I wanted to learn a jig so I picked out one that I liked. After finding the sheet music, and the tabs, I practiced hard to get it right, but had a lot of problems with the rhythm.
I tried to watch some youtube videos to learn the correct tempo, but then I noticed a lot of them are playing different versions of the jig.
Can anyone tell me what he changed on that last verse? It sounds different than the sheet music. In fact if anyone could post some sheet music or tabs that show exactly what he changed it would be great. I like his version better than the original.
I’ve gotten to the point where I have the whole piece memorized in my head, I just can’t seem to execute it properly. It is hard to tell with all these ornamentation what exactly they are playing.
I’m still a relative beginner to the tin whistle. Still have under a year of overall playing experience.
It depends on what you mean by “the original”.
Folk tunes tend to have so many versions, it’s
hard to say what’s “the original”. Eskin’s version
sounds to me like what’s posted on thesession.org:
On the “C” part (the third line), he does tend to
break up the dotted quarter notes variously. One
time he uses a long roll, one time he turns it into
two eighth notes with a breath in between, etc.
Sounds pretty standard to me. What is your sheetmusic?
PS: just seeing the sheet music above:
Michael plays in part C in the last bar | Bde g2e dBA|
instead of | B2d g2e dBA|
so he added an extra note to make a run.
(i am using abc notation here)
Thanks! I was refering to the sheet music posted by the session.com. I’m just not that familiar with the variations and ornamentations when I hear to to tell the difference between that and the sheet version. So trying to learn the tempo from someone playing a variation is very difficult for me.
In ABC notation, the lower case is the 2nd octave right? what does the 2 signify?
Yes, an upwards scale: C,D,E,F,G,A,B,CDEFGABcdefgabc’d’e’f’g’a’b’c’’
B2 means a B with double the length of a standard note (an eigth usually), so it is a quarter.
B/2 would be half a standard note, which can also be written as B/
Basically note length comes after the note value in abc.
Ahhh thanks! I always marvel at people who can just read right off the sheet music and figure out the tempo. Even counting to myself using the tricks, I still have problems figuring out a piece of music unless I listen to it first. With Jigs like this it is hard to pick up all the nuances.
Geeze, that’d be the first clue to stop using the sheetmusic at all! Learn by ear, especially if you’re already finding that you can’t get all the information you need from the sheetmusic!
By the way, finding a teacher would help save you time. If you’d have had a teacher, you wouldn’t have wasted time trying to match sheetmusic to questionable youtube videos.
And again, it’s a slip jig, not just a jig. When musicians say jig they mean regular double jigs (ie in 6/8).
But this is often the case with tunes on thesession.org.
Part of the problem is that once someone published a tune there, it cannot be edited easily. Especially if the score image is already generated, any subsequent editing of the abc does not show in the image. Also others may play different versions, but they can only add them as abcs in the comment section of the tune. There is no system to correct things efficiently, like it is possible on a wiki.
I agree with both.
But at the beginning dotmusic can be complementary helpful.
The problem as I see it is that thesession.org is more and more quoted as source of tunes, as a tune “library”. But reputable tune books are more reliable if one needs scores IMO.
If you have made a habit of learning tunes by ear, and you then refer occasionally to tune-books to clear something or other up, I think that’s fine. But you can’t learn Irish music mostly from tune books. I do possess a number of tune-books, and what they all have in common, for the tunes in them that I happen to know, is that they are incompatible for the most part with the versions we play. TheSession tune archive is even worse. Worse still are the chords that some tune-books provide.
That’s just practice. If you learn, and play, enough jigs, hornpipes and reels, you’ll acquire the rhythmic ‘template’, and be able to apply it to any tune with the same metre.
Going to a ceili and dancing a few sets, even badly, will help you to understand that this IS dance music, and that the main rhythm is in the dancers’ feet, with the tunes and the instruments playing off that beat. As others have said, learning by ear, or learning to learn by ear is the most important part. If need be, choose dead simple tunes and learn those by ear. There are reels with a four bar A and a 4 bar B part, although the name of any escapes me at the moment. Learning one or two of these the hard way* by ear is a really good idea. If you never acquire this skill, you’ll never be able to call yourself a trad musician.
Well thats the reason why I was wondering about it. I can pick up the difference in the notes and I noticed those C naturals thats why I was asking some of these questions. The problem really is some of these great whistle players are so good with the ornamentation that I have a tough time figuring out exactly what they did, its not so much as the right notes but figuring out the rhythm without those ornamentations.
I decided to try a different jig since that one is still giving me problems. I started learning the Monaghan jig and this one is much easier. I’m playing it slower than some of the youtube videos but at least I got the rhythm right this time.
As for a teacher, I wish I could find one. Given my work schedule Its hard to find someone available on just the weekends to teach me, I’ve mostly had to figure out most of this out on my own.
I think I’ll stick to religion.
