The Humours Of Whiskey slip jig

There’s some tricky fingering involved in playing this tune. Again, I recommend starting off playing the tune very slowly and gradually increasing the speed once the fingering is memorised.

I don’t think this tune requires any fancy ornamentation to sound good. In fact, it can be a nice touch to leave out some notes e.g. playing GE instead of GFE at the very start or FB instead of FBB.

I’ve included guitar chords here just to offer a few ideas. Slip jigs can be difficult to accompany because of their unusual rhythm.

Tom Cussen plays this slip jig together with another slip jig called
The Cock and the Hen. He starts with the Cock, then switches into the Humours and then back into the Cock. Very nice change of key !
Jef

That’s a nice little set.

I know the "Cock And The Hen" as "Ryan’s" which I play in Bminor. However, I’ve heard Lunasa do it in F#minor.

I’d be interested in knowing which key Tom Cussen plays it in.

We play this as well, starting with Foxhunters, into Humors, and then ending with Dennis Ryan’s (F#minor). We keep humors simple, it sounds great on dulcimer, and sets up Ryan’s as haunting and slightly creepy.

I also play the "Cock and the Hen" (in F#m) after this one, not realising that many other people also naturally choose to put them together. An A dorian slip jig like "The Peacock Followed The Hen" sounds good before Humours so that you get a change of key and it "lifts" up a step.

Interesting suggestion. I’ll have to try that - we’re not perfectly happy with Foxhunter’s where it is.

James Kelly also recorded it in his "Traditional Irish Music" CD.

I play it in the scale of G (or whichever other scale that has one sharp in the key signature), and a little differently. Quite frankly, this variation sounds better.

"The Humours Of Whiskey"
Key signature: E Dorian
Submitted on July 20th 2001 by martin t.
https://thesession.org/tunes/204

"The Humours Of Whiskey"
Key signature: e minor
Submitted on October 10th 2002 by gian marco.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1023

"The Humours Of Whiskey"
Key signature: Gmajor
Submitted on December 20th 2004 by hetty.
https://thesession.org/tunes/3999

The Tannahill Weavers album, "Passage" has this listed as "Phuktiphanno". I always thought it was a strange name, until I took the time to sound it out one day.

Sounds much like the ‘minor slip’

here’s a slightly different version from Conor Keane’s playing:

K: Bmin
|:gfe fBB fBB|gfe fBB fga|gfe fBB fga|agf efd cde:|
K:Dmaj
|:d2e faf ecA|d2e faf gec|d2e faf efg|1 agf efd cde:|2 agf efd cBA|

X: 3
T: Humours of Whiskey, The
S: Francie & Mickie Byrne
B: "The Northern Fiddler", Allen Feldman & Eamonn O’Doherty, 1979, page 159
M:9/8
L: 1/8
R: slip jig
K: Bm
|: gfe fBB fBB | gfe fBB fga |
gbe fBB fBB | agf efd cBA :|
|: [D2d2] e fdf ecA | [D2d2] e fdf gfe |
[D2d2] e fdf efg | agf efd cBA :|

Can’t help but use the low D in the b-part as a drone! It does make me work a bit more for a satisfactory B min ending…

Or do some of these sources spell it "whisky"?

Aside from Scotland, and some old tune books, way o’er thataway, in Canada, Japan, and here in Scotland, Cymru/Wales… O’Neill favoured ‘whiskey’, as too in that part of North America in general, and over this side in Ireland. You’ll find more here ~

http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/

If I had wealth that would be the one thing I’d have a cupboard full of, both spellings…

This tune is all over the place, with both spellings and other titles without reference to the amber distillation, liquid gold…

another incarnation:
The Minor Slip https://thesession.org/tunes/988

I know a slip called the silvermore that sounds like this with the parts swapped. Are they the same tune?

Version of this tune by ‘The Flying Toads’ live at Bath Folk Festival here (2nd tune):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enY1N6MCahw

play video

www.flyingtoads.co.uk

Keith

That’s the one Solas play on their first album (1996), track 10.
I’ve also tried to put some of the chords.