List:
Oddly enough my main music is 18th century popular music, jigs and reels like soldiers joy, Fishers hornpipe, moon and seven stars etc. I also play alot of fife and drum tunes on the whistle that I learned while in a Fife and drum Corp., as well as Irish music, however I was wondering what type of music other people are playing. If anyone is playing 18th century stuff and would like to trade copies of musical manuscripts from this period , I would love to hear from you.
Ben
Can music from the 18th century be considered popular music?I,ve always associated it as a 20th century thing when sheet music and recordings became available to the masses.You must know more about this than I do,what would be some examples of 18th century popular music? Peace, Mike
Some favorite whistle tunes of mine:
1812 Quickstep
Brighten Camp
Out on the Ocean
Gravel Walk / the Otter’s Holt
the Arran Boat
the Sailor’s Hornpipe (“the Popeye song”)
Riosin Dubh
the Home Ruler
Richard Dwyer’s
Sean sa Cheo
and the list goes on…
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
Mike and list:
There is a very large number of popular secular tunes from the 18th century. Instrumental music, mainly jigs and reels. That were quite popular in England, Scotland Ireland as well as the colonials. As opposed to Irish Music , most of this is of English and Scottich origin and is avaiable in variuos tunebooks. It’s similiar to the standard Irish session tunes, but not as much in the minor scales, etc. Most of this music was played by the middling class, many were good sight readers and the standard instruments were the Fiddle and one key Flute, sadly the whistle as we know it now did not appear to existBen
Mike:
James list is quite interesting from a historical viewpoint;He is playing 1812 quickstep which is an old Fife tune that was transformed from a RevWar period tune called Welcome here again
Brighton camp is also known as the girl I left behind which is late 18th century.
The pop eye song or sailors hornpipe was also called the college hornpipe and was played by everyone around the later part of the 18th century
Ben
Well, I like Gershwin’s “Summertime” a LOT, John Denver’s “My Sweet Lady” and “Annie’s Song,” “Hi Lili, Hi Lo,” a couple of hymns, and some folk tunes (particularly “Over the River and Through the Woods” which is lots of fun to play around with); these are not usually considered “Whistle Music” but work really well. And then for Irish Airs and Songs, I guess my favorite is “Come Back, Paddy Reilly” with its really great sense of musical humor, “Blind Mary,” “Carrickfergus,” and of course, “Londonderry Air/Danny Boy.” I’m just learning some dance tunes and they are LOTS of fun but really tax my fingers getting up to some kind of “speed.” I practice a lot and play a variety of styles which keeps my interest up but probably my skills down - never mastering one genre - but it’s fun, anyway. I practice ornaments but use very few mostly because I am still learning the music I play. IMO, a tune should be played automatically and almost without thinking before you can begin to embellish it, and I’m not there, yet.
Simon & Garfunkel - “The Boxer”, “Scarborough Fair”, and “Sound of Silence”
O’Carolan - “Si Beag, Si Mor” and “Eleanor Plunkett”
Old Rock & Roll - “Sleepwalk” and “Rockin’ Robin”
Almost all Christmas songs.
Many hymns and praise songs, especially “Be Thou My Vision”
And, of course, a little Trad material!
Mostly Trad Material… I’m in the process of accumulating a bit of “the secret handshake” … so I’m basically learning a bunch of “standards” My sources for learning tunes would be… L.E.'s Book… Sessions & “The Internet”… and friends that don’t play in sessions… One thing that I’ve found to help is to each time I go to the “full tilt” session… to write down the tunes that I don’t know… go home & practice and come back in a month…(I’d go every week but the “full tilt” is about an hour from my house so I can’t go every week… it also gives me time to learn a bunch of tunes…) My practice schedule might seem a bit arduous… (it really is quite fun!) but each time I go to the session it’s a bunch more fun! In the next year or so my wife and I would like to go to Ireland for a week or so… So I’m trying to learn as many “standards” as possible before we go… 
Although… I think the most fun about going will be learning from the best! Uhhh… Whomever that is…
Ohhh… and of course we’ll have to visit the Guinness Brewery and Lowden Guitars… Perhaps meet the lad who built my guitar!
On 2002-04-28 13:12, IrishBen wrote:
Mike:
James list is quite interesting from a historical viewpoint;He is playing 1812 quickstep which is an old Fife tune that was transformed from a RevWar period tune called Welcome here again
Brighton camp is also known as the girl I left behind which is late 18th century.
The pop eye song or sailors hornpipe was also called the college hornpipe and was played by everyone around the later part of the 18th century
Ben
Ben,
as tunes such as these were most likely learnt in the oral tradition wouldnt they then be considered folk rather than popular? Mike