The Funny Tailor jig

Not wild about the tune. It is a Set dance where the dance is supposed to somehow mimic the drunkard, though the times I’ve seen it danced the resemblance is gone.
Quoting from Fiddlers’ Companion:
‘At one time a ‘gauger’ was a functionary whose job it was to monitor public houses to insure that various sized drinks were served in vessels of accurate measure: i.e. that a pint drink served actually measured a full pint, a gill measured a gill, and so on. Such intense scrutiny of alcoholic conveyances would undoubtedly be a thirsty business, perhaps helped along by a hopeful or sly publican if the measure might be short. Not a few gaugers probably achieved the level of inebriation required for the title.’

Donough
this seems quite different from the ‘drunken gauger’ I know
https://thesession.org/tunes/2180
which is a set dance.
Unusual name so where did you get title for this from?

It wasn’t Donoughwho gave this entry. ‘kvn12’, the contributor, has not added anything here…

Submitted on August 2nd 2006 by kvn12.

This is really strange. Only 15 bars, and when the melody repeats in the second half, it’s shifted by half a bar. Where did this come from, kvn12?

this is a set dance danced by championship irish dancers. The length of the dance is the tune played twice

Oh. I see now. The tune is really in the form ABB, with each part having five bars and then the whole thing repeated.

Sorry kev, but this doesn’t fit the usual in that category either… WHERE did you get it from? If you checked out the link that the Hussie gave you above you’d see the ‘usual’ tune by this name and the structure of a classic set dance, with the longer B-part… Please give us more details? Where are you from and where did you find this unfinished piece?

Of the dozen or so entries I’ve found for the set dance “The Drunken Gauger” your notation comes nowhere near any of them… So the mystery continues…

“O’Neill Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems”, 1907

K: G Major
|: B/A/ |
GED GAB | GBA G2 G | G2 A Bcd | efg fed | e2 B d2 A |
Bcd efg | fed g2 B | DBA GED | GAB GBA | G2 G G2 A |
Bcd efg | fed g2 B | dBA GED | GAB GBA | G2 G G2 ||

So, a different name, but I did find it eventually in a couple of different places. It is also listed on “The Fiddler’s Companion” website by this name and they show it is also to be found in the Joyce collection “Ancient Music of Ireland”, 1873, and also in the Petrie Collection, 1905… Once I had the name I found it elsewhere as well… So that mystery solved, in part… Now to see if this was a cut and paste or taken from one of those sources?

The Fiddler’s Companion ~ Andrew Kuntz
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html

“Irish, Set Dance (6/8 or 9/8 time). G Major. Standard. In modern times The Funny Tailor is one of the jig time set dances performed in competitions sponsored by An Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelachha (The Irish Dance Commission, Dublin). Instead of a traditional pattern of steps, however, each dance teacher choreographs original steps for their students to dance this tune to. Among dancers, it is also referred to as The Drunken Gauger, although there is another unrelated set dance tune by that name and there is some resultant confusion between the tunes for that reason.”

K: G Major
B/A/ |
GED GAB AGA | G2 G G3 G2 A | B2 A Bgf efe | d2 B d3 d2 G/A/ |
B2 A Bgf efe | d2 B d3 d2 B/A/ | GED GAB AGA | G2 G G3 G2 ||

The above from the Petrie Collection, 1905…

The notation given in kev’s original contribution is note for note as it appears in O’Neill’s…

Ah, your knowledge and application knows no bounds, Ceolachan!

Just stubborn, especially when it niggles at me as something that just doesn’t jibe right and has a hint of something I’ve come across somewhere else… 😉 It drives my wife nuts…

Even more so when the contributor fails to make any comment… It is like tossing dice, head’s I bother and hunt down some information, tails and ‘screw it’… The only problem is that I’ve a two headed coin… 😏

dice ~ coin?! I did used to have a pair of weighted die someone had given me on their return from Las Vegas…

lol @ ‘c’ - like krapp’s last tape perchance?


i spy my coat just over there…

Wait for me Godot! Damn zorries…

if you listen to the recordings of this set on the final round by Kevin Joyce you will see that it is in fact a set dance danced by irish dancers today. Of the many feisanna i have been to the open champion dancers dance to this tune often

Yes, and they keep getting the name wrong. They say, some folks, that all that hard shoe dancing, the vibrations, run up the spine and over time all that hammering causes the equivalent brain trauma as a major automobile accident… Whoa! Back off with those sharp fiberglass bangers you’re wearin‘ for shoes ~ I am just kiddin’ ~ 😉

Thanks for the contribution Kev, but please, in future, don’t just hit and run, be considerate to the music and to the rest of us and leave some comment. You still haven’t said where you got this, but from what I’ve figured out you’ve just copied it out of O’Neill’s. Maybe next time you’ll spend some time with a tune and make it your own and then give us your take on it, or at least give credit to your source, with respect… It was that which tends to rile some of us and make us impatient and ratty. But, I enjoyed the task. I’ve known both tunes but I don’t play “The Funny Tailor”. It was a kick chasing it up and making sense out of bits of my own fragmented memory… Thanks for that challenge too. Good luck with your future efforts…

My goodness I am sorry I got involved in this at all! I never spotted the fact that it wasn’t the right tune. I Should know. I have sat through enough Irish dancing competitions (for my daughter’s sake).

Your shoes are already stained, no escaping that… 😉

This is an interesting little tune. Looking at ceolachan’s copy from the Petrie collection, you can see how it’s phrased. As written here, if you maintain the note lengths as is, and transcribe it in 15/8, so 5 groups of 3 quavers, like this:

X: 1
T: The Funny Tailor
M: 15/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Gmaj
B/A/|GED GAB GBA G2G G2A|
Bcd efg fed e2B d2||
|:A|Bcd efg|fed g2B dBA|
GED GAB GBA G2G G2:|

what an accusation donought….believe it or not I learned this tune by ear…..had no idea it had a different name and was just sharing one of my set dance………..as a classicaly trained musician as well this tune took about 30 seconds to write down on paper

Here is an alternate analysis of the tune (in ABCs):

X: 1
T: Drunken Gauger, The
T: Funny Tailor, The
M: 15/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Gmaj
BA|:GED GAB GBA G2G G2A|Bcd efg fed e2B d2A||
Bcd efg fed g2B dBA|GED GAB GBA G2G G2A|
Bcd efg fed g2B dBA|GED GAB GBA G2G GBA:|

As pointed out above, the tune actually comprises only two measures of 15/8, organized AB B‘A B’A, so it’s a quick learn.

The difference in B’ is to land on g instead of e for the 4th beat, followed by the descending triplet.

We’re starting to work with a dancer on this tune. His lead-in is the tune played through once. He then dances it through 3 times (at 69 to70 bpm), first on the right foot, second on the left, followed by the “body” of the tune to close. He wants the tune precisely at 70 bpm.

“It is a Set dance where the dance is supposed to somehow mimic the drunkard, though the times I’ve seen it danced the resemblance is gone.”

The dancers were clearly not drinking enough.