Hi all
I’ve been playing the whistle for a couple of months now and I’ve been wondering which tunes are considered “classics” (such as the Silver Spear or the Irish Washerwoman) and that are easily recognizable as Irish trad.
If you could give me suggestions of reels, jigs, hornpipes, even polkas that fall in this category, I really would appreciate !
Cheers
Philippe
If you mean, like, traditional tunes which people may recognize, there’s St. Patrick’s Day (Set Dance), Paddy Whack (Jig), and Jack’s the Lad (Hornpipe).
It really depends upon where you live. Go to your local Irish sessions and listen for tunes that are commonly played. Ask if they’ll let you tape the session with a small, inconspicuous recorder. Learn those tunes.
For old warhorse type tunes you can look into any of the many session tune books. You can also go back to the Bothy Band recordings and get into Ceili Band recordings. Just listen to as many recordings as you can, especially by older players, and you’ll pick up common tunes.
But I don’t think there’s any substitute for just being involved in the music and hearing tunes over and over until you figure out, oh, that’s a standard. What is considered to be a standard session tune changes all the time anyway. There’s no substitute for another five years of playing the music.
There aren’t really any shortcuts where you can learn these 50 tunes and be able to join in at any session in the world. Of course, learning any 50 tunes will get you a long way, though, so go for it.
Jerball is right. Don’t think you can just learn a couple of hundred tunes off of sheet music. The only way to “get it” is to immerse yourself as best you can. It’s easier to do that in some parts of the world than others, but you don’t have to a born irish person to do it well. You do need to listen to good recordings like Jerball mentioned above, and I would add that playing with rhythmically solid, experienced and knowledgeable trad musicians is important, too. STAY AWAY FROM DABBLERS if you’re serious, trust me, they’ll only waste your time and steal your music from you. Sometimes finding the right musical partners can be very frustrating.
Bucks of Oranmore and Lark in the Morning, Bonnie Kate. In my mind, anyway, those are hard core traditional tunes, standards that have been around for ages; just playing one automatically means you are trying to make a staement about your playing. It has been my general impression that experienced players think folks shouldn’t learn to play 'em until they can do them correctly.
I think you are digging a pit for yourself if you start mentioning individual tune names. Not only are tunes standard per individual session, but also the way these tunes are played is only as standard as the local session.
Walking into anyone else’s session requires the usual session etiquette of learning who’s is senior, etc. but also learning how the locals play their standards.
For instance, one fiddler I knew who was locally recognized as being the most accomplished IrTrad musician tried to start up a new session, and thought up a list of tunes that any IrTrad musician should know, like “Mason’s Apron”, etc. only to find that no-one present knew any of her standard tunes.
Listening to albums is okay for getting the gist of a tune, but participating in local sessions is probably a better way to learn what is locally acepted as Standard.
djm
I am personally sick of some of the “classics” of Irish traditional music, so overplayed in sessions they are, but… In my opinion, here’s some biggies:
-The Kesh Jig
-John Riley’s Polka
-Merry Blacksmith (reel)