Love this tune, but whistle (& flute) just don’t seem to be coming together very well. 
Is it the tune, or am I a spazz?
suggestions, advise…?
It is the tune. I suspect that it may sit easier with a fiddle than with a six-hole wind jobbie.
Just make sure you’re playing it in the key that best fits on the whistle/flute.
As far as I recall that still leaves you with a few sequences of notes that don’t quite fit into the patterns that your fingers may have got used to if you play ITM. But stick with it, it is indeed a lovely tune.
I suspect that it may sit easier with a fiddle than with a six-hole wind jobbie.
It may sit easier on an eight hole wind jobbie (GHB/SSP/Border Pipes) as it is a GHB tune.
David
It was one of the harder tunes I’ve learned.
I guess it depends on where you cut. From my view, Gold Ring is harder.
Yea - I’ve given up on Gold Ring about 4 times!
If I get ‘slurs’ maybe I’ll revisit it.
I absolutely despise this tune - don’t like it in any way, shape or form. I don’t care what instrument it’s on, it sounds like you’re torturing a cat to me… 
Eric
Just looked at the tune here:
http://www.dickalba.demon.co.uk/songs/music/jigslurs.html
(alas, no whistle at hand at the moment) and can’t see why it’s called Jig Of Slurs. None are written, which I expected, but I can’t even see where they might be appropriate. I’ll try it tonight when I get home.
A “slur” is a GHB term for some ornament or other.
What is hard about the tune? Is it the Bdd Add Bdd Add figure? Or is it the bit that goes GBB Bdd dee e etc.?
The technique that’s needed to execute these passages is pretty basic, really. Crack these bits and lots of other jigs will become easier.
When I was learning it, the A part drove me to greater frustration than similar style tunes did at the time. Naturally now, years later, I don’t find it that difficult. I just recall finding it difficult to learn when I was newer at the whistle. I don’t remember what specifically tripped me up, just that I would tend to get fumble-fingered on the tune.
i find it somewhat difficult. it is a good challenge never the less.
Not sure what everyone finds challenging about this tune. What I like best about it is the number of parts and the key change in the middle of it. It’s actually easier to play it on whistle than on flute (which is what I usually use because it has a stronger sound for this particular tune). On whistle, you can tongue some of the passages that don’t sound as well tongued on flute. It’s a bit different from most jigs, but IMO is far less challenging than many.
I play this tune a lot on GHB… if you can get hold of a copy of the music for this instrument it would reveal a lot of the ornamentation you can play. The repeated notes all have taps between them, (on GHB they are called ‘slurs’ when they go down to a low note rather than just the note below).
Good luck with it, it’s not an easy tune, but by no means a finger-breaker 
I’d say, if you try to play this tune in the Irish way, it won’t work - you have to lean more into the beat, and really play the dots: DA-dit dit DA-dit dit, in the Scottish way. And don’t take it too fast either. I like it as a relaxed jig, slow enough to really dance to - not like the breakneck pace that some younger Irish session players take it at.
Two: if you have a D+ you could play it - as the GHB players do - as a three-finger tune (that is, in G on a D whistle). I’ll try this on my Silkstone D+ when I get home this evening.
It’s fabulous tune for me, but for 30-odd years, I’ve been consistently forgetting the 3rd part. No idea why.
Dick Gaughan gives the notes on his site, at http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/songs/staves/stave-jigslurs.html
The composer - whose name I’ve just forgotten (blast!) - wrote some cracking good tunes. I think he also wrote Mrs McPherson of Inveran, which is another good challenge for a whistler.
b
Maybe I should explain:
I tend to try my darndest to NOT tounge repeats (doesn’t always work ).
If I just went tu-tu-tu, I agree, the tune WOULD be easy.
I guess my challenge is to come up with viable non-tounged ornaments.
Crans work in spots, but not everywhere. Rolls here and there, but again, not the all that.
I’d be interested in hearing the tune on pipes, any suggestions?
Oh, and back in the 70s or early 80s, Andy Hunter wrote and recorded a lovely set of words to the third an fourth parts of Jig of Slurs - a grand wee song about the joys of hillwalking and fishing.
(I have it on cassette, somewhere…)
And I found the words - and the composer’s name (Pipe Major G. S. MacLennan) at http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/higgins.htm
2-11 Up and Awa wi the Laverock (Roud 5133)
Recorded by Peter Hall at the Aberdeen Folk Festival, 1973
Up and awa and awa wi the laverock,1
Up and awa and awa in the morning,
Up and awa and awa wi the laverock,
Up and awa tae the hills for me.
Wi your cast and your gut and a wee puckle2 luck,
Wi your cast and your gut and your rod and your reel,
Wi your cast and your gut and a wee pickle luck,
Ye’ll hae plenty o fish for tae fill up your creel.
Up and awa…..
Wi your troot in the Jaw3 and there’s troot in Loch Awe,
There’s troot in the Leven, the Tummel, the Spey.
Loch Keterin’s watter is guid for a batter;4
The mair5 ye can slaughter, the mair ye can fry.
Up and awa….
Wi your drum6 on the fire ye’re laird o the Shire,
Wi your drum on the fire, ye’re makkin your tea,
Wi your drum on the fire, ye’re laird o the Shire;
Oh, the wheeplin curlews are coorlin free
[crying: calling]
Up and awa…
1 away with the lark; 2 small amount of; 3 trout in Jaw Loch; 4 Loch Katrine’s water is good to thrash; 5 more; 6 billy can.
Lizzie’s recording is the only entry for this song in Roud’s Index.
Andy Hunter, who was taken into Jeannie Robertson’s family when a student in Aberdeen, composed this song, the tune having been taken from the third and fourth parts of Pipe Major G S MacLennan’s Jig of Slurs. He heard this tune played by Eddie Hutchison on his box and was enchanted by it. The ‘Jaw’ refers to the Jaw Loch reservoir in the Old Kilpatrick Hills where his father used to take him and his brother fishing. Lizzie did not know this loch and transformed the line from ‘For there’s troot in the Jaw’ into ‘…there’s troot in yer jaw…’ Also the second verse should begin ‘Wi your cast and your gut and your flea[fly] and your heuk’ and the third line of the sixth should be ‘Wi your drum on the fire ye canna weel tire’. Songs Andy created were readily sung by Lizzie and her mother - Jeannie also sang Andy’s Ye Heilan Chiels - a good example of their constant willingness to take on new material. .
Andy’s song originally appeared on his King Fareweel (Lismore LIFL 7002) in 1984, and has since been lifted by a number of singers such as Heather Heywood, Lassies Fair and Laddies Braw (The Living Tradition LTCD1007), where, curiously, Heather says she prefers to sing Lizzie’s version to Andy’s original!
the Tannahil Weavers have recorded a great version played on both GHB and flute. they combine it with The Geese In the Bog.
Why is it this tune always reminds me of Na Ceannabhain Bhana?
what is GHB
Great highland bagpipes