Tune help..Ag Taislteal Na Blarnan...

Trad Irish Music
1

I am looking for the ABC notation or the dots to a slow air "Ag Taisteal Na
Blarnen (Blanan) aka Market Place Idler or Market Lounger. Liam O’Flynn, The Chieftains, play it and I have a mp3 sample.

It is also known as Staca an Mhargaidh and is in the Roche Collection of Traditional Irish Music, which our library doesn’t have. I found an entry in Google that also mention that in was in the Pigot Collection under a different name but I lost the page in a flurry of reference questions here at that desk.

JC’s and other reliable sources that we use, also don’t have it. I tried everything including the Fiddler’s Companion website.

Any help will be appreciated, thank you.

MarkB

2

Ag Taisteal Na Blarnan / Travelling Through Blarney/ Staca an Mhargaidh / Market Place Idler

Sorry, Mark, but its not in Roche’s or Joyce/Ford/Pigot’s under any of these names. None of the albums that this air appears on has a reference to the source, either. Looks like YOU get to be the first one to create an abc for it. Lucky you! :smiley:

djm

3

Oops! It has been pointed out to me that this tune is, in fact, in Roche’s. There are three separate indexes so I missed it (d’uh!).

It’s in Volume III under the title Staic an Mhargaid. The version noted is not quite the same as Liam O’Flynn’s on The Given Note, if that’s what you’re after. Better to use slow-downer software to pull that.

Here’s what’s in Roche’s:

X:1
T:Staic an Mhargaid
M:3/4
Q:1/4=100 (Andante con Moto)
L:1/8
K:G
BA | G2D2G2 | G4 FG | A4 AG | A2B2 G2 | c4{dc}BA | B2d2g2 |!
G4 GE | G2 cBGE | =F4 {GF}ED | E4 {A}GE | D2E2 G2 | G4 || c2 | B2 GABc |!
d4 de | =f4 {f}ed | d2e2B2 | g4 {a}ge | d2g2 B2 | A4 AG | A2B2G2 |!
c4 {c}BA | B2d2 g2 | G4 GE | G2 cBGE | =F4 {GF}ED | E4{A}GE | D2E2G2 | G4 ||

Looks like I get to be first to put it into abc. :stuck_out_tongue:

djm

4

Thank you djm! I got a photocopy via PM of the music from Roche’s but my ABC skills are sadly lacking for me to put it here.

MarkB

5

I believe it is on Matt Malloy’s Heathery Breeze, or on the Chieftains’ Ballad of the Irish Horse or on Chieftains 9, one of those three anyway (been a while since I listened to any of them), where the origin of the tune is discussed. It was one of my favorite airs to play on fiddle.

6

I started to do an abc of O’Flynn’s version, but the ametrical format, coupled with my poor transcription skills, makes the results of little use by ordinary mortals. :frowning:

djm