5 Tunes you Hate

[I.D.10-t]

I would think that giving the tune justice would fit into whether you feel that you play the tune well. In other words being more critical of the playing of tunes you like.

[Cathy Wilde]

It's probably one of those "ha-ha, that ol' universe has got a heckuva sense of humor" things, but I've often found that the tunes I once hated eventually grow on me. Right now I'm enamored of The Spike Island Lasses, which was in my Top 10 FEH! Tunes forever. I guess it's just taken this long to wrap my brain around it. Last year's old hate/new love was The Broken Pledge. Wow, what a great one that is!

As for the Kesh, I heard it with new ears when I saw Paddy Keenan play it this summer, which reminded me what a good exercise it can be to try to make some of those old war horses dance again.

Meanwhile, I must agree I've met a fair number of modern wanky tunes I don't care much for.

As for the oldies, Bunker Hill still isn't among my loves, but who knows? I can finally hear the turn, so maybe in a few more years ...

[Denny]

anything on that gawd awful Danny Thomas record that me first wife's parents had
that her brother had to drag out and play every feckin' holiday


no, he just did it because they never understood just how bad it was

[mutepointe]

You marry the whole family.

[Denny]

yeah, but I only miss the brother in law

[FLUTEinVT]

I can't resist this topic.

I hate :

ten-penny bit. And that one is hard to play poorly, though I stumble on occasion from willful neglect.

When some listener requests irish washerwoman and someone attempts to oblige. Or a newbie, for that matter.

Father kelleys is one I've also grown to groan over.

Gravel walks, especially when it starts at runaway train speed and gets faster.

[Kirk B]

The Blarney Pilgrim. Lying upside down at high elevations must not be my cup of tea.

Cheers,

Kirk

[Doug_Tipple]

I'm playing through "O'Neill's Music of Ireland", over 1,000 fiddle tunes. The ones that I can play on the flute, I do so. I have to say that some of the tunes leave me with a "Ho Hum" attitude, and that isn't too good, in my opinion. No doubt, others could bring these boring tunes to life. I know that it isn't fair to judge a tune by merely reading the dots; you have to hear the tunes. What I like are tunes that are melodic, not merely the ones with a driving rhythm with no real melody. So there you have it, folks, I like pretty tunes. I am particularly fond of hornpipes. On page 177, I am working on "The Sweep's Hornpipe", which I like a lot.

[benhall.1]

Why do you think that O'Neill's consists of "fiddle tunes", Doug? They're just tunes - for any instrument. They were collected from fiddlers, pipers, fluters and possibly others, but I haven't heard the recordings of those, if they exist.

And which edition are you uing, of which O'Neill's collection? I'm just interested, because, if it's the Miles Krassen, most of it's unplayable on any instrument.

[Julia Delaney]

You're wrong to say most of it's unplayable on any instrument about the Krassen edition of O'Neill's. It may not be your cup of tea, but if you're a fiddler with an interest in Sligo settings then the book is useful. The settings are by and large closer to what we play today than the settings in O'Neills, which itself is in large measure a compendium of other tune books from earlier in the 19th. Century. The Krassen edition isn't my favorite resource but to say that most of the tunes there are unplayable says more about one's playing than about the book. And I'll bet you can play most of the tunes in settings from the book.

[benhall.1]

I'm not going to say, in response, that I'm happy with my playing. If I was, I wouldn't be any good. So, leaving aside any defence of the implied attack represented by "to say that most of the tunes there are unplayable says more about one's playing than about the book", the two problems I have with the Krassens book (assuming we're talking about the 1976 tome) are:

1) It doesn't represent any one O'Neill's collection. This may seem a minor point, but, to me, this means that any historic worth of the separate O'Neill's collections is lost in that book. That in itself wouldn't matter if it weren't for the fact that people assume that the Krassens edition is an O'Neill's collection, which it isn't;
2) As Krassens himself points out in his introduction (from memory - it isn't to hand at the mment), he has tried to fit in as many different variations into one written setting of each tune as possible. Here I have to disagree with you, JD, that the settings are "closer to what we play today". They are a bowdlerised, mixed-up mish-mash that doesn't really give any idea of how the tune goes, unlike the O'Neill's originals. And that is precisely because of the attempt to notate separate variations within one transcription of each tune. If they are closer to what is played where you are, JD, I would humbly suggest that maybe that's because people have taken them from Krassens (huge numbers of people have bought the book, thinking they are buying O'Neill's). They're not like settings of tunes where I play.

