A Tune A Week

I have no idea of the name of this. I found it at the whistle forums. I’m playing it on the antique box - listen to all the keys clacking. They are 100 years old, and feeling their age I suppose.

Learned from The Irish Tradition’s recording, where it’s between Congress Reel and Star of Munster. All those A minor B parts are easy to mix up.

Actually in a set called “Whelan’s” played by Noel Hill and Tony MacMahon. The prevailing key seems to be G, but I learned it in D first since said recording is in E-flat. Makes sense, right?

This one from a Mary MacNamara album, where it is placed before Kerfunten. She plays it in G# on a C#/G# box, so presumably along the first row. If I play it that way I get C, G, or D, depending on which row and which box (C/G or G/D). If I want it in D on the shiny new 30-button C/G, I have to learn it across the rows. . . tricky. Aren’t they all, on the concertina.

I was snared by an Altan recording on YouTube. Noel Hill plays this on The Irish Concertina Volume 2 but with a dramatically different rhythm which I don’t understand at all yet. A dilemma: play E minor tunes with the old fingering or the new one? Probably it will depend on whether the C is sharp.

Learned from Mary MacNamara’s Traditional Music From East Clare. Can’t find it at Alan Ng’s; he hasn’t indexed Mary MacNamara yet apparently. It’s at thesession.org, listed under the wrong key and (as usual, there) jumbled up with several other tunes that share the name. But the sheet music is right…

From The Corner House, by The Irish Tradition, after much peer urging. I have learned this using a new (for me) G/Am scale: E, G, and d on the left push; F#, A, and e on the left draw; B, f#, and a on the right draw; and c, g, and b on the right push. Actually the only new thing in there for me is the use of the right hand B/c instead of the left hand c/B, but whoa, it’s a doozy.

In between Denis Murphy’s and John Ryan’s on a Planxty record. It sounds terrific on the bouzouki. I haven’t quite made up my mind about how it sounds on the squeezebox, but I was getting tired of those other two and this one rejuvenates them nicely.

One I’ve been hearing at McGuinness for ages, and now it’s in my fingers at last.

I’ve learned something which is roughly Mrs. Crotty’s version of this one. She plays it in G, with some tricky triplets and a good bit of octave doubling. It sounds good (when she plays it, I mean!)

Here’s one I dug up out of the depths of my skull to rework the fingering on. It’s surprisingly tricky with my default fingering - lots of bellows changes in awkward places. Good practice! (I tell myself.)

Suggested to me the other day, and I found it on a Kevin Burke fiddle CD. Probably the same one that had The Earl’s Chair, now that I think about it. Learning from a fiddle recording is Tricky.