Bedford Cross slide

This pleasant slide is from the playing of Tom Barrett from Bedford, Kerry. It’s from his CD, ‘Lios A ‘Cheoil, Traditional Irish Music’ (2002), where it says "This was a popular slide in the Bedford area just north of Listowel where Tom was reared in the 1920s and 30s."

This is another one I can’t believe isn’t already here somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. Here is a transcription in D, and I’ll add a G one later ~

X: 1134
T: Terry Teahan’s (#2)
L: 1/8
M: 12/8
R: slide
K: D Major
|: A3 AGA B2 A G2 B | AGE G2 E D2 E G2 B |
ABA AGA B2 A G2 B | AGE G2 E D3 D3 :|
|: d2 A A^GA B2 A =G2 B | AGE G2 E D2 E G2 B |
d3 A^GA B2 A =G2 B | AGE G2 E D3 D3 :|

"An Pota Stóir: The Set Dance Music of West Kerry"
Feagal Mac Amhlaoibh, Inné
ISBN: 0-9522090-2-0

Page 41, #70: "Dorin’s Slide"

X: 1134
T: Dorin’s Slide
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
R: slide
K: D Major
|: A3 AGA B2 A G2 B | AGE G2 E D2 E G3 |
A3 AGA B2 A G2 B | AGE G2 E D3 D3 :|
|: d2 A AGA B2 A G2 B | AGE G2 E D2 E G3 |
d2 A AGA B2 A G2 B | AGE G2 E D3 D3 :|

"Music of Ireland: The Big Session"
edited by David J. Taylor
Dave Mallinson Publications, 1995
ISBN: 1-899512-29-2

Page 30: "Terry Teahan’s Slide No. 2"

"110 Ireland’s Best Polkas & Slides"
edited by Pat Conway
Waltons Publishing, 1999
ISBN: 1-85720-086-1

Page 45, #105: "Terry Teahan’s" (2)

To avoid a ton of recordings being related to this tune I’ve kept from adding these two titles for it to the alternate title list…

"Johnny O’Leary of Sliabh Luachra:
Dance Music from the Cork-Kerry Border"
edited by Terry Moylan
Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1994
ISBN: 1-874675-42-2

Page 43, #74: "Dennis Murphy’s Slide" (again in D)

As happens with me, the transposition of letters…especially so when under the weather ~ still in the season of hay fever and asthma for me…"wheeze!" 😉

It’s a nice one this. I’ve never come across it before. We don’t play enough slides in Sydney. This is one of those nice pentatonicy thingies.

Yes, lovely, but there are also variants that incorporate a c#… 😏

This has been a funny week, punctuated by slides. We both love them, playing them and dancing to them, but get fed up with the tendency to gun them, to burn them up with speed to cover up a general lack of understanding and skill, that ‘appreciation’ to play them with lift and humour rather than like cranking a player piano roll with mad abandonment… That misunderstanding has spread like a plague and includes dancers… ~ IMIO… 😏

It’s ok, I’ll play it very quietly, in the privacy of my own home, and won’t inflict it on you, ‘c’.

You are not an affliction. Though I might have to wear sunglsses around you, there is such a powerful light given off. 😎 My ears would rejoice at any rendition you might like to squeeze out. Where there is skill there is pleasure, where there is not there is humour… 😉

~ and, to be honest ~ irritation is another likelihood of the latter… However, I expect much from you master Dow…and I have not as yet been disappointed…

Clarification: something the two in this place of residence share, we’ve never really felt irritated with those who have no pretense, but long to learn and understand, the irritation has only been with those that think they can but can’t and forge ahead full steam, the delusional. I suppose we should feel pity, except there’s no room for that with the kind of egos we would consider irritants… And no Mark, you are not one of those, you are a different species of irritation, one for some demented reason we welcome and appreciate… 😏

~ and, dare I say it, ‘love’… I hope that makes you blush… 😎

X: 1134
T: Teahan’s No. 2
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
R: slide
K: G Major
|: e |
d3 dcd e2 d c2 e | dcA c2 A G2 A c2 e |
ded d2 d e2 d c2 e | dcA c2 A G3 G2 :|
|: e |
g2 g dcd e2 d c3 | dcA c2 A G2 A c2 e |
gfg d2 d e2 d c2 e | dcA c2 A G3 G2 :|

Love this tune. Here it is by Eithne Ni Chathain & Eoin O Beaglaioch, the second one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0JnnzALNGc

play video

"Johnny O’Leary: Music for the Set" - track 5
https://thesession.org/recordings/663

And also known as Pádraig O’Keeffe’s too… Avoiding both those titles leaves the recording list relatively clear. There are a lot of "O’Keeffe’s" and "Murphy’s" tunes about which aren’t this particular slide…

I’ve deleted the "Murphy’s" title.

