend to do a much slower step than our Scottish jig "skip-change-of -step" and it’s more like a "hop-skip" step though still in 6/8 but slower.

I love the Tommy Potts tune, but thought it was a slip jig, as it is called that on the Altan album.
The Bonny Men have a great hop jig set that I like which is actually called "The Hop Jigs." I also really like "Sergeant Cahill’s Favourite."

@Trish, a hop jig is to a slip jig as a slide or single jig is to a double jig. In other words, it’s often played faster, with more crotchet-quaver pairs in hop jigs, single jigs, and slides, and more 3-quaver groups in slip and double jigs. IN a slip jig, you feel a certain emphasis on each beat ( or in 9/8, the first, fourth, and seventh notes), and in hop jigs I really only feel it on the first beat of each bar, so it sounds to me more like 3/4 rather than 9/8. Contrast versions of "The Rocky Road to Dublin" as played by Séamus Ennis (hop jig) and Micho Russell (slip jig), and you might hear what I mean.

One thing that can get confusing when talking about hop jigs is that dancers will sometimes dance a hop jig (dance) to a single jig (tune), because the patterns of emphasis for dancing are the same but the tune phrasing is different. Single jigs have phrases that are either two or four bars long. And hop jigs have phrases that are 3 bars long. This is akin to the difference between jigs ("double jigs") and slip jigs.

A slip jig will sound like "diddly diddly diddly, diddly diddly dah",
whereas a hop jig will sound like "ba Dump ba Dump ba Dump, ba diddly Dump ba Dump"

One of my favorite hop jig tracks is track 15 here: https://thesession.org/tunes/61.

Sorry: https://thesession.org/recordings/61.

Hop jigs are pure craic

I just learned that ‘Fig for a Kiss’ is a hop jig [Reverend] - for years our ceilidh band has been playing it for Strip the Willow in a set with Hardiman the Fiddler and Foxhunters and no-one’s ever noticed the difference! In spite of Daniel Parker’s fine explanation I am still struggling to hear the distinction between ‘hop’ and ‘slip’……………

Hi Pat, how’s things?

I put a set together of Top The Candle/The Rakes of Solohod/Black Rock, which you should enjoy.

So many great ones: Boys of Ballysidare/Dusty Miller/Peeler’s Jig is still fun.

Cahiramee would sound great on the pipes, though you only tend to hear it about as a slow slip for dancers.

Christy, Fig for a Kiss is commonly played both as a hop and as a slip.

Here’s a nice performance featuring a set of three aforementioned hop jigs: Tipperary Hills, Cucanandy, and Dusty Miller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eHzzIWZ8AA

play video

It strikes me you could get up and waltz to these!

@Christie, adding to Jerry’s comment, it all depends on how you play it. Plenty of people play "A Fig for a Kiss" as a slip jig. The tune itself can be played however you want. Plenty of tunes are played both as hop jigs and as slip jigs. The difference often does not come down to the tune itself; there’s no hard and fast rule about what can be played how. As I said, a lot of it has to do with the different emphasis between the two, as well as the tempo. I have my opinions about whether a tune sounds better as hop or slip, but again, those are opinions, and the tune doesn’t care, obviously, so there’s a decent amount of overlap in repertoire. Great stuff, either way.

Hi Jerry,
Alls well. Hope your still playing away.
Good tunes there. Have started leaning them.


I know the Promenade but had forgotten all about it.

Thanks for all the tune links
And the explanations raised in the thread

Pat

thanks Jerry and Daniel - listening to that Tipperary Hills set above they definitely sounded more 3/4 than 9/8, like you say its all down to how you emphasise the notes.

Just like waltzes.

I’ve just had a chance to catch up with this thread. I had never heard of "The Surround" before. To me, its melody sounds somewhat similar to the English Northumbrian three-two "Dance to your Daddy".

And I’m impressed with the quality of the wax cylinder recording. It sounds like it was recorded much later than 1904.

Otto johs, I learned that same set from a mayo man! I imagine someone revived it from the recording in the last few years, but maybe it survived a century in the local repertoire… I’m choosing that interpretation.

John McFadden didn’t record that set… Actually, I still haven’t found the wax cylinder recording of the first one, but if it’s available to listen online, I’d be very interested.

Spatter the Dew is here: http://epu.ucc.ie/henebry/tune/spatter-the-dew/

@theWanderer
Have a listen to Tommie Potts play
“The loom”
I just had a relisten there
It’s hoppier than a hipster beer.
Altan’s version sounds like a hop jig as well and on both recordings the tune is labelled a slip jig. Also their version of Fig for a Kiss on the same recording is hoppier than most.
Of course you can easily play both tunes as slip jigs if you take away the “abruptness” and add a note here or there.