I heard a marvellous 7 part tune called Kitty O'Shea - I mean, it's an absolute cracker. Does anybody know it? If so, please post it here! (It's a reel) Thanx.
No, it's a hornpipe; can't help you though with a post. Maybe it helps you to tell that it is on Tommy Peoples' The Iron Man and on Kevin Burke 's live album.
Jonathan
I've download kitty o'shea from the site Bart mentioned, both in pdf format and as abc. It is a 7-part reel, source Tommy Peoples, and it looks a cracker. This meets the conditions so it must be it!
You might like to post the abc file yourself. To get at it do the following:
go to http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/
then click on FindTune
then key in "kitty o'shea" (without inverted commas) into the search box, and click on Find.
After a few seconds you should get 3 results. Select the 2nd and click on abc to download the file. (For some reason, access to the 1st result is blocked, so don't waste time trying it.)
It's a very beautiful piece of music, but a horror to play it in A major on flute or whistle, for me anyway.
So I transposed it to G major and now it's very nice to play (not in a session of course).
I have it in pdf format, anyone who's interested can mail me and I'll be glad to send it to you.
Bart
ps. It's with notes, since I don't understand anything about ABC
I found that most people can learn ABC's fast - real fast. A few hours practice and your off and running. There are a few packages at the Ceolas site or in the link section here. Those packages allow you to flip back and forth between the sheet music and the simple code. Mine has a help screen that dedicates only 1/10th of a screen to Help. That's how simple it is.
Take the plunge and give her a go. You will be ABC'ing within an evening.
The tune came from Cole's 1000 fiddle tunes and is listed there as Kitty O'Neill's Champion Jig.(Kitty o' Shea was the lover of Charles Stuart Parnell ,a famous figure in Irish History during the latter half of the 19th century, so hence the change of the name, Iimagine)
Thank you for your kind comment. I've looked at the matter a bit more seriously and I think I know how it works, more or less that is.
No doubt I should be able to post an ABC in the future and maybe I shall. But being 'spoiled' as a classical trained musician, I think I prefer the old dots for the moment. You see, with one glimp at a score I can tell if it's Banish Misfortune or The Kesh. Or, if it's a new tune, whether or not I like it.
I guess that trained ABC people can do the same with ABC files, but for me, right now, it adds nothing to the little dots.
I am with you on that. I can look at the tune and hear it in my head from the sheet music but it is just a hair indistinct. I do know at least one person who plays from the abc text instead of sheet music. That's not for me.
I use the abc's to submit tunes and share them with folk who have sheet music generators, Such as this site. Sorry to split hairs. It's a bad habit of mine.
As for the Cole's reference I would be more interested in how Kitty O'Neill's Champion JIG became Kitty O'Shea's 7 part REEL?? Name changes are one thing but I don't think any jig can be the same tune as any reel.
Actually, it's not unusual at all to have jig and reel settings of essentially the same melody. Off the top of my head, I know jig and reels settings of Road to Lisdoonvarna, Green Hills of Tyrol, and Star of Munster. I'm sure there're more.
Please can somebody take a look at the comments for The Long Grazing Acre in the Recordings section? I *still* can't count that tune in 3's, in spite of Zina's explanation... help!!
A-ha, According to Kevin Burke, it's a now defunct style of jig called the "Sand Jig" it was popular during vaudeville. It's similar to a Slide in that it's written in 12/8 hence the 123 223 323 423, but even a reel or a hornpipe can be broken into 12/8....
Look at it this way, let's take the imfamous triplet run from the Harvest Home for an example
(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE
That can be counted as 1& 2 & 3 & 4 as in 4/4, or counted as 123 223 323 423 as in 12/8. If the hornpipe is played with a good bounce the rest of it comes out with a 12/8 feel too. If it's played D>AF>A it's a little wooden & most well known irish players lean more towards a (3D-DA (3F-FA (3D-DA (3F-FA. Where the duplet equal a triplet with the first two notes tied.
Yes, but Brad, it goes '1234 2234 3234 4234'... to me...
I'm talking about the last track on The Long Grazing Acre, Kitty O'Neills, followed by The Kerry Jig - same rhythm.
I'm mystified. Has anyone here listened to it and counted it in 3s, hand on heart?
