A Tune A Week

I finally got the entirety of this one at the McGuinness session the other day. (Thanks, Gretchen!) I’ve been hearing it there for months. In fact I wasn’t sure it was an Irish tune as such until I saw that Martin Hayes and Mary MacNamara had both recorded it, which quieted the reluctant hide-bound traditionalist voice in my head enough that I’m willing to count it for this project.

A week off to let my wrist recover. Sigh… I think it’s an inflammation of the extensor carpi radialis tendons where they pass over the wrist bone (number II in this handy image from a U. Oklahoma lab exercise). But I haven’t had anyone look at it, so that’s pure speculation at this point. Fortunately it goes away if I coddle my wrist for a while.

I heard this on Farewell and Remember Me, from Boys of the Lough. I knew the tune in high school, but couldn’t play it, if you know what I mean…

There was a bit of discussion on the Nashville irish session Yahoo group about this tune—or more accurately, this group of tunes. There are at least two or three distinct tunes with this name, and probably some additional variations. This particular tune is the one that “everybody” plays in E minor. Everybody except Arcady, that is, on Many Happy Returns. They play it in D minor, and so do I because I like where the notes fall on the concertina.

I have been using Audacity to play four-note snippets of the tunes over and over again. With them broken into bits that short, I can hear all the notes even at full speed. Mostly. I’ve decided I prefer this to the digital slowing-down tools, because I get the tune just as fast and don’t have to put up with any unpleasant signal processing artifacts in the process.

I stumbled over this one when I was learning The Congress Reel, and quite liked it. The second time through the A part is not the same as the first - unusual, but cool.