The New Rigged Ship is a Jig (AKA Green Willis)
Da New Rigged Ship is a Reel
Right?? 
And then there’s the Full Rigged Ship… I’m seasick!
There is a reel which I believe Altan recorded following the song “Donal Agus Morag.”
It’s a favorite tune of mine.
–James
The best cure for being seasick is sitting under a tree. Guaranteed to work every time!
Regards,
Owen Morgan
Yacht Magic
Anchored in the lagoon, St Maarten
My new blog.
Click here for my latest reported position. (Use the satellite view.)
Interesting. And the best cure for tree sickness is a nice boat ride. It’s true! 
You seem to be on to something here, Annie. The United Nations High Commision for Tune Titles should definitely do something about this mixup. Outrageous! The tune James remembers is the first one below, on Altan’s Harvest Storm, Track 2.
Da/The New Rigged Ship (Reel)
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/880
The New Rigged Ship / Green Willis / Miss Finlay’s Delight (Jig)
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1207
Da/The Full(y) Rigged Ship (Jig)
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/878
Also see:
[http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/NE.htm#NEW_RIGGED_SHIP_[1](http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/NE.htm#NEW_RIGGED_SHIP_[1)] et seq.
[http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FROG_FY.htm#FULL_RIGGED_SHIP_[1](http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/FROG_FY.htm#FULL_RIGGED_SHIP_[1)] et seq.
swoon …
So.. MT, i don’t suppose you could be coerced into putting up a bit of those? Maybe? Please?
I’m trying to learn the jig, the second one in your listing (The New Rigged Ship or Green Willis or Miss Finlay’s)- starting out with the simple version found on the session. It would sure be nice to have a good example to listen to and work toward. 
Annie, check your PMs. 
Hi annie
If you are dipping into the Shetland repertoir then this tune is a nice one.
X: 1
T: Da Slockit Light
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
FE|D3F A2d2|fedc d2A2|B2d2 A2d2|BAGF EGFE|
D3F A2d2|fedc d2A2|B2G2 AGFE|D4- D2:|
g2|f2a2 e3c|d3e dcBA|f2a2 e2^g2|a4- a2=g2|
f2a2 e3c|d3e dcBA|B2G2 AGFE|D4- D3g|
f2a2 e3c|d3e dcBA|B2d2 A2d2|BAGF EGFE|
D3F A2d2|fedc d2A2|B2G2 AGFE|D4- D2|]
David
And there are other tunes with the name Green Willis.
I have found the best remedy for sea sickness is to stand on the deck, hold onto something sturdy, and focus your gaze on the horizon.
Da Slockit Light - reel???
Slow air, surely? Certainly Aly Bain plays it very slowly. At least on the album I have he does.
I’m sure it can be played as a reel, but I’m equally sure it will lose something if it is.
I believe it was written as something of a lament for the depopulation of the island of Eshaness where Tom Anderson grew up. “Slockit”, as I understand, is a Shetland dialect word meaning “extinguished” (from Old Norse) and the title refers to the empty farmhouses on the island.
It’s normally played slowly in sessions round where I live.
Geoff
OK, let’s get to the source here, Tom Anderson.
In his book Ringing Strings he has, on facing pages (58 and 59):
Da Full Rigged Ship (in 6/8 time)
and
Da New Rigged Ship (in common time)
And on an album of his, he plays the two as a medley.
I need to point out that Da Full Rigged Ship is NOT A JIG. If you play it like a jig you’re ruining the tune.
Here’s what the footnote in Ringing Strings says:
“Tom learned this descriptive piece from the late Peter Fraser. It describes the motion of a full rigged ship with a nice sailing wind. The changes in tempo try to describe where the ship and sea play a little game.”
Listen to the way Tom Anderson plays it: it’s not only slow, but full of rubato. It does NOT have an even beat.
Da New Rigged Ship is a reel.
Just for you, here’s a quick and sloppy stab at Miss Finlay’s Delight aka Green Willis aka The New Rigged Ship, played on a somewhat sharp brass Feadóg D.
http://www.box.net/shared/qogccga8ss
I’d never heard the tune and don’t know it, so I’m just going by the dots at thesession - or at least what became of the dots after they stewed in my head for a few days. I hope this approximates how it might be played in one of the relevant traditions: English, Scottish/Shetland, or American contradance. If it’s wildly wrong, I’m sure someone will let me know.
That’s what is commonly played here in NE England as “The New Rigged Ship”. I was taught it about 2 Years ago by Alistair Anderson at a workshop, but never fully committed it to memory. I must make the effort and do so some time as it is quite commonly played. Your tempo is about what it is played at here.
Thanks, Tootler, that’s good to know. Funny, I was actually wondering how Alistair might play it. I actually worked out a setting on English concertina before trying it on whistle. I guess because it first struck me as more like a stotty Northumbrian tune than a typical Irish single jig.
