The WInd that Shakes the Barley!!

Killaloe · Post by **Killaloe** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:29 pm

Is this song played at sessions alot? Is it played fast or slow?

It is quickly becoming my favorite! On the Burke this song is so sweet and FUN to play.

I can play it fast with out squaking!!!

Woot!!!

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:34 pm

I can't speak to all sessions, but it is frequently played at ours, usually following "Rolling in the Ryegrass."

It is played at a good clip...it moves along.

It's a good tune.

--James

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:35 pm

Which WTSTB are you referring to, the song ("I sat within a valley green, etc.") or the D Major reel?

Killaloe · Post by **Killaloe** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 2:58 pm

Its the DMajor Reel I think.

I really like the way it sounds with a fiddle and banjo.

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 3:30 pm

The song (Dick Gaughan): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=317zi3CwppI

The tune (starting at 1:08): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWNcjUpRg04

Blaydo · Post by **Blaydo** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:53 pm

I agree it goes really well with rolling on the rye grass. I like this played by Tony Higgins and friends: Rolling in the Ryegrass/Wind that Shakes the Barley/Trip to Durrow http://tinwhistletunes.com/clipssnip/Au ... wTonyH.mp3

It's played at a nice pace and fun to play along with.

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:00 am

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/116

It's in 912 tunebooks. If you want some indication of its' popularity, also look at the number of recordings it's on.

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:49 am

The reel is one of those bog-standard session tunes just about everyone knows, I'd say. (It's NOT a "song"!) Round my regular haunts it is usually played first in a set going into St Anne's Reel and finishing with Lady Anne Montgomery.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:12 am

A few years back I tried to learn this one and just failed, pathetically. Now I can't see why I had the trouble.

Must watch the film, sometime, too.

Killaloe · Post by **Killaloe** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:28 am

I am finding that I can play the bare bones of the TUNE

just fine (no ornamentation) but when I try to add ornamentation I seem to have trouble.

I have to keep nudging myself that I have only been at this whistle for a little over a month. So I have to keep it real. I am comming along and I am having fun.

I am building up the courage to record my first mp3 and submitting it to Whistle This (if they would add Britches full of Stitches to there working on TUNE list) Wink Wink nudge nudge.

Pat Cannady · Post by **Pat Cannady** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:09 am

Tune, a chara, not song

. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (the reel) is a tune, not a song.

Songs are verses composed to be sung to a tune, but quite a few Irish songs can be sung to more than one tune. Likewise, a tune may have multiple songs associated with it.

Fortunately, not too many dance tunes share a name in common with a popular traditional song.

Pat Cannady · Post by **Pat Cannady** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:09 am

@@#$@$@!! double post

jemtheflute · Post by **jemtheflute** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:45 am

Pat Cannady wrote: Fortunately, not too many dance tunes share a name in common with a popular traditional song.

Though quite a few songs have been set to pre-existing traditional tunes! "Oh Danny Boy", amongst other settings, to The Londonerry Air being a prime example.

As my previous post implies, I too find very annoying this modern DJ-speak use of "song" to mean what we (or at least people involved in the field of "poular" music) might previously have termed a "track" or a "number", which could of course include both sung and purely instrumental items without any infelicitous clash of meaning! The implication that somehow there are only songs or that only songs matter carried by the usage as well as its sheer musical ignorance is extremely galling. That we folkies have another partially separate and specialist terminology reflecting the importance to us of both instrumental tunes and vocal songs (which of course are bipartite, lyrics and tune together) is another matter again.

N.B. I don't wish to shoot every user of what is a current but unfortunate usage for picking up on how folk around him/her speak - we all do that! I feel the same about the ghastly Americanism "on the team" which has caught on almost completely over here now, despite it conjuring up some rather strange images mentally! (FWIW, in traditional British English one is "in the team" (as a member of it), though one might be "on the team-sheet/list" when that is promulgated!)

kennychaffin · Post by **kennychaffin** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 8:44 am

Pat Cannady wrote:Tune, a chara, not song . The Wind that Shakes the Barley (the reel) is a tune, not a song.

Songs are verses composed to be sung to a tune, but quite a few Irish songs can be sung to more than one tune. Likewise, a tune may have multiple songs associated with it.

Fortunately, not too many dance tunes share a name in common with a popular traditional song.

Oy Gawd, not that again....

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 1:03 pm

There is a song called "The Wind That Shakes The Barley", recorded by Martin Carthy in the 1970s, and I think possibly by "Solas" - but it has nothing to do with the reel, which is what I assume we're discussing here.