This sort of topic hasn’t been broached in a while, so I thought I’d dredge it up again. Doesn’t have to be ITM, doesn’t have to be a tune new to you; maybe you’re tweaking up an old one.
Today I’m working on Corney is Coming (new to my fingers), and still chipping away at The Repeal of the Union. Ahhh, D mixolydian…
a bunch of little reels from The Whistler’s Pocket Companion…need to keep reminding myself to play them as reels, daaa-di, daaa-di…not raised on ITM, tend to treat written music too literally.
Working through the Paddy O’Brian set of tunes.
A friend lent me the Walton’s 110 session tunes and I have been listening and learning those reels. They are somewhat different than Larry McCulloughs set of 121.. The jigs are more similar.
I am learning Trip to Durrow, Bonny Kate, Roarin Mary, Blackberry Blossom, High Reel and am working on Sally gardens for our June 5 whistlefest.
Right now I’m working on the High Reel, Duke of Leinster, and My Love is in America.
Hey Nano, I wrote two “Corney” reels to commemorate our friend Steph “Corney” Cornelius moving to Germany for a year – “Corney is Going” and “Can’t Stop Corney”. (She’s back now, and is occasionally mentioned on this board despite being a fiddler.) Not much to do with the tune you mention other than being inspired by its name.
I’m surprised that you’re just now working on Sally Gardens - it’s about the only one of the list for the get-together I do know. Considering you’re overall skill level is a lot higher than mine, i kinda figured you’d know all the easy ones 
Currently working on tunes from Packie Manus Byrne’s “A Dossan of Heather”. Not a lot of use if I ever want to join a session, but lovely tunes (and the suggested ornamentation is simple enough that even I can get it).
A couple jig sets:
Forgetting the Lesson/The Sheigh O’ Rye (#1/#11 in the book)
Stepping Stones/McShane’s Rambles (#5/#2 - played as a set as track # 16 on the CD, too)
And a very nice air:
Ar thaobh na Carraige (By the Side of the Rock) (#85) Not quite finished committing it to memory as well as I’d like, but should have it in another couple of practice sessions.
I really ought to get Larry McCulloughs 121 FIST, though - it seems like most others at the last get-together played a lot of tunes from it. At the rate I’m adding new tunes, should only take me 2 or 3 years to get them down. 
Trying to get the fingers to remember “Basket of Turf” and noodling on “The Job of Journeywork” in between that and “The Road to Durham”. All jigs, btw.
Hey, Colomon, post some ABCs for those, wouldja? BTW, I found some commentary on the original chune alleging a reference to one Cornelius O’Brien, a notorious landlord who claimed droit du seigneur over his tenants. Talk about loaded meanings in a title!
Far too many tunes for my own good… but the few I’m really into at the moment are as follows:
The Lilac Reel - from Seamus Egan
Homer’s Reel - from McGoldrick off the new Capercaillie album
One of the jig sets of Brendan Ring’s album… can’t remember the names but it’s three jigs on an F whistle.
I’ve also been playing a lovely set of slip-jigs - beginning with the Boys of Ballysodare (off Emer Mayock’s album), followed by Garech’s Wedding (from the new Danu album) and finishing with A Fig for a Kiss (inspired by Molloy’s playing on Shadows on Stone).
That’s a little taste of what I’m up to.
Chris
I’m polishing a few new reels I’ve learned last week. Those are The Green Gates (which I’ve heard from our friend MurphyStout if I’m not mistaking), The Foxhunter Reel (in G), The Bank of Ireland, The Raveled Hank of Yarn and The Twelve Pins, which I’ve heard from Brad Hurley. The Piper’s Despair, which I can’t seem to be able to play fun and right, and the Ivy Leaf, which I’ve never been able to play correctly.
Also practicing my FNat on The Sunset/Tam Lin (Hollow Wind) set, and Julia Delaney.
Anyway, those are the tunes on my Top 10 chart this week 
Makes me realize I need to learn new jigs.
DCRom, you don’t mean the Stony Steps right? That’s another tune I learned recently, and the titles are kinda similar.
well now that my brother has been shipped off to Belgium for the next six weeks for some school thing, I finally have the house to myself.
I spent the morning working on kemp’s jig and came to the conclusion that I am incapable of playing dance tunes due to the fact that my fingers HATE ME and don’t do what I tell them to.
Oh well…
By the way this is a very interesting thread, because in a way it shows what musicians who arent part of a musical culture have in common. We all need to sit down and learn tunes.
Imagine how fun it must be to have sessions all around all the time, to have parents and/or sisters and/or brothers playing at home, so much that at the end of the day, you don’t need to sit down and learn tunes, tunes will actually come up and sit down in your brain! I know a great flute player, she must know like 500 tunes, and never really had to learn one. She picked up her tunes at sessions, like most old timers did. She doesnt know the titles of most of her tunes. How could she? She picked it up by ear from other people playing it. Anyway, makes me dream sometimes, imagine the fun we’d have learning tunes without having to learn them, if you know what I mean.
