Shanahan’s (hornpipe) on The Session

“Shanahan’s Hornpipe” ~ “O’Neill’s Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody”, 1922, tune #133

The following is an identical transcript from "Waifs and Strays" but makes some connections to other hornpipes ~

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

"Shanahan’s Hornpipe"
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/SG_SHA.htm#SHANAHAN’S_HORNPIPE

Shanahans of the World ~

Here’s another one for you…

“Shanahan’s Hornpipe” ~ with and without > & (3

ceol, I’d like to suggest your submissions be done in reverse with the swingy bits in the comments section instead. The reason being that the additional symbols in the ABC render your hornpipe submissions unrecognizable for any advanced ABC-based search queries.

~ advanced ABC-based search queries, and I’ve done plenty of them, don’t often bring up this site anyway, whatever the tune form… Titles, yes, ABCs, no… But I do understand your reasoning. I’ve never looked for a hornpipe or related tune form without, amongst other things, looking for it with and without >, swung and straight, as a manner of general practice on my part ~ trying not to forget to check via other possible keys and endless variations… :-/

You’ve gotten your cake PB, I haven’t forgotten to add a straight take since all the repeated guff you gave me in the past, and I’m glad of it…

Just lately I am very shorter of patience, something I dislike. None of that is intended to overflow here, but may be on a slow leak…

" ~ swung and straight, as a manner of general practice ~ " & interest. I love finding related melodies in whatever form or key…

I’m talking about the advanced ABC-based tune search queries on this site. I think the extra symbols make it impossible to find your submissions if people use that feature. Just trying to help… ;-)

For example: if I put this —> "G>FG>A B>G" into the advanced search this tune and Wade Hamptons shows up in the results. But if I put this —> "GFGA BG" in…. no matches.

G>FG>A B>G ~ & only hornpipes show, the following:

Cronin’s Rambles

Shanahan’s

Wade Hampton’s

[ Advanced ] within the tab and advanced beyond

The old master showed me his two hands clasped together in front of him, smiling, "do you know what I have here grasshopper?"

I knew better that to answer if I had no answer, I remained quiet.

"Listen!" he whispered, "carefully!"

I began to hear something, something that seemed to time itself to my heart, something that excited that and made me want to move, to run…

Tentatively, as I had felt the pain of his disappointment before, I answered, "I hear music."

The old man’s eyes seemed to grow bright as his smile widened.

He opened his hands slowly to show his palms and there dancing on them were beautiful winged things, some dark coloured, some bright, some mixtures of both, fluttering but not flying away, content in the hands of this master. I watch transfixed and could not even blink, and my ears filled with the beauty of different melodies…

The master spread his arms and brought his open hands and these wings of life to either side of my head, to my ears, and I was overwhelmed by the beauty, my skin electric and prickled by the joy I was feeling.

"Grasshopper, when you can take any one of these from my hands without doing them damage, and they will flutter without rushing to escape, then my apprentice, then you can take that joy and pass it on to others, complete, unbroken, alive…" For a moment the deep serious of this was evident in his eyes, "Do not move hastily to do that, as these can be easily damaged if roughly handled…"The laughter and dance in his eyes again was clear, " You can see their beauty now, you can hear it, soon you will be able to pass that on to others, in time."

Sorry PB, I thought you really meant "advanced ABC-based tune search queries", not just what was behind the tab at the top… ;-)

Apologies old friend, lost sleep and pain has me in curious states, impatience amongst them, which I fight but which sometimes gets past me, and la-la land, which is more acceptable than the previous state…

GFGA BG ~ currently 23 results ~ :-/

& all sorts of tunes ~

13 ~ reel

9 ~ hornpipe

1 ~ barndances

GFGA ~ 217 hits

G>FG>A ~ 24 ~ mostly hornpipe, but 2 are strathspey and 4 are barndance…

My point, ceol, is that I doubt people will be including the ">" dinxters in their searches.

