In two Cork sessions last year, after a Ballydesmond polka, this one came up (in Gmajor):
DGFA | GBAB/c | dGFA | GFED etc
(I hope I did the abc right.) The locals had no name for it. Anyone else know a title (aside from “Ballydesmond Polka no. whatever” or “Gan Ainm”)?
The sheet music would help me identify it for you
I thought all Ballydesmond polkas were named Ballydesmond…
no, one of them for example is Maurice Manleys.
John T, I don’t think I can upload the sheet music/staff notation unless I officially upload the tune (isn’t that right?). But since I can’t recall the rest of it, except that the next 4 bars are almost the same, I guess there’s not much point in adding a tune that’s so incomplete. - Adding those next 4 bars more or less completes the A part, IF I remembered it correctly: DGFA | GBAB/c | dGFA | GFED | DGFA | GBAB/c | dGFA | G2G2 . (The F’s are all F-sharps, of course.)
X: 1
T: Ballydesmond
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
K: GMaj
|: DG FA | GB A/B/c | dG FA | GF ED |
DG FA | GB A/B/c | dG FA | G2 G2 :|
Please tell us more. Not to cast a shadow on this, but this doesn’t sound like anything from Ballydesmond it has been my pleasure to play or dance to. Sorry, but, as it stands, it sounds more like a study than a polka, to me anyway. I would hope the second part has a bit more lift and interest in it. Where did ‘they’ pick it up from? Maybe it’s a recent composition by someone, a class exercise? 😀
It’s this one: https://thesession.org/tunes/10879#setting10879
We could do worse than calling it Maurice O’Keeffe’s, since he has given that to a lot of people on his tapes. I’m pretty sure that’s how I learned it, indirectly.
Yes, pretty basic, but it’s all in how you play it. ;)
Good catch. If I hadn’t had to go out tonight, by welcome choice, for some music and dance, I’d have tried alterate keys. Still, not one I’ve known or collected. I still suspect it might not have a long history, but would be curious to know. I’ll add a transposed transcription using the notes given here but with minor changes to agree with Pierre Commes’ transcription… By that I mean the third measure, given here as | DG FA | ~ following Pierre’s transcription and transposed it would be | DA FA | ~ which also makes a certain sense to me. Check it out, and if you really do have it different please add a transcription.
I’d love to hear Maurice O’Keefe’s take on it. As you’ve rightly said Patrick, in the end it’s under whose fingers it lies, all in how one swings it… 😀 Now there’s some kind of attachment to this, and I’ve time to try other keys, I’ll do another search and see if I can come up with more, to add to the transcription already here.
OK, it’s “Maurice O’Keeffe’s Polka” for me then - definitely a polka since two groups of “locals” linked it in a set with other nearby polkas. Thanks to Patrick C for the link.
Now a question: Ceolachan, you find this “more like a study than a polka”. Well, it IS simple, but lovely anyhow - otherwise why would those hot Corkies play it, and why was in keen to trace it? But I can’t hear any significant MUSIC-STRUCTURAL (i.e. metrical, rhythmic) differences between this one and the usual Ballydesmond polkas, nor my own Ballybutton Polka no. 6 (https://thesession.org/tunes/11527). I THINK you may have meant that, though it was more like a polka than any other category, it seemed too simple to get the masses a-polka-ing?