A Tune A Week

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?

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.

A slip jig from the same session as Boys of the Town. Both of them were pretty easy to pick up - they use bits and pieces that are pretty familiar to me already, I guess.

Update, 21 Nov. 2006: I had this one under “Ryan’s.”

Heard it at a session recently—the same old story. I don’t think I have any recordings of this one. It’s one I knew years ago before I starting being serious about this, and had forgotten. This one is a lot less choppy when I play it than Ballymanus, even though they have some pretty similar runs of notes. I don’t get it.

First slip jig at Tune A Week! I keep hearing this one at sessions and really wanting to play along. I’m still pretty choppy with it; some of the bellows changes are Really Hard.