Two pieces of background detail, to put the above in context:

i) I own the Krassens book; and
ii) I learnt a fair few of my early tunes and fiddle style in Sligo (not that I put much store on so-called regional styles).

[Julia Delaney]

You probably know this, but here it is anyway-- The O'Neill's collections themselves don't represent any one O'Neill's collection. There isn't any THE Collection. There are several O'Neill's collections. Three come to mind: the white book, Waifs and Strays, and Dan Collins huge yellow book. Miles' book is the fourth that I know of. The O'Neill's that we talk about is collected from original sources, plus 19th. C. Ryan's Mammoth Collection and Cole's 1,001 Tunes -- and I don't doubt from more tune-books that we don't know of. If it (whatever "it" is) is a bible of sorts then indeed it is like the OT and the NT: it is put together from a hodge-podge of "original" sources, none of which is the voice of God. Krassen's book is just another take on the tunes. It is by no means definitive (as Krassen would be the first to assert) but by no means worthless. It has its uses. I haven't found any of the tunes "unplayable."
Krassen's book has the Sligo slant because as a fiddler living in NYC at the time of the book's publication, Krassen was playing with and learning from Sligo fiddlers and their students: Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds (Longford), John Vesey, Lad O'Beirne, Larry Redican, Martin Wynne, Brian Conway, Veronica McNamara and Tony DeMarco. He did not intend the book to be a "correction" of O'Neill's, any more than a setting different than a tune played by Coleman is a correction of Coleman's setting.
I can't answer the second point except to say that I actually live in Co. Clare and find very few people who play settings directly from any O'Neill's, either from Krassen's edition or elsewhere. When I play any setting directly as written it is nearly always different from what we play locally.
This discussion is somewhat like the "tunes I hate" discussion. The Krassen edition is only one of many resources. All of them have something to offer. Isn't almost any printed setting a "bowdlerised, mixed-up mish-mash?" No setting is definitive except as played by the strongest player in the session.

[benhall.1]

I can't answer the second point except to say that I actually live in Co. Clare and find very few people who play settings directly from any O'Neill's, either from Krassen's edition or elsewhere. When I play any setting directly as written it is nearly always different from what we play locally.
This discussion is somewhat like the "tunes I hate" discussion. The Krassen edition is only one of many resources. All of them have something to offer. Isn't almost any printed setting a "bowdlerised, mixed-up mish-mash?" No setting is definitive except as played by the strongest player in the session.

Interesting response altogether, JD. I've quoted the above bit because I pretty much agree with everything you either state or imply in that bit. Big nod of head. For my taste, mind, the "something to offer" in Krassens is outweighed by what is taken away by setting the tunes out as he did. I especially like your last sentence, btw. Bang on. Not that many would acknowledge it.

Footnote on the collections: There were such things as the collections which O'Neill put together, from whatever sources, and, for me, it's those that have the historic interest, and other earlier collections. I think that it just clouds the issue when later people mix them up, but under the guise of somehow "updating" them. But, of course, I'm not against any new collections or new academic work on the old ones. I'd just rather it was clear, and clearly understood what was being done. I'm not sure whether any of O'Neill's collections except The 1001 Gems is in print, but it's possible to access the tunes and settings in the others (Waifs and Strays and "The 1850") via various online sources.

[Julia Delaney]

We are getting off the OP, but so what. One collection that I loved was put together by Jack Perron and Randy Miller, in New Hampshire, in the 70s. Called "Irish Traditional Fiddle Music," it presented direct transcriptions from people like Martin Byrnes, , Paddy Cronin, Coleman, Sean McGuire, Sean Ryan Tansey, et al. All sources are documented. "Fiddle Music" is used in the generic sense here, the fiddle being the most versatile of any of the traditional Irish instruments.

The only problem (with any printed tune) is that any transcription is limited because of the variations that take place, especially by the greats, within two or three times through a tune. I think this is part of Krassen's comments about variations. I think we agree more than we disagree.

[benhall.1]

I think so too, and that collection you mentioned sounds interesting. I've seen references to it, but can't seem to find it ...