Peach Blossoms barndance

James Morrison pairs this with ‘The Curlew Hills’ alias ‘The Glenbeigh’:
https://thesession.org/tunes/670

‘Moving Cloud’ chose ‘The Dances at Kinvara’:
https://thesession.org/tunes/2380

Version 1 - Bar6:
I screwed-up that ‘f’. The ‘=’(natural) wasn’t the intention. It is actually a classic Irish quartertone up, between the f# and the g, but the attempt at ‘^/2f’ doesn’t quite work…and things seem to have slipped downward the other way than intended, my responsibility, sorry…

|B2 g>“^/2f” g2 e>d|

- and another variation on the final two,
‘hornpipification’?, Part C, Bars 7 & 8:

|f>dc>A f>dc>A|G>gf>g G>ed>c:|

This dance and dances like it, what some would call ‘simple’, are for me the true measure of ‘style’ and of who’s a ‘dancer’, rather than a plethora of steps and figures or a regimented exaggeration of moves. It’s not about costume, whether or not your embroidery is dated or hand or machine stitched, or what version of ‘curl’ you’ve abused your hair into. It isn’t about having the latest fiberglass shoes and the decibles of volume you can pull off in attacking the floor or competing with the music. And, it isn’t acknowledged with a string of letters after your name. Yes, winning such acolades takes a lot of dedication and effort, and sacrafice, including your soul, but that’s too machine-like and aggressive to be any measure I would accept with regards to what I choose to value in a dancer or a musician. I’m talking about the traditions of the countryside, of community - what some choose to call ‘folk’, and which in other cases is called the ‘craic’. That natural state, being at ease and at one with the movement, second-nature, light of spirit - something that is too easily lost in the militancy and dogma of a regime - - - - or a ‘comission’… This also represents a body of dances that were ‘forbidden’ and ‘outlawed’ along with the ‘sets’, the ‘sean nos’, and certain music by hard-line and narrow-minded beliefs…

But enough of my soapbox, back to this little dance - - -

Both a ‘short’ (single/8 bars) version and a ‘long’ (double/16 bars) version exists for this couple dance. It can be dances ‘smooth’, without any hopping, or it can be ‘hopped’. By ‘hop’ I don’t actually mean a hop as much as a ‘skip’, the heel just coming up and down with a slight sliding of the ball of the foot on the floor. I’ll give the ‘short’ version first, followed by a description of the ‘long’version.

Connemara Barndance - ‘short’

Hold: Partners side-by-side and facing in the Line-of-Direction (LOD/Anti-Clockwise/ACW/CCW), as standard - the man is on her Left/she’s to his Right, an open waist-waist or waist-shoulder hold.

BAR 1: Walking forward two steps, starting on outside feet - ‘advance’
(M-L,R/W-R,L)

BAR 2: - continuing forward one step and then two steps in place
(M-LRL/W-RLR)

BARS 3-4: REPEAT - with opposite footwork and backing up - ‘retire’

BARS 5-6: Partners turn in to face each other and take a closed hold, step 123 in the LOD and then 123 in the opposite direction (123=step-together-step)
(M-LRL to his L, RLR back to his R/W-RLR to her R, LRL back to her L)
NOTE: This can also be with the couple turning once around Clockwise (CW) while traveling around the dance space ACW.

BARS 7-8: ‘double’/pivot/dreher X4 - the couple turning usually twice around CW and travelling around the dance space in the LOD(=ACW)
(M-L,R,L,R/W-R,L,R,L)
NOTE: This can also be with a ‘step-hop’

Connemara Barndance - ‘long’

BARS 1-4: The same as for the ‘short’ version above, ‘advance and retire’

BARS 5-8: REPEAT Bars 1-4, ‘advance and retire’

BARS 1-6: 3 X Bars 5-6 of the ‘short’ version while turning CW as a couple, usually three times round, while traveling in the LOD(=ACW) around the dance space.
(M-LRL,RLR X 3/W-RLR,LRL X 3)

BARS 7-8: ‘double’/pivot/dreher - as for the final two bars of the ‘short’ version.

