Private Parts

[ChristianRo]

I have your attention? Well, then:

It seems that several well-known tunes have (additional?) parts that are frowned upon in certain circles and you are advised not to take them out in public. I wonder for what reasons that is? The ones I know are:

Over the moor to Maggie, third part
Dingle Regatta, third part
Monaghan jig, fourth part
Maid at the spinning wheel, fourth part

Do you know the story behind the lack of acceptance there? Is it the rather "technical" than musical structure of these parts (notably Monaghan and Maid)? Are there other tunes with socially unacceptable parts? Just curious. I for my part don't care much. If someone plays these parts, I play along, sometimes I play them myself, sometimes I don't.

[benhall.1]

How odd. I never hear any of those tunes without any of their parts. I've never come across resistance to playing them.

Strange ...


Out of interest, where have you found this resistance? Germany? Ireland? Elsewhere?

[Mr.Gumby]

I have, for all of them. Not sure what you mean by 'technical', in my experience parts are rejected because they do not add much at all to the tune or are considered not belonging to the tune. In the case of the Maid at the Spinning Wheel the fourth part isn't very interesting to play for example (I did hear it play at a concert last week though. By a very young player), the third part of Over the Moor.. is around here considered best left out, although as with all these things, it depends on the company you keep.

No harm having all parts ready when they're needed.

There is a class of tunes that appears in O'Neill's as three part tunes, often these can be 'floater' parts, parts that may as well have been tacked onto any other tune in the same key. The Ship in Full Sail has one of these, Rakes of Clonmel too I believe. Few would play them although you do come across them occasionally. The third part on the cylinder recording of My Former Wife is not played by many either.

But these things can vary, someone may record a tune with an extra part and if it's a good one suddenly everybody is playing it.

Mayor Harrison's Fedora on the other hand appears in O'Neill's as a two parter but has picked a third part for example.

I also have recordings of Seamus Ennis playing three part versions of several tunes (more or less as a demonstration), Drowsy Maggy among them that I have nobody ever heard play. I have heard third parts for the Cameronian and Flax in Bloom as well. But in each case only one player who ever used them.

And who will ever play the original (I believe) seventeen parts of the Mountain Road?

[benhall.1]

Well, I've heard variations in numbers of parts of lots and lots of different tunes - sometimes parts left out, sometimes added, depending on the particular version that place, that night, that/those player/s. But I haven't come across resistance to playing the parts in those four particular tunes. Are you saying that there is some resistance to them over in Clare, Peter?

[Mr.Gumby]

Particular players would give you dirty looks if you tried the third part of Over the Moor certainly. Other parts may get you asked if you 'like that part'. 'We don't play that part around here' may apply to others.

[benhall.1]

Particular players would give you dirty looks if you tried the third part of Over the Moor certainly. Other parts may get you asked if you 'like that part'. 'We don't play that part around here' may apply to others.

Huh. OK. Haven't come across it. I hope I don't. I'll play anything, me.

... mind, that does also mean that I'm quite happy to play it someone else's way if that's what's required.

[benhall.1]

Oh, stuff it, you've got me curious now, Peter. Why does it happen? Take Over the Moor as an example. Is it because there is a fondness for a particular way of playing it that someone remembers from some great player or other, and the third part is seen to 'spoil' that? Is it that the third part is seen as some sort of late arrival? Or maybe just that some local good player has taken against a particular part, and his example is followed?

[ChristianRo]

Thanks for your insights PGumby. To answer Ben's question: Some of this, well "snobbery" has slipped over to Germany it seems. I think I have talked to other German musicians about this before. Some may use their "inside knowledge" to merely show off, I suppose. But it is true, some of my given examples are technically challenging but sound bland, so why bother.

[Mr.Gumby]

Well yes, some people do take an angle that some parts are for the riff raff. Not the way to go about it I think.


Fashion plays a part as well ofcourse, I noticed during the Willie week that's it's very fashionable at the moment to leave the Paddy Taylor composed part out of the Boy in the Gap.

[colomon]

Random anecdote on Over the Moor to Maggie:

The first time I became aware of bias against the third part was driving Ken Perlman to Goderich in 2001. That tune was one of the ones they'd picked out to send to the Celtic College participants ahead of time. Ken felt (strongly, it seemed to me) that the third part was a latter addition that added nothing to the tune.

That was the year that Peter Horan, John Carty, and Joe Grady were there, and that tune was omnipresent in the sessions, always played with all three parts. Someone, Joe Grady I think, had a nice little Sligo-ish twist on the third part, and his version spread like wildfire among the players there. I guess it's possible they were humoring us, but I certainly didn't get the impression they had any bias against the third part. (I just checked up on a listening session from the Catskills with Peter and Mike Rafferty, and they played it with three parts there, too.)

[Cathy Wilde]

Ken felt (strongly, it seemed to me) that the third part was a latter addition that added nothing to the tune.

I heard Kevin Crawford express the same opinion a few years ago at Augusta. He also said that he preferred the tune in D. !

Another one that varies is The Lark's March. And I can't even begin to figure out what's what with Paidin O'Raffertaigh!

Meanwhile ... just a few days ago I was in a minor Maid at the Spinning Wheel train wreck at one of the Catskills teachers' sessions. I think Mary Bergin went one way, Kathleen Loughnane and Patrick Orceau went the other.

No major injuries except to the fourth part, which, after a brief mangling, was left for dead by the side of the tracks. Poor little arpeggiated thing.

[colomon]

And I can't even begin to figure out what's what with Paidin O'Raffertaigh!

Yeah, I've got a lovely little crooked Newfoundland tune which is apparently an even more far out than usual variation of Paidin O'Raffertaigh. (Probably someone heard it on the radio, remembered it halfway, and rendered it in a more local style...)

[john]

I think on ronan browne/peter o'loughlin's 'south-west wind' you get both paigin o'rafferty's one after the other (including the one you give above) - I think both versions are in pat Mitchell's Clancy book

[Mr.Gumby]

both paigin o'rafferty'

'Both' is a bit of an understatement, there are loads of different versions and variants around.

[NicoMoreno]

I myself know four versions, and learned (and then forgot) a fifth. Sol's version is not on the South-West Wind, but the "common" three part and the four part Willie Clancy versions I believe are. Sol's is a version of Droney's, a two-parter, and there's also a two part song version (Dervish recorded that). The fifth one I was learning is one from CRE#1 (Breathnach). There's an 8 or 9 part version in O'Farrell's, and Chris Langan had a nice 8 or 9 part highland pipe version. I think Patrick Street recorded yet another one.

The four I know are all different enough that you could easily play them in a set without getting confused. The fifth one is close enough that a bit more care is needed, but it was doable.