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How many different sizes and shapes do Irish reels come in? This report reveals the broad variety of lengths and structures found across all of the Irish traditional reels documented in irishtune.info. The AABB-style notation used here is conventional when describing musical form. Within the Irish tradition, the common terms "doubled" and "singled" can be translated as simply meaning whether each 8-bar part is repeated or not, and the somewhat old-fashioned Irish terms "the tune" and "the turn" can be translated as "the A part" and "the B part" respectively.
| 8-bar structure | Count of reels | % of total | Bar graph |
|---|---|---|---|
| AABB | 1,261 | 56.1% |  |
| AB | 683 | 30.4% | |
| AABBCC | 85 | 3.8% | |
| ABC | 66 | 2.9% | |
| ABB | 28 | 1.2% | |
| ABCD | 21 | 0.9% | |
| AAB | 19 | 0.8% | |
| AABBCCDD | 13 | 0.6% | |
| AABB' | 11 | 0.5% | |
| ABCDE | 9 | 0.4% | |
| ABCC | 8 | 0.4% | |
| AABC | 7 | 0.3% | |
| AABCC | 4 | 0.2% | |
| AABCD | 4 | 0.2% | |
| AABBC | 3 | 0.1% | |
| AABCCDD | 2 | 0.1% | |
| ABB' | 2 | 0.1% | |
| ABBC | 2 | 0.1% | |
| ABCB | 2 | 0.1% | |
| ABCDD | 2 | 0.1% | |
| ABCDEF | 2 | 0.1% | |
| AA'BB | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AA'BB' | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABAACC | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABBA' | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABBAABBCCDDCCDDEEFFEEFF | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABBAACCDDCCDD | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABBCCBB | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABBCCDDEE | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABCBC | 1 | 0.0% | |
| AABCDEF | 1 | 0.0% | |
| ABBCC | 1 | 0.0% | |
| ABCB' | 1 | 0.0% | |
| ABCCDDEE | 1 | 0.0% | |
| ABCDD' | 1 | 0.0% | |
| ABCDEFGHIJKL | 1 | 0.0% | |
| Total | 2,249 | ||
This chart does not include an additional 20 reels that do not have a consistent 8-bar structure.