Cornelius O’Brien lived in the big house in Liscannor Co Clare, he owned the Cliffs of Moher and most of the rest of the area. The little tower up on the highest point of the cliffs, O Brien’s tower, was built by him to entertain guest and enjoy the view. He is buried in the cemetary at St Bridget’s Well, a big column over his grave is locally known as Cornelius O Brien’s last erection.
A contemporary account involving him claiming droit de seigneur can be found in the Clare Anthology [Clasp press, Ennis].
I am not sure the tune is connected to him but it’s anice thought, Seamus Ennis writing the sleeve notes for one of the Willie Clancy lps played with meanings as Willie played the tune with Jenny tie you bonnet. Better safe than sorry.
It is one of my all time favourite tunes.
Right now I’m working on tweaking all 35-40 tunes I know - breathing and b rolls mostly (which is connected to my not properly supporting the whistle at times with my R3 finger when playing a, b, or g).
At the moment, Morrison’s and Banish Misfortune.
PhilO
it would be nice Az. I agree. In that spirit, I really have given up on tune names, they just get in the way for me.
As for me, my band broke up and I decided its a good time to learn new session-y tunes and work on whistle technique (wanna get the Larsen book perhaps for a shake-up). The thing I like about playing in bands is you can focus on your own tunesets and favorites without feeling like you need to know lots to participate in sessions. Trying to cram a lifetime of tune acquisition into short order is unnatural, but many of us try anyway, I guess.
I don’t think they’re the same tune. “The Stepping Stones” was a title Packie gave the tune - according to the notes, he adapted it from a tune a mountain shepherd was using to communicate with his dogs.
A very simple tune, BTW. Like a lot of Packie Manus Byrne’s tunes, it has a range of just over an octave, making it easier to lilt.
Okay.
X:2
T:Corney Is Going
M:4/4
L:1/8
C:For Stephanie Cornelius
R:Reelish
K:B minor
~B3A ~F3A|BBAB d2e2|ffdf eedB|dBAF A4|
~B3A ~F3A|BBAB d2e2|fdgf efdB|dBAF B4:|
|:ffdf eedB|defa b2a2|ffdf eedB|dBAF A4|
ffdf eedB|defa b2a2|bafe fedB|dBAF B4:|
X:3
T:Can’t Stop Corney
M:4/4
L:1/8
C:Solomon Foster
R:Reel
K:D
d2fd Adfd|~e3a gfed|c~A3 c~e3|~d3f edcA|
d2fd Adfd|~e3a gfed|c~A3 c~e3|dfec d4:|
|:~e3g fedB|A~G3 F~G3|Bege aege|fdeB AGBd|~e3g fedB|
A~G3 F~G3|Bege aege|1 fedf edef:|2 fedf edBc:|fedf e4||
Both from summer 2002. I’ve never been completely happy with the first – it doesn’t feel very Irish-y to me. (Looking at it again, it seems to me a few little tweaks might make a lot of difference. Maybe there will be a “Corney is Going 2.0” sometime soon.) The other I wrote as my project for Brian Pickell’s Tune Writing class at the Goderich Celtic College that summer, about four days before Steph left for Germany, and I’ve always been fond of it. (The lonely bar after the second ending is a possible final ending – I couldn’t figure out a way to make standard ABC say “last time”.)
I’m working on a couple of Altan reels, some slip jigs (Kid on the mountain is one). Also on a couple of flute tunes, one a slip jig called The good wife, the other nameless, that both have lots of crans. The cran is a very effective ornament that’s really not hard to do once someone has shown it to you.
I’m always working on O’Carolan tunes, too. Current is one whose name escapes me that has a d# in it that lets me play it on my newly restored 4-key.
There’s also a delightful hornpipe called the Poor Old Woman or something like that, that Karen Ashbrook does on one of her albums. It goes up into the third octave, which is something good to learn, too.
I would probably put my bets with either “Donal O’Brien” or “Cremonea”. I like both of them, but they’re difficult on a D whistle, so I usually pull out the G whistle and the rec****r for them. The d# is an easy half-hole on these instruments.
I’m currently working on some hymns and O’Carolan tunes on the whistle and the mountain dulcimer, and I may throw in a few Dowland tunes for good measure!
Out on the Road (a Liz Carrol tune…I like both Kevin Crawford and Altan’s versions, both of which are fairly similar, and both of which are quite different than the ABC versions of the tune that are floating around on the web.
The Windmill (Altan recorded this, I think)
The Maids of Castlebar (Natalie MacMaster does a nice version of this)
Siobhan O’Donnell’s (Lunasa)
Mullin’s Fancy (a variant of the Boys of Ballinahinch, from the wonderful Kitty Lie Over CD by Mick O’Brien an dCaoimhin O Rahgallaigh, though I’m transposing it out of the key of Bflat into the more session-friendly key of G)
Something really fun called the Ba Rag (??) that Martin Milner turned me on to about a yar ago (thanks Martin!)
And a waltz I can never spell correctly…Metzakukkia/Mezzakukkia ???