Big John McNeil reel

I couldn’t find this tune anywhere on The Session, and given its popularity in Canada, it seemed an amazing omission. Chris Ricker had the nicest arrangement that I could find, so I, um, adapted it from his site. Or “adopted” may be the better word.

I’ve seen the tune attributed to Trad, but I believe the author is Peter Milne, who called it simply “John O’Neill”. However, I think the robust nature of the piece earns it the “Big”.

This tune is of Scottish origin. I think Big John McNeil was one of the McNeils of Barra, in the Hebrides - the same family which brought us Brian McNeil of the Battlefield Band and the traditional Scots Gaelic singer, Flora McNeil.

Would normally be played in A major but played in G by the kilfenora c

Far and away the best known name for this tune is Big John McNeill’s, certainly in Scotland, and I’m pretty sure it is Scottish in origin. There is another quite different tune called “Lord Ramsey’s” - I think Joannie Madden might have recorded it. Scottish fiddlers would usually play it in A with all the G notes sharp. I’ve heard a version of it in Ireland in A but with the Gs natural - the Dubliners used to play it that way, and possibly De Danann. First time I’ve encountered it in G.

I learnt this tune from one of my tutors,the famous lochilart fiddler, Angus Grant .Angus is very good friends with the famous Bert Murray from Aberdeen. Bert played this tune in a very good march,strathspey and reel set. First of all he played a pipe march called “The Stirlingshire Milita”,then he played a strathspey called “A Gloomy Winter”(which is also played by Richard Wood) and then he finished of with Big John McNeill.

Though this won’t be much help: There was a commercially available cassette made of the players who won or placed in the National Scottish Fiddle championship of (?year?). This tune is played by one of the performers in his set. Email me if you want and I’ll try to locate it.

De Danann recorded this under a wrong name on “The Mist Covered Mountain” LP. A setting was published in Tony “Sully” Sullivan’s first tune collection.

The tune works amazingly well on a fiddle tuned AEAE (“high bass” as they call it in Cape Breton), so well that I wonder whether this wasn’t the way it was initially played.

I’m pretty sure Big John’s is a Canadian tune. I will make an effort to back myself up with some solid facts and get back to you…

This is almost identical to John McNeill’s reel (Big John McNeill) but, as Kenny says, the key is different. I’ve always believed this to be a Scottish tune composed by Peter Milne who certainly usually gets the credit for it back home.

John

there’s also a recording of this tune on the barachois CD, but it doesn’t come up on the list of recordings, because it’s in a set called “les deux johns”
Anders

Many of the old-time fiddlers that I know play this after St. Anne’s Reel.

Big John McNeil
Key signature: A Major
Submitted on October 1st 2002 by MichaelBolton.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1002

Key signature: Gmajor
Submitted on January 2nd 2003 by Bernie.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1277

I learnt this reel at the Fleadh Cheoil in Listowel, Co. Kerry. in 1981 from a Canadian fiddler who called it Big Joe McNeill’s, so I’ve always thought it is from Canada. But the version I was taught has an A minor first part that must be played twice, and a A major second part that must be played only once. There were other two people with me, Massimo Greco, a banjo player from Rome, and an English fiddler named Dominick something who then lived in Milan, but I met him again in Umbria last summer (2006). Massimo, this Dominick and me were the ones who spread this tune in Italy, so if you hear this version in Italy put the blame on us.

Hi, all fiddlers:

Do any of you have a particular fingering for playing the B part of this tune, especially the first phrase (I play a triplet instead of the roll, incidentally)? Do you slide up to third position? Or do you just bend or flatten your third finger down from the G to the d and use your pinky for the e? Include the bowing, too, if it’s relevent.

If you respond, email me to let me know that you did.

Thanks!

Peter Milne wrote it, and did so under the name “John McNeill’s Reel”

John McNeill was a famous Highland dancer at the turn of the 20th century. The legendary piper Angus MacPherson competed against McNeil several times, and said of him, “Oh aye, he threw a fine leg!” Peter Milne (the composer of the tune)’s student and friend James Scott Skinner wrote another tune for McNeill:

X:407
T:John McNeill’s Highland Fling
C:James Scott Skinner
B:Harp & Claymore
Z:Nigel Gatherer
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:A
a | e>A A/A/A a>Ac<a | c/d/e =g>d B>GG>f |
e>A A/A/A a>Ac<a | c/d/e a>e c>AA :|
e | a/g/f e>A a>Ac<a | =g/f/e d>G g>GB<g |
a/g/f e>A a>Ae>d | c/d/e a>e c>AA>e |
(3agf (3edc (3agf (3edc | (3gfe (3dcB (3gfe d>f |
e>A A/A/A a>Ac<a | c/d/e a>e c>AA |]

Can anyone direct me to the sheet music or ABC of the version on Slide’s Harmonic Motion album?
Thanks

https://thesession.org/tunes/1002

Thanks, but it’s not the version I’m looking for.

I’ve only ever heard the one version.

Molaoch - Do you know of any Youtube clips of it, or somesuch like? (…the things we take for granted these days.)

There’s another version here https://thesession.org/tunes/1277 posted as Lord Ramsey. This is the version I’ve heard most often in Ireland, although usually in A, not in G as posted here.

NameChanges….
Thanks for your help. No, it’s not that Lord Ramsey one either. The only place I’ve heard the version I’m looking for is on the Slide album.

I stumbled across a version with a couple of extra parts here:
http://www.folktunefinder.com/tune.php?id=5576

Not convinced it adds anything much to the ‘usual’ 2-part version

The American band Fiddle Fever do an amazing version of this tune, with the second part sliding down the keys.

