Rhythm Distribution in Recordings
(In Fully Irish Traditional Albums)

Of related interest:
  • Discography: List of the recordings considered here.
  • Recordings by Decade: A graph of the historical distribution of these recordings.
  • Top Ten
  • Top 100 Tunes of the Century.
  • Rhythm Definitions: Comments on how I classify tunes according to rhythm.

This list ranks rhythms by their relative frequency among all tune instances on all fully-indexed, commercial recordings of primarily Irish traditional music in my entire database. The total number of such tune instances is 11,853. Since it ignores whether a tune recording is a distinct tune or not, it reveals how often each tune type has been recorded. For example, even if one particular reel was recorded by ten different musicians over time, it still counts that as ten "votes" for the reel rhythm.

This report illustrates the distribution of tune types in commercial albums of Irish traditional music. Since it ignores whether a tune recording is distinct or not, and excludes incomplete albums, it can present the average rhythm distribution per album. The following 31 album codes are excluded from this report: 0, 1, 2, 4MD 2, Arc 1, BF, Boys 13, Ch AIE, Ch BIH, Ch C, Ch JG, CFF 1, CFF 2, Di, FFH, HatW, InTndm, JMcC, JOS 2, KCs, MMcG 3, OMcA, Nms 2, NP, Plx 7, Srnd, Stpkt, SS 2, SW, Trpsw, TW.

This report, since it excludes some recordings, is slightly different from the report Rhythm Distribution in Recordings (All). Compare also Rhythm Distribution of tune types among all distinct tunes, as well as Rhythm Distribution in Session Tunes.

RhythmNumber of
instances
Average instances
per album
Percentage
of total
Bar graph
Reel5,4741346.2%bar
Double jig2,307519.5%bar
Hornpipe86327.3%bar
Song67125.7%bar
Polka52114.4%bar
Air38513.2%bar
Slide35813.0%bar
Slip jig27412.3%bar
Piece18201.5%bar
March12401.0%bar
Set dance10900.9%bar
Barn dance10600.9%bar
Single jig10000.8%bar
Waltz9300.8%bar
Fling9000.8%bar
Strathspey6300.5%bar
Highland5500.5%bar
Mazurka3200.3%bar
Other1700.1%bar
Schottisch1600.1%bar
Single reel1300.1%bar