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Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore


Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Just curious to see if anyone can suggest tunes that are played by both Irish and old-time (Appalachian) players. thanks.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

I hope this kicks off, I’d love to see a few.

Posted .

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

One possibility would be the Temperence (Teetotalers) Reel. Here is a nice Old Time version from Southwest Virginia USA. We play it frequently at our Irish session in Northern Virginia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEuzEzjJ8fQ

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

I know I’ve been bringing it up a lot lately but the Rose Tree is a prime example

Irish version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoT3Bx1VGnw


American version?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Q38iNVkzU


My version … pretty much the version played by the Great Danes In Ireland, but done clawhammer style
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz0AsMpo_0I


An American variation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yVJ25kS37w

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Some of these may not be extremely common in Irish sessions overall but here are a few I know are played in both. I live in the American South so perhaps more have crossed over here than in other regions:

St. Anne’s Reel
Temperance Reel
Devil’s Dream
Fisher’s Hornpipe
Coleman’s March
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Sailor’s Hornpipe/Jack’s The Lad
Cold Frosty Morning
Kitchen Girl
After The Battle of Aughrim

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

It’s hard to draw the line between “Irish tunes in the Old-Time/Americana repertoire” and “Irish tunes that are more popular in Traditional Irish sessions in America.” And of course many of these tunes are purposely avoided at sessions I’ve been to where the players are trying to focus on tunes that are actually played in Irish sessions in Ireland and also to play them in an “Irish” style as much as possible. These are tunes that might come up when an “Irish Traditional” player shows up at an Old-Time or Bluegrass jam.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Red-haired Boy (aka Little Beggarman), Rights of Man, Off She Goes, Staten Island Hornpipe, Whiskey Before Breakfast, Off To California, Morrison’s Jig, June Apple, St. Anne’s Reel, Pigtown Fling. A lot of the old-time players know some of the most popular O’Carolan tunes such as Sheebeg Sheemore, Hewlett, Morgan Magan, George Brabazon, Fanny Powers, and Planxty Irwin.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Nice clips you are posting, Earl. This discussion definitely hit your sweet spot!

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

This reminds of the time many years ago when I went with friends to see the Chieftains in Wash. DC. After the concert we all went to an Irish bar (I believe it was the Dubliner) where Brendan Mulvahill and Billy McComiskey were playing. A bit on in the night they called upon Alan Jabbour to join them for a tune, apparently he too had come after the Chieftains concert, and they played a spirited version of Miss McClouds.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Here in Kentucky, I had the opportunity to play a couple tunes with some new friends of mine who are old time players. It was just for a few minutes, but some tunes we found in common were:
Irish Washerwoman
Miss McCloud’s
The Kesh

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

I play various instruments with Irish (my first choice), Old Time, Contra, and sometimes Bluegrass players. Yes it’s true that all these genres have tunes with the same roots and same names. That said I find very few, if any, tunes that are played with the kind of “lift” that makes a tune Irish. Don’t get me wrong. I truly love playing these tune in these settings but I have to abandon any notion that they’re Irish tunes and play them with the same enthusiastic spirit that the other musicians put to them. It’s easier that way. It’s just as true to say that many, many Old Time (Contra, Scandi, etc.) don’t translate well to an Irish style. There’s no claim to snobbery here,just pointing to the notion that there are differences and that adapting to the differences makes the experience more enjoyable. It works both ways.

Still it’s fun to contemplate on the origins of tunes and the way the travel.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Two of the not so well known ones, but common to both genres:
Durang’s Hornpipe
President Garfield’s
and the ever popular Turkey In The Straw and Girl I Left Behind.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Now, the OP asked about tunes currently played by Old Time players.

Current Old Time players, evidently, play quite a few Irish tunes. Of course nowadays people are exposed to all sorts of music in the media, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many modern Old Time players are able to play quite a number of non-Old Time tunes from a variety of genres.

The topic which interests me is a quite different one: which genuine old traditional Appalachian tunes, tunes which have always been in the Appalachian repertoire, can be traced back to old Irish or British tunes.

The thing about Appalachia is that it was settled before the various 19th century mass migrations (the Famine Irish beginning in the 1840s, the latter 19th century mass migrations from Poland, Italy, Greece, etc).

