Hey all,
A new tune came to me yesterday as I was practicing in the park. Wrote it out, then recorded it today. Let me know what you think.
mp3: https://app.box.com/s/v6vuic6hmnpss1d3zaf7
dots: https://app.box.com/s/m4y3etltg0lsl7whkdn5
Cheers.
Nice tune, beautiful playing.
Nice playing, but the A part of that jig is being played in sessions for years, a very old jig.
great tune and playing !
Nice playing and a good tune Jacob
What jig is it? Just the information I’m looking for. Did an ABC search on thesession.org and found nothing. Let me know.
Tune is ok but there are so many jigs that sound almost the same… Very nice playing 
Slightly similar, but I don’t think it’s the same tune. To be honest, I don’t think it’s even close.
I do think my tune is derivative, but most trad tunes end up being variations on a theme, echoing patterns from other tunes–similar in my mind to how Mozart sounds like Mozart.
I dig this conversation. It’s interesting to look at the nuts and bolts of tunes and discuss them from an analytic perspective.
Fair enough. I haven’t learned many E minor tunes because to me they seem very similar.
Most of the time when I hear someone’s self-composed tunes, they end up self-consciously putting so much “originality” into them that they end up with something far out of character with Irish music. IMO if you accidentally write a jig reminiscent of an old tune then you’re probably on the right track.
I’ll rephrase that. By playing a self-composed tune you reveal a lot about your understanding of Irish music. I’d much rather hear one that sounds like a genuine Irish tune than one that sounds like Iron Maiden.
It’s not the greatest transcription, that one on the session.org, and the first part of your tune does sound very similar to how the first part of The Boys of the Town sounds as it’s commonly played.
It’s not in e minor, btw, although obviously the second part of your tune is. The second part of your tune also has elements of the second part of The Boys of the Town.
For me, the whole tune is too close to the Boys of the Town to count as “new”. I presume that is the tune that Shaskeen was thinking of.
OK, I can see that. For the record, I never said my tune was in E minor. It’s definitely G in the A part and A dorian most of the B part.
OK. Sorry. I obviously misinterpreted one of your previous comments.
And I just can’t see why you’d want to write tunes that sound like a thousand others, which is probably the main reason why I write so few. So IMHO if you ‘accidentally write a jig reminiscent of an old tune’ then you’ve probably unknowingly dredged up/rehashed something you’d heard and forgotten or possibly even been unlucky enough to spontaneously recreate something you’ve never heard. Whereas the best trad composers still tend to have an uncanny knack of sounding like themselves. It’s possible to sound both distinctive and within your tradition… just not at all easy! And even the best may end up with a mixed bag of successes, overstepped boundaries and also-rans (the latter just as likely from being too conventional as too radical).
That isn’t what I said, now, is it? If you can write a tune that sounds like it could be a trad Irish tune, that means you’ve got an ear for what a trad Irish tune sounds like.
… all had to start somewhere.
I came up with this tune spontaneously and liked it. It’s really that simple. It fit how I wanted to play and seemed complete and fun. It is an expression of joy which I think much of Irish music is. I have no intention of being the next Vincent Broderick or Ed Reavy. The tune reminds me of some tunes I’ve learned and have heard from Michael McGoldrick, i.e. his spin on Irish themes (that’s why I named it “McGoldie’s”). I’ll keep playing it (or not) because I like it and it’s fun, a tune that for me is better than Boys of the Town.
that’s fighting talk alright
Great stuff, Jason