The Duck jig

I know I’ll get a row for this but I’ve encountered a small problem when searching for a tune here. The tune I wished to find is called “The Duck” and I get “The Leg of the Duck” only when I search in the tune section. Because I’ve had a result, I’m not given the facility to request this tune. Can anyone advise or, if they know the tune, post it?
I’d sooner have the whole bird than just the leg. I’m a hungry b-gger. 🙂

Is this tune on one of the Ossian CDs? If so I’ll post it when I get the chance.

Thaks Conan. It’s on “Dove across the water” and “The Best of Ossian”. Keep it Up have also recorded this. It’s quite a simple tune and I’ve already learned most of it by ear. However, there are one or two bits I’m not sure about and would like to check the dots. So far, I’ve never seen it written down.

John I’m at work at the mo’ and then I’m flying off to Belfast for the weekend straight afterwards.
If you could give me the key of the first part I will try and cobble it together from memory during my lunch break.

It’s in B flat on the Ossian album because of the pipes but I prefer to play it in A as on the Keep it Up album. It won’t matter, though, as I can transpose it. Thanks.

(My connection has been down or I’d have been back to you sooner. There’s no rush, though.)

I put this together from memory during my lunchbreak and added some slightly more realistic chords. Obviously this is a rough hash of the real thing - no ornamentation and some of the notation might be *slightly* out.

If anyone has any comments re the key signature or wants to amend the notation, let me know in this section.

It’s up - I did it in G ‘cos it’s easy!

Thanks for that. I see that you’ve submitted in “G” but that won’t matter. It’ll be easy enough to transpose to “A” on the fiddle or mandolin. I just have to move up a string.
The notation seem fine and, if the recorded(or other)versions are slightly different, I should be able to adapt accordingly.
Thanks a lot. As I say, I had got most of it already but I wasn’t sure of certain bits-mainly in the last part.

Thank you, Conan. And thanks also to Jeremy for your patience with this thread. 🙂

No problem. Sorry about the key!

Sorry, I’ve been a “total slaver”. The Ossian key is E flat and Keep it Up is in D. It’s the third part which got me confused as the key appears to change, ie sounds more like B flat and A respectively.
Anyway, the same applies. It’s still easy to transpose. Thanks again.

Sorry, I’ve been a “total slaver”. The Ossian key is E flat and Keep it Up is in D. It’s the third part which got me confused as the key appears to change, ie sounds more like B flat and A respectively.
Anyway, the same applies. It’s still easy to transpose. Thanks again.

You’re right about the key change, John. The transpose facility in ABCMus would work for playing along if you knock it up 8 semitones. Sounds nice with drones (DGdg) as all good piping tunes should.

I’ve got that old Ossian vinyl. That’s a great tune!

It’s a wee cracker. If you transpose it 7 semitones (not 8 as I said earlier) and plonk it on the end of Duncan Johnstone - also in the tunes section - you’re nearly there with the set. The Curlew that Ossian play after those two is a different tune from the Curlew (Glenbeigh Hornpipe)listed here though.

Maybe this discussion should be in the “Tunes” section… Jeremy?

Another composition by Pipe Major Donald McLeod, but he never wrote it in G, and I’ve never heard it played in that key, anywhere.
The name refers not to a bird, but to a piper of Donald’s acquaintance who had an odd posture when he was playing.

We know. Read the other comments!

http://youtu.be/KzOVbQ6NZfU

play video

Good man Kenny! There’s nothing like the real thing.

“The Duck” listed “On The Offbeat” is a composition by Liz Carroll and completely different from the tune setting above. Nevertheless this setting is also nice and interesting, specially the changing chords behind identical sequences.

Second setting in correct key: first two parts in D, this and fourth in A.
I really like the way that by changing all the D notes in the first part to C# notes in the third part you not only change the key but get a tune that makes musical sense.

X:3, broadly the same as X:2 from my colleague DonaldK, is from a sheet handed out at a workshop, and although the main differences are rhythmic there are a few different notes and a 2nd-time ending for strain 2.

The story I have is that only strains 1 & 2 are by Pipe Major Donald MacLeod, and that 3 & 4 were added by piper Willie “Wulls” Galbraith - to good effect, as DonaldK observes.

Previous settings were 4-parts. The A & C parts were almost identical in X1, aside from a few alternatives notes in the the bar (which harmonized). The B & D parts differed a bit more, but, could be played simultaneously without any issues, since they harmonize.

