Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

La Grondeuse

reel

Key signature: Dmajor

Submitted on December 10th 2002 by lazyhound.

This tune has been added to 34 tunebooks.

Also known as The Silver Spire.

Recordings of a tune by this name:

A Dark Horse by Martin Murray
A Man Apart by Sean Maguire
Ah, Surely! by Eddie Cahill
Alesia by Rapalje
At It Again by John Carty
Before Dawn by Harmony Glen
Best Of Irish Fiddle by Florie Brown
California Celt by Jesse Autumn And Friends
Corvus by Colcannon
Cuts From The Turf by Hooley
Draw The Bow by Malachy Bourke
Farewell To Ireland CD 4 (Of A Box Set Of 4) by Various Artists
Fiddle Sticks, Irish Traditional Music From Donegal by Various Artists
Fiddlers Five by Fiddlers Five
First Through The Gate by Brian Conway
From Ballymote To Brooklyn by Paddy Killoran and James Morrison
Give Us Another by Joe Derrane
High Rock And Low Glen by Dab Hand
Highly Strung by Alistair McCulloch
Irish Traditional Music by Jim McKillop
Just Me And A Fiddle by The Flyin' Fiddler Wayne Cantwell
Last Night's Fun by Last Night's Fun
Milestone At The Garden by Irish Fiddle Masters From The 78 RPM Era
New Irish Harmonica by Brendan Power
Riverdance And Other Famous Irish Songs And Dances by Various Artists
Sharon Shannon by Sharon Shannon
Sometimes When The Moon Is High by Nightingale
The Blue Lamp by Jonny Hardie And Gavin Marwick
The Great Bear Trio by The Great Bear Trio
The Road From Erin—Ireland's Musical Legacy by Dorian Recordings
The Silver Spire by Karen Tweed
The Wheels Of The World, Early Irish American Music, Vol 2 by Various Artists
Tone Roads by Wild Asparagus
Tuned In by Johnny Murphy
Walking Stones by Ken Kolodner, Laura Risk, Robin Bullock

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

A French-Canadian tune from the New England Fiddler's Repertoire. I believe "La Grondeuse" means "The scolding (or nagging) woman". The tune, to me, is reminiscent of "Whiskey before Breakfast", also on this database.

trevor

# Posted on December 10th 2002 by lazyhound

Sliver Spire?

This sounds a lot like The Silver Spire:

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/240

# Posted on December 10th 2002 by Jeremy

Silver Spire

You are dead on right Jeremy. A decent reel at that. That would bring it back to an Irish origin.

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by Mark Cordova

What's wrong with trad tunes?

Does anybody else here feel like the tunes are getting too far off the mark? Sure, taking tunes from outside the tradition can be nice, but I haven't seen a solid irish tune since "The Monks" was posted (that was ten tunes ago) At sessions I've been to usually there's one oddball tune for every 10 traditional ones played, not vice versa.

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by Mad Baloney

Brad
I appreciate your feelings on this but I feel that many tunes from the North American continent may very well have Irish or other Celtic origins, but are no longer extant in Ireland or the British Isles. They may very well be older versions that have thus become preserved, much as a lot of modern American English usage and spellings reflects the British English of a couple of centuries ago. It's probably impossible in most cases to determine the precise origin of a tune. And what is "tradition" itself? This topic was discussed a little while ago in a large discussion thread, but I don't think a clear conclusion can be drawn except that "tradition" isn't a static bit of history like Gregorian Chant, but is continually evolving and being generated.
However, I think we can draw the line well short of Albanian folksong in 5/8 and locrian!

trevor

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by lazyhound

Trevor, I really like your postings, you are very intellegent & keep a good keel on things. I just think maybe you should post tunes from other sources. Variety is the spice of a session.

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by Mad Baloney

Brad,
This is why I started a discussion thread asking people if they would be interested if I posted a few Northumbrian tunes. If people aren't happy about my postings for some reason then I'd just stop posting - it wouldn't matter to me - I know my own tunes already. My point is, *by posting these tunes we're not stopping others from posting Irish stuff*. But there are a lot of nice tunes that it's difficult to get access to at your average session. You can take or leave them basically. If you like one of the tunes, play it, and if you don't like it, ignore it. I'm quite interested to hear how other people feel about this. If anything other than Irish session tunes are becoming unwelcome in that they are "off the mark", then I'm quite happy to keep them to myself.
Mark

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by Dow

I've just read that through and it sounds really stroppy but it wasn't meant in that tone at all - the limitations of the printed word...

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by Dow

Dow, you're right on the money - I didn't take any offense to what you wrote in the slightest. I hope no-one thought me to be too "stroppy" in my plea for more chestnuts. Trevor remember that I hold respect for you too, I hope you aren't put out by anything I said. As Dow said "the limitations of the word"

# Posted on December 11th 2002 by Mad Baloney

La Grondeuse

Recorded by La Bottine Souriante on their album 'Cordial'.

R Warford

# Posted on June 16th 2004 by rwarford

A little error, i think...

The tune played here by john carty is not "the silver spire" but "the silver spear" which is very different.

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/182

# Posted on January 1st 2005 by Mattaeus

?????

Big error. This not La Grondeuse at all, especially not the La Grondeuse as played by Nightingale, from which it was linked on the Recordings page. I think that it's The Silver Spire.

# Posted on March 8th 2006 by chautauqua

"New England Fiddler's Repertoire"

by Randy Miller and Jack Perron, first published in 1983.

http://www.randymillerprints.com/fiddletunebooks.htm

Page 156: "La Grondeuse"

It would be good to credit one's sources...

# Posted on March 9th 2006 by ceolachan