Please Give A Penny To The Poor Old Man polka

This is the final part of what was usually a 5 part series of tunes played for this group dance, some in 2/4, some in 6/8; examples from folk tradition of the 6/8 have been posted here before. This setting comes from the fiddling of Johnny Doherty, as recorded on his Comhaltas LP; some of his other recordings have Lancers tunes in 6/8 as well, and more may be found at the Comhaltas archives. In bars 2 and 4 John actually played very brief double stops, harmonizing B against G and D against F, for the sake of clarity I haven’t included these notes.

X:2 is from Köhler’s Violin Repository of Dance Music: http://imslp.org/wiki/K%C3%B6hler’s_Violin_Repository_of_Dance_Music_(Anonymous) The ABCs are somewhere on the net, forget where but you can download the collection at once if so desired. This print setting is close to how Sligo fiddler Michael Gorman played it, as heard on the Jolly Tinker recording, differing from Doherty’s here and there.