Just perusing the Roche collection and was wondering why no one seems to bother with these tunes?
Admittedly some are not great tunes but there are a few really good tunes
such as:
The Midnight Ride
Old Yet New
and a few other.
Are there any secret quadrille playing pipers amongst us ?
I’ve been meaning to learn these from Mick Coyne for ages
thanks for mentioning them again I had forgotten them:
http://source.pipers.ie/Media.aspx?mediaId=4282&categoryId=302
Is it the same Midnight Ride?
Do you have an ABC link or online link for the Roche collection?
I don’t have a copy is it still in print?
Hi don’t have an online link but yes that’s the same midnight ride that Mick is playing.
Pm me and I may be able to locate a copy of the music . Sorry don’t follow ABC notation.
I love quadrilles! Been trying to find as many as possible. I was listening to one of the Nora Crionas recently. Very quadrillish to my ear and goes great into this one gan ainm quadrille I’ve been trotting around the ring for some time now.
Shall have to check out the resources listed in this topic. Thanks for bringing it up, benwalker.
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Indeed Quadrilles are certainly fun to play and some excellent tunes out there. Good to hear some folks are playing them from time to time.
It would be an idea to do a whole recording of just quadrilles, mazurkas and some lessr known set dances just for the variety : )
Quadrilles as a tune type really mean a group of same for a particular dance, often switching meter, eg jig to polka or march, etc, kind of like some of the Irish sets. Never bothered to memorize a whole rake of them but do play things like the common 6/8 tune for the Lancers, recorded by Johnny Duffy and Tommy Healy, if you want a bona fide example of it in Irish music. Also recorded by another Sligo muso, Michael Gorman. I first learned it from a recording made in the 40s of a Wisconsin fiddler, though.
I play all sorts of tunes like these - barndances, schottisches, cottilions, flings, polkas, mazurkas, marches, waltzes. Always learning new ones. Playing the fiddle and flute as well broadens one’s horizons, perhaps. Also I listen to different types of trad, Scottish and NE US primarily, and am always keeping an ear open for something I like. Plus Plus I too get sick of the bread-and-butter 70/20/10 ratio of reelsjigshornpipes that is almost all Irish music, it seems.
A wonderful resource for these types of tunes was a website dedicated to an old time Pennsylvania fiddler, Jehile Kirkhuff, that had downloads of just hours of his stuff, with examples of all the tune types listed above, plus your usual jigs/reels/hornpipes. The odd tunes part of his repertoire had no end of wonderful tunes I couldn’t find in books, too. Unfortunately the downloads part went offline a few years ago. A piper from the Scranton area, Leo Schott, was pretty astounded that I knew about Jehile. I first heard his music on a recording with him and Tom Standeven, who was mostly known for playing the Irish pipes; the recording was on a list and I thought Jehile would be a student of his or something playing the guitar, perhaps. Instead he fiddled and Tom played mostly piano, with pipes and flute on a few things. Very nice recording, that.
You might pick up a book that has lots of these tunes; not sure what that would be, though. Maybe one of Peter Kennedy’s offerings. session.org allows you to search for barndances, you could do worse than copy a rake of those tunes. Or there might be advice on finding more in the comments for tunes. You could search for one of these tune types at the Comhaltas archives, too.
Listen to Liam Walsh play the “Old Irish Set Dance” at archive.org, that’s a good example of one of these old pieces. Have been meaning to write that one out.