Well, I've finally found a group of crazies like me who like to get together oft and jam out a few tunes down in Springville, Utah. We've played together at a ceilidh, and quickly found that it is really boring to play Kesh jig four MILLION times for lack of a common tune. So we decided to get together as just musicians and work up some more tunes. We're each supposed to bring a few for everyone to learn.
Here's my problem: I've played Irish fiddle for years now, and touched a bit of Cape Breton and scotch tunes, but mostly fiddler's tunes. I will be jamming with scottish smallpipes this time round, which is new for me... Do they only play in A?
Does anyone know of some good tunes for both the fiddle and bagpipes that are here on the session? Thanks in advance for your help!
It's exactly the problem you describe here (musicians with different tunes) which led us to introduce a new common set each week at our regular mid-week session. This in turn led to the production of "Foinn Seisiun", a book of 39 common session sets now available from Comhaltas - see http://www.comhaltas.com/seisiun/foinn.htm for details. These tunes would definitely suit the fiddle and include standards such as Over the Moor, Lady Anne Montgomery, the Salamanca, Lark in the Morning, etc but I don't know enough about bagpipes to comment on their suitability for this instrument.
Some sets play in A and some play in D -- it depends on the chanter. It may be rather hard to play some ITM on the smallpipes because they can only play 9 notes.
Our local session includes a scottish small piper. His range is from "G" (ring finger on D string on a fiddle) to "a" (ring finger on e string). We've helped him expand his bag of tunes by coming up with arrangements that fit on his pipes--playing Calliope House in D, for example, or tweaking some notes into another octave as needed. Here are some of the tunes he plays with us:
Calliope House
One Summer's Morning (from Dougie MacLean)
Sound of Sleat
Burning of the Piper's Hut (in Bm)
Lark in the Morning
Brenda Stubbert's
Silver Spear
My husband is a piper, with about 7 different sets of smallpipes. I'm a predominately irish fiddler, and at our session it's been an ongoing challenge to come up with tunesthat everyone can play with the smallpipes(we also have an uilleann piper) On the"A" smallpipes he can play in D and Amix....he also has a set of Border pipes that have the added advantage of playing C naturals. The A pipes would likely be the most common, and as Will observed, the range is from G on the D string to A on the E string. The tunes that we tend to play are (some are somewhat modified, by eliminating high B's for instance): Merry Blacksmith, Silver Spear, Miss McLeod's (in D), Mason's Apron, Swallowtail Reel (need the borderpipes for the C natural) , Gravel Walk, Maggie's Pancakes, Brenda Stubbet's, Redhaired Boy, Humours of Tulla,Lord Ramsey's, Boys of Malin, Lark in the Morning, Jig of Slurs, Clare jig, Calliope House, Elizabeth Kelly's, Fraher's (in D), Jimmy Ward's Jig (in D), Glass of Beer, March of the King of Laois, Blarney Pilgrim, Slieve Russell (need the C natural), Foxhunter's Jig, Agholl Highlanders, Jenny Dang the weaver, High Road to Linton, All the Way to Galway, Johnny Cope, Cis na Lithuain, Sleepy Maggie, Maids of Ardagh, Bill Sullivan's Polka, Egan's Polka. A good book is Traditional Irish Music for the Bagpipe by Dave Rickard....he gives different (usually modified to fit the pipe's scale) settings of fairly common Irish reels and jigs, although sometimes needs to change the key. Then, the next challange, after you find some tunes in common, is to get thebloody pipes in tune to play with the rest of the instruments.....a bit tricky at times...! Aoife
If your going to be playing pipe stuff a really good freeware utility is Doug Wickstrom's Bagpipe player. This will take ABC notation and convert it toboth score and bagpipe midi. The tunes can be played back as either A or Bflat. As well as the ABC conversion there are thousands of bagpipe tunes available in BBW and BMW formats designed for this software. Can be downloadeed from http://home.istar.ca/~dougwick/
Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
Well, I've finally found a group of crazies like me who like to get together oft and jam out a few tunes down in Springville, Utah. We've played together at a ceilidh, and quickly found that it is really boring to play Kesh jig four MILLION times for lack of a common tune. So we decided to get together as just musicians and work up some more tunes. We're each supposed to bring a few for everyone to learn.
Here's my problem: I've played Irish fiddle for years now, and touched a bit of Cape Breton and scotch tunes, but mostly fiddler's tunes. I will be jamming with scottish smallpipes this time round, which is new for me... Do they only play in A?
Does anyone know of some good tunes for both the fiddle and bagpipes that are here on the session? Thanks in advance for your help!