Whew! Thanks Nigel! I’m glad to see all those un-associated recordings now gone, though some few actual recordings of this went too… I can but hope there’s some cure in the future for that large weakness about this website and its databases…

X: 4
T: Teahan’s No. 2
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
R: slide
K: G Major
|: e |\
d3 dcd e2 d c2 e | dcA c2 A G2 A c2 e |
ded d2 d e2 d c2 e | dcA c2 A G3 G2 :|
|: e |\
g2 g dcd e2 d c3 | dcA c2 A G2 A c2 e |
gfg d2 d e2 d c2 e | dcA c2 A G3 G2 :|

X: 4
T: Teahan’s No. 2
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
R: slide
K: GMaj
|: d3 d^cd e2 d =c2 e | dcA c2 A G2 A c2 e |
ded d^cd e2 d =c2 e | dcA c2 A G3 G3 :|
|: g2 d d^cd e2 d =c2 e | dcA c2 A G2 A c2 e |
gfg d^cd e2 d =c2 e | dcA c2 A G3 G3 :|

X: 6
T: Gan Ainm
B: "Ceol Rince na hÉireann II", Breandán Breathnach, "Poirt Singil, Slides", page 45, tune #85
N: Breathnach notated this one as 6/8 and A Dorian, I’ve changed the barring to 12/8
M: 12/8
L: 1/8
R: slide
K: AMaj
|: efe ede {a/}f2 e d2 {a/}f | edB d2 B A2 B d3 |
efe ede {a/}f2 e d2 {a/}f | edB d2 B A3 A3 :|
a2 e ede {a/}f2 e d2 {a/}f | edB d2 B A2 B d2 a |
a2 e ede {a/}f2 e d2 {a/}f | edB d2 B A3 A3 |
a2 e ede {a/}f2 e d2 {a/}f | edB d2 B A2 B d3 |
efe ede {a/}f2 e d2 {a/}f | edB d2 B A3 A3 |]

For some reason a bunch of the settings of this tune lost their ABC->dots function in a conversion some time in the past. This is what C’s X:2 should look like.

Rather, they lost half of their ABC, not their dot conversion (whatever that would mean). I’m not writing very well today….

Played on the album "Old Time Irish Music in America" by Terry Teahan & Gene Kelly

This tune is already listed here as ‘Bedford Cross’: https://thesession.org/tunes/7444

This is a lovely slide from the Sliabh Luachra tradition. I got this version off of a student of the great fiddle master Patrick O’Keeffe, one Mary Lucey from Ballydesmond. She says it must have come from Patrick himself. While Denis the Weaver and Cuz Teahan, two other students of O’Keeffe, had it with a different second part, I think the version that was given to Mary has a lovely twist. I like to follow it with Patrick O’Keeffe’s Favorite (https://thesession.org/tunes/5862 ).

This tune is on Shannon Heaton’s ‘First 50’, which is a great collection of simple, but not hackneyed tunes - much more suitable to be the first tunes a player learns, instead of the standard "beginner" tunes, which are often times more complex than a beginner can process.

Anyway, this is a cute little slide, where the A and B parts are really only one note different. (Actually two, notes, but they’re the same note in the same phrase). It’s not a hard tune to learn, and it is a good illustration of how movement in a tune can change the feel. Even though the A and B parts are almost identical, the movement at the beginning of the B part gives it a pretty different feel than the A part - just from a one note difference.

If you’re interested in the ‘First 50’, you can get it directly from Shannon’s website here: http://shannonheatonmusic.com/instruction/irish-instructional-materials-2/

Where’d she get this name from?

The Paper Plate is what Terry Teahan called it in Sliabh Luachra On Parade.

Not sure where Shannon got the name… I will ask her.

Sounds nice, where did you get it from? Is it yours’?

Well now, as someone with a Barrat (aka Barat - Breton French) legacy, this is a fun one to find, and I like anything with an unusual time signature. Thanks folks!

Linda

That’s not such an unusual time signature.

I don’t know who wrote the tune. I first heard it when my fiddle teacher played it as the first tune of a slide set when we were playing a session. I only recently found out the name for it and the sheet music I found was all over the place and poorly written so I transcribed it here

As the backing chords, I think the A section goes well over either an E minor or an A and the B section with a D major or an A.

I also found this under the name "The Nameless Migrant" on the Battlefield Band’s album "Road of Tears."

Sharing this page, just noticed a fun fact about the notations of this (pentatonic) slide: all the key signatures appear to be technically "wrong" because it does NOT end on the tonic 🙂) i.e., those versions ending on A are in fact in D major, those ending on D are in G major, E - A major etc. etc. Since it’s got only 5 notes, it doesn’t make any difference for the ABCs, unless a hapless guitar player is looking at them… who will then try to strum along the "wrong" tonic, with predictable results!

P.S.: You can have some fun turning it into a "minor" tune, too! As long as it’s the parallel minor of the correct key, LOL