Being from central Appalachia myself, I can say that in the main the people are overwhelmingly British, and very few Irish surnames exist, and those, when traced, are usually shown to be post-Famine non-original families. My own family tree, tracing back to the very first white settlers in southwest West Virginia in the 18th century, includes names such as Cooper, Cook, Stanley, Lavendar, Stewart, Pemberton, and so forth. My one Irish ancestor, named Glancy, only moved to the area in the 20th century, and is a post-Famine entrant into the US.

Growing up around Appalachian music, with my grandfather playing fiddle and banjo, I can say(at least from my experience) that the sorts of Irish tunes listed above complete with their modern Irish names aren’t in the old traditional Appalachian tune-stock. (Which tunes, by the way, nearly always have names referencing local places, landscape features, people, etc.)

What is quite interesting is how much of the earliest-recorded Appalachian fiddling doesn’t sound much at all like the style we now think of as being “Old Time fiddling” but sounds closer, to my ear, to Shetland fiddling.

Listen to some of the playing of Eddin Hammons, one of the most respected Appalachian fiddlers in the late 19th century, whose music was recorded when he was an old man. The most fascinating tune is called something like The Mother Of The Earth And The Child Of The Skies (I can’t find the CD at the moment to check the title) which is obviously a very old version of the tune called The Blackbird in Ireland.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

This is very interesting too.

BTW he was a very old man when these were recorded, and the fiddle they used on the recording isn’t his own. They had to go to a shop and borrow a fiddle, which Edden modified to suit him. Judging from my grandfather’s fiddle this would have involved lowering the bridge. My grandfather’s fiddle also has had the fingerboard filed to a flatter profile so that it is nearly impossible to play single notes on the middle strings, but quite easy to play three strings at once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irYc6bG78lw

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

" The topic which interests me is a quite different one: which genuine old traditional Appalachian tunes, tunes which have always been in the Appalachian repertoire, can be traced back to old Irish or British tunes.

The thing about Appalachia is that it was settled before the various 19th century mass migrations ….

Being from central Appalachia myself, I can say that in the main the people are overwhelmingly British, and very few Irish surnames exist, and those, when traced, are usually shown to be post-Famine non-original families.

… that the sorts of Irish tunes listed above complete with their modern Irish names aren’t in the old traditional Appalachian tune-stock."

I think Richard is spot on here. In addition, one of my pet peeves is the overly loose use of the term “Irish” to describe tunes that are more likely Scottish et. al. in origin. The early Southern Mtn. immigration patterns have far more to do with Scots, English and Germans than Irish.

Countless tunes can be found, and posted, demonstrating current crossover. The more interesting question, for me at least, is which tunes have formed a part of the Southern Mtn. tradition going back 100s of years.

And then there’s the issue of how to define Old Time. I would argue that there is both a broader, and narrower, definition of the genre, and a number of the tunes posted above are unlikely to be found at your average OT festival or gathering in the States. For example, I’ve attended a fair amount of OT festivals in my day, and I have never heard jigs beging played.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

There’s a very important source of Appalachian music that’s being overlooked above: Africa.
“One of the most iconic symbols of Appalachian culture— the banjo— was brought to the region by African-American slaves in the 18th century. Black banjo players were performing in Appalachia as early as 1798, when their presence was documented in Knoxville, Tennessee. The banjo is believed to have been popularized among white musicians through blackface minstrelsy, which was performed in the Appalachian region throughout the 19th century. (Wikipedia)”

Another good article on the subject:
http://brownieslament.blogspot.com/2010/03/interracial-origin-of-appalachian.html
“Joel Walker Sweeney, the first famous white banjo player, learned the instrument from a slave on the plantation of a neighbor, Dr. Joel Walker Flood, Sr.”
“ More importantly, though, the rhythmic conception embedded in Appalachian fiddling is utterly different from that of either Irish or Scottish fiddling, and is profoundly syncopated and polyrhythmical: in a word, it is African.”

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Most of the tunes which people have mentioned in this discussion are played either at the local old time music group or at the local Irish Sessions and some tunes are played at both. The local old time music group is called the Rackensack Folklore Society and the Irish Sessions are sponsored by the Arkansas Celtic Music Society. I play bass with Rackensack and piano at the Irish Sessions.

