Session Tunes, what's popular?

[FJohnSharp]

Throw in a few hornpipes maybe (because those were the easiest for me to play). Off To California, Boys of Bluehill, (and another one that's not coming to me right now).

Will O'Ban

Rights of Man

[colomon]

Name 5 SS

I don't know if I'm just wasting time feeding the troll here, but Steve's dead right these are easy to find. Because I'm very lazy, here's a list of tonal center of A with F sharp reels from The Mountain Road tunebook sitting open next to me:

The Laurel Tree
Down the Broom
The Gatehouse Maid
The Flowers of Red Hill
The New Steamboat

Mind you, this tunebook is only 34 pages long, with about 60 tunes. This suggests that well over 10% of the reels in South Sligo are commonly played in A Dorian... and at least three of the ones here are very common session tunes.

Interestingly, I don't see a single E tune in the book with a C in it, either natural or sharp, whereas all of the above tunes do have an F-sharp in them.

Actually, does anyone know any Irish tunes in A with F-naturals? I can't recall ever trying to play one....

[talasiga]

.....I don't know if I'm just wasting time feeding the troll here, ........
here's a list of tonal center of A with F sharp reels from The Mountain Road tunebook sitting open next to me:

The Laurel Tree
Down the Broom
The Gatehouse Maid
The Flowers of Red Hill
The New Steamboat


........

Thanks, I'll check this out.

The only time you're wasting is by conceiving me as a troll.
Of course, you are entitled to your conceptions as are the many music lovers who have befriended me here, many of whom are better musicians than me.

[Darwin]

Name 5 SS

I don't know if I'm just wasting time feeding the troll here, but Steve's dead right these are easy to find. Because I'm very lazy, here's a list of tonal center of A with F sharp reels from The Mountain Road tunebook sitting open next to me:

The Laurel Tree
Down the Broom
The Gatehouse Maid
The Flowers of Red Hill
The New Steamboat

Mind you, this tunebook is only 34 pages long, with about 60 tunes. This suggests that well over 10% of the reels in South Sligo are commonly played in A Dorian... and at least three of the ones here are very common session tunes.

Interestingly, I don't see a single E tune in the book with a C in it, either natural or sharp, whereas all of the above tunes do have an F-sharp in them.

I'm an ITM beginner, but when I play tunes and airs on the guitar, I'm always conscious of the mode.

Here are several E-dorian tunes and airs that I'm familiar with.
    Swallowtail Jig
    Morrison's Jig
    Tralee Gaol
    Road to Lisdoonvarna
    The Dear Irish Boy
    Amhrán Na Leabhar
    Eanach Dhúin
    Arran Boat Song
    Crested Hens (also has Cnat and D# in the B part)

And the only A dorian I can think of off hand:
    Port Gordon

Actually, does anyone know any Irish tunes in A with F-naturals? I can't recall ever trying to play one....

That would probably be A minor, which seems unlikely. I think that all the minor airs I've learned so far are in B minor.

Most of the A mixolydian stuff I've learned so far seems to be songs:
    She Moved Through the Fair
    My Lagan Love
    Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore

And several Scottish songs.

I guess I'm overly attracted to dorian and mixolydian tunes, myself, but there are a couple of nice slow ones in G major:
    Do You Remember That Night
    Brid Óg Ní Mháille

Not to mention Ewan McColl's great Lang a-Growin'.

[colomon]

Here are several E-dorian tunes and airs that I'm familiar with.

Yes, I didn't mean to imply that Irish music has no E-dorian tunes -- I know a number of them, just as I know a number which are straight E natural minor. Just that I found it interesting that in particular tune book, no E "minorish" tune had a C which would allow you to determine whether it was dorian or natural minor, whereas every A minorish tune was clearly dorian.

Actually, does anyone know any Irish tunes in A with F-naturals? I can't recall ever trying to play one....

That would probably be A minor, which seems unlikely.

Why? I mean, there are clearly tunes in E and B natural minors, so it's not like the mode is unknown to Irish music. So why not A natural minor?

The only obvious reason I can think of is because it's hard to play on whistle or unkeyed flute; but no harder than a lot of tunes out there which are beloved by fiddlers.

[Joseph E. Smith]

So why not A natural minor?

