Paddy On The Turnpike reel

A friend of mine once wrote words for this. I just like the melody - it’s one of the few things I like to play slowly 🙂 (It’s also one of the few things I can actually play on the hammered dulcimer!)

My biggest beef with Irtrad session music is that fully half of it is in the key of G or it’s associated modes, and now here is a tune which I find typically played in G and it is transposed up to A? Is this tune typically played in this key in sessions?

A Dor is a kind of G, right? 🙂

forgive my earlier outburst….I must have been grumpy about something when I wrote that, but now I can’t remember what.

Actually, I learned the tune in G Aeolian (a B-flat major scale). It is a great tune in any key. Besides, if I am truly "put out" by so many session tunes ‘in or on’ G, then I should welcome seeing one done "in or on" A.

Maybe, I was thinking about a different tune…"Paddy on the Dreary Plateau". :O)

Scotty,
This is a G minor (G aeolian?) version of the tune I found in the New England Fiddler’s Repertoire. It differs in detail from the A dorian version posted here but is essentially the same tune. How does it equate to the G min/aeo version you know?

K:Gmin
DGG^F G2GA|BGdG eGdG|DFF=E F2FG|AFcF dFcF|
DGG^F G2GA|BAGA Bcd=e|f=efd cAFA|BGAF G4:|
|:dgg^f g2ga|baga bgaf|dffg f2fg|agfg afgf|
dgg^f g2ga|bagf dcd=e|f=efd cAFA|BGAF G4:||

Trevor

You’re right scottythefiddler. It is usually played in G. In fact I’ve *never* heard it in A. It presumably comes from a scottish tune, which lacks the third part. Can’t remember the Scottish version name. Anyway Tommy Peoples plays the Irish version on one of his early albums.

I pretty sure I have a recording of this tune as Paddy on a Handcar.

The Gdor version of this was posted as The Bunch Of Keys and can be found here: https://thesession.org/tunes/344. One version I play is a simple 2-part setting in Gdor, similar to the one Trevor posted above:

X: 1
T: Paddy On The Turnpike
T: Bunch Of Keys, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gdor
DGGF ~G3A|BG~G2 dGBG|DFFE ~F3B|AFcF dFcF|
DGGF ~G3A|BGGA Bcde|~f3d cAFA|1 BGAF ~G3F:|2 BGAF ~G3c||
|:dggf ~g3a|bg~g2 bgaf|dffe ~f3g|af~f2 afgf|
dggf ~g3a|bg~g2 gfde|~f3d cAFA|1 BGAF ~G3c:|2 BGAF ~G3F||

In SW PA, Western MD and WV fiddlers normally play it in the A dorian from way back.

Submitted on May 18th 2006 by slainte.
https://thesession.org/tunes/5779

Andy McGann plays this in G Mixolydian on ‘It’s a Hard Road to Travel’. It quite nicely combines the lift of the ”Turnpike’ setting with the sombre mood of the ‘Keys’ setting. Not very sessionable, mind you.

This tune is played in G minor in the Scottish version and is called The Auld Reel. It has been recorded & performed by many under that title, including Natalie MacMaster.

I just watched a video on youtube with Butch Baldassari playing this tune on the mandolin. He uses a different rhythm with this tune. He called it a shuffle. I think, too, that it’s also called eighth note swing.
Triplets: quarter - eighth notes. Pretty neat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKcw0oYA0c

play video

It’s called bluegrass. While the shuffle has been around awhile, it’s not old time, it’s not Irish… It’s a kind of quasi-jazz, but it too can be great craic…

http://www.homespuntapes.com/

Butch Baldassari’s Bluegrass Mandolin Workshop
http://www.homespuntapes.com/Instruments/Mandolin/bluegrass-mandolin/butch-baldassari-s-bluegrass-mandolin-workshop

It’s listed here as "Patty on the Turnpike", an sometimes, after messing around with a melody and ‘making it different’, bluegassers will rename it in some cute fashion like this. But it might just be the website folk hearing it wrong. 😀

Sorry, having just read my own writing, I meant to say that the take on it that way isn’t old time or Irish but bluegrass. The ‘shuffle’ is very much a part of old-time music, though mostly associated with the bow rather than the plectrum..

In Quebec I’ve heard the name Reel du Plombier or Plumber’s Reel. A superlative dance version of the tune also has been done on a recording by Wild Asparagus years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlT3CmtKTqo

play video

Here’s a clip from the man- starts about 6:27.

JJShea, I just found out about adding a time parameter onto a YouTube link >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlT3CmtKTqo#t=6m27s

play video

nothing’s perfect. The link goes to 6’27" but the embedded video plays from the start.

Thank you, Na éisc. I’ll have to try that in the future. Great clip!

The time parameter I used on the above link no longer works. So I’m testing to see what happens with just the seconds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlT3CmtKTqo#t=387

play video

I posted the link, it didn’t work, & now I’m editing this to ask if anyone knows "why does a YouTube time start work differently even though the same arrangement of characters is entered?"

When I type in the parameters on the end of the YouTube link it takes me right to the time entered.
If I copy & paste it the link it directs to the original start time ~ 0:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlT3CmtKTqo&t=6m27s

play video

😀

I is in my guitar book in B flat….

Found here: http://tunearch.org/wiki/Paddy_on_the_Handcar

This is closer to Skip Healy’s recording on Purgatory Chasm.

This is the version that Ossian play on their Seal Song album, as closely as my ears can catch it anyway.