I’ve often noticed in my O’Neil’s book that many of the tunes have a name next to them, usually an O’Neil or McFadden or Early. Last night I realized that Sergeant Early’s Dream says Early and I came across McFadden’s Handsome Daughter, which says McFadden next to it. Are these composer credits? If so, then those guys wrote a huge amount of great tunes that are still played these days… But I am a bit skeptical, really. Anybody know what the deal is on this?
Usually the name indicates the source the tune was got from. I don’t think any of O’Neill’s sources composed the tunes he got from them, but I’ve been wrong before!
That was my original assumption, until I saw the names that coincided with tune names. I suppose that most likely it’s probably some of both.
Do you recall any off hand? You’ve got me curious, now…
Well, Sergeant Early’s Dream says Early next to it, so it’s not a big stretch to think he had something to do with it. Same with McFadden’s Handsome Daughter. I’m sure there are others, but the book’s at home and I’m at work.
Good point.
This doesn’t necessarilly signify. Tune names often get lost, and since the standard
credit is, ‘This is a tune a had off of ___’, tunes who’s names are not known often
acquire a name from someone who teaches the tune to many others.
Of course, tunes composed by someone also often get that person’s name.
The only way to know is to research the individual tune, and even then, well, it’s
not a well documented history.
You would have to get a hold of some of O’Neill’s other writings to get the explanation of the tune names. As far as I know, none of the people’s names quoted actually wrote the tunes, they were just the source of the tunes. When different people offered up a different tune with the same name as a tune already collected, the source’s name was often added by O’Neill. For example, O’Neill had already collected a tune called Apples in Winter. When a piper name Gillan offered a different tune also called Apples in Winter, O’Neill called the second tune Gillan’s Apples. etc.
djm
The names in the big o Neill collection and Waifs and Strays are the sources of tunes. It doesn’t mean they are composers. In the case of Early and McFadden though there are several tunes there they composed (see for that Irish Music: a fascinating hobby).
For the Dance Music of Ireland (1907) O’Neill dropped the convention of crediting the source of each tune, since his musicians were squabbling about who was the original source of which tune, among other things.
We just don’t know about every tune and its origin. All of the ‘Spellan’ tunes were composed by Spellan, a conductor from Dublin who moved to Belfast. Cronin composed tunes. James O’Neill did too - from the 1850 book, 55, 56, 57, 68, 323, and more.