“An Irish musician lives in a constant state of permanent low-level anxiety over how many tunes he/she does not yet know.”
We’ve all heard that. So, that being said, I am anxious to update my repetoire. I like to travel, and I’d like to know what other sessions are playing. Perhaps I’ll then have a better chance of knowing a few tunes & being able to sit in a bit. If you don’t mind indulging me (yet again), would anyone care to list the Top 10 Most played at their session?
Ro3b answered a similar question about our DC-area session about a year and a half ago - only then it was only for the top six tunes. Now it’s ten tunes. As you said, you can never have enough tunes!
Anyway, here’s what his answer was:
The one John plays after the first one
The one that goes “dum de dum de diddly dum”
The one Philippe was playing for a while, but stopped
That Ed Reavy tune we play in a different key
The tune we don’t play
Paddy Fahey’s
Looking at it now, I see that absolutely nothing has changed since then. (And I still do like that one I play after the first one, a lot.) So let me add four more to make the list an even ten for you.
7, 8 and 9. Track 10 off of Maeve Donnelly’s and Peadar O’Loughlin’s CD The Thing Itself. (What are those tunes called, anyway? None of us could remember when we played them the other day.)
10. Gan Ainm
Hope this helps.
I’m only just learning what they play at my own session, but these come up pretty frequently (as in late-comers will ask "have we played ____ yet?):
Spootiskerry
Brenda Stubbert
Dinky’s Reel
The Banshee
The Silver Spear
Father Kelly’s
The Musical Priest
Out on the Ocean
Merrily Kissed The Quaker
Lady Anne Montgomery
Some of these I’m sure are so common the list is of no use to you. If you ever drop by Santa Barbara and can play A Scone For Breakfast, you’ll be somebody’s hero. (You may also be somebody’s devil, if I caught the vibe right.)
I can’t form a top ten as there are many tunes we play everytime we get together. Some of them are, though:
Thats the bigger part of the pile o’ tunes we played when we last met. Some 45 minutes of tunes are missing as my recorder’s batteries died…
I was too lazy to write them down, sorry. I record our sessions and split the recording into single tunes which I upload then. Makes it easier for newbies to learn them by ear with some kind of slowdown software.
John Kerr you are too funny! You could make some money making T shirts & bumper stickers.
Diane- Thank you. It is useful indeed. There are a couple there that we don’t play & I need to learn.
Wow! Long list. We play many too. I just didn’t want to ask someone to go to that much trouble. Excellent. I appreciate it.
There are 4 there that we do not play, plus…Hornpipe #1 and Hornpipe #2?? Dare I ask? 
At our session we have a group of sarcastic clowns and they have nick-named many of our common sets…
Spookyscary (Spootiskerry) & Woolly fiend (Wullafjord) – “The Halloween Set”
The Red-Haired Boy, The Boys of Bluehill & The Rights of Man --“The Michael Jackson Set”
John Ryan’s, Maggie in the Woods & Dennis Murphy’s --Simply the “JMD set”
Egan’s, Rattlin’ Bog & Britches Full of Stitches --“The Other Polka set”
Humours of Listowel, I’ll Buy Boots for Maggie & Kerry Cow --“The Char set” (she always used to kick that)
Father O’Flynn, Kesh & The Cow that Ate the Blanket --“The OLD jig set”
Whiskey Before Breakfast/ The Temperance Reel & Otter’s Holt (or sometimes Jig of Slurs) --“The Drunk set”
Maid Behind the Bar & Maids of St. Crisco --“Maids Set”
Si Bheag Si Mhor --“She Begs for More”
Foxhunter’s & Butterfly – “Foxbutter” or “the Slippery Jigs”
We also always do:
Merrily Kiss the Quaker & Morrison’s
Sally Gardens Reel & Athol Highlanders
Lilting Banshee, Humours of Ennistymon & Geese in the Bog
Lannigan’s Ball & Road to Lisdoonvarna
Saint Anne’s & The Banshee
Gillian’s Apples & Banish Misfortune
Wedding Reel & Galway Rambler
Rose in the Heather, Connaughtman’s Rambles
Garrett Barry’s & Humours of Ballyloughlan
Christy Barry’s & Muenster Buttermilk
Lark in the Morning, Humours of Glendart & Ten Penny Bit
Blarney Pilgrim & I Buried My Wife and Danced upon her Grave
Jackson’s Bottle of Brandy & Humours of Trim
Hare in the Corn, Out on the Ocean, Lilting Banshee
Fig for a Kiss,The Snowy Path
Hardiman the Fiddler & Kid on the Mountain
Silver Spear & Swinging on a Gate
Cup of Tea, Cooley’s
Corner House, Old Torn Petticoat
Earl’s Chair, Morning Dew
Green Mountain, Longford Collector
Sculley’s & Miss McLeods
Bank of Ireland, Bag of Spuds
Jackie Coleman’s, Pigtown
And various others, depending on who’s there.