I'm starting to get seriously vexed about this...
Am I suffering three-blindness? Is it time to call Oliver Sachs?
Helen, are you counting in small enough increments? The 123 223 323 423 is ONE measure, one group of four triplets for each beat, four to a measure. If you're counting larger groups of notes, though, it *will* come out as 1234 2234 3234 4234 if each of those groups is one measure, for a total of four measures, or halfway through a part. Especially if they're playing the tune at a clippy pace, which I'm rather assuming that they do. Does that make sense? I'd write it out for you, but I lent Dirk my copy of Long Grazing Acre and I don't know that tune.
oh, and Helen, might it help to think of it as 123-456-789-teneleventwelve instead of 123 223 323 423? It's just that it's a lot harder to get the teneleventwelve out quickly. ;)
Helen, you're not crazy or 3-challenged. This tune is more in the feeling of 4/4 than of 12/8. It would take a nit-pick like myself or a dancer like zina to hear the threes. A reel could be counted in 123 223 323 423 if you break it down enough, as could a any other 4/4 or C| piece. Don't loose any sleep over it, you're right - it is more of a 4/4 thing & to put threes in it is a forced part of the imagination. I think the origins of the "Sand Jig" were a cross between irish music & tapdancing. I know that they used to put sand down on the stage (like a soft shoe tapdancer) to get the slides to sound & maybe the jig part came in b/c they assumed everything from Ireland was called a jig. It's a very rare archaic dance rhythm which is dead. To me it falls somewhere between a hornpipe & a barndance. I'd like to see what steps the vaudeville dancers put with this tune.
Could I just verify that we *are* talking about the same tune? Zina, can you grab your CD back from Dirk and just check for me? I'm counting the 4s pretty fast, I can't quite say 'four two three four' quick enough to keep up. If there's actually 3 beats per beat (as it were), then there's no way I can count threes that fast. The only way I can do it is by cheating... e.g. making myself count groups of threes which go against the rhythm I perceive, so that the emphasis falls constantly on a different number - um, can't explain - like ONE two three one TWO three one two THREE one two three ONE - which is just a cheat way of counting fours! You see how desparate I am? Brad, it does look like you've listened to the same example of the same tune since you are talking about the feel of it... but are we *definately* talking about the same one?
It occurs to me that learning to play tunes direct from ABC, or hearing them in your head from reading the ABC, can't be all that different to learning tunes from the tonic-sol-fa system (do-re-mi etc), which some of us must have done as children. I don't know whether it is still taught in schools. The ABC system has just got a bit more detail in it.
I'm talking about the same tune as you are, "Kitty O'Niell's" from the "Long Grazing Acre" It's got alot of other names as well "Kitty O'...'s fancy/champion/sand jig"
Ah well - thanks for the confirmation, Brad. So it really *can* be counted in threes, then! I'll have to get someone to physically demonstrate it to me one day, as evidently, no amount of written explanation is going to do it! I'm normally able to grasp rhythms alright, don't have too much trouble with compound times, for example - but the threes in there are seemingly quite invisible to my ear... how perplexing! Though I promise not to lose any sleep over it. My insomnia quotient is already filled, anyway...
What, did you think we were lying to you, Helen? ;) If it's any comfort to you, the jig that our band is named after, Ask My Father, is also in 12/8 and has always confused the heck out of our bodhran player Janet and I once sat for five minutes during a rehearsal counting the beat out in groups of threes for her while Dirk and George played it slowly. She was convinced that the parts were sixteen measures long, or that it wasn't really in three, or maybe that it wasn't really in four. So it's not just you who has a hard time hearing it.
Sorry Zina, didn't mean to cast aspersions!
I was just hoping that it would turn out we'd been discussing different versions of the tune and it would all turn out to be a horrible mistake... however, there is obviously no escaping the truth...
Thanks for that Will - I'll have to go off and learn ABC notation properly, but I understand what you mean.
I wonder if I will at some point have a moment of epiphany where, *bing*, I suddenly hear 3s in that tune?
Hm. Well, Dirk brought back the CD last night and I'm sitting here listening to it, and, yes, Sir is playing it fast enough that it would be tough to count it in 12/8. Helen, d'you know how waltz time (3/4) can also be counted in one? It's kind of like changing a waltz into a polka, sort of. This could be counted as sort of the same thing.
