Katie Scollard’s slide

Really I needed the distraction and if you want to email someone a complaint address it to Ptarm who’s responsible for winding me up this way, but, well, I’m in a delicate state so just about anything winds me up…

So here’s another one starting with a drop down a fifth on the first beat. Mind you, this melody is also known as a ‘Fling’, but I’ll be back with a few more of those in the near future. For now, I’m sticking with slides, a few other interesting ones waiting in the wings, unless I find them already on site, but if so I’ll add my ABCs in the comments.

This is from a musician I admire greatly but for whom I’ve never had the pleasure of knowing up front, or dancing to him live, Terry Teahan. I love his take on things, basic and driving, but with many unique subtleties all his own. His LP is long over due as a CD, for the rest of you not yet warmed by the humour of his dance music. There are a few tracks here and there on compilations, but it is a kick to get a full dose of this man’s wonderful playing, the laughter in his music can’t help but raise you up and draw you out onto the dance floor. While I haven’t met the man or danced to him live, I’ve done my share of making a racket to his recordings, of one form or another… I hope I’ve done him justice here, but I admit to being an imperfect filter. I’ve tried to make the first take as to the bones as possible, and to sort of keep that through the next two takes in other keys… If anyone else has a version of this please add it here in the notes…

There were several other transcriptions made here in the ABCs, different takes and keys, as I’ve done a few times previously, hoping for those not yet together with ABCs and more comfortable with the dots would have them to work with and in other keys. It has also worked for me when teaching the tunes. But yet again, two days in a row, three really, those have been axed by Das OverLord.

Well, bye guys, it has been fun while it lasted. It isn’t worth continuing the contributing when things you do are taken so lightly. That was a few hours worth of work, would you believe. I’m slow. Well, it will benefit me, has benefited me, too bad it was deemed necessary that it be scraped by or resident editor Jeremy… Those other tunes, jigs, highland flings and information, will not follow, not in the current climate of an axe mad editor…

As well, the various versions and keys were for the main part of making it rock, the ears, even if it were just midi… GRRRRR!!! I want t o swear up a storm and yell…

Sorry about the editing, but I think that variations like key transpositions are best to the comments rather than the main body of the ABC.

Good tune.Is it really goodbye ceolachan? Just do what I do and ignore the carping.Water off a duck’s back.

Sorry ‘c’. It must be like staying up the whole night writing an essay and then have your computer crash and lose it all. Been there! 🙁

Sorry for posting this as the Brosna, but I haven’t got another name for it. It’s from Gerry Harrington and Eoghan O’Sullivan, on ‘Ten Years of Ceili House’ with Kieran Hanrahan. They play this after I’d rather be Married than Left, and another slide they call, surprise, surprise, Padraig O’Keefe’s. I reckon they made the names up on the spot.

Are you out to get me Robert? 😏

I’ve been kicking myself, but I like a surprise and I was surprised this wasn’t here already. But the kicking is my memory as an old leather weather beaten football, trying to remember where this particular one comes from? I’ve learned a slew of slides from different folks. I did a quick sweep through the net and a number of collections without any results. I haven’t my recordings all here and the field ones are not re-digitized (a hard drive meltdown did in my first extensive effort) ~ but I haven’t gone through my own notes yet.

About naming, don’t worry, or blame the lads, there are at least half a dozen different melodies I’ve known that were tagged merely by geographic association ~ "Brosna"… Three of the first slides I ever learned were ~ The Brosna / The Brosna / The Brosna… A number of well known musicians I’ve had the pleasure of learning from hadn’t names for most of what they played, but if pressed, as they sometimes were for recording purposes, they’d no problem inventing names. The problem was later when someone requested something they’d recorded by name ~ "Could you hum a few bars of it?" I suspect that sometimes it goes ~ "Well, seeing as we’re here, let’s call it ~ "…

This is a great tune that comes in a few flavours…

K: G Mixolydian
|: e |
d2 G BAG d2 G c2 e | d2 G BAG ABA c2 e |
d2 G BAG d2 G cde | ded cBA G3 G2 :|
|: a |
g2 ^f d2 e =fed c2 ^f | g2 ^f d2 e =f3 g2 a |
g2 f d2 e =fed cde | ded cBA G3 G2 :|

Yes, of course, that f is sharp, but as I’m repeating it I might as well give some other options in the process ~

