It was while watching PBS’s Smart Travels with Rudy Maxa, episode “Dublin and Beyond”, that I heard a march or song air, likely both as these things go, that started out on some sort of smallpipes (a bit curious for the usual run of contemporary Irish instrumentation but all the same the tune sounded quite Irish to my cloth ear, having that oblique and almost algebraic quality that only Irish tunewrights seem to be able to pull off with consistent success) which then was joined by other instruments, and it embodied - nay, epitomised - mossy ruins, dignity, and longing. I hadn’t heard it before and I MUST HAVE THIS TUNE OR I SHALL PERISH.
It’s probably a long shot, but has anyone caught this episode and know the tune I’m talking about?
(BTW, I only watch these shows for the music. You know, like only reading Playboy for the articles. )
Dude! That’s the one. Thank you. Now I can catch the tune, and my poor life hangs whimpering no longer in the balance.
You folks here are so smart.
Okay, next: anyone have its name, maybe history? I promise I’ll not go to the dots. Well, maybe if there’s more to it. I mainly just want to be able to say what it is, as if I’m Trad-hip and know what I’m talking about.
So it’s originally Scots after all? The cloth of my ears is not threadbare after all this time. Oh, well.
Thanks, Kenny. I notice that there’s a 3rd part in the PBS version, and see that Donald MacLeod wrote 2 additionals, so that must be one of them. I’ll have to see if I can scare them up, too.
Key of A’s fine and all, but I think I might go for G and justify paying for that damned low Cnat key on my flute.
Nano, I used to play this a lot as a contra tune for contradances. Those midi C and D parts are more or less what we played for the repeats of the A and B parts respectively. So it was still just a 2-parter for us.
We definitely played it as a march, with a big Thump-Thump-Thump at the end of each part. But I think it would make a nice air, too.
Yeah, looks like Meeting of the Waters has a number of ways that folks arrange its parts. I’d heard the name of it before, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard the tune. Or, if I had, it was all zippidee-doo-dah as above in the MIDI, and I shut it out of hearing out of a need to survive. Those dancers sure can demand the ruin of a perfectly good tune, sometimes.
The clip on the PBS show makes a decent job of it, I think. Very stately, that way, and that’s what got me going.
Well, the Thump-Thump-Thump is always accompanied by the Stomp-Stomp-Stomp of a hundred feet on the dance floor. You know, sometimes good fun does trump good taste, especially when you’re the hired help.
Okay, okay, already. Playin’ “Some Say the Devil is Dead” for the fling. Dit ditty dit-a dit-a diddly dit-a THUMP THUMP. Although I think it’s not the same thing; that chune sounds good at just about any pace.
)
goin’ over to the mute side?