Should you play the notes as written?

Sometimes, maybe; but definitely not if the tune is a jig. We don't have many jigs in traditional American fiddling, but in the Irish tradition they are a mainstay. In most tune books featuring standard music notation, jigs are written in 6/8 time with two barred sets of 3 eighth notes per measure. On the page, each eighth note has the same value. If you play it like that, though, it sounds pretty awful. The trick is to play the first note in each set of three notes for a little longer, and shorten up on the time devoted to the middle note in the set of three. The last note in the set is not shortened or lengthened--It gets the time value of a regular eighth note. You'll get the hang of this if you try holding the first note almost the value of 2 eighth notes, and then quickly squeezing the middle note in just before you play the third note. Click HERE to hear the difference. In the first part of the clip I play the first few notes of Connachtman's Rambles as they are written in most books. The second part shows how the tune sounds if you accent the first note in each set of three, draw it out so that there is very little time left for the second note, then squeeze the second note in just before the third note, and then play the third note as a normal eighth note.