Paddy Fahey’s reel

George Keith taped this lovely and deceptively simple tune for me to learn when he was last in Denver. He says that this is a pretty much commonly played tune of Paddy Fahy’s, the prolific composer and Galway fiddler. Apparently, Fahy himself seems to like this tune a lot; George owns a tape of a Fahy concert on which he says Fahy plays the tune four or five times during the course of the evening.

The ABC is a poor substitute for the actual tune, especially since I’m not very good at ABC and especially as George plays it -- for a bit, I’ll have the MP3 I made of George playing it (there’s a bit of a skip on the second A, sorry, and George had a bit of Guinness stuck in his throat towards the beginning) at http://www.zinalee.com/sounds/pfahys1.mp3 . Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Zina

Hey Zina! Good job on the ABC transcript! And lovely playing by the Boston fiddler, George Keith. Definately one to put under the fingers.

Zina this is a lovely tune and I want to learn it - can you verify what the E#s are in the 2nd whole bar? Are they E# i.e. the same as F natural, or are they supposed to be F#s?
Ta
Mark

Mark, those are F nats. All the true Es are E nats, too, but the Fs wander between Fsharps and Fnats, in both halves of the tune. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough--the breaks to F nat are actually very obvious once you play it. Listen to Keith’s version on the link Zina posted above and you’ll get it.

Incidentally, I played this at a gig a few weeks ago and this little old lady came right up to the microphone while I was going, and just stood there. When we finished the set, she said, “that was the loveliest Irish tune I’ve ever heard. What do you call it?” And then she came back after the show and asked me to play it again for her, which I gladly did.

For performance purposes, I’m playing it right after Bobby Casey’s Hornpipe (the air version of Humours of Tullycrine, a la Kevin Burke).

Ay-yup, Will’s right there, Mark. George played it for me going into another Paddy Fahy’s, sort of a matched set. You can hear that one at http://www.zinalee.com/sounds/pfahys2.mp3 and I think it was Will or Jeremy who posted it here at The Session.

When I grow up, I’d love to be George Keith, at least where fiddling is concerned.

Zina

Oh yes, and there’s also a track of George playing the tunes faster as a set at http://www.zinalee.com/sounds/George/pfahys.mp3 -- there’s a fairly bad glitch in the first round through, sorry, I got it off a tape George did for John Carr and it apparently got whacked or something. Please do me a favor if you download any of these tracks and don’t play them off the server - download them to your hard drive and play them from there. Thanks!

zls

Here’s another Paddy Fahy’s with a similar A-part https://thesession.org/tunes/3346.

Some versions I found on the net:

X: 1
T: Paddy Fahy’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
_B2dB ~c2dc|BG~G2 DE=FD|GABG c2dc|BGAF DGGA|
(3Bcd Bd ~c3d|BG~G2 DE=FD|GABG ccdc|1 BGAF G3A:|2 BGAF G2 (3ABc||
|:dggf dgBg|dgag fdcB|ce=f2 cfAf|c=fag fdcA|
dg~g2 dgBg|dgag fdef|g2ag fage|1 fdcA G2Bc:|2 fdcA G3A||

A nice take on bars 3 and 4:

X: 1
T: Paddy Fahy’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
BABd c2dc|BG~G2 D=F~F2|EccB cedc|BDFA GFGA|
_BABG c2dc|BG~G2 D=F~F2|Ec~c2 cedc|BdAB G3B:|
|:dg~g2 dg~g2|gbaf gdcA|c=f~f2 c=f~f2|=fage fdcA|
dg~g2 dg~g2|gbag fdef|gdef gbag|fdcA BGG2:|

…and one from Norbeck with more F nats:

X: 1
T: Paddy Fahy’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
B2dB c2dc|BGG=F DEFD|BcdB c2dc|BGG=F DGGA|
B2dB c2dc|BGG=F DEFD|BcdB cedc|BGA=F DGG2:|
|:dg~g2 dgBg|dgba gedB|c=f~f2 cfAf|c=fag fedc|
dg~g2 dgBg|dgba gdef|gbag fdeg|fdcA AGG2:|

X: 1
T: Paddy Fahy’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
(3Bcd Bd c2dc|BGG=F DEFD|GBdB c2dc|BGAF ~G3A|
BDGB c2dc|BGG=F DEFD|GBdB c2dc|BGAF ~G3z:|
|:dg~g2 dcBc|dgag fdcB|c=f~f2 cfA_B|c=fag fcBc|
dg~g2 dcBc|dgag fdef|gbag fd (3efg|fdcA ~G3z:|

X: 1
T: Paddy Fahy’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
B2dB c2Bc|dGG=F DEFG|BcdB c2Bc|dGG=F DGGA|
(3Bcd (3Bcd c2Bc|dGG=F DEFG|BcdB cedc|BGA=F DGG2:|
|:dg~g2 dgbg|(3gab ag fdcA|cf=~f2 cfaf|c=fag fedc|
dg~g2 dg~g2|bgag fdef|gbag fdeg|fdcA G4:|

The same in A dorian, for ‘normal people’… 😉

X: 1
T: Paddy Fahy’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Ador
AB|:c3e d2 ed|cAAG EFGE|ABce d2ed|
cABG EAAB|(3cde ce d2ed|cAAG EFGE|
ABce d2ed|1 cABG A2AB:|2 cABG ABcd||
eaa2 eaca|eaba gedB|dggg dgBg|
dgba ^gedB|eaa2 eaca|eaba gef^g|
a2 ba ge (3f^ga|1 gedB ABcd:|2 gedB A2AB||

The London Fahey is what Josephine Keegan calls this tune in her tunebook “A Drop in the Ocean”.

First tune here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ6S64ZLl7Y

play video

….second tune here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCUS1WCw1pw

play video

Henrik Norbeck’s notation