The Streamstown barndance

Played in F by Cormac Begley on Bb/F Lachenal baritone concertina on his self-titled CD (and not the jig Streamstown to which it currently links from thesession’s listing for the .CD). Transposed here from F to D.

Just curious, but F played on a Bb/F concertina would be “G” fingering on a normal C/G concertina, right? I’m curious why you chose D as the key instead of G. It seems like it would fit well in either anyway, and it’s always fun to play things in more than one key.

Well, it may have been played by the composer on a concertina but it could be played on anything, and adopting the default key signature of D was just intended to make it easier for players of instruments such as D flute or whistle etc.
See discussions such as at https://thesession.org/discussions/25437
As someone says there: “It’s the ranges and the intervals of the tunes that matter, not the pitch”. Anyway, transposing to whatever key one wants is only a few clicks away via http://sessionite.com/jens-wollschlagers-abc-transposer/
BTW, hope you like the tune …

I love the album 🙂

You’re right that it doesn’t really matter, but my question was just because I would think of a Bb/F concertina as a “C” or flat-pitched / non-A440 instrument and therefore tunes coming out in F as really being in G (just a flat G). I would think of Cormac’s version of the tune as being in G.

Anyway, not intending anything as a criticism, just a discussion about pitch!

No offence taken, it was a fair question, and not a great answer. Perhaps I should have added that the baritone concertina’s lower pitch also gave the tune much of its particular character on this recording, and I figured transposing to D would allow the low D of the D flute to provide a better bass note than its G would.
But, hey, transposing the wise words of Captain Hector Barbossa, maybe the dots are “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules”.

I agree on the last line 100% 🙂 Dots are definitely just a guideline, the music is rarely (never?) captured completely by them.

I agree that the extra lowness (an octave *and* a tone below concert pitch) is a big part of the appeal of this track.

Thanks!

Transcribed from John Joe Gannon’s playing on Seoda Ceoil 2