The Session >> Tunes >> Never Was Piping So Gay (reel)

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Never Was Piping So Gay

reel

Key signature: Gmajor

Submitted on April 18th 2002 by Josh Kane.

This tune has been added to 84 tunebooks.

Also known as And Never Was Piping So Gay, Blacksmith's Anvil, The Blacksmith's Anvil, Ed Reavy's, Paddy Fahey's, Paddy Fahey's No. 14, Paddy Fahy's, Reavy's, Shaney Mulhearn's, Shaney Mulhern, Shaney Mulhern's.

Recordings of a tune by this name:

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

X: 1
T: Never Was Piping So Gay
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
D | G,2B,D GBdB | cafd cAFA | G2BG DGBG | AF~F2 dFAF |
G2BG DGBA | Ggfe ^cdef | gfgd BdBG | FGAd BGG :||
f | gfgd BdBG | DGBd cAFA | GB{^c}BA BcdB | cafd ^cdef |
gfgd BdBG | DGBd cAFA | BG~G2 AF~F2 | BdcA ~G2G :||

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments
Never Was Piping So Gay sheetmusic
Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

*snicker* *chuckle*

# Posted on April 18th 2002 by Josh Kane

Paddy Fahy's?

This tune sounds an awful lot like one of the tunes listed in The Session as Paddy Fahy's (one of the ones that Martin Hayes recorded).

I can't quite decide if they're the same tune or if there are just enough differences to consider them separate entities. What does everybody else think?

# Posted on April 18th 2002 by Jeremy

Paddy Fahy's

Not quite Paddy Fahy's work but not too far off. This one is by Ed Reavy.
Cheers
Donough

# Posted on April 18th 2002 by Donough

Paddy Fahey's

It's that first bar-and-a-half that's similar, if we're talking about the same tune - after that they make their distinct identiities known. Incidentally, I've seen the said Fahey tune attributed to Larry Redican .....but that's another story.

# Posted on April 19th 2002 by CreadurMawnOrganig

Change the name!

i reckon that the title should be changed to Never Was A Piper So Chuffed!

# Posted on April 29th 2002 by Wackadack

W. B. Yeats

Paddy Fahy played an alternative version of this Ed Reevy tune, he did not compose it. The name of the tune comes from the W. B. Yeats poem "The Host of The Air" of which the final verse is:

But he heard high up in the air
A piper piping away,
And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay.

# Posted on May 20th 2003 by Jamie

BTW

Does anyone have a non-lame pipes friendly setting of this?

# Posted on April 14th 2005 by Zina Lee

No. I've never come across a flute friendly setting of the tune, either. But Liam Kelly plays it on flute on one of Dervish's recordings. It's actually Paddy Fahy's version: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/150

# Posted on April 14th 2005 by slainte

Never was Piping So Gay

What's going on? There are at least a half dozen albums listed as containing this tune that do not contain this tune. Maybe even more. Some of them have Maudabawn Chapel, but some don't even have a Reavy tune on them.

# Posted on July 24th 2006 by Elda Rose

Probably more than that. It's because this tune has been given the alternative title - mistakenly - as "Paddy Fahy's".

# Posted on July 24th 2006 by Kenny

I'm told this one is combined with Maudabawn Chapel to make one huge untitled tune in the The Northern Fiddler book.

# Posted on December 5th 2006 by withak

A variation of the first part

The way I learned the tune (from Kieran Hanrahan's playing with Stocktons Wing I think), there's a distinctive C natural in the first part that is missing from the tune as submitted. Mine goes:

D | G,2B,D GBdB | cafd cAFA | G2BG DGBG | AF~F2 dFAF |
G2BG DGBc | dfed ^cdef | gfgd cBcA | FGAF G2G :||

# Posted on February 22nd 2007 by dogbox

That misses out a very distinctive low B for me! I have it as this:

X: 1
T: Never Was Piping So Gay
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
G,2B,D GBdB|cafd cAFA|G2BG DGBG|AF~F2 dFAF|
G2BG DGB,G|Aafd ^cdef|~g3d ~c3A|1 FGAc BGDB,:|2 FGAF G2Bd||
|:~g3d ^cdBG|DGBd cAFA|GBBA BcdB|cafd ^cdef|
gbaf gdBG|DGBd cAFA|BG~G2 AF~F2|1 BdcA G2Bd:|2 BdcA G2DB,||

# Posted on February 22nd 2007 by Dr. Dow

Piping?

But can the pipes get down to that bottom G? The flute can't, so you have to jump up an octave which kind of spoils the effect produced by the statement of the initial low G. Oh well...

# Posted on July 17th 2007 by Rudall the time

Different than the Reavy book

Different than in Reavy's book, Where the Shannon Rises. There is an alternate ending for the last four bars of the second part.

In Yeats' poem, the Host of the Air, O'Driscoll dreamed that his wife Bridget was taken by the Host. O'Driscoll woke to the sound of the pipes in the distance -
"And never was piping so sad,
And never was piping so gay."

A dream of a dream? A reverie?

# Posted on August 21st 2007 by David Levine

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