Quote:
Yes, that will work a trick! But it feels like cheating!
But of course it isn't (cheating). Tunes move through keys to suit instruments, or tonal colours/moods, better. Their keys are not set in stone.
I was just listening to a recording I made of the tune in the home of one of the old fiddlers who's sound Martin Hayes built a career on. First of all it has all the jig rhythms that the playing in the video you linked lacked, it's music that's alive. But the man in question played another jig, The Mist covered mountain. He played it in the key Junior originally set it Gm. Just about everybody just plays it a tone up. It suited other instruments better. Were they cheating? I wonder, even Junior ended up playing it mostly a tone up from his original setting.
Come to think of it, the same holds true for The Cliffs of Moher, there are a load of different versions of it going round but more importantly, the more or less standard version is played anywhere from Gm to G to Am and there's no cheating between them.
Caisleán an Óir sees the same type of choices made.
Tunes are fluent like that. Junior set his Luchradán in in D, dipping into the fiddle's low string. That's a bit awkward, although perfectly doable, folded on the pipes flute or whistle. Junior never had a problem playing it in G when those instruments were in the mix and it never felt like cheating.
One thing I learned from those men is that you set your tune where it suits both the tune and your instrument best, keys are about colour and mood but also about being practical and doing what suits.
There's ofcourse
this as well as a take on Paddy Fahy's.