Maybe, I wouldn’t curb folks free choice to do as the will. Personally, I’d much rather sort through a few tunes at the end of a search than a couple of hundred to find what I’m after. If you choose not to search with the wings ~ > & <, c’est la vie!!!

I hope this isn’t a case of having this raised everytime I submit a tune swung? No worry, this will be the last time I’ll rise to that bait… But I’ll still read it, in a luring sort of way…

Back to the strawberry daquiri now…

Frozen Scottish strawberries, ice, limes, brown sugar and a nice rummmmmmmm…

But my search was a little more specific "GFGA BG" but with no matches. If you posted the hornpipe sans dinxters I would have had one hit — the hornpipe you posted. People will have to know to put in the ">" dinxters to get any results. It only adds to the confusion.

You are obviously not using the ABC search properly if I got all those hits using the same number… Maybe you need to relearn ABCs? :-/

See above, you must have missed that ~ GFGA BG = 23 hits…

See, I’ve already broken my promise not to rise to more comment on this… If ‘basic’ ABC searching is something you have a problem with, well, let’s just leave the advanced stuff for later, eh…

GFGA BG = 23 hits, 9 of which are hornpipes. If you can’t bother the simple act of also trying it with > ~ I’m not going to hold your hand and do it for you, sorry…

If you want a way in, well, pester Jeremy. Simple code would cause the search engine to ignore anything wanted ignoring, so the code could be such that whether or not you entered it with or without what you call ‘dinxters’, it would bring up everything that had those notes in it, making it easier for the lazy, but more of a pain for those who prefer to get bacn exactly what we’re after from the ABCs entered under the ‘Advanced’ tab…

I hope Jeremy doesn’t listen to you, but if you really need to start making an issue of this again, talk to him, he’s the webmaster and can easily give you all your heart desires, so you’d never have to worry about considering other possibilities in your ABC searches on site here. But, as said, I hope he sees the sense in not adding that bit of code to for the few…

:-P & Vn nV

< :-P >

No, that’s not quite right, maybe using ms ~ Vm :-/ mV

Why should everyone do as you think fit and proper? ~ Because you are convinced you are right? ~ Because of some divine edict?

I said my patience was thin, even more so for dumb laziness…

While I am sorry for your ‘confusion’, but doubt any changes I make are really going to make that go away…especially if something like <dinxters> is adding to it… :-/ But you have my sympathy, if nothing more… Well, yes, a little more, my ire too, but that is generally short lived and I don’t seem to be able to hold grudges, usually… I may have to learn to just ignore the belly aching if it is going to surface everytime I enter a tune with > & <…

How did you get 23 hits from "GFGA BG"? I put that in and got no matches.

Gfga Bg

You’re doing it wrong ~ ;-) ~ probably leaving a space at the end of BG…

While you’re at it, and me feeling guilty all night about losing it with you, who I still consider ‘friend’ rather than foe, hopefully mutual, I did a little experiment. However, if you continue to leave the space at the end, it won’t work. Do your search again…

Fingers crossed, even old dogs, like you and me, can learn new tricks… :-/

" " ~ ‘space’ ~ can drastically limit success… 8-)

If I were to to also include every possible ‘basic’ way you could take the first measure, well, it would be daft…

GFGA \ G2 GA \ G2 (3FGA \ GDGA \ G3 A \ ~G3 A \ GFGc - - - etc…

~ for starters, just a short sample on the first beat of measure 1… :-/

Searching…..

>How did you get 23 hits from "GFGA BG"? I put that in and got no matches.

Remember - this is in the advanced search (ie for tune fragments in ABC)
if you put CFGA BG in the tune search you do indeed get no matches.

I didn’t think I left spaces, but I tried it again and still got no matches.

GFGA BG

That’s what I would enter if I was searching for this hornpipe.

Advanced Search Results (1 - 20 of 24)

Weird!!! Have you got a bizarre keyboard or something? And spin too?

