in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SahWPo3cis De Dannan announces that they will play a “couple of tunes from the county Donnegal”. Do Donnegal tunes have a distinctive sound? What about other places ie. what is a typical tune from Limerick for example (and I don’t want to hear
jig jiggy jig jiggy jig jig / jig jiggy jig jiggy jig jig / jig jiggy jig jig / jig jiggy jig jig / jig jiggy jig jiggy jig jig) Also I would imagine the tunes with place names kind of identify where they are from but what about the other tunes?
On a related topic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaI3cTLaHzE features “Irish Reels” (one being a jig). The last tune in the set is “Shoot the Moose” which to me sounds Irish (the tune not the name) but since these lads are from Newfoundland I am sure the purists would say this is not an Irish tune. But if someone versed in ITM were just listening to it and didn’t know the background of the tune, would they be able to spot it as non-Irish?
Tunes are often credited for where they were learned. There can be many versions of a tune that not only cross regional lines, but national as well. Scots and Irish have swapped tunes throughout the ages. If you can trace the composer of a tune, you might be able to trace the regional origin, but it’s still a guessing game. In the foreword of the the Turoe Stone collection of tunes by Vincent Broderick, the writer tells of playing him two “Fermanagh reels” he had learned on a trip to Northern Ireland. The tunes were, in fact, both written by Broderick.
I guess the best thing is to just worry about whether or not you like the tune.
On a personal note, I tend to think of Donegal tunes as often sounding kind of Scottish; especially spiky fiddly things in A major or its mixolydian analog. I’m told there was a fair amount of cross-pollination between Donegal and Scotland. And mildy crooked-sounding polkas often seem to hail from the Sliabh Luchra (except for The Merry Girl, which is supposedly a Leitrim polka). But that’s only my experience., which is alas, more limited than I’d like it to be
Another way to look at it is that there may be different styles of playing in various areas. These often boil down to one group of players, or a group of players influenced by one teacher. Trying to identify regional styles can end up in a lot of knots, as well, and no rule is 100%. The same tunes show up all over the place with many different names applied to each tune, so a name seldom has anything to do with anything other than a handle used by a particular musician or group of musicians. Tunes were spread by word of mouth, by travellers, by itinerant music teachers, etc. so there is no way to trace each tune and its many variants and relatives.
Some parts of Ireland have a local repertoire of dances which weren’t danced or weren’t danced often in other parts, and as you’d expect these distinctive dances had their distinct set of tunes. Notably, Donegal fiddle music includes a lot of ‘highlands’ and the occasional mazurka unknown to the rest of Ireland, and Kerry has a lot of polkas and slides that again weren’t retained (or were perhaps ever a part of) the ‘jigs and reels’ parts of Ireland.
As well, donegal fiddle styles made comparitively little use of fingered (ie, rolls, etc) ornament in their fiddle playing, using mainly bowed ornament (a bowed triplet, etc), instead. If you want to hear this in action, Altan’s leader/fiddle player Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh is from Dongeal and plays in the donegal style.
Highlands are 4/4 dance tunes with a dotted rhythm similar to a scottish Strathspey.
Also I would imagine the tunes with place names kind of identify where they are from but what about the other tunes?