I started working on Danny Boy tonight. This will actually be my first Irish song on tinwhistle, since Amazing Grace and Suo Gan aren’t exactly traditional irish.
One song at a time.
Patience, young one.
It is a nice song. Since I am still a n00b to the tinwhistle, my early plan is to try out the slow songs, first, until my fingers become more accustomed to the tinwhistle.
Danny boy is like Amazing Grace or Greensleeves - some players find them too much of a cliche.
Personally, I love them, especially the first two. As a beginner you can learn the simple tune very readily, but as you get more experience you find that their potential when it comes to emotion and ornamentation seems limitless, to me, anyway.
I totally agree. I sang Danny Boy as a solo when I was 16 for a contest, and the song is still close to me. I think that the key to Danny Boy is to truly find what the original musicians were trying to convey and how it touches people. As long as that is still around, the emotion will solidify the song’s place to people (even though once in a while you may have to take a break from it 
).
The other day I found & downloaded someone’s compilation of something like 100 different recordings. I like the tune, I figured. How bad could it be?
Bad. Very bad.
This isn’t four or five CDs, this is a profound endurance contest. Remember when Reagan extracted Manuel Noriega from the Vatican embassy by blasting it with 100+ decibels of Metalica 24/7? If they’d used Danny Boy, it would all have been over in minutes, not days.
Danielopedophobia. Simon, you’ve got it bad. 
Better that than a case of Derryhoea.
Well, Danny Boy is NEW to me, so I haven’t tired of it, yet. 
When I was growing up in the fifties, my dad was pretty music-averse. Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as saying:
“I only know two songs, one is Yankee Doodle, and the other one isn’t”.
Dad wasn’t quite that bad - he knew three songs:
Vaughan Monroe’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky”
Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite”
Danny Boy
I can’t even remember a time I didn’t know it - though to be honest, I am amused by the irony of it being sung by mostly male singers. Two marvelous exceptions to that are the versions by Kate Smith and Sinead O’Connor.
Actually, then, you’ve got a way to go before you do your first “Irish song”, since Danny Boy isn’t Irish.
… oh, OK, The Air From County Derry is … just not the words … whch is what “song” implies to me …
… ignore me … just being idly mischievous … 
Try playing all sorts of tunes that you already know. If you can sing the tune, it’ll translate to your fingers a lot more easily. TV theme songs, commercials, folk tunes, Christmas Carols etc are good examples.
I found the music for Gilligan’ Island.
Hush you! Naughty musician! No soup for you! 
These tunes have been overdone partly because they are beautiful.
Taken in themselves they are fine. Also playing them can
give people pleasure. I’ve played them in many places
to considerable approval. I guess cliches become cliches
for a reason. Just plain bad stuff is usually ignored
or forgotten.
Awww! Gimme soup! Wan’ soup NOW!!! 
Nope, I gave it to my wife. She has a cold.
As for the Air of County Derry, I did a little googling and read up on it. Interesting stuff. I feel as if my whole life has been a lie now! 
I play the Derry Air as a test when I am evaluating a new whistle because of the range. I use the same tune as a test so I am consistent in my evaluation. Besides it is a nice tune. Who cares if some don’t like it. 
Ron
Reminds me of the guitar store with the notice “No Stairway to Heaven” pinned to the wall.
There’s a surprising number of those, actually.
It is interesting stuff, isn’t it? Particularly since so much of it seems to be uncertain. I love trying to piece together little bits of the history around tunes/songs …
… shame about the soup though … hope your wife gets better … then I can have soup!!! 
