Key signature: Amixolydian
Submitted on June 11th 2005 by Kenny.
This tune has been added to 62 tunebooks.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: Aires De Pontevedra
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Amix
e | a2 e2 c2 de | fedc B3 c | dedc B2 cd | edcB A2 e2 |
a2 e2 c2 de | fedc B3 c | dcde fecA | edBG A4 |
M:2/4| A2 :|
Bc | dcdB cABc | dcdB cABc | ecdB cABc | dGBd cAce |g4 gfge |
agfe dcde | Addc dcde | agfe dcde |c2 cB cBce | agfe dcde |
M:2/4 B4 | cecA cecA | BdBG B2 e2 | A4 :|
Aires de Pontevedra
This has been requested twice, and although I only usually post Irish tunes, I'm happy to make an exception for this great piece of music from Galicia. I was told that this is almost the Galician equivalent of the "Morrison's" or the "Kesh", in that it is a tune which is played by all nearly Galician traditional musicians.
I first heard it played in the 1980s by the group "Milladoiro" on a BBC TV series of programmes called "How To Be Celtic" !! [ honestly, but despite that, there was some very good music on it]. A few years later, it was recorded by Pipe Major Robert Mathieson, and that was where I learned it from, by ear. I think the first Irish musicians to record it may have been "The Kips Bay Ceili Band", which included Pat Kilbride and John Williams. It is now being played by both Sharon Shannon and "Lunasa", so could be said to be pretty firmly entrenched in the Irish tradition.
Although as I said, I learned it by ear, this is from a transcription by Malcolm Reavell.
# Posted on June 11th 2005 by Kenny
Sheetmusic
Last 4 bars of abcs is not appearing in the sheet music. Maybe something to do with change to 2/4 .
# Posted on June 12th 2005 by Kenny
I don't get why it even changes to 2/4 anyway - ?
# Posted on June 12th 2005 by Dow
2/4
It's not something that would have occurred to me, Dow, but that's how Malcolm transcribed it, and when played back, it sound correct to me.
# Posted on June 12th 2005 by Kenny
Time signatures
Kenny, thanks for posting your transcription. I've had a great day working this through my novice mandolin fingers. I spent some time futzing with the time signatures, and have come to the conclusion that it's, well, weird. I'm familiar with the Kips Bay and Lunasa versions of the tune. They play some odd meters, for sure. There are some measures that, for the purpose of phrasing, are best described as 5/4 followed by a 1/4. Of course with a nudge, it fits into the 4/4 and 2/4 that you described.
Can't wait to give this to our flute player. He'll be pleasantly perplexed. Our John Doyle-ish guitarist will spend restless nights carving a groove.
--Bob
# Posted on June 12th 2005 by highdesertbob
Kenny, the 2/4 thing's fine but it's not cancelled and made into 4/4 again. So it looks as though that whole B-part's in 2/4, only it's written with 4 beats to the bar. ???? Maybe the fact that the sheetmusic came out funny is something to do with that.
# Posted on June 13th 2005 by Dow
Something more about this song
Well, I've heard this song played by Carlos Núñez in a concert (I don't where the concert is) and it sounds greater than grear. I've found it in e-mule in an archive called Carlos Núñez en concert. Wonderful to listen to.
# Posted on May 14th 2006 by erinwhistler
Aires de Pontevedra
This is a great piece on the galician traditional repertoire but I think the equivalent of "Kesh" or "Morrison´s" jigs is the "Muiñeira de Chantada", the well known muiñeira or galician jig. In every session, foliada, etc pipers use to play it here, in Galiza, the original and galician name of our country.
Aires de Pontevedra was played usually by the legendary galician piper Ricardo Portela (RIP), one of my heroes on galician pipes like Manuel Dopazo. Dopazo was born in my little town, Bandeira, and move to Argentina and he was the most famous galician piper last century in America.
I learned a lot of tunes from Portela´s cassettes, 25 years ago. Now I use to play them on my gaita and uilleann pipes too. I would like to play one day "Aires de Pontevedra" with Ricardo Portela on gaita and with Liam O´Flynn on uilleann pipes.
# Posted on October 31st 2006 by Manu Novo