The Broken Pledge reel

Extract from a Michael Simmons interview with Frankie Gavin for Fiddler Magazine:

Frankie Gavin was pushed into playing the fiddle at the age of ten by his older accordion-playing brother who thought the two instruments would sound good together. “One day Sean came up to me,” Gavin recalls. “He said, ‘You know, I think you should play the fiddle.’ I said, ‘I don’t know about that. Doesn’t it make a lot of squeaks when you’re learning?’ But he kept on me so I decided to give it a go. The first thing he made me learn was a tune called ‘The Broken Pledge,’ which is lovely, but really difficult to play. He said, ‘If you can get a really nasty tune off first, everything else will be plain sailing after that.’ And it turns out it’s true enough.”

As a fiddler, I can see how you might not want this to be your first tune, but it’s certainly not the most difficult in the book. Apparently Frankie was up to it….

Does anybody know the jig version of ‘broken pledge’ that is played on the kane sisters’ first album? i think it goes really well after ‘do you want anymore?’

Galway-fiddle, I just posted the dots for the jig, transcribed directly from the Well Tempered Bow. Click here: https://thesession.org/tunes/4217

I hear this more often in Edor at our session for the pipers/fluters, altho’ I have to say I prefer it in Ddor.

Thanks Will!!!

is this tune really D dorian. Played with the Fs sharp it sounds just as fine to my humble ear and its quite ok to play it thence as notated on flutey/pipey things (i do it so…). I guess the Fs are just like the Cs in a lot of these tunes: you can jump back and forth between the sharp and the natural and anywhere in between depending on the mood your in.

Patrick Ourceau taught this beautiful tune with a slight variation which I post now in abc format. Makes it even more beautiful!

X: 1
T: Broken Pledge, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Ddor
|dcAG ADDd|cAGF ECCE|DEFG Addc|Ac1/2A1/2GB Adfe|
dcAG (3EFG AB|cdBd cAGE|DEFG Addc|Ac1/2A1/2GE EDD2:||
|dcAG Adde|f2df ecAB|~c3A GAcd|ecc2 eage|
dcAG Adde|f2df ecAG|F2~F2 FGAd|cAGE EDD2:||

I’ve heard that version too, with the variation. It’s nice.

Here’s a version of the Broken Pledge given to me by Liz Kane, as best as I could make out her handwriting, and processed by six months of playing it.

X:2
T:Broken Pledge, The
M:C|
L:1/8
R:Reel
K:DDor
dcAG AEAB|cAGF ECCE|D2 (3E^FG Addc|(3ABc Gc Adfe|
dcAG (3E^FG AB|cBcd cAGE|D2 (3E^FG AddB|cAGE {G}ED D2:|
dcAG A2 de|fefd ecAB|cAGE GAcd|ec ~c2 eage|
dcAG FAde|fefd ecAG|F2 ED (3E^FG AB|cAGE {G}ED D2:|

I use the G for the cut between the two Es in the last bar because it’s easiest on the B/C box, but an F natural works just as well or maybe better. One could put rolls on the quarter notes, but they sound ok to me without them.

Ha does anyone have this in EDor? otherwise i’ll have to sit down and do it by ear….

My attempt at transcribing Kevin Rowsome’s playing:

||:ed BA Be eB| dG AG FA DA|EF GA Be ec| (3.B.cB Ad Bf gf
| ed BA ~B3 c|dG AG FA DA|EF GA Be ec|~B2 Af Be eB:||
||:ed BA (3B.c.d ef|g2 ef fd Bc|dA FA dc de|fd (3B.c.d fb af
|ed BA (3B.c.d ef|g2 ef fd BA|~G3 F GA Be|dB AF Be eB:||

For easier use on the D whistle, this tune works great transposed up to E mixolydian. It’s very similar to playing it in E minor. I’d write it in ABC format, but not sure how to.

X:1
T:Broken Pledge, The
M:4/4
L:1/8
R:Reel
K:Emix
edBA BEEc|dBA^F FDDF|EF^FA Beed|BdAF Eagf|edBA GABC|dcdB ADDF|EF^FA Beed|BdAF FE E2:|
e2 BA Bdef|^f2 e^f fdBc|dcdB ABde|fd d2 fbaf|edBA GBEf|^f2 e^f fdBA|^F^F^FF ^FABe|dBAF FE E2:|

First tune here by Darren Moloney, John McCartan and Danny McGovern.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=Dl9_cLcLZCw&v=jEaQDQfifbc

play video

I was just playing some tunes over lunch and I without much forethought started into The Broken Pledge and promptly ran off the long end of the whistle.

I just let those notes fall on the floor, but does anybody play this one on a D whistle and have any ideas about how to handle those low C naturals? Substitute another note? play them up an octave?

or is this just one of those times that I need to grab a C whistle or play another tune?

Seamus Ennis goes GE ~E2 or sometimes goes for a long E roll. Works fine.

thanks, professor! a roll on the E is a great idea! that the E comes right before the C naturals is what stumped me. There’s other tunes that I learned on fiddle first and when I put them on a whistle, I have to substitute another chord tone for things like a low B off the end and stuff like that.

but in this case, you would have a beat and a half on E, perfect place for a roll

I’m a lazy whistle player, myself, and tend to play only the whistle-friendliest tunes on the whistle, my main instrument being mandolin. But I have heard whistle players playing in all sorts of unlikely keys on a D-whistle. The best I’ve heard was a red-haired lass in Feakle, E. Clare, who played a set of 3 tunes, in C, F and G minor, on a D whistle, and not a note out of place - or missing.

You could do worse than listen to Johnny Connolly Sr. on the melodeon. He manages to play in all the common keys on a D-melodeon - and he doesn’t even have the C-natural or the half-hole option for accidentals. He just works around the notes he doesn’t have in such a way that the melody flows like honey.

…I refer, of course, to the single-row melodeon.

The tune absolutely can be played on the whistle/flute/pipes with some folding and creative substitution.

I don’t know that one, but where have I heard that tune name before? Sounds familiar…

X: 1
T: Broken Pledge, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Ddor
|dcAG AD3|cAGE ED D2|DEFG ADdB|cAGc AD (3gfe|
dcAG ADdB|cAAG EFFE|DEFG ADdB|cAGE EDDe:||
|dcAG Adde|f3d ecAB|cAGE GAcd|e2 df ecAc|
dcAG Addg|f3d ecAG|FEFG Addc|AcGE EDDe:||

X:7 from a 78 of melodeon player PJ Conlon. Played in Amix it sounds drastically different than usual; Conlon recomposed the 2nd part a bit to avoid going higher than A, not that he didn’t have those notes available on his single-row instrument. Also, given that he had to work with just the one row he plays C#s throughout instead of the expected Cnat, those of us with more flexible instruments could give it a try with Cnat if so desired.

Setting 8 is my transcription from Johnny McCarthy’s album “Steele’s Rock”. He plays “The Colliers’” before it. My transcription of his playing of that tune can be found as the third setting here: https://thesession.org/tunes/2154

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPRX2Hrrz0

play video