Cran, if you’re having trouble “losing” notes when you try acquiring new tunes by ear, try this…learn to sing or lilt the tune first (even if you have to make up words or syllables). Sometimes that helps.
I know every word to every song, or at least every syllable in the Irish language ones…learning the words and the melody to sing comes very easily. Actually translating that into whistle is what’s hard. It just doesn’t come to me as easily as it does to some people. I’m perfecty ok with learning by sheet music, though. At least for now.
Its the same basic tune, but the styling and presentation are VERY different. The Lothlorien cut is very slow and vocally intricate - the Clancy version is fast, rowdy and what you’d expect to hear in a pub.
Weila Weila Waile, could be another name for the “Water is Wide” I know it is sometimes called Waile Waile (spelling?)
Redwolf
I learned the Mortin Ban from Will Millar. It is very haunting and he uses it a lot in concerts when doing poetry. It was the first song I ever accompanied him on the piano for. I never did get the spelling of it from him, I just wrote it down the way it sounded so your research Mo Mhuirnin Ban is probably the right one! I think I may change the spelling on the C.D. now, thanks!
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s one of the first Irish tunes I learned on the whistle (may actually BE the first one…I can’t remember if it was that or “King of the Fairies” (also learned from an Irish Rovers album, as was “Rakes of Mallow”)). Before that, I’d only tried camp songs and hymns.
Funny how I found it in “Traditional Slow Airs” too…I just happened to be playing through the book the day I bought it, without looking too closely at titles, because I was mainly looking for new stuff I’d enjoy learning. I started to play it and said “Hey! That’s…”!
I sure miss those old Irish Rovers albums…they’ve all been loved pretty much to death (and my turntable’s long since died anyway). I’ve got some of the new ones, as well as one of Will’s instrumentals (lovely! If I can ever play one tenth as well, I’ll call myself a whistler!), but I keep hoping someone will put some of the older albums on CD someday.
Weila Weila Waile, could be another name for the “Water is Wide” I know it is sometimes called Waile Waile (spelling?)
Ok, don’t kill me because I listen to Lilith Fair, but I’ve only heard Water is Wide as done by the Indigo Girls and Sarah Mc__ and Jewel, et. al, and it’s clearly a different song from the Dubliners’ Welia Welia Waile.
Water is wide starts out ‘The water is wide, can’t cross o’re’
and
Weila Weila Waile starts out ‘There was an old woman who lived in the wood’.
Oooo…Cranberry, I know the one you mean! I don’t know it off the top of my head, but I think I may have it in a tune book somewhere (or actually, an old songbook…I ran across it while looking for something for our class to sing). I’ll see if I can find it, OK?
Oooo…Cranberry, I know the one you mean! I don’t know it off the top of my head, but I think I may have it in a tune book somewhere (or actually, an old songbook…I ran across it while looking for something for our class to sing). I’ll see if I can find it, OK?
Here you go! I don’t know if this is the right tune, but it’s definitely the right lyrics:
In 4/4
aaffffaaafff
dfaaba
aaeeeeaaeee
aabafed
“There was an old woman and she lived in the woods,
Weile, weile, waile
There was an old woman and she lived in the woods,
Down by the river Saile.”
The alternative name given for this is “Down by the River Saile,” so if you want to find the actual notation, you might try searching under that title.
That sounds like it to me, too. I’d been wanting to ask about those songs, er tunes, forever. I just wish I’d done it sooner with all the help I’ve gotten. Thanks so much!
No prob. I wish I knew the other ones (and it’s just barely possible that I do, but don’t know their names…I have an awful hard time keeping track of the names of tunes).
Is this the song you know? I see there’s been plenty of gumshoe work going on since I last checked the thread, I feel like a complete amateur!
Banks of the Moorlough Shore
You hills and dales and flowery vales
That lie near the Moorlough Shore
You winds that blow through Burden’s Row (??)
Shall I ever see you more
Where the primrose grows and the violet blows
Where the trout and salmon play
With my line and hook, delight I took
To spend all my youthful days
As I roved out to meet my love
For to hear what she would say
And to see if she would pity me
Before I must go away
She said “I love an Irish lad
And he is my pride and joy
And ever since I saw his face
I have loved my sailor boy”
“Perhaps your sailor boy was lost
While crossing the raging main
Or perhaps he is gone with some other one
You might ne’er see him again”
“Well if my Irish boy is lost
He’s the one I do adore
And for seven long years I will wait for him
On the banks of the Moorlough Shore.”
Farewell to St. Claire’s castles grand
Farewell to Holly Hill (??)
Where the linen wefts(??) like bleaching silk
And the purling streams run still
It was there I spent my youthful days
But alas, they are all o’er
And cruelty has banished me
Far away from the Moorlough Shore
Air is almost identical to “The Foggy Dew” (Irish rebel version).
Recorded by Sarah and Keane - aunts of Dolores Keane,
whom many DT users may know.