On Far from Home Aly introduces it as an air to start off this set: Da Slockit Light/ Crossing the Minch/ The Laird of Drumblair/ The Fairy Dance
The trick for playing Da New Rigged Ship right (and other Shetland reels as well) is to get the syncopation.
In Da New Rigged Ship all three parts end in three quarter notes:
1st part: f# dd
2nd part: c#AA
3rd part: c(natural)AA
These are NOT all timed the same. Some are played straight, some have that great Shetland syncopated bowing on them. Listen to Tom Anderson play them to see what I mean.
A great source for authentic Shetland tunes played by real Shetland players is “The Silver Bow”. I got hooked on this stuff and played a lot of it for a while. These tunes really should be respected for what they are and an attempt should be made to play them the way they really go, but unfortunately I hear them hacked to pieces by Irish players at Irish sessions- people who have never heard the tunes played right.
Richard, can you describe the syncopation? I guess I don’t understand how one would syncopate quarter notes / crotchets in this context, unless something like |fd2d d2z2|. In which case the quarter note transcription is just wrong.
I just listened to Aly Bain’s setting of the tune from Aly Bain & Ale Möller, Fully Rigged, Track 1. Aly plays the quarter notes perfectly straight, and I can’t imagine that his interpretation is wrong per se, though it could be one of several possible approaches.
Sure, of course, respect the tunes by all means. On the other hand, the assimilation and transmutation of tunes from one tradition to another, with the tunes acquiring the stylistic characteristics of the target tradition, is as old as the hills and a perfectly normal part of the folk process, too. How many Irish tunes started life in a different tradition? The Irish trad musician hearing the tune and playing it his or her own way wasn’t hacking it, but simply doing what comes naturally. Both aspects - preservation and adaptation - are partners in the process.
Edited to make sure I’m communicating the right tone: I have great respect for your perspective and experience, pancelt, and am genuinely interested in your insights here, not just trying to be argumentative.
Darling, notation has never been the custodian of a folk music genre, just a guide. Now you should know that.
This is well said but so long as it it does not mean to include the rigidities or limitations of a music notation system as a “stylistic characteristic[of a] target tradition”.
Thanks MT! The first part is slightly different from what I’ve been learning, but should make a good variation. I first learned this years ago in the Old Time tradition. Thanks a bunch!
And thanks to everyone else for your contributions on this too. I appreciate all the info.
Yes, dear talasiga, I do, I do.
Agreed! My questions are about performance, not the dots.
Well I wouldn’t know how to attempt to notate the syncopation in ABC notation, which I barely understand. You have to listen to the old Shetland fiddlers. It’s in their bowing.
I grew up listening to Appalachian fiddling and had always wondered why it sounded so different from the Scottish fiddling that it supposedly came from. The bowing approach of Appalachia seemed completely absent from Scottish fiddling.
Then I heard Shetland fiddling, and there it was!
Now obviously there was no mass migration from the Shetland islands to Appalachia. All I can guess is that Shetland fiddling and Appalachian fiddling preserve a bowing style which was once more widespread in Britain.
The old Appalachian fiddler Eddin Hammon’s music is sort of a missing link. When I first heard his playing I didn’t realise it was Appalachian at all- I thought I was listening to some old Shetland fiddler. Eddin was a top fiddle contestant in the late 19th and early 20th century who fortunately was recorded, albeit as an old man past his playing prime.
Anyhow in this tune, Da New Rigged Ship, in the third part where the three quarter-notes are c(natural)AA, the C is shorter than a quarter-note and the A is therefore arrived at before the beat. Likewise the next A is arrived at before the beat also.
Get “The Silver Bow- Shetland Folk Fiddling” and listen to the old guys. It’s wonderful stuff.
About the Irish session scene assimilating tunes, yes I realise that this is the traditional process, to “nativise” non-Irish tunes, mutating them so that they can be shoved into one of the pre-existing Irish idioms. But oftentimes a lot is lost in this process, and people who have only heard the Irish session version are unaware of the loss.
One example is Ashokan Farewell, which as played by the composer has the style of a Scottish “slow strathspey” with its distinctive “Scotch snaps” and turns. The Irish session has mutated it into just another waltz. The tune’s entire character was lost in the process. Of course people who haven’t heard Scottish fiddlers play “slow strathspeys” and have never heard Ashokan Farewell played correctly won’t know the difference.
Same goes for many Scottish tunes which have been heavily distorted in the process of transmission to the Irish session.
And it works both ways- the Highland pipe repertoire now includes quite a few Irish jigs and reels and airs which have been quite mangled to fit onto the GHB’s limited scale. The Highland pipers however, having never heard the originals, have no idea how little of the original tunes’ character comes through. The Gold Ring, The Kesh Jig, The Mountain Road, For Ireland I’d Not Tell Her Name, the list goes on.