NOTE: Stepping - The dance can be done with a ‘skip’, as some would call a hop, as in the related traditions of the hornpipe/schottische/fling, or example the 3s become hop123, and the ‘advance’ and ‘retire’ movements would be - hop, 1, hop, 2, hop123…
There can also be a emphasis in the ‘advance’ and ‘retire’ 123s, but if done this should not be over emphasized, the stamps are ‘in place’ and ‘with weight’, but like with the hop, just a light ‘emphasis’, not nailing floor boards down or abusing your joints -
hop, 1, hop, 2, hop 1StampStamp

Lastly - there are always ‘variations’… I first experienced and fell in love with this dance watching it in a hall somewhere in Connemara, in the 1970s, one particular couple holding most of my attention. They were in their 80s. There was no separation between them the music and the dance. They were all one, and you could see the musicians getting high off of it all watching this couple and other dancers sharing the rhythm. While there were personal differences to the dancing from couple to couple, there was this ease and marvelous oneness to it all, nothing was pushed, no one was putting on a show. It was open, welcoming, playful and childish and the laughter of that seemed to be intertwined in the fabric of it all, inseparable…


‘i thank You God for most this amazing’ - e.e.cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Peach Blossoms

WHAT cry of peach blossoms
let loose on the air today
I heard with my face thrown
in the pink-white of it all?
in the red whisper of it all?

What man I heard saying:
Christ, these are beautiful!

And Christ and Christ was in his mouth,
over these peach blossoms?


- by Carl Sandburg (January 6th, 1878 - 22nd July, 1967).
from his poetry,
“Smoke and Steel”, 1922 -
V, 22 - ‘Mist Forms’, ‘Peach Blossoms’
Replica Books, paperback, 2003
ISBN: 0735103259
“The Complete Poems”
Harcourt, hardback, 2003
ISBN: 0151009961

“Ok, but why did you notate it so it goes, *ga-chunk ga-chunk ga-chunk ga-chunk ga-chunk ga-chunk*?”

“Ker-chunk” - I’m wounded… but, it is close enough, because, that is the way they were played, though not as exaggerated as it comes out when midi gets ahold of it, soften those consonants, maybe “Duh-dum”, but not that flat you get when you leave out the signs. A lot of these things, including hornpipes and mazurkas and other skip-rhythm things, get ironed out sometimes in the ‘wash’, meaning notation, because it is just more bare without all those extra dots and sixteenth flags. That doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong. Like with hornpipes with AmTrad, a lot of folks just play them straight and line them up alongside reels.

So, Peach Blossoms, and barndances/schottisches/Germans/Flings/Highlands/Highland Flings - were born with that skip in them. Flings get it ironed out and become single reels, OK, and I suppose if you want to take them with more or less swing, that’s an option - but they were swung and I’ve got old recordings coming out my ears over here and none of them are flat, or ‘straight’… But that midi does sound shight don’t it? It makes me want to write them out flat…but that would be an ‘untruth’… Maybe flattening it is the norm for stage performance and slow digitally enhanced recordings, or if you want to grill them like Burger King over a fast flame, but it does nothing for the dance in the tune…that swing.

Midi makes it sound exaggerated and choppy, but they are swung, they were swung, and that is their nature. It’s the commercial boys that flatten stuff out, often either with speed or to make it a pretty listening piece, ‘crap’! Sorry, I don’t mind those variations really, I just wish folks wouldn’t mistake them for anymore than they are, commercial excess for the ‘listening’ public, bums on seats, cute or acrobatic.

Who loves yuh Gilder? - a lot of us - - -
Play it flat if you like it like that…

HINT! - HINT! - Jack Gilder Wisdom:

hahahaha

Truth is -- I play almost everything with a slight swing, but it never comes anywhere near what’s implied by dotted notation. My feeling is that leaving it out of the notation allows the reader to include whatever amount they choose -- adding it into the notation isn’t as graceful. I always end up copying it to my hard drive and taking out all the gobble-di-goop myself so I can read it easier. Then I add a pinch of swing. I’m just being selfish in my appeal to leave the dotted rhythm out -- saves me a lot of work. 😉

Jack, I’m trusting you to do the right thing by Jimmy, but I do have his midi, and if you don’t I will, but I promise I’ll do it straight for you, out of respect…

Here’s the tune as played by Jimmy into my answering machine. I left out the naughty words he uttered during his execution, but I will tell you they occured with enough regularity that I could have easily included them.