After Christmas, when hopefully things will slow down a bit for me, I'll transcribe the tune out for you in 12/8 so you can see how it relates to the played tune. In the meantime, I shouldn't worry about it -- all attempts to write Irish traditional music down are doomed to a certain amount of failure anyway. Trying to cram them into key signatures is something of only an academic exercise.
tune request - kitty o'shea
tune request - kitty o'shea
I heard a marvellous 7 part tune called Kitty O'Shea - I mean, it's an absolute cracker. Does anybody know it? If so, please post it here! (It's a reel) Thanx.
Jonathan.
# Posted on December 15th 2002 by Jonathan
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
No, it's a hornpipe; can't help you though with a post. Maybe it helps you to tell that it is on Tommy Peoples' The Iron Man and on Kevin Burke 's live album.
# Posted on December 15th 2002 by Henk Bos
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Thanks for the info! I'll check it out.
Jonathan.
# Posted on December 15th 2002 by Jonathan
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Perhaps this could do the trick:
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/TuneGet?F=PDF&U=http://persons.marlboro.edu/~mahoney/abc/abc/net2.abc&X=98&T=KITTYOSHEA&N=KittyOShea.pdf
Hope it's the same,
Bart
# Posted on December 15th 2002 by Bart
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Jonathan
I've download kitty o'shea from the site Bart mentioned, both in pdf format and as abc. It is a 7-part reel, source Tommy Peoples, and it looks a cracker. This meets the conditions so it must be it!
You might like to post the abc file yourself. To get at it do the following:
go to
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/
then click on FindTune
then key in "kitty o'shea" (without inverted commas) into the search box, and click on Find.
After a few seconds you should get 3 results. Select the 2nd and click on abc to download the file. (For some reason, access to the 1st result is blocked, so don't waste time trying it.)
trevor
# Posted on December 15th 2002 by lazyhound
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
It's a very beautiful piece of music, but a horror to play it in A major on flute or whistle, for me anyway.
So I transposed it to G major and now it's very nice to play (not in a session of course).
I have it in pdf format, anyone who's interested can mail me and I'll be glad to send it to you.
Bart
ps. It's with notes, since I don't understand anything about ABC
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by Bart
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Bart,
I found that most people can learn ABC's fast - real fast. A few hours practice and your off and running. There are a few packages at the Ceolas site or in the link section here. Those packages allow you to flip back and forth between the sheet music and the simple code. Mine has a help screen that dedicates only 1/10th of a screen to Help. That's how simple it is.
Take the plunge and give her a go. You will be ABC'ing within an evening.
Mark
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by Mark Cordova
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
The tune came from Cole's 1000 fiddle tunes and is listed there as Kitty O'Neill's Champion Jig.(Kitty o' Shea was the lover of Charles Stuart Parnell ,a famous figure in Irish History during the latter half of the 19th century, so hence the change of the name, Iimagine)
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by peterkinvara
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Marc,
Thank you for your kind comment. I've looked at the matter a bit more seriously and I think I know how it works, more or less that is.
No doubt I should be able to post an ABC in the future and maybe I shall. But being 'spoiled' as a classical trained musician, I think I prefer the old dots for the moment. You see, with one glimp at a score I can tell if it's Banish Misfortune or The Kesh. Or, if it's a new tune, whether or not I like it.
I guess that trained ABC people can do the same with ABC files, but for me, right now, it adds nothing to the little dots.
Maybe later, thanks anyway.
Bart
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by Bart
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
I am with you on that. I can look at the tune and hear it in my head from the sheet music but it is just a hair indistinct. I do know at least one person who plays from the abc text instead of sheet music. That's not for me.
I use the abc's to submit tunes and share them with folk who have sheet music generators, Such as this site. Sorry to split hairs. It's a bad habit of mine.
I look forward to your tune contributions.
Mark
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by Mark Cordova
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Trevor, thanks for finding it for me. Goodness only knows how you did - Google yielded no results for me!
Jonathan.
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by Jonathan
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
I mean thanks Bart!
Jonathan.
