Having gotten The Irish Washerwoman (sorry, couldn’t resist) down well enough that it’s memorized, and mostly smooth, I thought I’d learn the Humours of Ballyconnell next. This would be my fifth song, my first non-cliche Irish tune, and my first reel.
The only recording of it I have is Mary Bergin’s. I’ve listened to the midi file on TheSession, and some versions on Youtube, but they don’t seem to sound the same to me. In particular, there’s some slurring that Mary does (one of the parts I really like) that don’t seem to show up elsewhere. The sheet music I’m using is from TheSession.
Am I building in trouble trying to learn the song from Mary’s recording and sheet music from TheSession? Is it likely that she’s added a ton of embellishments that will have me scratching my head? Is there a better, perhaps simpler, recording available at low cost somewhere?
Some comments: First, they aren’t songs. You sing songs. You play tunes. Second, never listen to or try to learn from midi files. They are worse than sheet music, in my opinion, because you train your ear to hear something with no rhythm, phrasing, lift, ornaments, or really anything that makes it music. At least with sheet music, if you’ve listened enough, you can hear how it’s supposed to sound in your head. But that brings me to third, and an answer to a question of yours, which is: ditch the sheet music.
In order, answers to your questions:
Yes.
Yes.
No. Simpler, maybe, but better? Doubtful. Mary Bergin is one of the best, after all.
Do not expect to get all of it now. You simply don’t have enough skill or practice built up yet, after only 4 tunes, to get everything she has. But if you try, you’ll learn a ton more than you will listening to worse or simpler versions, and infinitely more than you’ll learn trying to use sheet music.
So try, listen to her playing, repeat small sections as often as you need to get what she’s doing. But just listen to her and see how you come out of it.
Agreed with MT, and I meant to add it too. It’s not the simplest, and you may be setting yourself up for failure.
On the other hand, someone quite dear to me learned Christmas Eve as her first reel on the fiddle (one of the first tunes her teacher taught her at all, in fact).
But at any rate, seeing as it’s a hornpipe, not a reel, you may decide you want to pick a different tune altogether. However, all of my comments apply for the hornpipe too!
I did determine that it must be a different tune, as the tune on Mary’s album is THoB/Father Dollard’s (that’s as far as I can see on my iPhone), where what I’d found on Youtube and TheSession was THoB/Drunken Landlady.
TheSession lists Mary Bergin’s Feadoga Stain 2 as a recording for THob, the reel, and also for Father Dollard’s listed separately, but listening to the midi (agreed, it’s lifeless), TheSession’s THoB is clearly a different tune. Father Dollard’s seems to match up pretty well, for the first half I think.
On the subject of tune names and identifying tunes, it seems that most tunes have either a main_name (parenthetical name), or main_name/alternate_name/yet_another_name kind of arrangement. Am I trying to match all of them, any of them, hit or miss? Is there some structure here or is just that folks list songs by all the names they know them as?
It’s a bit frustrating because iTunes shows only so much of a name no matter what context I’m in - on many I can’t see more than half or a third.
I know that many think learning by ear is the better way to go, but it just doesn’t work well for me - I’m much happier and more productive getting the notes in my head via sheet music, and using recordings to get the rhythm & intangible bits. Took me many frustrating years on guitar to figure that out
You have to understand how thesession works … The recordings linked to a tune page are based on matching tune names, nothing more. So if different tunes of different types share a name (as often happens), all recordings of any tune with that name get linked, whether they’re the same tune or not. Conversely, if a particular tune has multiple names - because people have added a bunch of “Also known as” entries, not always accurate - all those names get linked. The only way to sort it all out is to check the individual recordings in your collection, one by one.
If a particular tune you’re looking for is on Alan Ng’s Irishtune.info, that’s a better first stop. Fewer tunes listed, but the tune-recording match-ups are all manually done and accurate, with different tunes of the same name clearly distinguished.
Just to be clear, not all recordings of the Humours of Ballydesmond will be followed by the Drunken Landlady. I just wanted to be sure that you’re clear that your iTunes is listing the first tune and then the second tune is after the / or - or whatever it is, and then more if there are more. But yes, iTunes limits the number of characters irritatingly. It’s one of many reasons I don’t ever use iTunes myself! At any rate, regarding the multiple names at thesession, MTGuru covers it well.
Everybody is different, and I learned similarly when I first started. However, two points:
As Michael Gill often points out at thesession, the “notes” that the sheet music shows are the easiest bit to get by ear, so if you have trouble with that, how can you be sure you’re really getting the more difficult things at all?
Of all the tunes I “learned” when I first started, the ones that stuck with me and that I play the best and that I can do the most with are the ones I learned by ear and from my teacher.
It took a long time before I was able to learn on my own purely by ear, but it’s very very worth it. In the mean time, perhaps you should find a local teacher to help you get over the sheet music.
Some tunes ( ) have names that are pretty universal (but, BTW, “Gan Ainm” isn’t one of them: it only means “without a name”, IOW, “untitled”, IOW someone either doesn’t have a name for the tune, or forgot it. A search for “Gan Ainm” will get you everywhere and nowhere all at once). “Irish Washerwoman” would probably be one of the fairly univeral names, for example.
Lately the march/polka The Croppy Boy is popular hereabouts. A couple of weeks ago we had a young lady from Ireland borrow a fiddle and sit in, and to our delight she launched into the very tune when we asked her to play some of her own sets. I couldn’t remember the name of it and asked, and she said that in her locale it’s known as Freedom For Ireland. I knew that wasn’t the name I’d learned, but it served, and now that I’ve remembered the Croppy name I have 2 names for it, plus the (sparsely) educated guess that “Freedom For Ireland” might possibly be the older one. Also, apparently in her locale they don’t have names for those polkas I know as the Ballydesmonds 1, 2, and 3.
Mary Bergin did a “masterclass” here in Scotland a few years back. One of the tunes she taught us was the reel “The Humours of Ballyconnell”, which she played in a slightly slower, more “bouncy” rhythm. I have a recording of it which I could post to you as an MP3, if you send me an email address by PM.
) have names that are pretty universal (but, BTW, “Gan Ainm” isn’t one of them: it only means “without a name”, IOW, “untitled”, IOW someone either doesn’t have a name for the tune, or forgot it. A search for “Gan Ainm” will get you everywhere and nowhere all at once). “Irish Washerwoman” would probably be one of the fairly univeral names, for example.