# Posted on April 2nd 2003 by EireLibra
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
It's exactly the problem you describe here (musicians with different tunes) which led us to introduce a new common set each week at our regular mid-week session. This in turn led to the production of "Foinn Seisiun", a book of 39 common session sets now available from Comhaltas - see http://www.comhaltas.com/seisiun/foinn.htm for details. These tunes would definitely suit the fiddle and include standards such as Over the Moor, Lady Anne Montgomery, the Salamanca, Lark in the Morning, etc but I don't know enough about bagpipes to comment on their suitability for this instrument.
# Posted on April 2nd 2003 by Bannerman
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
Some sets play in A and some play in D -- it depends on the chanter. It may be rather hard to play some ITM on the smallpipes because they can only play 9 notes.
# Posted on April 2nd 2003 by no longer exists
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
I'm not sure if they can be played on the small pipes, but here are some nice Scottish tunes for both fiddle and pipes.
A.A. Cameron's: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1275
Miss Drummond of Perth: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1556
Rakish Paddy (Caber Feidh): http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/86
The Wedding Reel: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1480
Jenny Dang the Weaver: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/380
Gaelic Club: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/782
Hills of Glenorchy: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/842
I nearly forget Brenda Sttubert's and Gravel Walks, though not Scottish.
Good luck!
# Posted on April 3rd 2003 by slainte
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
Our local session includes a scottish small piper. His range is from "G" (ring finger on D string on a fiddle) to "a" (ring finger on e string). We've helped him expand his bag of tunes by coming up with arrangements that fit on his pipes--playing Calliope House in D, for example, or tweaking some notes into another octave as needed. Here are some of the tunes he plays with us:
Calliope House
One Summer's Morning (from Dougie MacLean)
Sound of Sleat
Burning of the Piper's Hut (in Bm)
Lark in the Morning
Brenda Stubbert's
Silver Spear
If I can think of more, I'll post them.
# Posted on April 3rd 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
My husband is a piper, with about 7 different sets of smallpipes. I'm a predominately irish fiddler, and at our session it's been an ongoing challenge to come up with tunesthat everyone can play with the smallpipes(we also have an uilleann piper) On the"A" smallpipes he can play in D and Amix....he also has a set of Border pipes that have the added advantage of playing C naturals. The A pipes would likely be the most common, and as Will observed, the range is from G on the D string to A on the E string. The tunes that we tend to play are (some are somewhat modified, by eliminating high B's for instance): Merry Blacksmith, Silver Spear, Miss McLeod's (in D), Mason's Apron, Swallowtail Reel (need the borderpipes for the C natural) , Gravel Walk, Maggie's Pancakes, Brenda Stubbet's, Redhaired Boy, Humours of Tulla,Lord Ramsey's, Boys of Malin, Lark in the Morning, Jig of Slurs, Clare jig, Calliope House, Elizabeth Kelly's, Fraher's (in D), Jimmy Ward's Jig (in D), Glass of Beer, March of the King of Laois, Blarney Pilgrim, Slieve Russell (need the C natural), Foxhunter's Jig, Agholl Highlanders, Jenny Dang the weaver, High Road to Linton, All the Way to Galway, Johnny Cope, Cis na Lithuain, Sleepy Maggie, Maids of Ardagh, Bill Sullivan's Polka, Egan's Polka. A good book is Traditional Irish Music for the Bagpipe by Dave Rickard....he gives different (usually modified to fit the pipe's scale) settings of fairly common Irish reels and jigs, although sometimes needs to change the key. Then, the next challange, after you find some tunes in common, is to get thebloody pipes in tune to play with the rest of the instruments.....a bit tricky at times...! Aoife
# Posted on April 3rd 2003 by aoife
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
If your going to be playing pipe stuff a really good freeware utility is Doug Wickstrom's Bagpipe player. This will take ABC notation and convert it toboth score and bagpipe midi. The tunes can be played back as either A or Bflat. As well as the ABC conversion there are thousands of bagpipe tunes available in BBW and BMW formats designed for this software. Can be downloadeed from http://home.istar.ca/~dougwick/
# Posted on April 3rd 2003 by Davetnova
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
Right. Please ignore Rakish Paddy, Gaelic Club, and Hills of Glenorchy in my previous comment.
Instead, I add these ones:
The Night We Had the Goat: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1393
Miss MacLeod of Raasay (Gmaj): http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/75
Sleep Soond Ida Moarnin': original 2-part version
Matt People's (Ador): http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/691
Old Bush: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1499
Daniel of the Sun: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1317
Mist on the Meadows: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1205
My Mind Will Never Be Easy (Edor): http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/191
# Posted on April 4th 2003 by slainte
Re: Cross-island tunes (playing with a piper)
Or you could just play with an uilleann piper ;) They don't have any troubles hitting two (sometimes +) octaves!
Hey Aubree :D
# Posted on August 6th 2003 by uilleann_craic