The Session >> Tunes >> The Wise Maid (reel)

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

The Wise Maid

reel

Key signature: Dmajor

Submitted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm.

This tune has been added to 48 tunebooks.

Recordings of a tune by this name:

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

X: 1
T: Wise Maid, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
|: d2 fd adfd | d2 fd efge | d2 fd adfd | geee efge :|
a2 fa dafa | gafa efge | a2 fa dafa | geee efge |
a2 fa dafa | Baca efge | a2 fa dafa | gefd efgf ||
|: e2 ge Bege | e2 ge fagf | e2 ge Bege | fddd fagf :|
a2 fd dfed | dafd efge | a2 fd dfed | geee efge |
a2 fa eada | caBa efge | a2 fa dafa | gefd efge ||

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments
The Wise Maid sheetmusic
Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

The Wise Maid

See the wait for posting a new tune. It has been interminable!

Anyway....

This tune is a Scottish Pipe Reel and is featured on, among other recordings, Moidart To Mabou by Daimh. They describe it as a "great old Scottish tune!"

I am afraid that is all I know about it, except it is apparently traditional. Maybe someone else could add more about it - Ceol? Nigel? Kenny?

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

The Wise Maid

I am going to go out on a limb here - The third part of the tune is in A mixolydian!

???

The rest is in D though.

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Daimh

http://www.myspace.com/daimh

Check Daimh out here. At time of writing you can here "The Wise Maid" track on their myspace.

Tunes on the track:
The Hag At The Churn (trad)
Fosgail an Dorus (trad)
Zito the Bubbleman (Gordon Duncan)
The Wise Maid (trad)

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Third part

is based upon an E minor chord (being the v (the diatonic minor dominant fifth) of A, which is the V (the dominant fifth) of D. You could say it has shifted into E dorian.
--Peter

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by muspc

Dammit - I thought that at first but got the guitar out and....

Well DADGAD can be quite forgiving and an A modal chord fitted just fine (particularly with the pipe drones). I can see though that an Em is probably better though with EGB in the bar.

Thanks Peter

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Wise Maid

You're not going to like this, NCFA, but to me this sounds very much a bagpipe version of "The Pinch of Snuff".

I've not been to Dundee for ages - how're you getting on there?

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by nigelg

Life in Dundee is fine thanks.

Just listened to the midi for Pinch of Snuff and I see what you mean - why do you have to plague me with this now?! :-(

On the other hand they are quite different and I definately prefer this version. It seems to have more drive and clarity in the tune. It should warrant a seperate posting.

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Wise Maid

Oh yes, definitely merits a separate posting. Where did you hear it?

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by nigelg

Errrr..... Daimh!

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Wise Maid

Scrap last comment - I see you heard it played by Daimh.

The tune I know as "The Wise Maid" is the other tune you found, as played by Joe Cooley, also known as "All Around the World".

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by nigelg

Not The Wise Maid

Definitely not the lady we've come to know and love as The Wise Maid - see http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/118 for the one most sessioneers will know by this title.

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by Bannerman

Ah but it is!

I know there is another tune in here called "The Wise Maid" (Nigel even mentioned it in the last post) but that is a different tune. Just like there are lots of Ballydesmond Polkas, some you may like, others you may not, you now have the chance to know a new Wise Maid, who is wiser and more maid-like than the old one. :-D

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Damn Alarum, give you an inch and you take a mile... Is this the result of all the excitement of being free of the studies regime?

My dear wife regularly takes on students training to be teachers. As a male primary teacher, with other talents, you shouldn't have any problem finding a job. It is good that someone with music in their soul is also willing to pass on their passions in the education system. As with all things that people get invovled in collectively, don't let the politics grind you down. Best of luck...

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by ceolachan

So, are you taking requests now? How about "Mazzy" from "The Pirates of Puirt"? ;-)

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by ceolachan

Ah:

"Down and out in Santiago de Compestella" by Colm O'Rua

I will give it a go at some point. There are never enough mazurkas in the world. It will give me a chance to try to learn a tune by ear as well.