Laurence

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Here is a link:
http://rackensack.org/
However, the Celtic Music Society’s web site seems to have disappeared.
Both Rackensack and the Celtic Music Society have pages on Facebook also.

Laurence

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

"There’s a very important source of Appalachian music that’s being overlooked above: Africa.

“More importantly, though, the rhythmic conception embedded in Appalachian fiddling is utterly different from that of either Irish or Scottish fiddling, and is profoundly syncopated and polyrhythmical: in a word, it is African.”

I don’t think anyone is overlooking the influence. But the source of tunes is clearly Ireland, Scotland etc. The African influence is more about rhythm.

I’m no expert, and feel free to correct me, but I’m not at all sure about the “utterly different” rhythmic conception comment. Plenty evidence of syncopation and polyrhythms etc. in Gaelic work songs, tunes, etc.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Richard I definitely hear the resemblance to Shetland fiddling there. I would have to agree, most of the early “Irish” settlers weren’t Irish at all but “Scotch-Irish” which basically means they were Scots who settled in Ireland to work and then mass emigrated to the Americas, and ended up in Appalachia. I think Handsome Molly might be from that era. As you can hear from the different versions, the song had a title change, many of the lyrics were changed, and the melody even changed.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

“Scots who settled in Ireland to work ”

That’s one way of putting it. Not quite the way I’d describe the plantations, but….

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Well I just know what I know.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

“Well I just know what I know.”

There’s always room to expand.

Here’s one place you might learn from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/plantation/planters/index.shtml

The similarity with Shetland fiddling isn’t really explained by this.

Shetland, with its maritime history (and its fondness for the “wireless”), does seem to have been influenced by other areas though.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Yes the “Irish” in 18th century America usually referred to people from the Scottish Borders, many of whom sailed to America from Ulster, or lived in Ulster for a time. The early Irish societies, such as the one which organized the New York St Patrick’s Day parade in the mid-18th century, did not allow Catholic members (these people being mostly Presbyterian, with some Anglicans).

“Early in the summer of 1717 the Quaker merchants of Philadelphia observed that immigrant ships were arriving in more than their usual numbers… they came not only from London and Bristol, but from Liverpool and Belfast and small ports with strange-sounding names- Londonderry, Carrickfergus, Kirkcudbright, Wigtown, Whitehaven, Morecambe.”

This mass migration is usually dated 1717- 1775 or thereabouts. These people tended to go from Philadelphia down to the Shenandoah Valley and then into Appalachia and further south and west, while the post-1840 Famine Irish (who were mostly Catholic) tended to congregate in the large northeastern cities, and did not impact Appalachian culture.

Anyhow Shetland fiddling has long struck me as being the closest to Appalachian fiddling, which I take to indicate that the style that now survives in Shetland is a very old style which was once widespread in Britain.

About the African influence on Appalachian culture, see “African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia” by Cecilia Conway.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Are their many recordings of pre WW2 Shetland fiddling ? Did immigrants from Scandanavia go into Appalachia ?

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertoire

“Anyhow Shetland fiddling has long struck me as being the closest to Appalachian fiddling, which I take to indicate that the style that now survives in Shetland is a very old style which was once widespread in Britain. ”

It’s a theory, but just that. Nothing really to support it. Shetland fiddling has many influences, from Scandinavian styles, through Scottish and possibly an input from the migrant workers from Ireland (Donegal esp) working in the fishing industry. This tied in with the popularity of American music heard on the radio would help shape Shetland’s tradition. It’s not static nor a vestige of a tradition that was more widespread from any evidence that has come to light. Moreover, where the old Scottish tradition has survived more intact than anywhere else is Nova Scotia, and you can’t equate that style with Shetland fiddling.

We don’t know how the planted Scots populations played back in those days, nor do we know how the Irish musicians played before the plantations.

“Are their many recordings of pre WW2 Shetland fiddling ?”

I’ve heard recordings just post WW2, and it’s plain to hear just how much Tam Anderson “homogenised” the style. There isn’t a uniform “three up and one down” that is more prevalent today.

“Did immigrants from Scandanavia go into Appalachia ?”