Heheh. Yep, we have She Begs For More too. And the Tarbolton is The Taliban. We have (racist red alert, but I’m only recounting…) Slinky Chinky/Wonky Donkey (Chinese Breakdown/ Flop-eared Mule 
) And we have The Downhill Set, which is Shandon Bells/Rakes of Kildare/Kesh Jig, so-called because our fiddle man hates the Kesh and once said about the set that once started it was downhill all the way. We have been known to refer to Ashokan Farewell as Goodbye Dustbin as well. As for Planxty Fanny Power, I’ll leave it at that… 
Too funny!
Ashoken Farewell became -Ass**** Farewell as the fiddler that used to kick that one all the time finally got his own arse kicked out of the session for good when he threatened a beloved senior member of our group. Said senior member has since passed on & we are very glad we stood up for him. (sadly, that doesn’t happen often)
This fiddler was irritating in many ways beforehand. This was a last straw.
thanks gale for starting this discussion.
also your list gave me some more ideas for combinations of tunes to try.
berti
This set of tunes is a set my friend and I put together for our band, We started off with the three jigs and then added the Bennachie Sunrise tune after hearing it on a compilation CD. It is a brilliant set to play with three tunes in A and the other in D. The way we introduced the set was by way of a story, The sun rising on a beautiful morning and Willie getting ready for his trip away, the reason being he had just killed his wife and danced on her grave! And of course, out on the ocean he goes before he can get into trouble!
Bennachie sunrise / Willies trip to Toronto / I buried my wife and I danced on her grave / Out on the Ocean. Tunes in A, A, D, A, fiddle players love this becasue of the three A tunes, the good thing is they are all easy to play on a D whistle.
This is a great session set as well, it always goes down a treat.
Here are a few great sets I used to hear played in Ireland;
Reels; Mulhaire’s (no4)/ Sporting Paddy/ The Mills are grinding.
Jigs; The gander in the pratie hole/ Sixpenny money/ The maid at the spinning wheel.
Jigs; Coleman’s/ Tom Mulhaire’s/ Apples in winter.
Reels; Lisdoonvarna/ Cooley’s/ All around the world.
Fast polkas; Pat Organ’s 1 and 2/ The 40 pound float.
Jigs; Blackthorn stick/ Rakes of KIldare/ Tenpenny bit.
Reels; Always welcome/ Bank of Ireland/ The reconciliation reel.
Jigs; The recruiting sergeant/ Mist covered mountain/ Shores of lough Gowna (Gowna first in Am then Bm for a nice change up).
Reels; Ashplant/ Sporting Paddy/ Coolies.
Hornpipe/reel; Cronin’s hornpipe/ The musical Priest/ Chief O’Niel’s favourite.
Whoops!! Better stop, I could go on all day at this rate!
Have fun learning.
Thanks Ceili Whistle Man! 
Thanks for the medley suggestions all.
Well it’s easy enough to discover what the most common tunes are for the worldwide session scene in general by going to thesession and seeing the list of tunes ranked in order of how many member’s tunebooks they are in.
Of the first 100 on the list, I knew all but two or three.
Of the first 200 I knew all but five or six.
But I can still sit at a session for long periods while people play tune after tune after tune I don’t know.
The repertoires of good session players are sometimes unimaginably vast- at one session a good fiddler played nothing but polkas in the key of D for nearly an hour, playing each tune only twice and never running out of tunes.
Well, here in central Iowa we usually get these in most sessions (though not always in this order . . . or any order for that matter) - off the top of my head they are:
Battering Ram
Swallowtail Jig
Banish Misfortune
The Butterfly
Fr. Kelly’s
Miss Monaghan
Off to California
Drowsy Maggie
The Red Haired Boy
Blarney Pilgrim
Merry Blacksmith
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Donnybrook Fair (aka, Joy of My Life)
Garrett Barry’s
Mason’s Apron
Jim Ward’s
Kesh
Morrison’s
My Darlin’ Asleep
Julia Delaney
Ships are Sailing
Glen Allen
Cup of Tea (my personal fav 
)
There are always a number of obscure old-time tunes that only a handful of people know - which makes it a ton of fun for those of us who don’t - it’s a great learning opportunity.
Great thread! Thanks for starting it.