I love playing The Beare Island Reel except for one thing: I can’t find a good way to get around the G#s in that tune. I can fake it in some Amaj tunes, but the first part that’s in Emajorish is a bit tougher. It’s a shame because the second part is almost tailor-made for the flute. Anyone have any tricks? I’ve tried all sorts of things. It’s not too bad when playing with others since you can hide out a bit in those parts, but solo or in a duet that doesn’t work so well. I was having great fun, except for the G#s, playing it yesterday with a fiddler and good accompanist. I can’t wait for my 6 key!
I’m just learning this tune, but when I play it on my keyless I use the fingering xx0 xxx for the G#. It’s a little bit wonky in its tuning, but adds character. It IS a fun tune!
Cathy, you play this tune–what do you do?
Jeanie
You can definitely cross finger the G#. Personally, I use xxo xxo. It actually makes the first phrase of Beare Island pretty easy and manageable. Just play with it for a while and adjust your embouchure until you get it into tune.
B
Cross-fingering G# may depend on your particular flute. I had no trouble with it on my Tipple. In fact Tipples are so easy to cross finger and half hole that they almost make keys unnecessary. On my rosewood Sweet, the G# was very problematic no matter how I fingered it. It’s one of the reasons I went to keys. So hang in there and keep experimenting till your keyed flute arrives!
I find playing that lick with a G# key to be trickier than using the cross-fingering. You have to lift up on the touch of the key (using the tip of your left-hand little finger, no less) and simultaneously put two fingers down for the E. It takes a fair bit of practice to make the maneuver without an odd little blip of a note escaping between the G# and the E. The Boehm flute was invented for reasons like this.
Half-holing the G# takes some practice but it does work
sooner or later. Scales in A, up and down. It’s worth mastering.
I agree that the G# key on a simple system flute
isn’t exactly the berries.
I’ve always half-holed it, or used my keyed flute when I’m playing it in a gig and feeling insecure. But now that I see all these great suggestions for cross-fingerings … 
Thanks, guys!!! 
It is a brilliant one. I tried some workarounds (caveat: I’m not super- creative in that department, though), but I found the G#s essential to the tune and didn’t think anything I came up with served as well. Sorta like those F naturals in the Commodore or some of the Fahy’s stuff … they’re a big part of what make those tunes so wonderful – and worth the extra effort for me, at least.
You could cheat and leave out the G#. You could play EB-3 AGE-2. You can also work out something in the 4th. bar of the second part if you’ve no Eb key.
The tunes aren’t set in stone. The flute has limitations that the fiddle doesn’t have - and vice versa. The trick is to work around the limitations and make the tune sound good.
Is there a way to find this tune online?
I’ve searched, no luck. Where do you get it?
It’s at www.thesession.org under “Beare Island.” Several versions are at JC’s Tune finder also.
Jeanie
I made a stab at it a while ago on a flute tune site I have:
http://irishflute.podbean.com/2007/04/06/the-beare-island-reel/
It probably sounds a bit rough. It was too long ago for me to remember. It’ll at least be a source of the tune until people can locate one played by someone with all their fingers.
Nicely played Michael. Even without the Eb in the second part.
I don’t like the version on thesession.com.
Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh has a lovely version of the tune on his CD, The Nervous Man. He calls it The Béara Reel. He has both the G# and the Eb.
I agree. That whole album is just fantastic. To me, the Eb is what makes the B part different from a lot of other Eminor tunes. It’s not too hard to half hole on a keyless.
B
!
Ooh, I hope that was a joke.
I’m not all that familiar with the way these things work but If the hoped for joke was my comment then I can confirm that it was at least a turn of phrase. I’m not really alluding to an absence of any digit(s), but just an inability to control them correctly when i brting them into contact with a flute. Thiss typinng is a bit of a triyal too.
Wish I could play that “rough” Michael! Nice stuff, and nice tune too.
By the way, do you remember what flute you played it on? The tone is lovely! (good job too-you’re making it sound like that!)
PS I didn’t care for the tune that much when I heard it on the fiddle, but you sure got my attention with your playing on the flute!
Yes, thanks for the tune!
Yeah, excellent playing Michael! Wow… Your Bucks of Oranmore is really impressive too! I bookmarked your site.
The site is a little hard to scroll through though. And where’s the biography of the player?
Thanks for the comments. I’m not sure what flute I played the tune on before but I’ve just re-recorded it after hearing the state of it previously (I hope not too many people heard it (‘:-?’)
).
I’ve just played it on a Sam Murray flute. The flute hadn’t been working (entirely due to my mistreatment of it) until he fixed it up a few weeks ago.
Also - sorry about no E flat in the ‘B’ part. Beare Island is a long way south of here and the E flat mustn’t have lasted the journey. I just learned it from someone I sat next to at a session.
I’ll try and put some sort of list / index on the site too. I only started it as an experiment with 1 tune on it and it sort of grew.
I must also see if I can come up with a no-keyed version of the tune, seeing as that is the topic of this thread.
Thanks again,
Michael.