Trad Music is the typical music for Irish Dancers. Traditional Irish music goes hand in hand with Irish Dancing. It has for generations. At beginners classes children dance mostly to reels, jigs (including slip jigs & single jigs) and hornpipes. You may even here the odd polka!
As they get older dancers will learn set dances, which are usually in jig or hornpipe timing, and preformed in hard/treble shoes.
At a Ceili, traditional music session or Irish Dancing performance you may hear any number of instruments – fiddle, flute, uilleann pipes, tin whistle, concertina, harp, bodhrán, spoons and more. At a dancing competition however, the music is traditionally played live on an accordion, or keyboard in more recent years.
Should dancers use music when practicing?
When children are learning to dance it is really important for them to practice at home. Good timing and rhythm is essential for Irish Dancing. In fact, rhythm is often considered the most important aspect of dancing so practice with the correct music for Irish dancers is vital.
Where can I get music to practice Irish Dancing?
Although live music is lovely at performances it takes experience to dance with traditional Irish musicians. As music for Irish Dancing classes and competitions is quite specific, with regulated speeds, it is not the best idea to just to search YouTube and hope for the best! We recommend the Feis App for practice.
The Feis App is free for beginners and includes quality Irish Dancing music at the correct speeds. Read more about the Feis App here
It features really talented, experienced musicians like Anthony Davis, Sean O’Brien, Liam O’Sullivan, Louise Ryan, Stephen Carolan (who we play a lot at our classes), Cormac O’Se (who is from Dublin 15!) and many more. Read more about them here
