Fox hunters are gay. I always ejoyed the gaiety of that piece. Apart from the slow air which is more serene than gay, but it has an underlying gaiety that inevitably has eluded transcription.
I think that these old traditions should be encouraged, and that such naturally gay people should be allowed to practice their gaiety with each other, horses and their handsome, lean dogs in the countryside.
I, by contrast, am rather sullen and listless.
Tally ho-hum,
Harry.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
-Jerry Seinfeld
Alright, before this post gets offtopic 
. Here is the version that I’ve come up with. It is mainly Seamus Ennis’s version but there is some Mikie Smyth influence as well. I’ve posted this on uilleannforum.com so here’s the link. Those on dial-up connections be warned this file is 6.1mb. I’ve tried compressing it but I’ve had no luck in this department.
http://uilleannforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=320&start=90&sid=72f2841c6f0a1fc6b0eb04eb177833d5
I’m sending my instrument off to the maker today for some much needed maintenance and I wont be expecting it back for about three weeks 
. All well it’ll be nice to have a fully functional instrument on the return. Most of the maintenance issues are general wear and tear that you’d expect. But I haven’t exactly kept up maintenance at my end and it’s gotten to the stage where a pipermaker needs to look at it. Not exactly a responsible instrument owner am I . Moral of the story, get on top of maintenance issues before they way you down.
Cheers L42B 
The answer is here :
hahahaha 
good one piping007 
. However I don’t plan on taking up the saxaphone anytime soon 
. As Paddy Moloney said “…They give you so much trouble and bother; but once you get them into your blood. There a vantastic instrument, you just can’t get rid of them.”
Cheers L42B
Don’t get me wrong, i was serious. We have changed a lot around in NPU and coming back to your inital question from 29th July. give it a go and have a look at the new archive. You might be amazed 
and there is more to come 
Pat Mitchell makes no mention of the very interesting comments from his previous transcription of the Fox Chase, published in An Píobaire uimh.
30 Bealtaine 1977, which include lots of info on the American version of the F.C. played by blues harmonicasists [sp?] [real word?] like Sonny Terry, which I’d heard of but forgotten about. He also quotes writers mulling over a pet theory of mine regarding the “bluesiness” of Irish music - that it’s equally possible that blues has elements of “Irishness” in it.
Here’s a page with a sample of Sonny’s Fox Chase: http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/trackdetail.aspx?itemid=25815.
With all due respect to Messrs. Ennis and O’Flynn and other masters, to my ear, the best version of The Fox Hunters is performed by Pat Broaders.
It’s especially well done on the CD “Moore & Broaders”, which can be purchased here:
Hi Kevin
Very intersting, I remember one of my grandma’s friend’s years ago playing a harmonica version of The Fox Chase…interesting the little vocal fills. I wonder if anyones done that on the Uilleann Pipes before . I’m sure there is a connection with Blues and Celtic music. Bluegrass was indeed very influential on blues music so it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a Bluegrass/Greengrass connection somewhere. Wasn’t that what Paddy Moloney was trying to prove in his “Down the Old Plank Road” CD’s (1&2) .
To go of completly on a different tangent, we’ll not quiet it has something to do with musical celtic connections and is a bit of a trivia question. Which other national orchestra in a European country (apart from Ireland and Scotland) has a full time bagpiper in there ranks? Bigger hint still, look to the south-east. Another hint Tchikofsky heared some folk tunes on this instrument that later influenced some of his most famous compositions.
Cheers L42B
Why transcribe when resources such as JC’s Tunefinder exist?
… there you have it.
But even with the notes or abc’s in front of you, there still aren’t things that can easily be transcribed, like popping… or, acutally, the length of the popped note.
How could bluegrass influence blues? Bluegrass was developed in the 1940s; if you mean Chicago blues and the like perhaps, but Bill Monroe went to work after Delta blues artists like Robert Johnson had already made records. Perhaps you mean Old Time music?
Getting a bit OT there.
Felix Doran explained each section of his Fox Chase - “Now the hounds.” “The horses in gallop.” “One dog is lost!” This was also done in Allastrum’s March, which you can hear on the cylinder of Mici Cumba recorded 107 years ago - although what he’s saying you can’t hear. Haven’t heard a piper yelp in the throes of death during the thing - that’s what the chanter’s for!
Dunno which country has the orchestral piper. Who plays in a symphony in Ireland or Scotland? I know the Hungarians are the only country which used the pipes for martial purposes - or was it the Bulgarians?
By blues, I meant the old-time country, not the modern country that’s rock put to country song. But I mean tunes and songs like Katie Dear/Butcher Boy, Down the old Plank Road, Dark As A Dungeon, Cindy that sort of music. I notice Cotton Eyed Joe has become extremly popular at the moment, but people don’t seem to realise the Irish connection on that one. I heared an Irish tune that was very simmilar to it years ago, but I’ve forgotten what it was.
Does anyone have the air Katie Dear/Butcher Boy (are the one and the same?) written down somewhere. I’ve pritty much memorized the little refrain that Pady plays on the pipes, however the rest of the tune goes down a key and I can’t seem to pick it up. There’s some people that I know who’s vocals would suit the song perfactly and it would sound excellent on the Uilleann pipes.
Cheers L42B 
PS: OT bit: By the way the European country I was refering to was Hungary.