I’m new to this board but was unable to find anything about this song on the message board. I have the CD “Celtic Twighlight Vol 2.” There is a song on the CD called “Black Rose (Roisin Dubb).” It is obviously being played by a tin whistle. It says that it is a traditional song played by Joanie Madden. I can’t find the music for this song anywhere and I really want to play it. I guess that I could just play it by ear untill I get it right but that would take much longer. Does anybody know if this song is written down anywhere or where I could get the music?
welcome to the board!!
i believe it’s best to play by ear, but i learned my first 15 by tablature aswell. but if you’re able,after a while you should just slow the tune down and learn it by ear.
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/findtune?P=roisin+dubh&F2=find+(wide)&L=100
Also included, along with many other beautiful airs, in “Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland,” Tomas O’Canainn, Ossian Publications.
I got this with a double cassette set; by now it might be available on accompanying CD.
Philo
ABCs from JC’s tunefinder never work with my software. I get the icon with the .abc but neither Barfly or abc for Mac recognizes it.
Try getting in TXT format, then using cut&paste to transfer the tune to your software. I think the problem is the funny names that the Web interface at J.C. gives to the files you download.
In general, I find abc’s really useful for learning the notes of rhythmic tunes like jigs and reels. For slow airs, they’re not very good. As well, standard notation is a bit misleading. It can be helpful if you have a recording to refer to as the pacing and phrasing is not rhythmic. I would suggest picking up the whistle and struggling to play along with the recording. It’s not a fast tune, so it shouldn’t be horribly difficult to follow. You can look at the abc’s while you do this if that helps you.
Tony
I got my copy from Greg’s site at http://www.tinwhistler.com/music/
Good version as well as numerous other tunes.
enjoy
jim d.
Are you sure the title means “black rose” ? I saw the tune somewhere translated as “Dark Rosaly”, which might be a closer translation.
Mick Woodruff has it on his site. You can download an mp3 and the sheet music.
Wow. this board is incredible. Thanks for all of the help. It appears as if I was even spelling the song wrong (dubb instead of dubh). I have bookmarked all of these pages so that i can get some more music after I learn this one.
azalin- I really have no clue about the translation except that it says “Black Rose” on the CD case.
Correct, Philo. The book now comes with double CD.
well Roisin is a name (my Grandmothers name!), and dubh means black, or dark. so i guess it means dark Rosin?
That’s the one. There’s a pub in Galway of the same name.
You can use both.
The lyrics to this sean nos refer to Ireland herself in a time of turmoil. The singer tells of his love for his country and gives her comfort that Spain and Rome will come to her aid to help her to someday live in peace and freedom.
My Dark Rosalyn, My Small Black Rose.
BL
Right on both counts, both of them interesting.
The lyrics of several well known Irish songs concern the popular hope/belief that one or another continental European country was about to deliver Ireland from British domination. We all know how realistic the hope proved to be. Scottish Gaels fared no better.
Gaelic names often have more than one English counterpart and different Gaelic names might well be anglicised in the same way. The translation process is far from an exact science.
Hehe, that’s good old British apathy, works every time.
The only country to behead their King & replace him a few years later with his son because we couldn’t work a better system. I ask you.