The High Road To Glin reel

This is one of a pair of mighty reels written by NYC teaching legend Martin Mulvihill, father of Brendan. I didn’t see them listed on the website, so here’s the first, I’ll post the second (the Low Road to Glin) tomorrow.

Enjoy!

I have the Martin Mulvihill album and also a recording of Sean McGuire playing this tune on radio in 1984-it sounds a bit like the mountain road or am I mistaken?

Mountain Road? No… it sounds more like Out on the Ocean. (just kidding)

I’ve heard it referred to as Martin’s take on the Mountain Road.

That is one mean tune, O Guru. Nice transcription, too. It would’ve lost some of its edge without those grace notes.

I’m not quite so keen. The grace notes seem to represent rolls, and I think they’d have been better transcribed as such.

album notes from the Steeplechase by Brendan Mulvihil and Donna reads "These two reels, the first of which is a variation of ‘The Mountain Road,’ were composed by Martin Mulvihill in the 1970s.

Am I the only one who’s noticed that some of these measures have five beats? Some have five and a half.

You’re not seeing the barring. Some things that look like two crotchets/quarter-notes are actually two quavers/eigth-notes barred across, but on the line of the staff so not showing. For example the second bar ~

~ |{G}F{E}F AF EA,CE | ~ = ~ | {G}F{E}FAF EA,CE | ~ remove the grace notes ~ | FFAF EA,CE | ~

So it all adds up to 4 beats to the bar, but the ABCs are a bit messy… Another example, bar 3 ~

~ |D F{G}F{E}F DEFA | ~ would have been better this way ~
~ | DF{G}F{E}F DEFA | ~ = ~ | DFFF DEFA | ~

Oh! Now I see it, my apologies!

X:1
T: High Road To Glin, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K:Dmaj
DE |: F2AF F2AF |F2AF EA,~A,2 |DFF2 DEFA |B2AF EFDE |
F2AF F2AF | F2AF EA,~A,2|DFF2 DEFA | [1 BdAF D3 E :| [2 BdAF D2 de ||
|:f2df efdf | afef dBB2 | f2fa baa2 |bfaf efde |
fbaf egfe | dfed BcdB |AFF2 DEFA | [1 BdAF D2 de :| [2 BdAF D4 |]