Jigs are hard. And the longer I play the harder they seem to become. So I am working on them these days and I noticed that the simpler the tune is the harder it is to play.
I’ve learned the Sixpenny Money/When the Cock Crows it is Day set of Seamus Ennis’ Forty Years of Pipering CD (“Here are two dubble-jigs me fath’r playyyed…”).
When the Cock Crows is very sparse, just D | GAB BAG | d3 d2D | GAB BAG | A3 A2… and so forth. (Killer c-nat in the second part). I am trying to get the lilt and pulse at least a little like Ennis has them, but it is proving to be very hard. Harder, it seems, than on jigs in which there is a lot happening (like the Sixpenny Money).
Speaking of Sixpenny Money: Ennis seems to have a the last phrase of the tune and the turn in a way I’ve heard no one else play it: D AFA | dgf e2d which seems to wrap up the tune melodically much more than the usual D AFA | dfd e2d (as in the middle of the A part).
Here is When the Cock Crows It is Day:
X:1
T:When the Cock Crows it is Day
S:Seamus Ennis
R:jig
M:6/8
K:G
D|{A}GAB {c}BAG|d3 {d}d2D|{A}GAB {c}BAG|{c}A3 {B}A2D|
{A}GAB {c}BAG|{c}Bcd (4ef.ge|dBG {c}AFD|{A}G3 {c}G2:|
d|g.dd g.dd |{B}c3 {d}c2d|g.dd gdB|{c}A3{B}A2d|
g.dd g.dd |Bcd (4ef.ge|dBG {c}AFD| {A}G3 {c}G2:|
That’s one that looks simple on paper but is a bugger to play nicely. I’m playing fiddle, maybe that makes a huge difference. We play it as a (Lucy Farr) set after Music on the Wind, which looks much harder but gives me far less trouble.
Okay, since you’ve got the record, try playing it the way Ennis sings the tune first. Everything else is vamping around that.
Of course, if you play it on pipes the way Ennis sings it, you’ll probably get a better feel for the rest of it but, no … no, we wouldn’t want to influence you … no, we certainly don’t want to set your first step down the path to … the Dark Side. (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
This is NOT Ennis’s version BTW (charming stories, brain farts, crans, staccato passages, regulator vamps, bellows noises, etc., deleted) but it’s close enough to get someone started, the basic shape is there you can get the rest if you listen to Seamus play it several hundred times.
Warning to anyone trying to copy/paste this into Tune-o-Tron or another ABC player: add K: D in the header. They can go a bit snakey without the Key being specified. If your software supports drones, add D,D, to get a better effect (i.e. the way Irish music is supposed to sound ).
Bloomie, here’s another version of When the Cock Crows it is Day, as I got it from the playing of Tommy Keane. I’m not as versed in ABC, so I’m leaving out graces and triplets. They should be your own, anyway.
D l GAB AGE l c2E c2D l GAB AGE l A2D A2D l
l GAB AGE l c2d ege l dBG AGE l G3 G3 l (x2)
d l g2e dBG l c3 c2d l ege dBG l A3 ABd l
l g2e dBG l c2d ege l dBG AGE l G3 G3 l (x2)
That’s the one Tommy Keane plays after Banish Misfortune, right? (It really is embarrassing how much I am listening to the bloody pipes these days.) Nice one. Peter L mentioned to me that Willie Clancy had a version of When the Cock Crows it is Day that had lots of c-nats in it, so now I am wondering if that isn’t where Keane got his version.
Meantime I’ve got to get Ennis’ version down, good and steady. What an amazing tune.
No need to be embarrassed about listening to the pipes…in fact, listen more, and more and more…and before you know it, WHAMO, you’re one of us.
I am sure you already know this, but the slower you play/learn jigs (or any tune for that matter), the deeper you can get into the ‘feel’ of the tune as well as cleaning up the embellisments. One of the hardest things to do is to take your time and play slowly…but it is important because each note has to have its own distinct value, regardless of the tempo with which one plays. I realize that I am probably preaching to the choir, but it is important to play slowly.
Yeah, it’s very tempting to say jigs are easier than reels. It depends what you mean by “hard” and what you want to produce musically I guess. If you’re into playing jigs with only the basic swing and notes, then I guess they’re easy. The fact that jigs allow loads of expression in them makes them somewhat harder, they’re usually played slower, which means your playing will be even more apparent and in the open. I would say that playing a jig “well” by many standars is as hard, if not harder than playing reels.
I’m a lot more into reels these days, but I’m sure one day I’ll come back to jigs and try to play them properly. It’s just that in sessions, when you’re not the best players and you want some great energy going, reels are the easier road.
Hey Az, I just started learning my first reels - The Christmas Eve/Fermoy Lasses/Craig’s Pipes. Well, actually I haven’t really got the first one down right yet, but that’ll be the set
).
