I’m going to try to re-establish this thread because I think there are many posters and readers here that my enjoy finding sources of slower paced tunes in the Irish, Scottish or any other Celtic tradition.
Please, no more comments on how people are missing out by not not listening to or playing fast dance tunes.
It not the point of the thread at all.
one of my favorites ‘An Paistin Fionn’
from Gavin Whelan’s album ‘In Full Flight’
His take on this is slightly different to the one
from thesession.org
You might want to substitute Gaelic for Celtic. There were Celtic peoples all over Europe at one time. Although that limits it to Highland Scottish, and not Lowland… Hmmm.
Anyway, another musical tradition in the Gaelic world is Cape Breton. My favorite slow tune of the moment is a Waltz by Jerry Holland, called Boo Baby’s Lullaby.
I heard Alasdair Fraser, the Scottish fiddler, talking about slow tunes once. He said it was easy to play fast – that anyone could do it – but that playing slowly and making it sound nice was a real challenge. Maybe that’s why you get so much grief – they’re all jealous. [just a joke!]
I’m just a beginner, but I found “The South Wind” a couple of days ago, and I’ve had fun learning it and dressing it up a bit. It’s a simple, slow tune, but a pleasant one.
I have several Irish sean nos style airs that I play by ear, plus a bookfull of Carolan stuff, Tin Pan Alley Irish stuff, Irish Folk Revival stuff from the 1960’s, waltzes, etc etc that I can sightread at a gig.
Many times at gigs I’m sitting there playing slow tunes on the uilleann pipes for an hour or so, so I need to have 30 or 40 airs that I can play if needed.
Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland
by
Tomas O Canainn
Ossian Publications 1995
By the way, in the index, titles which begin with either the English article “the” or the Irish article “an” are alphabetised under “t” and “a” respectively, which is a bit odd.
“The Coolin”, no whistle player should be without this tune, IMHO. Years ago, in Ireland, someone asked me to play a chewin’. I forget what it was but after playing , an old gent says to me, "you’re good but can you play “The Coolin”. I admitted not to know it so he whistles it to me. When I got home, it was my mission to learn it. I got a version from a Chieftains album. (Sorry, I forget which one!) I ended up recording it and dedicated it to the ole fella. Maybe I will post it someday. Hatao plays it on a youtube vid.. Sorry, I am computer illiterate so I don’t know how to post the link. The old gent told me that “The Coolin” is to the Irish as what “Danny Boy” is to the Irish Americans. It’s true, it is probably my most requested chewin’. An Coolin is a sort of ponytail, 100’s of years ago it was fashionable for young Irishmen to wear a ponytail (an coolin). It was common for grieving Mothers to cut off their son’s coolin before they parted on the emmigration ships knowing that they will never see them again. You can hear the anguish in the tune. I told this story because I feel that it helps when trying to interpret the tune. Kind of like the quarrel that Carolan is having with the landlady. You can certainly hear the argument, esp in the B part! I have never inspired a tear or wet eye from any ripping chewin’ but I certainly have with a slow air. I hope this helps.
I was playing the uilleann pipes at an Irish funeral. There were three old Irish-speaking Nuns there and they asked for Roisin Dubh. I went home and learned it.
By the way, how does one spell “Coolin” in Irish? With a slender “l” it might be Cuilinn or something. “Coolin” violates Irish spelling rules (which like all rules must have some exceptions).
The Coolin - An Chuilfhionn. It has a fada over the u. Damned if I know how to type that! Isn’t music wonderful that way. I do not know the tune " Roisin Dubh" but now I have a new one to learn. Thanks!
start the ‘character map’ (start/all programs/ system tools/character map)
find and click on the character you want
click copy
click in your document and paste the character
Once you get bored with the long winded way, you will notice that the character has a keystroke assigned to it. In this case ú is assigned Alt+0250. So
Make sure the num lock is on for the number keys on the right of your key pad
press ‘ALT’ key and while holding it press 0 2 5 0 on the number pad, then release the ‘ALT’ key. Note that the leading zero is needed, and that the keys MUST be on the number pad.