Fred’s Favourite reel

Heard this 10 years ago at the Paddy O’Brien weekend in Nenagh. It’s been recorded also by a fine Glasgow trio "Kinnell". I only found the name of it recently from one of Liz Doherty’s CDs, and she says it was composed by someone called P.Mohan. Anyone know who he/she is? This was transcribed for me from the Nenagh recording by Ged Palmer, a fiddler who lived in Aberdeen in the 80s/early 90s. Tricky on a wind instrument because of the G#s.

Here’s a way to notate the same tune with fewer pesky accidentals:

K: Dlyd
c3 d edcA | BABc dcBc | AE E2 FEFG | AEGE FECE |
AE E2 AEcE | BABc dcBd | cdec dcBd |1 cABG Aced :|2 cABG A=fed ||
K: Amin
c3 d ecAc | BABc dBGd | eAdA cABd | cABG AGFD |
E3 A ecAc | BABc dGBd |1 eAdA cABd | cABG AGAB :|2 eA A2 eAeA | eAdA ^cABA ||

The tune is in D lydian (not major) for the first half and A minor for the second.

Cool tune, Kenny. I like it a lot.

Thanks, "fiddler",
These modes still do my head in ! I knew this was an awkward one, but the important thing was that it was an accurate transcription when played back on the computer. Glad you like it - it is certainly a good tune, and one of of those that makes you sit up and listen, first time you hear it. Great key change, I think. You don’t know anything about P.Mohan, do you, because if he/she has written any more tunes as good as this, I’d like to hear them, and would certainly consider buying any recording made by him/her on the basis of this composition.

Kerri/Kenny, the 1st part is straight A major, not D major or D lydian.

Whoops - good point, mark! I was just fiddling around to get the sharps right and assuming the tune was in some type of "D" as listed. (It was late, gimme a break!)

It has to be absolutely correct, otherwise I can’t obsessively tick it off my list :-)

Just noticed that I gave this tune the wrong title. It’s "Fred’s Favourite", not "Frank’s". The tune Liz Doherty follows it with is "Frank Gilruth’s", and I suppose I got the 2 mixed up, not that I’m by any means, the first to do that.

THis is ( pretty much)the version by Four Winds, playing in a pub on Youtube. Maybe the tune is already added to this site, but I cannae find it.

It is added, under Fred’s favourite, which its correct name :-)
https://thesession.org/tunes/3544

yeah, see it now Indi. I saw that tune, but noticed the abc was in D major ( ??? it’s A major and A minor) and so bypassed it without really examining the tune. Jeremy, can you please clean this up.

Which name is *correct* might be relative anyway.

Peter Mohan is a mandola player in Dublin.