Not to the same extent as other places (most notably Minnesota and Wisconsin). I was at a session with some Appalchian fiddlers and they played a version of “The Blackbird” which sounded very Norwegian in structure. They wouldn’t entertain the idea that there was any Scandinavian influence in the style. I think it could be a result of a mix of influences just like Shetland fiddling.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

“is a very old style which was once widespread in Britain.” Not sure if it’s off-topic or not but that phrase reminded me of this which I found interesting: http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/roberts.htm

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Could the similarities people are hearing between Appalachian fiddling and Shetland fiddling be an example of the musical equivalent of what biologists call convergent evolution, where species have very similar physical characteristics and look as if they might have a common origin, but in fact they don’t.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Do Appalachia and Shetland contain similar niches to evolve into ? I think that would need to be described to support convergent evolution as opposed to, say, the movement of peoples and “the wireless”* as mentioned by Weejie.

* U.S. forces radio is the oft-mentioned influence - though I suppose those who do the oft mentioning could all be reinforcing one another.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

A couple tunes common to irish/old time sessions: Flowers of Edinborough, Camptown Races……Ashokan Farewell
An Applachian version of Miss McCleods - ‘Did you ever see…..’, played by legendary fiddler John Morris : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob85PWFL8Lc

As a wild stab in the dark, the original music, tunes of Appalachia are perhaps more related to lowland small pipes tunes, the old 8 note set, and songs, that fit nicely on the mountain dulcimer which was the instrument of the frontier, even though the dulcimer’s orgin’s are more Germanic.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Where on earth is Edinborough? The ‘Flowers of Edinburgh’ is indeed an old tune but it’s hard to know when it started being played in certain countries or in certain traditions. Are their early 20th Century recordings of Old Time players playing it? Irish? I dunno…. Maybe someone does.

‘Ashokan Farewell’ was composed by Jay Unger in the 1980s. I would say that recently composed tunes cannot be used to establish a historical connection between Old Time fiddling and music from other countries.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

I’m hearing ‘Big Sciota’ as a common tune (but no quite so common as “St Anne’s” or ‘Whisky before Breakfast’).

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

I like the clips of Old Time players thanks. I am not clear who’s “Irish repertoire” is referred to. Do we mean the repertoire of Irish musicians in Ireland or the diaspora in, say, London, Boston (America) or Birmingham (England) ? Or do we mean what musicians in various parts of the world regard as Irish ?

I think that in England and Scotland many of the tunes mentioned are thought of as a shared repertoire of uncertain and unimportant origin. Edinburgh with its Flowers is in Scotland but the tune was into Yorkshire before 1800 so I suppose could have been well on it’s way to Appalachia. IIRC I recently read a suggestion that Haste to the Wedding was written by a named Scotsman; until I encountered Irish music I thought it was English. Does it matter ?

I get the impression that in some places the “Irish repertoire” is inclusive of these shared tunes. My experience in England is that they are often not included to allow focus on tunes thought of as more idiomatically Irish, though it is often nice to find a clip of them being played in Ireland.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

If you’re looking at modern repertoire in sessions now, it is in some ways still very geographical. I have never heard Whisk(e)y Before Breakfast played at a session in Scotland, whereas I heard it all the time at Irish sessions in the States. There are Scottish tunes like Father John MacMillan of Barra or Crossing the Minch that I hear loads, even at ostensibly Irish sessions in Scotland, but never encountered when I lived in the States. On the other hand, everyone and their mother (but not me) seems to know the Ashokan Farewell. So I think the only generalization you can make is that there are none to be made. Some tunes have, in recent years with recordings and more recently, the internet, crossed into repertoires of all sorts of folk music while others have not.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

For some reason, those tunes make up the survival repertoire of “Irish music” here in Sweden. Typically, nearly every single one who suggests any of Whiskey before breakfast, Soldier’s joy, Teetotaler’s, Flowers of Edinburgh, Miss McLeod’s, St Anne’s reel, Devil’s Dream, Staten Island hornpipe (played at warp speed), Sailor’s hornpipe (also played fast), Little beggarman (also fast), Fisher’s hornpipe and Off to California (also fast*) has either a background in bluegrass or limited experience of ITM (they’ve usually learned them from people whose “Irish” repertoire consisted of this handful of tunes).

I don’t think I’ve played any of those in a session in Ireland (apart from Miss McLeod’s and St Anne’s).

*What’s the thing with playing hornpipes as fast as (if not faster than) reels?

