Playing for Mr. Peanut

srt19170 · Post by **srt19170** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 6:41 am

I live in an oak and holly forest in Northern Virginia, and the wildlife that we share our land with include chipmunks. We have one young chipmunk that lives under our front doorstep whom the kids have named "Mr. Peanut".

I decided to train Mr. Peanut to eat out of my hand this summer, so I commenced on a long campaign of placing out peanuts, putting out peanuts while I sat nearby, etc. After some weeks I met with success, and Mr. Peanut is now bold enough to come and sit in my hand for a peanut. He occasionally tastes my thumb to see if it's a peanut, but he's really quite gentle and I don't mind.

At this point, you're presumably wondering what all this has to do with the tinwhistle. The answer is that throughout Mr. Peanut's training, I've used the free time to practice my tinwhistle. As a result, Mr. Peanut has learned to associate the tinwhistle with peanuts, and to summon him I just sit out on the front step and start tootling away.

I must say, it's nice to have an appreciative (if diminuitive) audience. I'll leave it to the (ahem) peanut gallery to make the inevitable jokes about "playing for peanuts".

Scott T.

PS. I'd still like to get the music to "Colcannon (The Skillet Pot)" or "The Bantry Girls Lament". I'm sure Mr. Peanut would appreciate it too

[ This Message was edited by: srt19170 on 2001-07-09 08:41 ]

JessieK · Post by **JessieK** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 7:35 am

That is such a cool story!!

Jessie

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 7:44 am

On 2001-07-09 08:41, srt19170 wrote:
PS. I'd still like to get the music to "Colcannon (The Skillet Pot)" or "The Bantry Girls Lament".

Just for Mr Peanut, off the top of my head:

<img src="http://www.rogermillington.com/siamsa/b ... lament.gif">

The use of dotted-quarter note/eighth note pairs in place of two quarter notes varies according to the words of the various verses, but you'll get the idea.

It would probably be easier for most people to sing in D, but on the whistle it sounds nice in G. And you're on your own for chords, but the tune shouldn't require the skills of a Duke Ellington to harmonize.

HTH Steve

Code: Select all

T:The Bantry girls' lament
M:4/4
L:1/4
Z:StevieJ
K:G
G/A/| B2  B>A | B<d   d>e | d>B/ B/A/ G | A3 G/A/ |!
B B B>A | B d   d>e | d2>B/ A>G/ | G3 3)d/e/f/ |!
g> f g>d | e d d g/d/| e d B/A/ G | A3 G/A/|!
B>B B>A | B d   d>e | d2>B/ A>G/ | G3 ||!

PS I used the "code" tag for the ABC notation because the board software insisted on interpreting the middle of bar 2 as an HTML tag!

S

[ This Message was edited by: StevieJ on 2001-07-09 09:58 ]

srt19170 · Post by **srt19170** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 9:33 am

Ah! I wish I could do that "off the top of my head". Even if Mr. Peanut doesn't thank you, I do.

Scott T.

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 10:03 am

Scott by "off the top of my head" I didn't mean to imply that I just wrote out the music like that, without playing it on the whistle as I did so. (I know some people who can do that.) I meant that I wrote it from memory, without referring to any recordings.

There was a time about 15 years ago when every record you bought seemed to have this song on it. I have versions (off the top of my head!) by Dolores Keane, Sean Cannon, Bonnie Shaljean, Mick Daly of Any Old Time, Cherish The Ladies, and probably a couple of others as well. Where did you hear it?

WyoBadger · Post by **WyoBadger** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 10:24 am

So, Scott, I think a tune entitled "Planxty Mr. Peanut" would be in order, don't you?

Thanks for a great story!

Tom

srt19170 · Post by **srt19170** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 11:04 am

A "Planxty Mr. Peanut" is clearly needed. I shall get right on it in my copious free time.

I'm familiar with "Bantry Girls Lament" from the Cherish the Ladies recording. I don't know (off the top of my head

who the singer is, but it's certainly a beautiful rendition.

Scott T.

[ This Message was edited by: srt19170 on 2001-07-09 13:05 ]