Over The Moor To Maggie reel

This tune might present some tricky fingering especially in the final phrases. Play these phrases slowly until you have them mastered.

The second and third parts are very similar to one another. The second part can be tricky because it goes so high.

In the third part try playing these notes with equal emphasis: EC DB CA.

Great tune. Thanks Jeremy. Love your selection of tunes and especially your ideas on how to phrase things.

i think it’s one of the most outstanding collection of notes in this tradition and always a sheer pleasure to back

I learned a somewhat different version of the tune: you will find some twists in it.

K: Gmaj
BA|~G3A BABd|efge dBAG|E~A3 BGAG|EAAG A2BA|
~G3A BABd|efge dBAG|E~G3 B2AG|EGGF G2:|
ga|b~g3 agef|~g3e d2Bd|e~a3 b2ag|eaag a2ga|
b~g3 agef|~g3e d2Bd|e~g3 bgag|eggf g2:|
Bd|e3c d2dB|c3A B2AG|E~A3 BGAG|EAAG A2Bd|
efge d~B3|c~A3 B2AG|E~G3 B2AG|EGGF G2:|

I really love Niall and Cillian Vallely’s very relaxed duet playing of the tune. Nice version too.

Sorry, I made some mistakes when posting my own version of the tune in the previous comment. Actually I copied a transcription from somewhere and left the endings of each part unchanged. The transcription below is the correct transcription of what I have learned and enjoy playing.

K: Gmaj
BA|~G3A BABd|efge dBAG|E~A3 BGAG|EAAG A2BA|
~G3A BABd|efge dBAG|E~G3 AGFE|DGGF G2:|
ga|b~g3 agef|~g3e d2Bd|e~a3 b2ag|eaag a2ga|
b~g3 agef|~g3e d2Bd|e~g3 agfe|dggf g2:|
Bd|e3c d2dB|c3A B2AG|E~A3 BGAG|EAAG A2Bd|
efge d~B3|c~A3 B2AG|E~G3 AGFE|DGGF G2:|

Folkestra also do a great version of this tune with an amazing whistle solo from Matthew Dean. They then go into Shirley’s reel by Willy Taylor

Do the American fiddlers play this tune in A and call it Waynesboro? They miss out the middle bit as it would take them to high C sharp on the E string. There’s a good version by Rodney Miller on Airplang.

Yes, its a WV tune. In G. I ve never heard it in A. Seems related to me.

I had the pleasure of playing this with Alan Jabbour one night. He called it Waynesboro, and we played it in G, but he wanted to leave off the C part, even making a sour face the first time I played through it.

We had a bit of back-and-forth ribbing over whether the tune was Irish, Scottish, or originally American and taken back to the isles. Alan said all the Irish tunes come from someplace else anyway, and I countered by saying yes, but the Irish improve on them. 🙂 It was a great night of tunes common in both Irish and Appalachian traditions, Alan’s infectious lift and inventiveness leading us all astray. (Grinning now as I recollect that evening.)

Played this tune at two sessions on two consecutive nights. Well a session and a ‘pick’. On the second night it dawned on me that Over teh Moor to Maggie and Waynesboro were basically the same tune. Here is the version of Waynesboro that jogged my memory.

T:Waynesboro
M:2/2
L:1/8
K:G
“G”DEGA B2 d2|edgd edBA|“Am”E(A A)B AGED|EGAB “D”A2 (D2|
“G”D)EGA Bdef|gfga gedB|“C”ABGA “Am”BGAG|1“D“E(G G)A “G”G4:|2“D“E(G G)A
“G”G2||:ga|
“G”b2 bg “D”a2 af|“C”gage “G”dB A2|“Am”e(a a)(a a)b ag|(3efg) ab “D”a2 g
a|
“G”b2 bg “D”a2 af|“C”gage “G”dB A2|“C”ABGA “Am”BGAG|1“D“E(G G)A “G”G2:|2
“D”E(G G)A “G”G2||

Poet’s Choice https://thesession.org/tunes/7654

Good afternoon to yoooouu and yer very welcome to liveline…

This song was in the Movie “secret of Roan Inish; if you can check it out! I highly recommend it!

This tune is in the Gunn Book (Fermanagh 1865) as the Rakes of Abeyfale (2 parts)

Drop the C part and this tune could pass as a cousin of Planxty George Brabazon.

Sheila Garry and Bríd Cranitch play it in D (on Irish Session Tunes - The Orange Book) and it leads nicely into Dowd’s Number Nine
I find it easier to play in D as it avoids the high B.

This is how my banjo currently plays this tune (adapted from the Brid Crannitch version):
X:1
T:Over the Moor
S:Irish Session Tubes. The Orange Book. Brid Crannitch. Ossian. (2003) p.7 number 12.1
N:Variation by Edgar Bolton
N:In key of D rather than more commonly played key of G
Z:Edgar Bolton
M:4/4
R:Reel
K:D
FE |: D3 E FDFA | BcdB AFED | B,E (3EEE EFED | B,E (3EEE EGFE |
D3 E FDFA | BcdB AFED | B,D (3DDD FDED |1 A,DDE D2 FE :|2 A,DDE D2 de ||
|: fd (3ddd edBc | cddB A2 FA | Beed efed | Beed e2 de |
fd (3ddd edBc | cddB A2 FA | Bd (3ddd fded |1 Addc d2 de :|2 Addc d2 FA ||
ABBG GAAF | FGGE F2 ED | B,E (3EEE EFED | B,E (3EEE EFGA |
ABBG GAAF | FGGE F2 ED | B,D (3DDD FDED |1 A,DDE D2 FA :|2 A,DDE D4 ||

And sometimes the banjo gets a bit over-excited and tries to play the last section like this:

AB (3BBG GA (3AAF | FG (3GGE F2 ED | B,E (3EEE EFED | B,E (3EEE EFGA |

Althiugh I try to hang on to the banjo while it does all this, it seems to know what it’s doing all by itself. I’m more passenger than driver it seems 🙂

http://youtu.be/k7TVNo4dCW0

play video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca47dO-_SwY

play video

Learned from an old friend, I like the way this flows.

This ornamented version is from piper Martin Nolan’s CD, Bright Silver Dark Wood and played on his Cillian O’Briain Low D whistle. I’ve transcribed it from the CD along with Air From France and he apparently plays them together. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBug9XztVVE.

play video

One of most version of this tune, I prefer simpler notation with some more triplet

In the 8th setting of this tune (https://thesession.org/tunes/115#setting31014, and some other tune settings in thesession.org), there is the character “J” e.g. in the 6th bar: `J~G3A BA (3Bcd|`. I’ve been searching through https://abcnotation.com/ and can’t find the meaning of this character, but by looking at the image here, it looks like it might be a tie/slur (but the tie character `-` is also used in this setting…)?

So I have a couple of questions:
1) Does anybody have confirmation of the meaning of “J” in ABC, preferably with some sort of reference?
2) Does anybody know what software program was used to generate the images on this site from the ABC (I could probably find “J” defined in the source code)

Many thanks for any help!

I’ve not used abc notation that much since I got Sibelius but, from what I vaguely remember, I think J before a note means a slide into that note.

Cheers @DonaldK. So I think I can replace J with !slide! to make it “standard”. You led me to more discussion about it, and I think the letter J could be specific to ABCMus2.0: https://thesession.org/discussions/21694#comment451299

I heard this on a recording in a set with Jolly Tinker by Kirk Freymuth, Tim Frantzich, and John Williams. On the recording, “Maggie” is slower than Jolly Tinker, which wouldn’t be good for session, but is nice for listening.