Fifteen comments
Not reel
actually, this is a set dance…
I think I saw a request for this a while back, so I thought I would submit it.
Tim
This is a set dance. It is danced to and played in hornpipe rythm. Job of Journey Work is not a reel.
Who included "Set Dance" and "Setdance" as alternative titles for this tune? Might as well give all reels an alternative title of "reel" or all jigs "jig" or … I’m sure you get the picture.
Job of Journey Work
Setting #2, which I have submitted today, is by James Morrison, and is printed on the sleeve of Shanachie’s 1978 LP 33004 "The Pure Genius of James Morrison", which recording I have also submitted in the Recordings section.
Sorted..
With regard to Aidan’s comment from 3 years ago, I’ve removed the spurious titles of "set dance".
Job of Journeywork
The Chieftains play this on one of their albums. It is preceded by a beautiful slow air played by Martin Fay but I have been unable to find out the name of it - does anyone know what it’s called?
It’s on Chieftains 8, and the sleeve notes describe the tune as "an air related to the set dance The Job of Journeywork".
Maybe it’s a cousin.
You can hear it here: http://www.myspace.com/thechieftains/music/songs/the-job-of-journeywork-28320324
“an air related to the set dance The Job of Journeywork”
Job of Journeywork - Chieftains
So, X:3 is the setting as played by the Chieftains after the Air mentioned above.
Job of Journeywork - the James Morrison setting.
I’ve been wondering why this version was not on the LP but was printed on the sleeve of the LP. I think it is possible that if there was only one recording available, which would have been a pre-war 78, it may have been in too poor a condition to be transferred to an LP; but fortunately someone was nevertheless able to transcribe what was on it.
Setting 4
From Bernard O’Sullivan and Tommy McMahon. Lots of c naturals.
Johnny Doran’s Version
A version of this tune by the great piper Johny Doran.
The Job Of Journeywork, X:6
Version as played at the Golden Guinea pub session, Bristol, UK (The setting is from a Matt Cranitch tunebook, published 1988).
The Job Of Journeywork, X:7
Here’s the "bones" of the tune, transcribed from the PW Joyce collection. Maybe nothing new, but a reminder of how the tune looked when he published it in 1873.
He prefaced the notation with:
"This Tune belongs to the class of " Set dances,". It was a great favourite twenty or thirty years ago in some of the Munster counties; and I learned it from hearing it constantly played by pipers and fiddlers."
An additional interesting point is the tempo marking is half-note = 15 inches. In the preface it is explained:
"The time in which each tune is to be played is indicated by the swing of a simple pendulum. Hang a little weight— a heavy button, a bullet, &c—to the end of a thread, and after measuring it to the length indicated at the head of the tune, suspend it from the finger, or from a nail, and set it swinging ; it will show at once the time in which the tune is to be played."
The Job Of Journeywork, X:8
Version in O’Neill’s