Irish Washerwoman

[caedmon]

Thanks to the OP, I've been trying to figure out what tune that was for a few years. Now that I know there is a "tune that must not be named" type of disdain following it, I will attempt to learn it out of curiousity, then be careful never to play it in public

Piffle! Ignore those fuddy-duddies. No one likes music snobs, except other snobs.

[keithsandra]

When you've got this Washerwoman tune you can go on to similar fingering demands in The Boys of Bluehill and Harvest Home.

Ignore the ITM extremists. They sometimes give the impression CnF is dedicated to them and that ITM is all, or should be all that exists. It's not. Don't worry, they get flattened every now and again by our reigning musicians (not me) when they get too out of hand.That seems to do the trick until next time.

[fearfaoin]

I can see that lyrics would be memorable
to enough people such that Danny Boy or
Irish Eyes are Smiling might become easily
linked to Irish music by the mainstream.

But I wonder what caused such tunes as
Rakes of Mallow and Irish Washerwoman
to be placed in the collective subconscious?
Were they used in Vaudeville? A Bugs Bunnny
cartoon?

[okewhistle]

I think The Irish Washer Woman is quite a sophisticated tune, especially the last line of the second part.

It's also quite good practice when you're trying to get the hang of a jig rythmn because it's quite obvious in that respect, bit like the Kesh.

[Kamin]

Rakes of Mallow = Prelude to the Big Fight from the soundtrack to "The Quiet Man" movie, probably where I first heard it. That soundtrack is likely a good place to start to find other "familiar" Irish music (http://www.moviemusic.com/soundtrack/quietman-exp)

[fearfaoin]

Rakes of Mallow = Prelude to the Big Fight from the soundtrack to "The Quiet Man" movie, probably where I first heard it.

Ah. Thanks.

[benhall.1]

What a strange take on The Irish Washerwoman, Pancelticpiper. I play with Irish musicians all the time, in various places in Ireland and also here on the Welsh borders. It's a commonly played tune. It's also a great tune. Nothing fake about it ... But maybe I read you wrong and you weren't saying that ... ?

[Rob Sharer]

It's funny, I've been listening to and playing ITM for 30 years+ and I've never heard a "real" ITM musician play it except on a 78 from the 1920's.

I've actually worked up a flute/whistle version which gives the tune a style which ITM players would find acceptable, I think. I had to rework the tune a bit to make it fit our concept of the structure of ITM.

What the hell, man? What exactly IS our concept of ITM?

This is a common tune, played plenty in Ireland and not just by the types of players I've seen scorned in this thread and others. I'm starting to think that there's a North American cool music club that somehow has omitted to send me a membership invitation. Their loss.


Rob

[drbald1]

ITM or not, it's a fun song.

Y'know, after a while the songs we play all the time will become "traditional" simply because we said "that's a fun song" until it became tradition.

Scary, huh?

[benhall.1]

Is it a song as well, then?

[pancelticpiper]

I'm starting to think that there's a North American cool music club that somehow has omitted to send me a membership invitation.
Rob

That's a great way to word it, the "cool music club". It sums up pretty well what a lot of sessions are like.

The real serious ITM session players (most of whom around here are Irish born and raised), the people for whom the session is their one and only musical passion, have strict ideas about which tunes are acceptable session tunes and which aren't.

None of them would ever start Irish Washerwoman, Danny Boy, Rakes of Mallow, or the like, and if an "outsider" started one of those tunes it would get the treatment any tune they don't find suitable would get: at the very least they would sit staring blankly into space. More likely some would roll their eyes or suddenly need to go outside for a smoke, or go the the toilets, etc.

And it's not just those sorts of tunes: it's any tune they don't find "cool", a category which seems to include any tune a "newbie" might know, tunes like Blarney Pilgrim, Kesh Jig, and even tunes which used to be common in sessions like Toss the Feathers, Gravel Walk, etc etc.

I too haven't got my invitation. Our local session has recently changed, because a long-established session elsewhere, which lost its venue, has suddenly began showing up as a body, complete with their repertoire developed over a decade or more, little of which I know. Maybe one tune an hour I'll know. So I'm a newbie, back to square one, bringing my recording device and trying to cram a few new tunes a week into my old noggin.

[Rob Sharer]

No, I was being ironic. I despise the anti-tune attitude you're talking about, and I'm fairly serious about trad myself. This attitude is much more rare in Ireland, where the bloody music came from in the first place. Besides, in my experience anyway, half the tune-snobs you meet couldn't play the Kesh jig properly, depite having memorized the Fahy catalog backwards. There's not a thing wrong with any of the tunes you listed.


Rob

[susnfx]

Ignore the ITM extremists. They sometimes give the impression CnF is dedicated to them and that ITM is all, or should be all that exists. It's not. Don't worry, they get flattened every now and again by our reigning musicians (not me) when they get too out of hand.That seems to do the trick until next time.

Hmmm...could you name some names, please? I'd like to see examples of where "they" give the impression C&F is dedicated to "them" and where "they" get flattened...oh, and who the "reigning musicians" are.

Thanks in advance.

[Bloomfield]

I am curious, too about the flattening and the reigning musicians. Thanks, keithsandra.

The real serious ITM session players (most of whom around here are Irish born and raised), the people for whom the session is their one and only musical passion, have strict ideas about which tunes are acceptable session tunes and which aren't.

None of them would ever start Irish Washerwoman, Danny Boy, Rakes of Mallow, or the like, and if an "outsider" started one of those tunes it would get the treatment any tune they don't find suitable would get: at the very least they would sit staring blankly into space. More likely some would roll their eyes or suddenly need to go outside for a smoke, or go the the toilets, etc.

And it's not just those sorts of tunes: it's any tune they don't find "cool", a category which seems to include any tune a "newbie" might know, tunes like Blarney Pilgrim, Kesh Jig, and even tunes which used to be common in sessions like Toss the Feathers, Gravel Walk, etc etc.

I am with Rob on this one. As a particular example, Blarney Pilgrim gets played not infrequently at the session I go to here in NYC (except for me all real musicians), and afterwards everybody heaves a sigh of contentment and says, "ah, you just can't beat the classics." Toss the Feathers (both), Gravel Walk also get played. Irish Washerwoman and Rakes of Mallow, are rarely heard (but so are hundreds of other tunes), and no one has a problem playing them. Danny Boy is a song air, not a dance tune, so that's a little different.

[caedmon]

As musicians, we all start at the beginning. Having handy tunes that "everyone" has heard, or the simple ones, can really help to motivate a player. I know it motivates me, and since I consider myself average, I figure I am not alone in this feeling.

For fun some day, I want to find a reel that the lyrics for Gilligan's Island theme song will fit to.