The whole game in a big jig is smooth, dead-even eighth notes, not the dot-cut work you'd do in a march or strathspey. There are no long, pulsed-out beats here — I keep my hands really light and let every eighth note come out identical, whether I'm hitting gracenotes on one repeated pitch or running up an ascending, arpeggio-style passage.
Six- and ten-part jigs are built from a formula: a two-bar phrase repeats within each part, so a whole new part often needs only two new bars. Once you see that pattern in tunes like Nelson Mandela's Welcome to the City of Glasgow or John Paterson's Mare, memorizing a six-part tune stops being six times the work and becomes a matter of learning a handful of unique blocks and their order.
The single biggest technical risk in these tunes is your hands tightening up over a strike. My advice is to stop worrying about missing the strike entirely — a tight, forceful hand blocks the relaxed, loose playing you actually need, and a light hand will land the strike on its own.
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About this class
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