So I’m finally tackling The Gold Ring (I was put up to it by a fiddler), been listening to Matt Molloy’s version which is associated w/ Willie Clancy (can’t play along, no Eb flute have I ); six parts to it, just like I’ve heard it done before, and all the world is in order. Then I go to a written source to help me get the bones of it, and this source has a seventh part!! I’m not very good at abc notation, but I think it would go something like this:
…Was that at all intelligible? Anyone else know of the mysterious Seventh Part? Is it considered optional?
–This seems to be right up there with the Kilfenora Jig; I’ve come across three ways of playing it: four parts, five parts, and seven (where the last two don’t seem to fit somehow…and I know I’m not alone in that opinion). We tend to play it in five parts hereabouts.
Anyway, I’ll learn this seventh part just in case. Might need it in certain company.
Hi there! Great tune!
Actually, to play along with Eb flutes and others tuned to Eb (such as Matt Molloy and Sean Keane’s album Contentment is Wealth and others) have you tried the free PaceMaker download with Winamp. It used to be that you would have to copy your CD onto the computer before being able to use Pacemaker, but now it works directly off your CD. Pacemaker will slow tunes without changing the pitch, but can also change the pitch - so you can tune the CD to be in pitch with your flute (accordian, concertina etc.) and it is free! I think it is very useful - especially the free part.
(Or you could always pick up an Eb whistle!)
The seventh part you wrote out sounds very similar to the one I play. I learned the tune from the playing of Conal O Grada on his solo album The Top Of Coom and he plays seven parts (incidentally, on the same album he does a fantastic five-part version of Creggs Pipes).
Whether you want to play six or seven parts is totally a matter of personal preference. I prefer seven myself, but from my experience, the six part version seems to be a little more common.
What a coincidence! I’ve finally gotten around to learning the tune this month as well. I’m playing the 7 part version which I think I may have heard on an old Chieftains recording - I’d have to dig it out to verify whether it’s the same
as what I’m playing now. I’m aware of the 5 part version as well which I believe Kieran O’Hare and Tommy Keane have recorded. Anyway, it’s a great tune and I’m really enjoying it.
Thanks to all for your help. The fiddler noted above put me up to it, as I mentioned; he’d lost the tune, and said, Boston Irish accent “Hey, now, Jason, why don’t you pick up The Gold Ring so’s I can relearn it offa you?” --Don’t know why it’s my job…grumble grumble gripe
I’m hoping to have the basics nailed by tomorrow for the Sun. session. I’ll say to him, “So, would you be wanting the six- or seven-part version then?”
Sure he didn’t want the four-part “Gold Ring” from Sligo? It’s a completely different jig…
(And I just went to look it up at The Fiddler’s Companion, and discovered there is also a two-part Northumberland jig “Gold Ring” – but presumably he didn’t mean that.)
When I started learning pipes, the Gold Ring that most people seemed to know was the one associated with Séamus Ennis.
Willie’s one was a rare bird. Now it’s the only one that most people seem to know (largely due to Liam O’Flynn having recorded it and being followed by others), and nobody seems to want to play the Ennis one any more.
Roger, is the Ennis setting the four-part mentioned above? Where might I find some material (recorded, preferably) for it? I feel a versions feeding-frenzy coming on…
The Ennis version of the Gold Ring is on The Return from Fingal.
I know that’s of no help to dot-readers, but at least you can hear it in all its glory. I like both versions equally well but seldom play the Ennis one for the same reason Roger states above - no one seems to play it anymore.
I can do it and have done it in the past, but the fiddlers and box players just roll their eyes in much the same way that I do when they tear into a bunch of Sligo fiddle stuff that’s unplayable on the pipes. Payback is hell.
And for the same reason, it’s so long since I played the Ennis version that I’m not cast-iron sure how many parts it has. Five and holding?
I have a suspicion that there’s a version of it in O’Neill’s 1001, but I’m not really a dots person, so the knowledge is lost in one of those epistemological black holes that Rumsfeld so lovingly detailed.
I’ll play it in the Irish Club this evening before the other so-and-so’ s arrive. I have the keys and am just about to rush off early to be sure to have the place to myself
It’s not in O’Neill’s 1850, so I suppose the 1001 doesn’t have it either. At least the title isn’t present. Maybe one day when I’m really, really bored (or have had too much caffeine) I’ll search thru all those jigs…nah.
We had one-off session last night with a family of musicians visiting from Ireland. One of them asked me to do a pipes solo, so I gave Ennis’s Gold Ring a lash, hoping that I wouldn’t collapse in ignominy half-way through. As a former boss of mine once said, adrenalin is a great thing. Played it through perfectly three times, and even gave the old regs a rare public outing. So if you ethnomusicologists hear some time in the future that the resurrection of Ennis’s GR began in North Cork in autumn 2003, remember you heard it first on C&F.
BTW, as regards the number of parts, on one of the recordings, when Ennis plays it the last time round, he adds on an extra part which he plays just once. Is it a missing part that he only remembered at the end, or an improvised coda? It goes something like this (apologies for the possibly non-standard ABC):
dCA ~G3|dCA G2g|dCA GFG|ADE F3|
dCA GFG|dCA Gde|~f3 fed|CAF G3|
); six parts to it, just like I’ve heard it done before, and all the world is in order. Then I go to a written source to help me get the bones of it, and this source has a seventh part!! I’m not very good at abc notation, but I think it would go something like this:
