Key signature: Gmajor
Submitted on November 23rd 2004 by Kenny.
This tune has been added to 25 tunebooks.
Also known as McSweeney's Reels, Sweeney's Favourite.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: McSweeney's
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
DGGA B2 AG | Adfd cAFA | GFGA B2 AG | AdcA BG G2 :|
gbag fdde | fdge fddg | gfdg fdcA | dgfa g2 ga |
bgaf gfde | =fefd cAFA | G3 A B2 AG | Adfd cAFA |
McSweeney's
Don't know anything about McSweeney, I'm afraid. From "Altan's" "Horse With A Heart" recording, so presumably a Donegal fiddle tune.
# Posted on November 23rd 2004 by Kenny
It's a major version of Ed Reavy's "Glen Reel", is it not?
# Posted on November 23rd 2004 by Dr. Dow
Incidentally, I think Reavy must have been influenced by The Pretty Girls Of Mayo http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1954. The tunes are too similar for it to be a coincidence, especially this major version. In fact, if the 2 tunes had the same name, I'm sure people would just class them as different settings of the same tune, but since a well-respected composer has supposedly "composed" it, it'll be a different story.
# Posted on November 23rd 2004 by Dr. Dow
We all make mistakes...
# Posted on November 23rd 2004 by ceolachan
Well respected or not...
# Posted on November 23rd 2004 by ceolachan
I don't think it's a mistake even... if you have that many tunes floating around in your head it's unavoidable really.
# Posted on November 23rd 2004 by Dr. Dow
Since so many of the tunes that are unattributable to any author are versions of one another, why is it any different if one *with* a named author is a version of another tune?
# Posted on November 26th 2004 by CreadurMawnOrganig
See http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/2779 for another transcription.
# Posted on January 16th 2005 by Dr. Dow
Feeding the Birds
The composer of this tune is the great Mike Rafferty and the name that he gave it is "Feeding the Birds". If you look at the notes on his CD "The Dangerous Reel", he says that he composed the tune with "the help of Mary and the birds outside." It would be great if title of this tune in The Session could be changed from McSweeney's to its correct title.
# Posted on November 8th 2010 by boreen
John Doherty tells a story of his father playing this reel - possibly in the 1930s. So how did Mike Rafferty come to compose it?
# Posted on August 29th 2011 by The Archivist
Tweet tweet....
X: 1
T:Feeding the Birds
R:reel
C:Mike Rafferty
M:C|
L:1/8
R:Reel
K:G
G3F \
|: DGGA B2ag | efdc AGGF | DGGA B2AG | AdcA G3F :|
|: DGGA B2ag | efdc AGGF | DGGA B2AG |1 AdcA G3F :|2 AdcA G4 ||
|: fgag fdde | ~f3d cAG2 | fgag fdd2 | dgfa ~g3a |
b2af gfde | ~f3d cAGF | DGGA B2AG |1 AdcA G4 :|2 AdcA G3F|]
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/tmp/Tune49760.txt
Not the same tune.
# Posted on August 29th 2011 by Weejie
The McSweeney in question is possibly Turlough McSweeney, an Piobaire Mór. A few generations up the Doherty family tree.
# Posted on August 29th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski