The tradition & historical record
2 min read · 1 sourceA strathspey is a type of dance tune in 44 time, featuring dotted rhythms (both long-short and short-long "Scotch snaps"), which in traditional playing are generally somewhat exaggerated rhythmically. Examples of strathspeys are the songs "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" and "Coming Through the Rye" (which is based on an older tune called "The Miller's Daughter"). Strathspeys may be played anywhere from 108 beats per minute for Highland dance up to 160 beats per minute for step dance. Traditionally, a strathspey will be followed by a reel, which is in 22 with even eighth-notes, as a release of the rhythmic tension created during the strathspey. It has been hypothesized that strathspeys mimic the rhythms of Scottish Gaelic song. Among traditional musicians, strathspeys are occasionally transmitted as canntaireachd, a style of singing in which various syllables are used to vocalize traditional bagpipe embellishments. The dance is named after the Strathspey region of Scotland, in Moray and Badenoch and Strathspey. Strathspey refers both to the type of tune and to the type of dance usually done to it (although strathspeys are also frequently danced to pastoral airs played at the same tempo; an example of which would be the dance Autumn in Appin, danced to the tune "The Hills of Lorne"). The strathspey is one of the dance types in Scottish country dancing.
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Strathspey (dance)”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.
strathspey is music genre and type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 1
The source record links this tradition to 5 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. 1