NOTE: This tune is gobble-di-goop free

X:1
T:Peach Blossoms
S:Máire Ó‘Keefe (via) Paul Ó’Shaughnessy (via) Jimmy Troy’s brain
Q:320
M:C
L:1/8
K:D
|A2 fA A2 fA |B2 g2 g2 ed |ceae cea^g |b2 a2 a2 A/A/A|!
|A2 fA A2 fA |B2 g2 g2 ed |ceba ^ga=ge |1d2 d2 d2 A/A/A :|2d2 d2 dcBc||!
|:A2 A2 Bcde |fdAF A3 B |cAGA c3 a |ba^ga f2 dA |F2 A2 Bcde |!
|fdAF A3 c |dcBc dgfe |1d2 d2 dcBc :|2d2 d2 =cdcA ||!
|:BDGB dgbg |a2 e2 e2 ag |f2 =c2 c2 e/f/e| d2 B2 B2 d=c|!
|BDGB dgbg| a2 e2 e2 ag |fd=cA dcAF|1G2 G2 G2 d=c :|2G2 G2 G2A2||!

I wonder if you could include the cursing like chords, in brackets? After all, it may be an integral part of Jim’s playing. It could then work as an important document of say the South Dublin style of fiddle-swearing… I’ll have to check this against the midi he sent me…
😉

Key signature: D Major
Submitted on February 15th 2007 by nigelg.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6817

A ~ “fun tune from the Boys of the Lough album ‘Farewell and Remember Me’ ~…”

R: barndance
K: D Major
|: z2 |
Adfd Adfd | B2 g2 g2 fe | cege cege | b2 a2 a2 dB |
Adfd Adfd | B2 g2 g2 fe | ceba gage | d2 f2 d2 :|
|: z2 |
A2 FA Bcde | fdAF A3 d | cAGA c3 a | bafd A3 B |
A2 FA Bcde | fdAF A3 c | dcBc dgfe | d2 f2 d2 :|
K:G
|: dc |
BDGB dgbg | a2 e2 e2 ae | f2 c2 c2 fe | d2 B2 B2 dc |
BDGB dgbg | a2 e2 e2 ag | fdcA dcAF | G2 B2 G2 :|

James Morrison SWINGS!!! 😎

This is as James Morrison, fiddler, pairs them up, and well swung too…

“The Curlew Hills” ~ barndance
Key signature: G Major
Submitted on May 4th 2002 by spoon.
https://thesession.org/tunes/670

Here we go… the Innisfree Céilí Band from Sligo, who played this three-part Barn Dance in this video, includes Oisín Mac Diarmada and Damien Stenson.

http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_234_2_innisfree_ceili_band_barn_dance_at_the_2007_all_ireland/

And here’s their ABCs.

X:1
T:Peach Blossoms
S:Innisfree Céilí Band
Q:345
M:C
L:1/8
K:D
FAfA FAfA|B2 g2 g2 ed |ceae cea^g |b2 a2 a2 AG|!
FAfA FAfA|B2 g2 g2 ed |ceba ^ga=ge |1 d2 (3edc .dz AG :|2 d2 (3edc .dz (3dcB ||!
A2 A2 Bcde |fdAF A3 B |cAGE c3 a |bafd A2 (3^GAB |A2 A2 Bcde |!
fdAF A3 c |dcBc dgfe |1(3ded (3cde .dz (3dcB:|2 (3ded (3cde ded=c||!
BDGB dgbg |a2 e2 e2 ag |f2 =c2 c2 fe| d2 B2 B2 d=c|!
BDGB dgbg| a2 e2 e2 ag |fd=cA dcAF|1G2 B2 G2 d=c :|2 .Gz3 ABAG||!

A friend here, Miss Lonelyhearts, reminded me of this one, and what lovely bow work and ways with this barndance Ms. Powers has. Brilliant, I love it…

http://comhaltas.ie/
ComhaltasLive #311-2: Bronwyn Power plays “Peach Blossoms Barn Dance”
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_311_2_bronwyn_power_plays_peach_blossoms_barn_dance/

Thank you again Comhaltas, and Bronwyn for raising my spirits and a smile everytime I listen to this…

ComhaltasLive #234 - 2: Innisfree Céilí Band Barn Dance at the 2007 All-Ireland

And they swing it too… 😀

When you click on “The Donegal Barndance” on the track listing for the Seamus Egan/Mick Maloney/Eugene O Donnel album, it takes you here. If you’re looking for THEIR “Donegal Barndance” (mislabeled?) I’m fairly certain you should be looking for “The Stack of Oats.” That’s how it can be found on this website. “The Stack of Oats” has also been called “Caulfield’s” (not the waltz by the same name also found on this website).

“The Stack Of Oats”
# Added by ceolachan - May 18th, 2006
https://thesession.org/tunes/5782

X:6 as close I can get to James Morrison’s playing.