Does anyone have any suggestions on a good setting of Tobin’s Jig? Or even just some embellishments/variations to throw in. I learned it from the NPU videos but so far it’s not impressing me that much. I’d like to give it a bit more of a chance, but I can’t really think of anything to do with it. I would be interested in your approach. Thanks.
jd
How does it go again? 
J,
Putting Patrick’s useful comments to one side I’ve been thinking about this tune and what can be done with it. As a starter, I would guess it’s been selected as a beginner’s tune as there’s not much you can do melodically with it so it’s a bit of a banker for sessions and worth having for that reason alone. Coleman didn’t do much with the tune back in 1926 and we still play a setting he would recognise as his own.
Getting down to the serious piping, turning this into a “solo” class item needs some work and some very subtle variation within the ornaments used through the tune. There’s a chance of a cran on the opening D instead of the d f# a crotchets. There are some options to alternate straight crotchets as written in O’Neill with long rolls on top f# and g (off the knee to get the bell note to ring through - a must on a flat set) or backstitching if you’re really proficient.
In the second part getting the e f# g run in bar 2 nice and crisp is something to work for without resorting to lifting the chanter to emphasise that e.
The penultimate bar of each part offers the chance to put in a tight f# g a triplet, maybe alternating with a tight g f# e triplet in the last bar.
The skill of the piper is to play a tune with a simple structure like this and use a mix of rolls, triplets, legato and stacatto finger work to maintain the interest. If you can get to enjoy varying the ornamentation in this tune you should be able to put some similar ideas into other tunes you pick up.
Ken
Some people just have no sense of homour :roll:
Thanks Ken! This is very helpful. I agree that a few subtle changes like the one’s you’ve pointed out can really make a difference. Im gonna go try 'em out right now!
JD
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/irish-folk-music/010289.HTM (in case Patrick is serious) 
I don’t have very good memories of this tune (our fiddler use to like to play it for Irish dance sets) but, I’ll have to admit I’d love to hear kenr play it on his B pipes, just to see what he might do with it. I always felt forced to play it against my will, along with The Priest’s Leap, and Smash The Windows. The Priest’s Leap was the more fun pipe tune though, simple as it seemed. Tobin’s was the first tune I ever felt a back D triplet coming on…but I resisted. 
Lorenzo,
I support your decision to avoid the back D triplet - not my favourite trick. Give me a few days to post an mp3, but I’ll give it a try. I picked the tune up from a tape of a session in Dublin some time back with Paul O’Shaughnessy, Jerry Lyons and Gabe McKeown. They followed it with The Wheels of the World and The Knights of St Patrick.
Patrick your comments are always useful - if only to raise a smile now and then.
Ken
Hi,
Posted a setting of the jig on the Clips and Snips, not the greatest piping ever but not bad for half an hour’s warm up.
Also posted the setting of the Swallow’s tail from Rochford’s transcribed in An Piobaire afew months ago. Really nice setting credited to Johnny Doran. Playing a flat set means you don’t have to try to sound like Johnny - so I don’t.
Ken
Nice arrangement Kenr, thanks for that sound clip. I kinda like the idea of taking old wornout tunes and piping them up to a new level of interest. I’m working on an old version of “The Campbells are Coming” that my uncle has on an old cylider. The B part is in Em.
Hey kenr… some serious back-stitching gonig on there… good stuff.
Patrick.
KenR,
Very nicely done!
Patrick D’Arcy,
Can you explain to a foggy brain (such as mine) what ‘backstitching’ is?
(e.g., how it’s played)?
Thanks,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Sure, there are a few different forms of back-stitching but they are generally played in the time a roll would be played, you are substituting the roll with this effect.
The ones I know of are played when you pop/play a note and follow it by either an arpeggio (C# A) eg. e C# A / f# C# A / g C# A. OR followed by a triplet, in kenr’s case I believe, the triplet being C# B A, so you’d play e C# B A / f# C# B A / g C# B A… not necessarily the notes in Tobin’s but good ones to practice on.
You can also play a back-stitch using the g-f#-e triplet. Play back D followed by g-f#-e or practice playing D g-f#-e / C# g-f#-e / B g-f#-e … etc.
kenr would probably be the best person to explain what he’s doing though?
Patrick.
Thanks Pat for making such a clear and simple explanation of backstitching.
We owe a big debt to Pat Mitchell for unpicking Touhey and Delaney cylinders and I think giving it the title backstitching (see the Touhey book all you budding tight pipers)
I was shown the trick about 20 years ago by Jimmy O’Brien-Moran who got it in turn from Pat.
The theory is you play a tight run of the base note C# A and the base note again so it goes F#-C#-A-F# played in the space of three crotchets. In a reel it’s sometimes easier just to stick C#-A in. It’s mostly played on E F# and G in top octave but Delaney backstitched the low G in the Cook in the Kitchen. A cascade of these tricks makes a nice run down at the end of each part of the Lark in the Morning. Listening to Pat Mitchell’s old LP you can hear him do that and he puts it in the Sailor’s Bonnet going back each time to the base note.
I taught my fingers to do it by playing dead slow. Once you crack the speed up, it’s a great trick as it sounds a lot harder to do than it really is.
Ken
Thanks kindly, Patrick and Ken, for the insights.
Thanks for the explanations. With e C# A / f# C# A / g C# A -upper case letters refer to upper octave?
Another good exercise for tight/closed ornaments is to close all fingerholes, lifting only the F#G fingers back and forth as fast as possible in the upper octave. It’s kind of amazing how many ornaments utilize this action, whether it’s a tight upper EF#G, or GF#E. Alternating F#G only as a long roll substitute, is one way to give both low D and low E an ornament.
“Backstitching”…I once heard it refer to as “sutures” --suit yours-elf.
Hey Lorenzo,
No, I have it written so that lower case is upper octave and vice versa. Probably backwards from ABC but I only listen to them 
Patrick.
ABC can cover 4 octaves, examples from lowest to highest G, G g g’ so lower case is upper octave
I’ve got a copy of the tune from a woman claiming to be Tobin’s granddaughter and she says she has his pipes. I met her in New Orleans where there are a lot of “characters” though it all seems legitimate. I didn’t see the pipes but she did show me a an old book of tunes from a pipers’ club in St. Louis. I think I have a jpeg of it with whistle tabs that I added. Mind this has no ornamentation notated except for a cut here and there.
Cheers,
Aaron