# Posted on December 16th 2002 by Jonathan
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
As for the Cole's reference I would be more interested in how Kitty O'Neill's Champion JIG became Kitty O'Shea's 7 part REEL?? Name changes are one thing but I don't think any jig can be the same tune as any reel.
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Tusong200
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Actually, it's not unusual at all to have jig and reel settings of essentially the same melody. Off the top of my head, I know jig and reels settings of Road to Lisdoonvarna, Green Hills of Tyrol, and Star of Munster. I'm sure there're more.
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Please can somebody take a look at the comments for The Long Grazing Acre in the Recordings section? I *still* can't count that tune in 3's, in spite of Zina's explanation... help!!
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Nell
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
A-ha, According to Kevin Burke, it's a now defunct style of jig called the "Sand Jig" it was popular during vaudeville. It's similar to a Slide in that it's written in 12/8 hence the 123 223 323 423, but even a reel or a hornpipe can be broken into 12/8....
Look at it this way, let's take the imfamous triplet run from the Harvest Home for an example
(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE
That can be counted as 1& 2 & 3 & 4 as in 4/4, or counted as 123 223 323 423 as in 12/8. If the hornpipe is played with a good bounce the rest of it comes out with a 12/8 feel too. If it's played D>AF>A it's a little wooden & most well known irish players lean more towards a (3D-DA (3F-FA (3D-DA (3F-FA. Where the duplet equal a triplet with the first two notes tied.
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Brad Maloney
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
http://www.geocities.com/brad_maloney2000/tips.html
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Brad Maloney
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Yes, but Brad, it goes '1234 2234 3234 4234'... to me...
I'm talking about the last track on The Long Grazing Acre, Kitty O'Neills, followed by The Kerry Jig - same rhythm.
I'm mystified. Has anyone here listened to it and counted it in 3s, hand on heart?
I'm starting to get seriously vexed about this...
Am I suffering three-blindness? Is it time to call Oliver Sachs?
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Nell
Helen -- 12/8
Helen, are you counting in small enough increments? The 123 223 323 423 is ONE measure, one group of four triplets for each beat, four to a measure. If you're counting larger groups of notes, though, it *will* come out as 1234 2234 3234 4234 if each of those groups is one measure, for a total of four measures, or halfway through a part. Especially if they're playing the tune at a clippy pace, which I'm rather assuming that they do. Does that make sense? I'd write it out for you, but I lent Dirk my copy of Long Grazing Acre and I don't know that tune.
Zina
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Zina Lee
Hmmm. Upon re-reading that, I suppose that was about as clear as mud. Sorry.
Well, if you look at http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/TuneGet?F=GIF&U=http://persons.marlboro.edu/~mahoney/abc/abc/net2.abc&X=98&T=KITTYOSHEA&N=KittyOShea.gif,
you'll note the last measure on the first line is two triplets and a half note. In 12/8 time (though this setting is written in cut time), that would be counted as "123, 223, three-and-four...." with the last "three and four" half note being held for 323-423. Does that help more than my rather mystifying first attempt?
Zina
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Zina Lee
oh, and Helen, might it help to think of it as 123-456-789-teneleventwelve instead of 123 223 323 423? It's just that it's a lot harder to get the teneleventwelve out quickly. ;)
zls
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Helen, you're not crazy or 3-challenged. This tune is more in the feeling of 4/4 than of 12/8. It would take a nit-pick like myself or a dancer like zina to hear the threes. A reel could be counted in 123 223 323 423 if you break it down enough, as could a any other 4/4 or C| piece. Don't loose any sleep over it, you're right - it is more of a 4/4 thing & to put threes in it is a forced part of the imagination. I think the origins of the "Sand Jig" were a cross between irish music & tapdancing. I know that they used to put sand down on the stage (like a soft shoe tapdancer) to get the slides to sound & maybe the jig part came in b/c they assumed everything from Ireland was called a jig. It's a very rare archaic dance rhythm which is dead. To me it falls somewhere between a hornpipe & a barndance. I'd like to see what steps the vaudeville dancers put with this tune.