~ | g2 ^f d2 e =f2 d c2 e | d2 B cBA G3 G2 :|

K: D Mixolydian
|: B |
A2 D FED A2 F G2 B | A2 D FED EFE GAB |
A2 D FED A2 F GAB | ABA G2 E D3 D2 :|
|: c |
d2 ^c A2 B =c2 A G2 c | d2 ^c A2 B c2 d e2 c |
d^cd A2 B =cBA G2 B | A2 F GFE D3 D2 :|

All c’s can also be played natural…and the lead c’s can be sharped, for example ~

|: ^c |
d2 ^c A2 B =c2 A G2 ^c | d2 ^c A2 B c2 d e2 ^c |
d^cd A2 B =cBA G2 B | AGF GFE D3 D2 :|

Clarification: All ~ natural… ~ or ~ the lead c’s ~ sharped… 😏

You know, I’m starting not to know my dots and ABC’s from my XYZ’s, so I just learned this one from ear via these lads:

https://thesession.org/recordings/1247

However, I can see it coming soon where Denis Murphy’s, Barrack Hill and The Brosna all end up in a giant Slide goulash-train-wreck in my near future at a session when I try to straighten them all out on the fly. Ah well, nothing practice won’t sort. 😉

This is played on the Shegui album ‘Around the World for Sport’ (https://thesession.org/recordings/1415) as "Jimmy Connors":

X:950
T:Jimmy Connors
T:The Brosna Slide
S:Shegui, Around the World for Sport
Z:Nigel Gatherer
M:12/8
L:1/8
K:D
B | A2D FED A2F G2B | A2D FED E2F G2B | A2D FED A2F G2B | ABA G2E D3 D2 :|
A | d2B A2B =cBA G2A | d2B ABc d3 e3 | d2B A2B =cBA G2B | ABA G2E D3 D2 :|

The A part is very reminiscent of "Moneymusk".

On "Old Time Irish Music in America" by Terry "Cuz" Teahan and Gene Kelly, this is called "Mike Looney’s", named after a Chicago man who would always ask for slides. Katie Scollard was a neighbour to Cuz in Ireland, and he reckoned she was a very fine concertina player. When he visited her decades later with a tape recorder, she had given up the conceretina and had forgotten all her music. "A sure loss to Irish music," mused Cuz. He composed a reel with her name attached to it. The setting I have added is just different enough from ceolachan’s to be of slight interest.

Sorry - not MIKE Looney’s, but TOM Looney’s.

Thanks Nigel.

Mark’s comment from 7 years ago, me too. I’d done a slew of work, including hours and hours transcribing interviews, and I had twice the computer woes. This was at a very important time, preparing work for my final year of a second degree. First, something went wrong with my space at uni, so I transferred everything to my home built computer, a brand new hard drive, and that fried… It was on warranty so I got a replacement, but my work was gone, and I just hadn’t the heart or strength to do it all again. Besides, on top of all this I was a walking zombie, I’d pneumonia. Unfortunately, being slower than usual, I hadn’t yet backed up what I’d spent hours transferring to that new drive. I did chase up some forensic software to try to rescue things, but what I did manage to pull out was a scrambled up mess. That also included resource works I’d spent many hours scanning, digitizing, and lots and lots of digital recordings too, and the complete issues of a magazine an old acquaintance had put his sweat and blood into over many years. I sigh deeply, as it is one of those things that still hurts when I bring it back up to the front for memory’s sake. 🙁

Maybe a few new scars but I’m still alive and kickin’… 😎

from Denis Doody - Kerry Music

played by Matt Cranitch and Jackie Daly in Amix on The Living Stream.

Johnny Micky’s, track 17, first of two Johnny Micky’s slides on Monks 1st album Bráithre An Óil, but both share the same bars A4 and B4
Liner notes:
"Johnny Micky played the concertina in the indigenous Duhallow and Sliabh Luachra style sometimes playing the two sides of the concertina in harmony. He learned a lot of his music from Jim Denny O’Sullivan of Cummer, Meelin and Dean Jack Tom O’Connor of the Commons, Newmarket."

Easy for fiddle and most cheerful, thanks.

Just noticed irishtune.info has this down as Katie Scollard’s, here as
https://thesession.org/tunes/5169
three settings in A mix, one in D mix, and some interesting comments, but pretty much the same tune. One notes Katie Scollard was a concertina-playing neighbour of Terry Cuz Teahan, who recorded the tune.

Duplicate , see https://thesession.org/tunes/5169 for settings in A

Duplicate, see https://thesession.org/tunes/5169

The references to Jimmy Connor(s) are, IMO, spurious and should refer to Timmy Connors or Timmy O’Connor box-player from Newmarket Co. Cork.