Can anyone identify a tune from a short recording please. The person who started it said he did not know - he used to it was The Jolly(?) Beggarman but was reliably informed that it was not… It sounds fun to play but I wanted to find a complete recording to practice to.
Thanks in advance for any help
Phill
“Red Haired Boy” ?
Although, in the clip provided above the “B” part seems to be recorded first.
Thanks Trill
That would make sense - as people on the session reckon that is another name for The Little Beggarman. Do you have doubts though, judging by the question mark?
Yeah, my first thought when someone plays a tune is ‘Do I know it?’ (Usually ‘no’) Then I listen for a while and if I like the tune I capture a soundbite to remind me how it was played. By the time I have fumbled my phone into record mode it is quite likely into the second B part. Then I put my phone away and enjoy the rest of the tune.
“The Jolly Beggarman / Little Beggarman” is the song.
https://youtu.be/pGENSL71BME?si=-Wbai0qnmhjWZ-jf
https://youtu.be/i3RwlB_Tf4M?si=3wEXa36WxLWYr8MZ
The tune is called “The Red-Haired Boy”, - and much else besides.
Thank you all for the help.
I really appreciate it.
Phill
Well, the version in the sample clip has lots of differences from the one I know. So, I had some doubts. “Folk process” and all that . . .
Glad to get confirmation.
Here’s sheet music to a large number of slightly different versions.
They say they have 25 different names for that tune. I know it as An Gille Ruadh.
Thanks for the link. It seems like every tune has multiple names, and sometimes a name is used for different tunes.
That makes it difficult for the likes of me sometimes.
The good folk on C&F are my lifeline.
Right, it would only be with a recently-composed tune that you would have a 1:1 relationship tune:title but even then the tune will quickly gather new names and new versions.
Because Irish music lives and is transmitted through sessions, people sitting around a table playing tune after tune with no sheet music.
New tunes are learned by ear, nowadays generally by people recording them on their phone and going home and learning them. So generally you’re learning tunes that you don’t know the name of, and next time at the session when they start playing it you recognise it and can join in.
Let’s say Becky was the one who started the tune the night you recorded it. Then when you’re playing it along with the session somebody asks you the name and what will you tell them? Probably “Becky’s reel” or something. That’s how one a single tune will end up with several people’s names attached by various people.
This was happening a lot last Sunday because a guy kept asking the names. Often nobody knew a name, and sometimes people would start guessing, with several guesses being bandied about.
Sometimes when somebody would throw out a guess somebody else would say “yes! that’s it!” and that was its name (at least at that moment).
It’s often the case where musicians doing commercial recordings will give wrong names to tunes, or the people doing the album jacket accidentally switch titles between tracks. Thus all the people who learn that tune off that album will have a wrong name for it. It’s survival of the fittest, and that “wrong” album title might become the “correct” title to most people, in time.
Or maybe there’s no such thing as a “wrong” name, just an “alternate” one!
WOW !
Love that site ! Click to listen ! Beautifully formatted dots !
Thanks Richard !
It is a really good resource, isn’t it?
I had a disagreement this summer with a fiddle player about this. I’d never heard of this “One is the tune,the other the song” trip,which makes no sense.
Since the late 70s or so I’ve known two distinct tunes,one is An Gille Ruadh,(The Redhaired Boy),and the other is The Little Beggarman. No G#s in An Gille Ruadh as opposed to Beggarman.
One isn’t a variation of the other. While we know various names float all over tunes and sometime vice versa I haven’t run across this particular contradiction before. If I get a chance this week I’ll see if I can scare them up outta my books. If memory serves (I’m not in my house right know) I think both may be in Williamson’s fiddle book. If I can I’ll check O’Neill’s and Roche.
As to the dispute with the fiddler it was shown once again that a fiddle and bow are no match for a lower key Goldie. I mean,after you strip the bow out of their hand,they can’t even 
you in the eye,and fiddles don’t absorb strikes from metal very well.At all.
Oops! This isn’t Martial Arts Planet,is it? 