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Brad Maloney
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Could I just verify that we *are* talking about the same tune? Zina, can you grab your CD back from Dirk and just check for me? I'm counting the 4s pretty fast, I can't quite say 'four two three four' quick enough to keep up. If there's actually 3 beats per beat (as it were), then there's no way I can count threes that fast. The only way I can do it is by cheating... e.g. making myself count groups of threes which go against the rhythm I perceive, so that the emphasis falls constantly on a different number - um, can't explain - like ONE two three one TWO three one two THREE one two three ONE - which is just a cheat way of counting fours! You see how desparate I am? Brad, it does look like you've listened to the same example of the same tune since you are talking about the feel of it... but are we *definately* talking about the same one?
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by Nell
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
It occurs to me that learning to play tunes direct from ABC, or hearing them in your head from reading the ABC, can't be all that different to learning tunes from the tonic-sol-fa system (do-re-mi etc), which some of us must have done as children. I don't know whether it is still taught in schools. The ABC system has just got a bit more detail in it.
trevor
# Posted on December 17th 2002 by lazyhound
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
I'm talking about the same tune as you are, "Kitty O'Niell's" from the "Long Grazing Acre" It's got alot of other names as well "Kitty O'...'s fancy/champion/sand jig"
# Posted on December 18th 2002 by Brad Maloney
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Ah well - thanks for the confirmation, Brad. So it really *can* be counted in threes, then! I'll have to get someone to physically demonstrate it to me one day, as evidently, no amount of written explanation is going to do it! I'm normally able to grasp rhythms alright, don't have too much trouble with compound times, for example - but the threes in there are seemingly quite invisible to my ear... how perplexing! Though I promise not to lose any sleep over it. My insomnia quotient is already filled, anyway...
# Posted on December 18th 2002 by Nell
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
What, did you think we were lying to you, Helen? ;) If it's any comfort to you, the jig that our band is named after, Ask My Father, is also in 12/8 and has always confused the heck out of our bodhran player Janet and I once sat for five minutes during a rehearsal counting the beat out in groups of threes for her while Dirk and George played it slowly. She was convinced that the parts were sixteen measures long, or that it wasn't really in three, or maybe that it wasn't really in four. So it's not just you who has a hard time hearing it.
Zina
# Posted on December 18th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Helen, to get the feel for threes, give one more try on Brad's spin on the "downhill" run in Harvest Home Hornpipe.
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
|DAFA DAFA|defe dcBA|eAfA gAfA|edcB AGFE|
It's that last phrase (measure) we're focusing on here, and it commonly gets played as a downhill run of triplets:
|(3efe (3dcB (3ABA (3GFE|
Now it's really just a leap of imagination to think of this written in 12/8 time:
|efe dcB ABA GFE|
Either way, you end up with four main beats and a group of three notes for each beat.
Graphically (I hope this doesn't jump format), it would look like this:
BEAT BEAT BEAT BEAT
(123) (123) (123) (123)
Whether you count that as four triplets in 4/4 time or four groups of eighth notes in 12/8 hardly matters.
Any clearer?
# Posted on December 18th 2002 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Sorry Zina, didn't mean to cast aspersions!
I was just hoping that it would turn out we'd been discussing different versions of the tune and it would all turn out to be a horrible mistake... however, there is obviously no escaping the truth...
Thanks for that Will - I'll have to go off and learn ABC notation properly, but I understand what you mean.
I wonder if I will at some point have a moment of epiphany where, *bing*, I suddenly hear 3s in that tune?
# Posted on December 18th 2002 by Nell
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Hm. Well, Dirk brought back the CD last night and I'm sitting here listening to it, and, yes, Sir is playing it fast enough that it would be tough to count it in 12/8. Helen, d'you know how waltz time (3/4) can also be counted in one? It's kind of like changing a waltz into a polka, sort of. This could be counted as sort of the same thing.
After Christmas, when hopefully things will slow down a bit for me, I'll transcribe the tune out for you in 12/8 so you can see how it relates to the played tune. In the meantime, I shouldn't worry about it -- all attempts to write Irish traditional music down are doomed to a certain amount of failure anyway. Trying to cram them into key signatures is something of only an academic exercise.
Zina
# Posted on December 19th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: tune request - kitty o'shea
Cheers chaps - you're all very patient with me! Not a single clip around the ear...
I reckon I'll try listening to it on the Amazing Slow Downer, and then maybe I'll be able to squish the threes in..
# Posted on December 19th 2002 by Nell