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

I don’t think “Big Sciota” falls into the crossover category. As far as I know, it’s an OldTimey tune that came out of West Virginia (?), and the name refers to a river in Ohio. I’ve only heard it here in the States in OldTime or Bluegrass jams, but maybe it’s creeping into local session repertoire elsewhere. Doesn’t sound “Irish” at all to me.

@jeff_lindqvist:
“What’s the thing with playing hornpipes as fast as (if not faster than) reels?”

Bluegrass players, in particular (because they have the chops) like to treat these tunes as a framework for soloing. It’s not just the tempo; they flatten the bounce out of Hornpipes so it conforms to the rhythm of straight-ahead 4/4 Bluegrass.

Here’s an example of how I hear it done in local BG and “crossover” OldTime sessions, although with better (much better) musicianship. In this context, and nothing at all to do with Irish trad, think of it like a Jazz musician using a 40’s Pop tune as a framework for improv:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afzl3A8o7vE


When I hear someone trying to “flatten” a Hornpipe like this in a session, it’s almost always someone coming from OldTime or Bluegrass, and in need of gentle guidance to the path. 🙂

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Dr SS, the original question, ‘ tunes that are played by both Irish and old-time (Appalachian) players’, I added to those already posted. ‘Flowers of Edinborough’ is how we spell it in this part of Appalachia, ha ha, or perhaps posting using a phones keyboard. Of those posted perhaps the only ones I am familiar with from sessions in Ireland would be Turkey in the Straw and Camptown races. Of tunes I have heard at old-time and ‘irish’ sessions in West Virginia, St. Anne’s Reel, Flowers of Edinburgh, Miss McClouds, Wayne‘sboro are tunes in ’Irish Session repertoire, but have a different twist if played by Old Time players. Whiskey Before Breakfast, Cold Frosty Morning, Kitchen Girl, Girl I Left Behind, Ashokan Farewell, are American cross over Irish Session tunes. None of the ‘Scotch Irish’ immigrants, got of the boat in the 1700’s with a copy of Dows top 50 tunes. My ex wife traced both side’s of her family back to Ayreshire in 16oo’s, which joining in on the historical speculation about the orgins of Appalachian music, I suggested a connection with pipe music. From that authorative source ‘Wikipedia’, Musicologist Cecil Sharp collected hundreds of folk songs in the region, and observed that the musical tradition of the people “seems to point to the North of England, or to the Lowlands, rather than the Highlands, of Scotland, as the country from which they originally migrated. For the Appalachian tunes…have far more affinity with the normal English folk-tune than with that of the Gaelic-speaking Highlander.”[ The link above to the Sam Bayard ‘hill folk tunes’ was very interesting. Of course we are in the melting pot so all kind’s of other influences have influence Appalachian music. But I think Mountain Dulcimer musicians hold the lore most, by the limitations of their instrument.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

If Mountain Dulcimer is an instrument with limitations then it could induce the ‘convergent evolution’ suggested above by Dr Spear. However, as biological analogies go I suspect that classification (and, to some, miss-classification) on the basis of external morphology may be closer. Lumping things that sound - to the ear of whover is doing the classifying - the same.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

@ jeff_lindqvist - that Paul Roberts article I linked above may give an answer or two to the question about hornpipe tempo.

http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/roberts.htm . It’s in there somewhere but from a quick scan through I can’t find it. Also, I can’t remember where a read something that disagrees in a scholarly way with some of his views

There is a preview of the Packie Dolan recording that he mentions here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Grove-Hornpipe/dp/B00CGA6KYW

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Conical_bore:
“Bluegrass players, in particular (because they have the chops) like to treat these tunes as a framework for soloing. It’s not just the tempo; they flatten the bounce out of Hornpipes so it conforms to the rhythm of straight-ahead 4/4 Bluegrass.”

Yeah, that makes “sense”. I remember a thread some months ago where someone more or less was surprised that we (Irish players) just played the tunes, and never shared solos. And as for the tempo thing, I once sat down with people and learned Sailor’s hornpipe from tabulature (on a 5 stringed banjo). Some lad in the group thought that there wasn’t time to play a certain triplet (as the tune went to fast). Well, if we all decided to play it as a hornpipe…

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Thanks David50, I’ll have a look at the article.

Re: Tunes common to both Irish and Old-Time repertiore

Hornpipes are often played quite fast by Irish players in Ireland as well.