One of Jimmy Mullarkey’s favourites:

K: Gmaj
G,2B,D EDB,D|GDB,D EDB,D|G,2B,D EDB,D|GEDB, A,2B,A,|
G,2B,D EDB,D|GDB,D EDB,D|C2EC B,2DB, |1 A,B,CD EDB,A,:|2 A,B,CD EFGB||
|:dG~G2 dGeG|dG~G2 FGAB|dG~G2 gfed|cA=FA c2Bc|
dG~G2 dGeG|dG~G2 FGAd|gfed edcB|1 AGFG ABcA:|2 AGFE DCB,A,||

There’s some more links here:

http://www.fiddlehangout.com/archive/5669

I found this on abcnotation.com, called “Betty’s Fancy” as well as Lard Ramsay’s and John MacNeil, very similar with just a few slight differences. http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=www.cranfordpub.com/tunes/abcs/ClareFM.txt/0032

What you’ve posted is the standard Irish version of this tune. It would be better placed in the comments here https://thesession.org/tunes/1277.

There’s a nice version by Sierra Noble at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrzw1lNvVMs

play video

“I think Big John McNeil was one of the McNeils of Barra, in the Hebrides - the same family which brought us Brian McNeil of the Battlefield Band and the traditional Scots Gaelic singer, Flora McNeil.”

Not quite. It is as Nigel says. Brian McNeill (two ‘ls’) is a Falkirk man, not from Barra. Flora MacNeil has a daughter, Maggie MacInnes, who is a fine singer and harpist, and lives near Symington in Ayrshire.

Nice version by Sierra Noble, Daibhí. She’s fast and clean, with spirit. Just learned this as John McNeil

It would be unlikely that Brian McNeill’s family have been from Falkirk from the year dot. Is is equally unlikely that their surname would have been spelt in exactly the same way throughout the last several hundred years. There are a few branches of McNeils etc. ( see for instance the various spellings of the name even for this tune) but they don’t all come from Barra, some might be from Colonsay , for example.

“It would be unlikely that Brian McNeill’s family have been from Falkirk from the year dot”

Obviously not. However, it is patently obvious that “the family who brought us Flora McNeil” ain’t the same one who “brought us” Brian. The spelling would also suggest a link with the Argyll MacNeills - that would encompass the Colonsay MacNeills forby. The MacNeils of Barra wouldn’t have been there from the year dot, either. It is believed that they stem from Irish Ua Néills. Things get too convoluted to start making precise claims of lineage, though.

“ see for instance the various spellings of the name even for this tune”

Aye, but John McNeill, the dancer, spelled his own name “McNeill”. It is also believed that he was from the Gigha MacNeills - the Argyll mob. The various way tunes get spelled doesn’t always tally with the person they are dedicated to.

It seems to me on the two tunes the A parts are nearly identical but the B parts are distinctly different? I have always thought Big John was a Canadian tune -- most of the better known fiddlers up there play it. I’d never heard of Lord R until I read this on Sessions. I wonder if John is maybe a Canadian alteration of Lord?

I would suggest that the title “Big John MacNeill” came about to distinguish this tune (with 8 bar parts) from Peter Milne’s original “John MacNeill’s Reel” (with 4 bar parts). I.e., it’s “John MacNeill’s” made bigger.

Here is a version my band does, combined with dulcimer reel. I learned the tune from Denis Murphy, a dulcimer player from Soquel, CA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPaIf5rSqwg

play video

I can’t believe I’m the first one to write out the Irish version of this, the last track on De Danann’s Mist Covered Mountain LP. I have a recording of Sean Maguire playing it in a London pub back in the 60s too and perhaps he brought it back from America? Anyway I think this is the gist of this bass string classic.

I am surprised that the recording “Meiteal” by Stephen Cooney & Seamus Begley is not on the list.

It’s in the DB, alright, but track 5b leads to the first tune called Lord Ramsey (the same tune, I believe):

https://thesession.org/tunes/1002

Somewhere in the move from Scotland to the US and Canada John McNeil had a couple of notes changed. The 7th measure of the A part is B-D-C-E D-F-E-G. This is the original notation. The more common notation in the US is A-C-B-D C-E-D-F. Both notations come very quickly and make little difference in the tune. However, when playing with a Scot, they will frown and say you are playing something different. And when researching to find the original notation one can get confused. I never could figure out how to play that little run because there was always something different. Not until I saw the written versions side by side did I solve the problem.

Nigel, do you agree?

Sylvia Miskoe, Concord NH USA

Hi Sylvia. Peter Milne published his “John McNeil’s Reel” in Middleton’s Collection (1870) and, as you say, the last two bars of the A part are written:
| B,DCE DFE=G | FA^GB cAA ||
- this is the way I’ve always played it. Interestingly, in that book the reel is preceded by a strathspey of the same name (composed by Peter Milne, not the Skinner tune which I mentioned above), in which the first bar matches the American run you’re talking about:
| A,>CB,D C>ED>F |

Anyway, I agree that it matters little which you play when you’re performing solo, but quite a lot when there’s two or more playing both settings at once!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jaGi_17HSA

play video

Whistle setting, transposed to D.

Play it on an “A” whistle and it comes out in the key of A Major, the most common fiddle key.

Play it on a “G” whistle and it comes out in the key of G Major, sometimes heard in sessions.

Nice version here 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08AfB7WiWtA

play video

Big John McNeill, written by Peter Milne, Aberdeenshire (1824-1908) for a famous highland dancer John McNeill according to the James Hunter book The Fiddle Music of Scotland.

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/perf/fiddlers/peter_milne.html

There’s also a J Scott Skinner tune John McNeill’s Strathspey, and Skinner too was a highland dancer.

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/scottskinner/search.php?filter=Title&keyword=john+mcneill

This is how Sylvia and Nigel said it is the correct ending to Part A as composed originally.