The only obvious reason I can think of is because it's hard to play on whistle or unkeyed flute; but no harder than a lot of tunes out there which are beloved by fiddlers.

Difficult with some tunes, but A minor is easy enough to play. The Galloglass Jig comes to mind. The Dusty Windowsill is another.

[colomon]

Difficult with some tunes, but A minor is easy enough to play. The Galloglass Jig comes to mind. The Dusty Windowsill is another.

According to all the sources I see, Dusty Windowsill is A dorian.

Gallowglass (which I've never learned) appears to be in A melodic minor or something wacky like that -- it's got Fs and Gs both sharp and natural. I don't know what to make of it, I've seen nothing else like it in Irish music. (According to the Fiddler's Companion, it's a jig version of "Neil Gow's Lament for the Death of his Brother", which might explain that.)

A natural minor has F-naturals throughout, which is why I refered to it as "hard" -- it requires half-holing. Obviously this is hard only in a relative sense, as there are dozens if not hundreds of tunes popular with fiddlers which are in equally bad if not worse keys for whistle.

[SteveK]

I play Neil Gow's Lament and use Fnats and F#s. If there's a G# I don't remember where it is and obviously don't use it.

[Caj]

If you are interested, I once did a study of ABC tunebooks and found that dorian tunes far outnumbered aolian tunes. Dorian is the bog standard minor for ITM, it seems.

And on that subject: I conjecture that this is due to the type of instruments people have played. If your instrument plays a 2-octave major scale, you are inclined to use a dorian minor rather than an aolian minor. The dorian is just one step up, and fits the instrument's range better.

But pick any E "minor" tune and chances are it's dorian. You can often recognize this in the chord progression that periodically drops a whole step down to D major.

I notice also that the tunes that sound "really Irish" to my ears are ones that contain that whole-step chacha somewhere in the melody, where a phrase repeats in these two keys a whole-step apart. Example: B part of Banish Misfortune, with a phrase in D major, then again in C major (this is D mixolydian mode.)

Caj

[colomon]

But pick any E "minor" tune and chances are it's dorian.

I disagree, at least if you go by the notes of the melody. (I don't want to argue about what chord progressions should be accompanying the tunes!) It's easy to think of tunes which are in E natural minor -- "Dunmore Lasses", "Fermoy Lasses", and "Rolling in the Barrel" are classic E reels which have C naturals.

If anything, I think it's quite possible the majority of E minorish tunes don't have C in it at all, natural or sharp, except maybe as a passing tone in a triplet.

[Darwin]

I conjecture that this is due to the type of instruments people have played. If your instrument plays a 2-octave major scale, you are inclined to use a dorian minor rather than an aolian minor. The dorian is just one step up, and fits the instrument's range better.

But B Aeolian is pretty common. It's interesting, because I find it relatively easy on whistle, but a little clunky on mandolin and fiddle, where I sometimes find myself holding B on the 2nd string and E on the third with one finger in order to play up to speed.

Anyhow, since B is just a whole tone off of A, range will seldom be a sufficient reason to put up with a half-holed F.

I think that Dorian vs. Aeolian is more a question of feeling than of fitting something to an instrument. Dorian-mode is so popular in Appalachian music that people are willing to go to the trouble of retuning the banjo.

[Caj]

But pick any E "minor" tune and chances are it's dorian.

I disagree, at least if you go by the notes of the melody. (I don't want to argue about what chord progressions should be accompanying the tunes!)

Judging by Henrik Norbeck's tune archive I see about 2 times as many dorian tunes as ones just labeled "minor."

That's based on his own classification; Norbeck denotes tunes as dorian or mixolydian in their key fields.

Caj

[wolvy]

Another tune that keeps popping up in sessions out here in California is that darn "Gravel Walk". I guess I'll have to "bit the bullet" and really learn it. The fiddlers seem to love it, but I find it a bit of a struggle on flute.

[Bill Reeder]

Another tune that keeps popping up in sessions out here in California is that darn "Gravel Walk". I guess I'll have to "bit the bullet" and really learn it. The fiddlers seem to love it, but I find it a bit of a struggle on flute.

This tune gives me fits on the pipes.

[Turtle]

I think I've heard the gravel walk played on the bagpipes under another name. The rogues of scotland is what I recall. I had it in mind to learn
that one, just haven't got around to it yet. Does anyone have the dots
for it?