also on planxty cds are some off beat tunes (smeseno horo for instance…), also on some andy irvine solo albums or albums with his group mozaik …
marin
p.s see also michel mcgoldrick tune, waterman …http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/3367 also in 7/8.
i think that he composed also some more tunes in 7/8, but not 100 % shure …
tunes in 7/8 and 5/4 are not off-beat - they are just in different beat
Get interested in Breton, Balkan and Greek dances - these should give you plenty of material to work on - check out for example the Zembekiko [Zeimpekiko] in 9/8 signature.
All the above certainly. Brian Finnegan has of course written a lot of 7/8 tunes that sit well on flute and whistle. Stuff from Mike McGoldrick too, of course. I like to mess around sometimes in playing trad tunes in weird rhythms just for fun too…
I’m currently attempting to play Aidan O’Rourke’s “Hinba”, that’s in a nice mixture of 7/8, 9/8, and 6/8 I think… It’s not totally the rhythm changes that’s throwing me off anymore, but just getting all the right notes there up to speed. It’s an uber tricky tune, but oh so cool!
“Because the tunes in standard rhythms put me to sleep” is an answer close to my heart.
“Beats me”, is an answer that a current USA republican political candidate might come up with.
“I don’t read; I lead, so vote for me” is an answer that is not relevant to the topic but one that is laughable and somewhat frightening.
My band does Thunderhead and Road to Barga both ripped off from Lunasa. A previous poster mentions Thunderhead as being Balkin in the ABC and originally in 6/8, but that is incorrect. It was written by Grey Larson who, the story goes, wrote it on a plane looking out the window at the clouds. While Grey wrote the original in 7/8 he also wrote a 6/8 version which he recorded with Malcolm Dalglish. Lunasa recorded the original 7/8 version.
Road to Barga (http://youtu.be/7MmGPlte53w) was written by Cillian Vallely, Lunasa’s piper in around 98 or 99. At the time he said he was playing some with the Klezmatics and was inspired to try writing something in 7/8. He says, “The drive from Lucca to Barga in Tuscany is not for the faint-hearted…” I would add that neither is this tune. If anybody wants the dots I can email you a pdf
One very well known Scottish 5/4 tune is the pipe march “Cullen Bay”.
There are quite a few English folksongs in 5/4. And French dance tunes, as well as the aforementioned Balkan stuff. But what all of them have in common is limited range, no more than an octave. I don’t think there is tradition of odd-metre folk tunes that also have the typically wide range of Irish music, and would accordingly make really idiomatic whistle or flute music.
Jack, it could be even easier argued that Cullen Bay is a march in 4/4 with the fourth beat stretched for another beat, thereby slowing it. - It is modern like all the others in any case.
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- but what a great tune!