Anyone know of a good flute based recording of this tune or does anyone of you more experienced players play this? Can you post a clip?
Reason for my posting is due to the melodic range… I play a few tunes in my rep. that do this but not quite so much as this tune…
Best,
This is one of those tunes that I leave to the fiddle players…like many Reavy tunes it sits much better on the fiddle than the flute.
However, I do know a few folks who play it on the flute. They usually jump the octave only on the notes that go below D, which makes the tune sound bizarre when played solo on flute but great in a flute+fiddle duet. You could conceivably start the tune in the second octave and go down to the first, but if I were to play it (it’s on my list of tunes to work on) I would start out in the first octave and just play the lowest notes (below D) one octave higher. And I would only play it with fiddlers, not by myself.
When there’s a fiddle present, there’s a sort of “aural illusion” that happens with overtones such that the listener’s ear gets the impression that the flute is actually following the fiddle down below D. It’s a great effect.
I found a (pretty bad) transcription here: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/302
Actually playing it I can see it’s not particularly hard on the flute, there’s just that one passage in the A part where you’re octave-jumping.
I know bil mckenty transcribed the entire Reavy tunebook in abc…is that available anywhere online? It would be good to have a better transcription.
Ah, I found it; this is much better.
X: 1
T:Maudabawn Chapel
M:2/2
L:1/8
C:Ed Reavy
Z: transcribed by bil 3/00
R:Reel
N:The local chapel in Ed’s parish
N:where he first
N:learned the simple ways of faith.
Z:Joe Reavy
K:D
EF|(3GFE (3GED ECDB,|G,A,B,D ECEB,|G,A,B,D GABd|gabg eaaf|
gabg efge|dfed Bc d2|(3efg fa gbec|dBA=c BEEF|
(3GFE (3FED ECDB,|G,A,B,D ECDB,|G,A,B,D GABd|
gabg eaaf|gfga (3bag (3agf|gfed efge|dfe=c BcdB|
A=cBA GEED||:E2 BE eEBE|GABG AFDF|EDEF GFGB|A2 (3FED A,DFD|
E2 BE eEBE|BAFA B^cde|f2 (3agf gfec|1dBA=c BEED:|2dBA=c BEED||
…
Tee hee, those big grins next to the key signature happen if you don’t disable Smilies in the post, at least whenever the key happens to be D.
Of course, for us flute players, the key of D equals a big smile anyway, as does the key of G.
I’m with the first response, this is one of those tunes I think best left to the fiddles and tenor banjos rather than folding into submission on the flute…
Dang, sorry to be muddying up this thread with all these abcs, when all you really wanted was to hear a recording, but I’ve just been going through bil’s transcription and I think there are a few wee notes gone astray near the beginning of the A part, at least to my ear. Eileen Ivers recorded it nice and slow on her “blue fiddle” album but I disliked that album so much I gave it away years ago…now I wish i’d at least kept that track!
The version below is still not quite right but closer to what I’m used to hearing, at least the first time through the A part. The end of the turn escapes me…the way it’s written here doesn’t feel quite there to me…I think there’s something chromatic going on in the tune but I’d have to listen to someone playing it.
X: 1
T:Maudabawn Chapel
M:2/2
L:1/8
C:Ed Reavy
Z: transcribed by bil 3/00 with a few minor changes by brad in 2/04
R:Reel
N:The local chapel in Ed’s parish
N:where he first
N:learned the simple ways of faith.
Z:Joe Reavy
K:D
EF|(3GFE (3FED EDB,A,|G,A,B,D EB,DB,|G,A,B,D GABd|gabg eaaf|
gabg efge|dfed Bc d2|(3efg fa gbec|dBA=c BEEF|
(3GFE (3FED EDB,A,|G,A,B,D EB,DB,|G,A,B,D GABd|
gabg eaaf|gfga (3bag (3agf|gfed efge|dfe=c BcdB|
A=cBA GEED||:E2 BE eEBE|GABG AFDF|EDEF GFGB|A2 (3FED A,DFD|
E2 BE eEBE|BAFA B^cde|f2 (3agf gfec|1dBA=c BEED:|2dBA=c BEED||
I’m with you guys in terms of sitting this one out… There are a couple of tunes that I play where I do the octave jump thing but it’s usually not lower/higher than a B. It’s just such a cool tune! I think I’ll give it a go doing the octave jump thing but… thanks for all the input!
Best,
A classic recording of it is on the Noel Hill/Tony Kinnane album but I can’t recall if Matt molloy actually played with them on that particular track
Nope I think he sat that one out..
There’s also a nice recording of fiddler Martin Byrnes playing it on Paddy in the Smoke.
I have never heard any flute players play it, but i know Kevin Burke plays it on Portland. His version sounds a bit different from the one at my local session. I am used to hear it the Burke way, but i feel i should probably learn the one everyone else knows here.
anton
Fintan Vallely plays it on Traditional Irish Flute Music. It is the last tune on Side B, Track 4. He calls it Hall’s Favorite (Reevey’s). He makes it sound like a flute tune.
Martin Byrnes recorded it as “Hall’s Favourite” on “Paddy In The Smoke”, which may be where Fintan got it from. Someone told me that Cathal McConnell, at a session in the famous “Sandy Bell’s” pub in Edinburgh, once expressed the opinion that this tune was too good to be played in sessions! It’s not a tune I’d start a set with, but I would join in on flute if someone else plays it.
This is about the only “modern” tune I’ve heard Tommy Potts play - all of his music seemed to be from his family or the Sligo fiddlers. I’d agree that on the flute or pipes it sounds a bit half there.
The transcripts at Ceolas are said to be from the Reavy books (which I don’t own) but often they don’t match up with how famous players have them; Whistler from Rosslea for instance doesn’t jake with how I hear Paddy Carty playing it, or the version I learned from friends of the Shoemaker’s Daughter is very different in spots from the original.
Coleman recorded Lad O’Bierne’s in 1944 and Lad/Ed Quinn recorded Hunter’s House late 40s/early 50s, I wonder how close those are to Ed’s transcripts? Reavy didn’t write his tunes out, you know; his son transcribed all this stuff in the late 60’s, he was the James O’Neill of the parternship perhaps.
That happens with “Maudebawn Chapel”, too – I haven’t sorted out the first part yet (stupid G-string nonsense) but the version of the B-part played at our local session (which I think is a common version if not the common version) is different from the version on the Collected Works of Ed Reavy is different from the version Andy McGann played.
That’s ranked from most complex to least complex – one of the things I’ve remarked about the B-part is it seems to contain three different E-minor reel cliches in a row (in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th bars). Yet the CWER version has only two of the cliches (the 1st and 5th bars are identical) and the Andy McGann only has one of them (1st, 3rd, and 5th bars are idential).
It’s just one of the joys of oral transmission of tunes.
Well that’s an old thread!
So, did you ever learn the tune?
Loren
Yea, i was trying to learn the tune and decided do a search here. I learned the version on thesession.org and have kind of combined it with Kevin Burke’s version on Portland. I think it sounds nice.
anton
I always found that tune depressing… I wonder if I’d learn it even if I were playing fiddle. I’ll never know
I played that tune for a while; I hewed to the “Portland” version myself. I actually liked it a lot – thanks for the reminder, I’ll have to get it back out. Maybe this time I can get some other folks to play it with me.
As I recall, it’s really nice at a rather meditative pace (as are so many Reavy tunes)!