The Shaskeen reel

This is a tune I learned off “The Mountain Road: A Compilation of Tunes Popular in South Sligo” CD. It’s one of my most favorite tunes.

I agree with Josh - one of the most melodic reels ever composed, and one which plays well on any traditional instrument. Also one of the few tunes which I have never heard called by any other name.

With a name like “Shaskeen,” who’d want to call it by another name?

An Seasguin (which, of course is pronounced Shaskeen) - apparently it’s a river, or at least a tributary of the River Shannon.

In the third last bar, something about that C# makes me want to play the other C in that bar as a C natural, instead of waiting for the next bar. Does anyone play it this way?

The very first bar of the tune is rarely played as in Josh’s transcription. Here’s another version, inspired by Mike Rafferty’s flute playing:

K: Gmaj
E|DG~G2 ABcA|dfed cA~A2|BdBG ~A3F|GBAG FDDE|
DG~G2 ABcA|dfed cAAe|f2de fdcA|AGFA ~G3:|
B|dggf g2fg|~a3g fdde|~f3d egfg|abag fddc|
dggf g2fg|~a3g fdde|f2de fdcA|AGFA ~G3B|
dggf g2fg|~a3g fdde|~f3d egfg|abag fddc|
~B3G ~A3F|GBAG FDDe|f2de fdcA|AGFA ~G3||

The second part sometimes has a different structure like this:

B|dggf g2fg|abag fddc|BdBG ~A3F|GBAG FDDB|
dggf g2fg|~a3g fdde|f2de fdcA|AGFA ~G3B|
dggf g2fg|abag fddc|BdBG ~A3F|GBAG FDDA|
BG~G2 AF~F2|dfed cAAe|f2de fdcA|AGFA ~G3||

Slainte’s setting is the one I’m also most familiar with, and it is a great reel whichever way it’s played. My Love is in America follows it very well - I think it’s a Miltown thing as I remember the combination being played a few times at Willie Clancy some years ago.

Watch and listen to Tansey play this reel and the New Copperplate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abi-lhnXoSY

play video

Another lovely playing of this tune: http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_244_4_fergus_mcgorman_with_two_old_reels_on_flute

Ok, I dont know that much about sheet music seeing as I’ve been reading notes in abc form most my life, and not like how it is done on this site, so can someone explain to me what the “ ~ “ symbol above some of the notes means? Thanks.

It’s a tilde and is used to show an ornament, in our case showing an opportunity to execute any of many ways to play a ‘roll’. They should only be interpreted as suggestive rather than prescriptive. In the many given in this transcription, what I’d call overkill, they would by many be interpreted as a basic form of a ‘long rolls’… Most tunes could be abused into a succession of rolls, and sadly some folks seem to get their kicks out of beating a good melody to death by that means of torture…

Actually, this transcription ain’t that bad. It could have been a lot worse, for example ~ the first few bars of the B-part:

B | dg ~g2 ~g3 f | ~a3 g fd ~d2 | BG ~G2 AF ~F2 | ~G3 A FD ~D2 | ~ 😛

This tune comes across as unusual when first begining with it on the whistle/flute. Hard to get the head around it.

Is there a hornpipe version of the shaskeen and if so can someone tell me where I can find it on the web?

Hornpipe (clog):

http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=www.oldmusicproject.com/AA2ABC/1201-1800/Abc-1701-1800/1703-Shaskeen/0000&p=y

mp3 on this page:

http://www.sligo-man.com/JignReels/jigs-n-reels/Pages/hornpipe.htm

https://thesession.org/tunes/3175

I like the setting in the book Through the half door by the band Shaskeen. They note it is very similar to The tune the Shaskeen Clog found in O’Neill’s under the hornpipe section.

There’s a great book called the Otherworld, Music and Song From the Irish Tradition, which says the tune is also called Port na Sióg (the Tune of the Fairies), could be from the Aran Islands or Galway with this name.

Pipes version as teached at Willy Clancy School 1993 by Sean Talty.
each part is written down twice to show some variations.

This tune was recorded twice by Michael Coleman under that name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v62QJX2tL_w

play video

came out of Gabriel O’Sullivan’s flute (1979).

Played by “De Danann”, 1978 : https://youtu.be/onRvyMU7TMY

play video

Played on whistle by Willie Clancy :
https://youtu.be/RkIVzheMgk0

play video

Played on flute by Peadar Broderick - Willie Clancy Week Flute & Whistle recital 1980 :
https://youtu.be/QZJy1slD-lw

play video

also : https://youtu.be/c2FajtCYKFs

play video

Even before Coleman, it was recorded on a cylinder by piper Patsy Touhey, a friend of Capt. O’Neill’s, by at least 1907. “Long before Coleman’s successes with ‘The Shaskeen Reel’, Touhey’s playing of the tune was one of the most extravagantly praised performances in Irish music. O’Neill wrote the following about a recording that was sent to the musicologist Richard Henebry:

‘As a Christmas present which was sure to be appreciated, I forwarded in 1907 to Rev. Dr. Henebry, at Waterford, Ireland, a box of Edison phonograph records which Sergeant Early generously permitted me to select from his treasures. Among them was “The Shaskeen Reel,” played by Patrick Touhey. The clergyman’s comment is best expressed in his own words:

‘The five by Touhey are the superior limit of Irish pipering. One of his, especially ‘The Shaskeen Reel,’ is so supreme that I am utterly without words to express my opinion of it. It has the life of a reel and the terrible pathos of a caoine. It represents to me human man climbing empyrean heights and, when he had almost succeeded, then tumbling, tumbling down to hell, and expressing his sense of eternal failure on the way. The Homeric ballads and the new Brooklyn Bridge are great, but Patsy Touhey’s rendering of ‘The Shaskeen Reel’ is a far bigger human achievement. Why, there is no Irish musician alive now at all in his class! If things were as they ought to be, he should be installed as professor of music in a national university in Dublin. And that is what I think of Patsy Touhey and his pipering.“’“ https://archives.irishfest.com/dunn-family-collection/Music/Extended-CD-Track-Commentary.htm