Ride A Mile

slip jig

Key signature: Gmajor

Submitted on January 2nd 2005 by malcombpiper.

This tune has been added to 42 tunebooks.

Also known as A Mile To Ride, The Fleet's A Coming, Ride A Mule, Ride The Mile, Rise A Mile, Stamfordham Hopping, Stanhope In Weardale, Stannerton Hopping.

Recordings of a tune by this name:

An Fhidil, Sraith 2 by Sean Keane, Kevin Burke, Paddy Glackin And Seamus Creagh
Call The Tune: Music For The Sets Volume 4 by Various Artists
Ceol Cill Na Martra by Connie O'Connell
Fiddle Duets by Andy McGann And Paddy Reynolds
Flower Of The Red Mill by Sarah Blair
Made In Cork by Patrick Street
Morga by Morga
O' Bheal Go Beal by Marcas O'Murchu
Slow Airs And Set Dances by Eugene O'Donnell
Step Into The Beat: Modern Irish Dance Music by Ellery Klein And Ryan Lacey
Sugrú by Eilish O'Connor
Sweeney's Dream by Kevin Burke
The Irish Folk Festival '01 by Various Artists
The Living Tradition Vol II by All Ireland Champions Tara And Garrai Eion Ceili Bands
The Square Triangle by The Four Star Trio
Tony O'Connell And Andy Morrow by Tony O'Connell And Andy Morrow
Top Of Coom by Conal Ó'Gráda
Traditional Music Of Ireland by Joe And Antoinette McKenna

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

X: 1
T: Ride A Mile
M: 9/8
L: 1/8
R: slip jig
K: Gmaj
dBG G2A G2e|dBG GB/c/d gfe|dBG G2A G2E|F2G A z B cBA:|
def g3 fed|g2B B2A B2A|def g z g fed|e2A A2B cBA|
def g z g fed|g2B B2A B2A|def g z g fed|e2A A2a afe||
BAB g2B g2B|BAB g2B b2B|BAB g2B g2B|A2A z2B cBA|
BAB g2B g2B|BAB g2B b2g|a z f e2f g2e||

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Missing note

You left out an eighth note accidently in the ABC in the fourth measure from the end - should it be an A or a B quarter note? Or a combination of eighth notes? Or, perhaps it is syncopated in some way...

# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by violynnsey

I meant, of course, omitting the eighth rest that is already there, since we don't typically play a "rest" in the true sense of the word...you know what I mean. Thanks!

# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by violynnsey

Rests

This version is a basic transcription of the tune as played by flute player Conal Ó Gráda on "The Top of Coom."
The rests are wherever he left notes out for a breath. The 1/8th rests can be filled in by making the previous note a quarter. As for the quarter rest in bar 4 of the C part, your guess is as good as mine. Conal consistently took a breath on that note/rest.

# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by malcombpiper

I know a different slip jig which has the almost identical first part: http://thesession.org/tunes/display.php/3297

# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by slainte

Ok, now I understand about the rests. I noticed that a measure of the C part went missing, but using good ITM common sense it's possible to know what the measure should have been. I re-did the ABC without the breaths and with the missing measure included here:

X: 1
T: Ride A Mile
M: 9/8
L: 1/8
R: slip jig
K: Gmaj
dBG G2A G2e|dBG GB/c/d gfe|dBG G2A G2E|F2G A2 B cBA:|
def g3 fed|g2B B2A B2A|def g2 g fed|e2A A2B cBA|
def g2 g fed|g2B B2A B2A|def g2 g fed|e2A A2a afe||
BAB g2B g2B|BAB g2B b2B|BAB g2B g2B|A3 A2B cBA|
BAB g2B g2B|BAB g2B b2g|BAB g2B g2B|a2 f e2f g2e||

It's a really nice tune - thanks for posting it. I have such a weakness for slip jigs.

# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by violynnsey

Missing Measure

I have only heard this version of the tune but the missing measure at the end of the C part is as Conal played it. It really gives the feeling of riding on a galloping horse.
In the thorough transcription Grey Larsen made of the tune in his book he mentions that that last bit could be written either as 3 measures in 9/8 or 1 measure in 9/8 and 3 in 6/8.

# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by malcombpiper

Hmm, that's interesting. So it's supposed to be a bit crooked then, like "The Big Man Within." I wonder if this is a more modern tune, or an older one that just happens to be crooked.

# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by violynnsey

I always understood that crooked tunes were more apt to be older tunes. But those were generally with an extra beat added in a bar. I don't know about tunes missing a whole bar.

# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by malcombpiper

Another version - reel?

Thanks for posting the slip jig version of this tune - I have been waiting for someone to do it before I posted this version. On the An Fhidil, Sraith 2 album ( by Kevin Burke ) it is listed as a reel . When I did a search for this tune all the versions I could find were slip jigs. The version on the An Fhidil, Sraith 2 album is not a slip jig and when I transcribed it , it only made sense to write it in 12/8. It goes something like this :

T: Ride A Mile
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Bmin
FAF EBE DED D2 B| FAF EBE DFA B2 B | FAF EBE DED D2 f gfe fed AFAB2 B ||
dBd fdB AFA DFA | dBd fdB AFA B2 B | dBd fdB AFA def | gfe fed AFA B2 B ||
| dBd fdd edd fdd | dBd fdd AFA B2 B | dBd fdd edd fdf | gfe fed AFA B2 B ||
DFA dAF DFA BGE | DFA dAF DFA B3 | DFA dAF DFA Bef | gfe fed AFA B2B ||
def def DFA dAF | def def DFA B3 | def def ded def | gfe fed AFA B3 ||

# Posted on January 6th 2005 by harry

A Mile To Ride

This tune has been popular in Northumberland since the 18th century or earlier. Apparently it appears in the Playford collection of 1700, so it’s really really old, and most likely English. I would be willing to bet that it’s Northumbrian in origin but I have no way of proving that. It seems like a typical Northumbrian pipe jig, but the fact that it there are also Irish and Scottish versions of it suggests that at one time it was an extremely popular and widespread tune, much like “Andrew Carr/Kerr” (“Tipperary Hills”) http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/3244 and
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1714. Most of the older settings have 2 parts which can come in any order.

3 different versions appear in the William Vickers manuscript (1770) under different names, all transcribed below with inserted corrections to obvious “typos”:

Of the above names, by far the most common in Northumberland is “A Mile To Ride”. I’d say that this is because the setting most pipers now play is the one that appears in John Peacock’s manuscript (compiled 1800-1805). This was the version that was used for the Minstrelsy in the late 19th century:

A similar setting with yet another local title comes from the John Bell manuscript (1812):

Lastly, here’s the setting I like to play, which is a combination of my favourite bits of various English and Irish settings in 2 parts:

Other settings can be found at JC’s tunefinder, including O’Neill’s.

# Posted on January 6th 2005 by Dow

Another version - no, just a mistake.

Please feel free to ignore my earlier post. It's a mistake, I mixed up the tracks on the CD - it's track3, The Geese in the Bog.

# Posted on February 11th 2005 by harry

"A Mile To Ride" - Name of an album by The High Level Ranters

noxious blanket, above, has given an ABC version of the tune that to all intents and purposes matches a slip-jig of this name featured on an album - "called "A Mile To Ride" - made by the Tyneside-based group The High Level Ranters in the '70's. It's a really good strong tune; being all within one major octave, it would have been playable on the earliest versions of the Northumbrian smallpipes. It's not the same tune as that for which the sheet music is given.

Stanhope in Weardale is a small town which is the capital of Weardale, the upper valley of the River Wear - the river which flows through Durham City and features in photos and pictures of the Cathedral.

# Posted on August 5th 2006 by nicholas

Nicholas, have another look at the sheetmusic. It's basically a different setting of the same tune, with the A and B parts in a different order and an extra part tagged on the end.

# Posted on August 5th 2006 by Dow

Noxious Blanket, I've had another look and though the tunes are obviously akin/related, I wouldn't say they were the same. I haven't tried to work out their places on the tune's family tree. But I think your/The High Level Ranters' tune is altogether better than the one given in the sheet music, that's the main thing I wished to say.

# Posted on August 5th 2006 by nicholas

For a simplified, hop jig variant of this tune, go here http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/2579.

# Posted on April 29th 2007 by Dow

Dow - it's in Thompson's Compleat Collection as 'Ride a Mile', and is pretty much the same as your first Vickers example.

# Posted on July 27th 2008 by fynnjamin