A highland is an Irish musical form in

duple meter Duple metre (or Am. duple meter, also known as duple time) is a musical metre characterized by a ''primary'' division of 2 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 2 and multiples (simple) or 6 and multiples (compound) in the upper figure of the tim ...

, largely idiomatic of

Donegal Donegal may refer to: County Donegal, Ireland * County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster * Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland * Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...

. Like the

fling The Struggle Front for the National Independence of Guinea ( pt, Frente de Luta pela Independência Nacional da Guiné, FLING) was a political movement in Guinea-Bissau. Founded by groups opposed to the Marxist doctrine of Amílcar Cabral and the ...

, it is related to the Scottish

highland fling The Highland Fling is a Solo dance, solo Scottish highland dance, Highland dance that gained popularity in the early 19th century. The word 'Fling' means literally a movement in dancing. In John Jamieson's 1808 ''Etymological Dictionary of the Sc ...

and the

hornpipe The hornpipe is any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others r ...

, found throughout the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

. Like its Scottish cousin, a fling is played in

cut time ''Alla breve'' also known as cut time or cut common timeis a musical meter notated by the time signature symbol (a C with a vertical line through it), which is the equivalent of . The term is Italian for "on the breve", originally meaning tha ...

and has a

dotted rhythm In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. In modern practice, the first dot increases the duration of the basic note by half (the original note with an extra beam) of its original value. This means ...

. Like the Scottish

strathspey Strathspey may refer to one of the following: * Strathspey, Scotland, an area in the Highlands of Scotland * Strathspey Camanachd Strathspey Camanachd is a shinty club based in Grantown-on-Spey, Strathspey, Scotland, currently competing in the ...

, quarter notes may sometimes be articulated as

triplets A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such bir ...

or Scots snaps. However, unlike the strathspey, these Scots snaps are usually less sharply articulated. They are also played more slowly than

reels A reel is an object around which a length of another material (usually long and flexible) is wound for storage (usually hose are wound around a reel). Generally a reel has a cylindrical core (known as a '' spool'') with flanges around the ends ...

and are strongly accented on the first beat, which tends to be a note

quarter note A quarter note (American) or crotchet ( ) (British) is a note (music), musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless ste ...

in length. A typical fling has a 32-

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

form divided into two parts, each consisting of eight bars which are repeated: AABB.Vallely, F. (1999). The Companion to Traditional Irish Music. New York University Press: New York, p. 187-188 *A transcription of the ''Jimmy Lyon's'' Highland

References

{{Music of Ireland Irish music Irish dances

See also

References