Our tutor Rod Downey gives some tips about phrasing a reel of four

Personally, I find reels of four easier than reels of three, since they are – almost always – in a straight line (unless interlocking in a square set), and right shoulder. So, no weird entries. Moreover, they are almost always 8 bars.

The difficulty, as usual, is in the phrasing. Especially in quick-time, people tend to be a bit tardy in the middle of the reel. The following is the way I think the reels should be phrased, and it definitely works. Again, it involves varying step length.

The reels begin with persons 1 facing 2, and 3 facing 4, longwise or diagonal or across.

Download the diagram and description from the RSCDS manual below.

Remember in the right shoulder version, you pass ‘right on the sides and left in the middle’. By this I mean that:

• 1 passes 2 right shoulder
• then 1 and 4 pass left shoulder, whilst 2 and 3 are looping to face in at the ends

The key is that at the end of bar 2 (assuming longwise for convenience) the order will be 2, 4, 1, 3, more or less. That is 4 and 1 will have passed in the middle at the end of bar two.

Download my diagram showing the positions for each dancer after bar 1 and then bar 2 below.

The process then continues, and after the next two bars 2 and 3 will have passed. That means by the end of bar four, everyone is swapped from the beginning position. See my diagram, end of bar 4.

Note that 4M and 1W slip into place (no loops), unless told otherwise. For example, in Miss Milligan’s Strathspey (video here) the instructions say to loop. Miss Milligan was one of the founders of the RSCDS and I am sure this would have her turning in her grave, as she didn’t approve of reels not done in the specified way.

Watch the little video of Johnsonville members doing a reel of four with accurate timing. Often this does not matter, but it is critical in some fast dances, and especially for a half reel of four.

You must be completely around at the end of 4 bars.  I vividly remember a very fine teacher Ruth Jappy, from Toronto, stressing this. Most importantly, this passing technique make the reels easier, so long as everyone does this phrasing, otherwise covering is impossible.

A classic dance with a  reel of four is Mrs Milne of Kinnef with video. This is an excellently phrased version, though it is easier in a Strathspey.

Loralee Hyde with video has half reels on 4 on the side. Note this is also a fugue, one of the first I wrote, and has mirror rondels. Nowadays, as a deviser, I would be unlikely to include a half reel of four which did not have the two dancers in the middle flowing into something else, as then it does not matter how badly the half reels are phrased.

Sometimes devisers can’t solve the problem elegantly and I broke that rule in the demonstration dance, The Labyrinth, which I don’t think I will do at club. In this dance the reel of four finished taking hands in a line, and is a real test.

Farewell to Crumlin is a classic advanced-class dance with lots of nasty transitions. In this video, even with very good dancers, the fact that the couples don’t get to halfway in the reels of four on the side, don’t pass on bar 2, means they are late.  They are ‘shoulder to shoulder’ rather than completely passed. That phrasing makes the reels even, but definitely causes problems at the end.

Rod Downey
27 May 2020