Twilight In Portroe reel

A Sean Ryan tune that has often been mistaken for “The Dawn” https://thesession.org/tunes/167. Note that only the 1st two bars are similar, and then they diverge into completely different tunes. The B-parts do not resemble each other at all. I think the reason that this tune started getting called The Dawn is that De Danann mistakenly recorded it under that title on their album “The Mist-covered Mountain”, but there may well be earlier recordings of it with that title, I’m not sure. This transcription is based on the De Danann recording, but I first heard the tune played in a session in Cambridge (UK) played as The Dawn, and presumably learnt from the afore-mentioned album. I have a recording of that session on tape, and there is an amusing conversation afterwards along the lines of “that’s not the Dawn I know!” and “that’s not how so-and-so plays the Dawn - the B-part’s completely different!”.

I’ve already added “The Dawn” as an alternative name, so save yourself the effort of adding it again.

See “Martin Reilly’s” - already posted in the key of “G”.

Ah well spotted Kenny. Even my advanced search didn’t pick that up. But, “Martin Reilly’s”? ’,😏

I’ve seen the version in G called “Michael Reilly’s” several times, never “Martin Reilly’s”. It’s “Michael” on Music from the Coleman Country, The Mountain Road, and Trip to Sligo. It’s on Peter Horan and Fred Finn’s album as well – I don’t have liner notes for that but I’m guessing they also call it “Michael Reilly’s”.

Perhaps “Martin” comes from the fact Music from the Coleman Country paired the tune with one of Martin Wynne’s?

It’s a great tune, at any rate. Though having the low first notes makes it hard to get other people playing along with the tune on whistle….

BTW, I don’t know how these things usually working around here, but the “recordings of a tune by this name” thing is really misleading in this case, as some (most?) of those recordings are of the “real” “The Dawn”.

Also, we were just wondering the other day if Sean Ryan’s name might be a deliberate reference to the other tune – twilight versus dawn.

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on April 17th 2004 by Mad Baloney.
https://thesession.org/tunes/2836
https://thesession.org/tunes/2836/comments

This version in D was brought to my attention recently in a session and doesn’t appear to be on this database. It appears to be sufficiently different to merit its own slot.

Hmm.. third octave notes… seems like my kind of thing…

This should be fun to play

Some fiddlers may feel concerned that this tune means they’ll have to shift up into the 4th position, and if they’ve never gone out of the 1st position - this tune is one of those very rare occasions in Irish fiddle music where you need to - then those high notes are naturally going to feel as inaccessible as the far side of the Moon.

This isn’t really the proper part of this forum to discuss technique, but I’ll just say that a few lessons with a teacher (maybe a classically-trained teacher) will show that getting up to the 4th position, staying there, and coming back down again really isn’t all that difficult.

An alternative for the fiddler is to play the tune in G, one string down. This will keep everything comfortably in the 1st position. Unfortunately, this will cause problems for those instruments that can’t reach below D or C, like the normal flute and most whistles …

In my recent comment https://thesession.org/discussions/16774#comment348021 I gave an illustration of one way of playing the last couple of bars of the A-part of this tune - there are other ways of playing it, of course.

Key signature: A Major
Submitted on June 30th 2001 by martin t.
https://thesession.org/tunes/167

the version i have;

X: 1
A version

T: The Dawn
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel

K:Amaj
A,2CE D2FA | E2GB A2ce | (3ddd)df ecAc| (3BBB)AB cAFD|
A,2CE D2FA | E2GB A2ce | (3ddd)df ecAc| (3BBB)AB cAAB :|
c2 ec fcec | AAcA BAFA | EFAB cAce | fefg afed |
c2 ec fcec | AAcA BAFA | EFAB cAce | fefg a4 :|

simple, without ornaments, none of this fancy position shtuff, but a great setting .learnt from a friend.

That’s not the Dawn, it’s a completely different tune https://thesession.org/tunes/4091

This version is what I heard Kevin Griffin playing on “Across The Pond”.
It’s also known as “Twilight in Portroe”.

transcription based on De Danann’s version