Brian OLynn jig

Whistle
1

If you play this jig regularly, I am curious at how you treat the first three notes, the CnatBCnat. It seems obvious, MAYBE, to tongue that first C nat to get the tune going but I wonder, because I have experimented with tonguing the first, or second, or third note of the figure (also, I tried tonguing the second and third notes, but not the first). And the figure repeats, not long after, once again posing the challenge. Tonguing any one of the three give different results. I really like the tune but have often felt that getting it going is the hardest part.

What’s yer solution?

2

Hi there,

I start the tune with a pickup on A, and I don’t tongue any of the C naturals. If I were starting on the C, though, I would tongue the first C. I don’t play CBC, either, I play AB/CAD’/CAG/E roll/GAB…

(Is it the same tune?)

Justine

3

cAd is the start of Brian O lynn, unless you follow the PLanxty version, which in turn follows Bobby Casey and starts cAA cAA

4

naw, Patrick street version that I got from Norbecks.| cBc A2g|Ecb cde|dcA A2g| Adefed and so forth. Hazard of getting tunes from dots.

That’s why I asked. But I will try other ways. That would be one way out of the beginning dilemma!

5

The Julia Clifford one. I never call that Brian O Lynn to avoid confusion. I can’t actually remember wha tI called it as I had forgotten about the tune. Julia Clifford called it John Mahony’s (no2).

There’s a whole family of tunes all using more or less the same turn but all with different first parts: Rooms of Dooagh, The Maiden that jigged in style, Brian O Lynn, another one I have no name for that i learned fro mTommy Keane in 1983 and this one (probablty a few more thatdon’t come to me now)

On the pipes I’d cut the C but that not of much use here is it? On the whistle I’d give it something stopping short maybe of actually tongueing it,

6

Yikes! Struck again by cognomens! As I have suggested in the past, I should have remembered it as 'That jig in A minor that goes like this…"

7

I picked this tune up from Patrick Street’s recording as well - the real bear for me is The Woods of Old Limerick that they follow it up with. Tricky for me to keep it clean. Lot’s of jumps and such. Both great tunes. Who was the piper with them when they did that recording?

8

I’m pretty sure the piper was Declan Masterson.

9

Why not cut the C on the whistle too? Perhaps it depends on the whistle you’re playing but on my Burke narrow brass I can get a very effective C cut by going from

oxx xxx

to

oxx xox

.. in other words, cutting the “c” with a “d”. Pretty much as you would do it on the pipes, but without the added complication of the back thumb.

As I say, might not work on every whistle and probably depends which “c” fingering you need to use to be best in tune, but worth a try. Sounds good in either version of Brian O’Lynn…

Sam

10

Just to follow up on this, I just came across the tune in Ceol Rinnce na hEireann vol 5, giving us a ‘proper’ name for it. here’s the comment in Paul de Grae’s translation:

  1. Na Lachain sa Choirce: The Ducks in the Oats. Denis Murphy played this for Breathnach: see the note on number 35 above. The musician had a verse with it, beginning:

The ducks in the oats and no-one to turn them,

Ó, muise, Dia linn, what will we do with 'em…

This jig is called John Mahinney’s no. 2 by John and Julia Clifford on their cassette The hHumours of Lisheen (track 3a, side 2: Ossian Publications OSS-14). We are told in Alan Ward’s notes that John Mahinney Barnard, of Gneeveguilla, used to play this: he was a friend of Bill (‘the Weaver’), the father of Julia Clifford and Denis Murphy. It is interesting that the following jig on the cassette is called The Ducks and the Oats. [See also CRÉ III 22, John-Joe’s Jig or John Mahinney’s No. 1. The present tune is related to Brian O’Lynn (DMI 221), and a setting was recorded under that title by the group Patrick Street on their album Irish Times (Green Linnet/Special Delivery SPCD 1033).