We all know the easy ones. Which ones are killers?
they are all hard enough to play well, especially the simple ones.
:roll:
The ones in bad keys with extra sharps and flats.
There is no reel so easy that it cannot be made almost impossible this way.
The First one.
Slan,
D.
About three days ago I would have told you Gravel Walks…but I sat down with my tape recorder, played bits back over and over, and it wasn’t really as hard as I thought it was on flute…in fact, it’s my new favorite even though I’m still trying to work it up to session speed.
Lots of folks claim reels are hard, but I don’t think they’re any more difficult than many a jig or slip jig (Jig of Slurs - there’s a hard tune on flute or whistle, and I still don’t think even Matt Malloy’s version sounds good - I tell, IMHO, it’s an unnatural tune and proof of the devil).
Eric
Peter said it all. Playing any reel or tune well, from what appears to be the most simple of compositions to one that has four parts, has nothing to do with it being a “killer,” to play or learn.
I struggle with any type of tune to learn it, playing it well takes time and even when I think I can play a tune “well,” the fickle finger of fate is always dancing on the end of the whistle or flute.
MarkB
There are always those who think they can play a tune well because they can play the notes. You’d have thousands of beginners telling you that they can play the “Kesh Jig” well but other jigs are much harder to play.
It’s like saying you can cook pretty well because your food is never burnt and at the right temperature. But to be a good cook, the food has to taste good, too.
I know what the poster meant, but at the end of the end, what’s really “hard” to get in ITM is good phrasing. You could be playing Kesh Jig, Out on the Ocean, Miss McLeod’s, The Banshee, which are tunes most consider simple tunes, but does that mean they can play it well and are easy to play well?
A lot of tunes that fiddlers love are major challenges on flute or whistle. Dinky’s has a damned awkward figure at the beginning of the second part. Bear Island has some scary E major arpeggios in the first bar. Pretty much anything by Ed Reavy or Paddy Fahey or Finbar Dwyer or Liz Carroll will be a challenge. But all these tunes will make you stronger.
I’m working on the Mountain Road, and having a hard time not sounding like a machine gun. I think certain tunes are natural on fiddle and terrible on whistle and vice-versa. And as Peter said, getting from knowing the notes to a tune to playing it well, takes a long time.
g
Related to the main question, I would also say that what’s hard for someone might be easy for someone else. Brains are different, and the way they handle data is different from brain to brain, too.
A reel I just can’t play is “The Ivy Leaf”, I’ve had the sheet music in front of me, Mary Bergin’s CD playing, and some other flute players, and there’s still something that my brain can’t figure out, but I’m sure the tune is much easier for others.
The toughest reel I learned methink is the second part of “The Wise Maid”, I remember having a hard time.
Ro3b, great minds think alike! 
Mt Rd is difficult for some reason. It ‘sounds easy,’ but difficult to make it smooth and clean and interesting all at the same time. I find reels with a run of notes making you life one finger after the next up the scale hard to do and keep a steady rhythm and some emphasis in the right places. Wise Maid comes to mind. Some tunes are more difficult to memorize when they have repeating phrases with little variations, but they’re not necessarily harder to play after you learn them. Try Thady Casy’s from L Nugent’s Windy Gap cd. If you’re looking for a challenge, buy The Dance Music of Willie Clancy book by Pat Mitchell. It has the ornamentation written in. Try Tarbolton Reel out of the book with all the stuff attached. (If you don’t practice it every day, it falls apart badly. 
)
Tony
As I mentioned before, the Ebb Tide is OK on the Concertina, but a pain on the fiddle/mandolin. It can also be a pain on the Concertina depending on what fingering system you use.
The Mason’s Apron is supposedly hard on the concertina, or so says my computer simulations! But I never tried it.
Caj
Hey glauber, sent you a private message.
Yeah, there is a difference between hard to play and hard to learn. I have had a beach of a time learning the second part to Sligo Maid because I just can’t wrap my head around the melody.
You know, reading the above, I scoffed at the notion that the Mountain Road was hard. Pulled out my whistle to give it a whirl, and damned if I can’t remember how the B part goes anymore. Actually, I can still sort of hear it in my head, but when I try to play, the B part to Peter Horan’s “Maid in the Cherry Tree” comes out instead.
Sigh.
X:78
T:The Mountain Road
R:reel
S:Scoiltrad (Conal O'Grada) - as The Wise Maid
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:D
~F2 AF BFAF | ~F2 AF EFDE | ~F2 AF BFAF | GBFG EDBA |
~F2 AF BFAF | ~F2 AF EFDE | F ~A3 BAFB | ABde fd d2 :|
dfdB ADFA | dcde ~f3 e | dfdB AFDF | (3GFE (3GED EDBA |
dfdB ADFA | dcde fafe | de (3fed BAFA | (3GAG FG EDBA :|
Hey, Dinky’s is catchy! Thanks for mentioning it.
I thought it might sound, you know, dinky.
Mountain road ain’t bad either.
I thought it might sound…Mountainy…or roady…or something.
If only I could get my fingers to go as fast as my brain instructs…I haven’t seen an easy reel/jig yet. You tell me if you find one in 4/4 time 
The Sunshine Hornpipe/Mountain Road as played by the Dubliners was one of the reasons I got into playing fiddle many moons ago.
T he Mountain Road is a simple tune to play but a hard one to get swinging. I still find it difficult to play on a whistle but love playing it on fiddle,it seems to be a fiddle tune moreso than a whistle tune.
Anyone trying to develop the “swagger”(for want of a better word) in this tune could do worse than check out the Dubliners version. It crops up all over the place in Dubliners complimations though the original can be found on “Finnegan Wakes” a live recording of the Dubs from the late sixties.
It is one of those tunes that I cannot imagine being called anything else but the Mountain Road in spite of the fact that the names of the tunes in ITM are there for identification and rarely ,if ever ,have a descriptive aspect.
Being a life long Dubs fan I have a copy of the track concealed about my person should anybody want it…(for research purposes only..ahem.)
Slan,
D.