I have three other tunes lined up in Notepad though waiting to be posted! I managed to ABC five of them yesterday in a sudden rush of enthusiasm - 2 of which you can now see!

I am sure I will find a job. My CV is currently with one of the pubs/restaurants in town that was advertising and my details are also with a call centre. In order to increase my chances though I need to escape from The Session.org!

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Edgar Bolton is probably your man for "Down and Out..." though - being a founder member of the "Colm O'Rua Appreciation Society and Defence League" :-D

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Just because there's two Maude Millars it doesn't mean that you can have two Miss McCleods, two Miss Monaghans, two Lady Anne Montgomerys and definitely not two Wise Maids!

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by Bannerman

Then change the name of your tune! I'm no blinking!

It is spelled Miss McLeod!!! If you can't have two Wise Maids then you are going to have to think of another name for your one because mine was probably around first!!! ;-)

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

There is Only One Wise Maid

If it was good enough for Joe Cooley, then it's good enough for me! However, if we can't agree, then maybe we'll have to get one of these musicologist fellows on the job to see which Wise Maid came first. Then one can have "Old" in the title and the other "New" like the two Copperplates.

# Posted on June 11th 2007 by Bannerman

Bannerman blinks first! I win!

So I take it the "real" Wise Maid (this one) is not about to make it into the proscribed Comhaltas tunebook then? :-D

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Around the World

Someone has just added the name "Around the World" to this tune. Do they mean this tune?:

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/118

Which already has that name added to it!!

This is a different tune. Let's not confuse matters further.

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

Pity About the Name!

This really is a great tune and excellently played by Daimh (check out link to their site shown above) and definitely is deserving of it's own identity. Just to show the problem with duplicate names, all of the 40 plus "recordings of a tune with this name" shown here lead to the Wise Maid as played by Joe Cooley. In order "not to confuse matters" maybe it could be re-christened "Daimh's Wise Maid". As for the Comhaltas tunes Book, I don't think they'd have a problem about the tune's Scottish origins - many tunes like Lord McDonald, Miss McCleod's, Lord Ramsay, etc have already made the transition to the Irish idiom!

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by Bannerman

Not quite all of them - Daimh is on that list! But I am with you on the duplicate name thing and this is another example of where it would be a nice ideas to have a feature to adjust the links to albums, etc.

And another wee quick reminder - it is Mrs McLeod, not Miss McCleod. I am sure the womanherselfwould be most distressed to know that people all around the world spell her name wrongly on a daily basis!

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

nigelg - if you look at your own website, you'll find a reel called "The Wise Maid" is included in your list of tunes in Kerr's Vol.4. I don't know if it's the same as this tune, which is possibly a piper's setting, but that particular "Wise Maid" would pre-date "Planxty" by about 70 years. The "Tannahill Weavers" recorded this several years before "Daimh" did.
Just to confuse things even further, unless I'm much mistaken, Seamus Tansey and Andrew Davey recorded the 9-part "Pinch Of Snuff" on "Music From The Coleman Country", and called it "The Wise Maid".

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by Kenny

:-D

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by No Cause For Alarm

The Wise Maid

Yes, you're right, Kenny - the tune is Kerr's Merry Melodies Bk 4 IS the same tune as this one, but starts off an octave lower:

X:1
T:Wise Maid, The
S:Kerr's Merry Melodies Bk.4
Z:Nigel Gatherer
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
D2 (FED AD (3FED | D2 (FED EGFE | D2 (FED AD (3FED | G2 BG EFGE :|
(3ABA FA (3ABA FA |(3ABA FD EFGE | (3ABA FA dAFA |GEFD EFGE :|
e2 ge bege | e2 ge fagf | e2 ge bege | b2 ge fagf :|
d2 cA BcBA | dBcA EFGE | d2 cA BcBA | GEFD EFGE :|

# Posted on June 12th 2007 by nigelg

This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune This not an uilleann piping tune

Ali,

Were you in particularly sadistic mood when you suggested I learn this? :)

# Posted on April 17th 2008 by DrSilverSpear

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