Paddy Fahey’s jig

MHI stands for Maria Holohan’s Index.
This is the jig that does not appear in the transcriptions of Maria Holohan : on page 283 of her thesis appears reel #7 instead of the awaited jig #7 (the reel #7 appears already on page 247).
I have had the chance to listen to the recording that Maria made of Paddy playing this tune and that has been digitalized under Jig #7 name**. So here it is, as is. In particular, Paddy plays each part single (no repeats) one time only.
There is already a #7 on this site* which does not correspond to what Maria recorded under that number.
* (https://thesession.org/tunes/8567)
** each recording she made begins with her voice announcing the number of the tune.

There is something weird. Didier’s work is based on Maria Holohan’s thesis who made a classification of Paddy Fahy’s tunes. She gave the number 7 to this jig.
It’s well known Paddy Fahy did not want to give names, but he collaborated with Maria Holohan with numbers.
Why isn’t this piece named “Paddy Fahy’s jig MHI 7”, like were indexed Bach’s composition in 1950’s or Mozart’s in the middle of XIXth century?
TheSession.org was created to help musicians…. I hope!
Is any musician helped by the post about the Frank Brunel’s and Vincent Rosinach’s cd “The Fiendly Visit” https://thesession.org/recordings/3876. They play from track 9 to track 13, five sets of Paddy Fahy’s tunes all called “Paddy Fahey’s”. So, when Kenny added it 10 years ago, some one connected all the 11 tunes to “https://thesession.org/tunes/2566”. Really efficient?

One of the developments of the site over the past few years is that we can link tunes to the correct tunes, so there’s a good wee rainy day project for you, to go through The Friendly Visit and match the tunes up.

Please, have a look here concerning the names of Paddy’s compositions :
https://thesession.org/discussions/41654?newcomment#comment919644

It is a nice intention to manage work for people to kind of put in the right order the great mess in PF’s compositions names (I hesitate to put that word at the plural) and I know you’re joking saying that. Nevertheless wouldn’t it be forgetting too easily that a lot of ITM musicians don’t read staff notation and thus are not able neither from the dots nor from the ABC to link a tune to a recorded audio piece ? This does not prevent them from using with interest this site.

I thought I had linked the Fahy tunes on “The Friendly Visit”, but must have forgotten. I’ll do it later.

There is an ABC file compiling PF’s compositions with the tunes numbered according to Maria’s Index. I don’t know its origin. But for the MHI missing jig no 7, there is an I: field (information) saying “I:May not actually be Paddy Fahey’s Jig no 7”. The tune in that file is the one I cited as already in the database and was posted by Dr. Dow, and is not the present transcription.

https://youtu.be/XDrO6W5Jdno

play video

X:2 Transcribed from Paddy Fahey’s playing on the YouTube video that Didier linked. The B part diverges considerably from the transcription showed on the video and reproduced in X:1 above, to the point of being unrecognizable. I tried playing it as written and couldn’t make any sense of it. As played by PF in the video, it’s a lovely little jig that deserves to be played. Both the recording and the accompanying transcription lack repeats, but to my ear the parts practically demand to be repeated with appropriate first and second endings.

I learned it from Mirella Murray, who got it from the YouTube recording but dropped it down to C on the piano box. I’ll post her setting and my adaptation of it in D for the flute. It’s about as sweet and tuneful a little jig as Paddy Fahey or anyone else ever wrote.

X:3 As played by Mirrella Murray on piano accordion.

X:4 The tune lays very well on the flute and whistle in the original key of D with parts repeated.