The C & D parts, for comparison. These can be played in place of the A & B parts of X4.

NfdlWhistler, the B and D parts don’t really harmonise as the D note at the end of the 7th bar of the B part clashes somewhat with the C# note in the equivalent place of the D part.
It’s a four part tune.

Right, missed a few notes. Thanks for pointing that out! More-so what I was trying to get at, is the parts are similar, and this could make (two) nice 2-part tunes. There are a few tunes that have third parts dropped, so could be done here.

Well, if Matt Seattle is correct, The Duck started out as a two part tune and some pipe bands might play it that way (often happens with four partners) but it would always be the first two parts. I don’t think I’ve ever heard, in my admittedly limited experience, the third and fourth parts played as a stand alone tune.

“There are a few tunes that have third parts dropped”, - examples, please ? And while you’re at it, please give further examples of 4 part tunes which are played having their 1st and 2nd parts “dropped”, as you’re proposing here.

@DonaldK:
Thanks for the info! Admittedly, I didn’t read all of the prior comments. Had just passively listened to the tune in a set with another tune I like (The Snuff Wife), thought “that’s nice, I’ll check it out”, and seen the striking resemblance between the different parts. Hadn’t noticed the recording playing 4 distinct parts (they could have been), and figured this could make a good 2-parter.

@Kenny:
3-part tunes made into 2-part tunes:
- Joys of Quebec (2 parts is far more common, it does have a third part though)
- Herbert the Sherbert (3rd part added on after original composition)

Think I have heard a few more, but the names slip my mind at the moment.

4-part tunes made into 2-part tunes:
- refer to DonaldK’s post, apparently The Duck used to be a 2-part tune.

I wasn’t claiming 4-part tunes are commonly dropped down to two parts (it’s probably pretty rare if it does happen), but, this tune seems like a unique example for which you wouldn’t lose the guts of the tune if you removed two parts. It would still tell a similar story.

I think the important word is “few” - and not a single Irish example yet.
“ this tune seems like a unique example for which you wouldn’t lose the guts of the tune if you removed two parts. It would still tell a similar story.“ I disagree, and in nearly 40 years of playing the tune since being inspired to learn it after hearing “Ossian”, I have never, ever heard it played other than as a 4-part tune.

You never asked for an Irish example ;)

And to each their own, you have your taste for the tune, and I’m undecided at this point. All I was pointing out was that it *could* work as a two-parter, which apparently was the original composition anyways. Whether people actually play it as a two-parter or not was irrelevant to my point.

“The Session is a community website dedicated to Irish traditional music.” - from the homepage.
Best of luck in your sessions with playing “The Jig Of Slurs”, “The Atholl Highlanders”, “Colonel Fraser”, “Farewell To Ireland”, “Kiss The Maid Behind The Barrel” or “Spike Island Lasses” as “two-parters”.

This has gotten off-track. Never said I would attempt any of them at a session as a two-parter. In any event, thank you for your comments Kenny.

This is Donald MacLeod’s own setting, with the Highland pipe ornaments left out, and short trills (praltriller/schneller/inverted mordent) put in to try to capture the way the tune sounds on the pipes.

The effect of the repeated D’s in the second part is, I think, critical to the sound of the tune.

There’s a pipe-specific thing that happens in the second part: the high A which follows the low A in Bar 1 disappears into the drones, making the low A sound detached.

This tune is the second jig in a three-jig set on the biggest-selling bagpipe album of all time, Farewell To The Greys (1971). The set of jigs is:

Groatie Buckie Mannie
The Duck
Eleanor’s

I’ve posted the first and third jigs because they weren’t in Tunes.

On the album that set of jigs is part of a larger medley:

1) Leaving Rhu Vaternish (slow air)
2) Groatie Buckie Mannie (called “nameless” on the album)
3) The Duck
4) Eleanor’s
5) Drum Salute (drum corps only)

I understand this tune, “The Duck”, was originally written about a regimental piper who had a particular stance and way of walking when playing, so nicknamed “The Duck”. I’ll see if I can find the source of that anecdote, but I suspect either the Scots Guards or The Queen’s Own Highlanders.

UPDATE:
The tunes is in Donald MacLeod’s 4th collection ( he composed it) and in the Caberfeidh Collection of The Queen’s Own Highlanders- Seaforths and Camerons, which is where I saw the backstory, if I remember correctly.