Here, you go to the tab [ Advanced ] and click on it, not [ Search ] ~ then enter GFGA BA and click… I’ll do it all for you ~

https://thesession.org/tunes/index.php/advanced?notation=GFGA+BG

Advanced Search Results (1 - 20 of 24)

CFGA BG ~ Duh!? :-/

Are you two using a ‘C’ instead of a ‘G’ as the first note? Yeah! Well you won’t get any results that way, because there aren’t any tunes filed under CFGA BG… But under GFGA BG, the result is now 24, where yesterday it was just 23…

I got the same results as you this time… weird.

Anyway… this time Shanahan’s showed up, so either their was a quirk in the software or something has changed in the advanced search on Jeremy’s end. Sorry for the confusion.

Something changed! 8-)

The experiment worked…

When I got the original ABCs all I did was copy & paste from your ABCs and removed the ">" dinxters. I don’t understand why the results would be different with the exact same query today. Very puzzling.

< :-p >

Do you want the list of everyone else who uses ‘dinxters’? :-D

Experiment over…

Usually when I get no results in an "advanced" search, it’s because I’ve accidentally used the regular title search tab instead.

Anyway, I’m with Jack on the use of explicit dotting in hornpipes for several reasons:
1. It’s easier to search without having to try entering the search string two different ways (especially if you’re not too sure of a few notes and have several possibilities to try already).
2. It’s easier to read the abcs without the "dinxters" before the sheet music is generated.
3. The amount of swing varies considerably, people know that there should be some swing, so there’s no good reason to annotate it as if it were a strictly dotted rhythm.
4. Writing out the dotted rhythm seems to be done in only a small minority of the tunebooks I’ve seen. It’s not done in Breathnach, O’Neill (Krassen edition), Josephine Keegan’s book, the Sean Ryan books, the Mike Rafferty book, or the Junior Crehan book. I think I have one or two books that do it, but I’ve loaned them out.
5. When you paste the explicitly dotted version into Barfly and play it using "stress programming" designed to play tunes with more or less the correct rhythm, it gets horribly distorted.

(Shanahan’s) Dotted Hornpipes

Dotted hornpipes are used by Cyril Maguire (Hidden Fermanagh), Hugh McDermott (Allan’s Irish Fiddler), Francis O’Neill (O’Neill edition), Tony Sullivan (Session Tunes), Dave Mallinson (100…Irish Session Tunes), and so on, but you’re right, Gary: I’m surprised that so many books forego the dots for hornpipes. To me, the danger is that without these speed bumps, inexperienced players will play hornpipes like reels. I may be underestimating them, however.

nigelg writes: "To me, the danger is that without these speed bumps, inexperienced players will play hornpipes like reels."

~~~

Does that mean these people are a lost cause?

http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_253_4_two_hornpipes_from_the_arrabawn_ceili_band
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_254_4_hornpipes
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_260_1_edel_fox
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_244_2_michael_king_with_a_hornpipe_and_two_reels
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_232_4_tara_breen_and_cathal_mac_an_ri_fiddle_flute_duet
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_241_3_bronwyn_de_paoron_fiddle
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_236_6_allow_ceili_band_hornpipe_at_the_2007_all_ireland

(Shanahan’s) Dotted Hornpipes

I’m afraid I don’t know what your point is, Phantom Button.

Quite a few early collections as well notated them with the swing, and some went to the extreme of notating them as 2/4, with and without the swing. Certain influential collections that circulated in North America are believed by some to be the reason for many playing hornpipes as ~ reels, straight.

As to learning to play from Barfly or any daft ABC program, and there’s not one I’ve tried yet that I like ~ you’d have to be daft. I haven’t gone around and asked every submitter of a straight transcription to add the swing, or the > & <. I don’t see the sense in that, or any sanity in it either. As to the inabilitiy of some to take a second to try their search both ways ~ hey, you make your choices. If you can’t bother, well, you can’t bother. I would much rather that when I did a search, as happens using > ~ I get swung tunes and not, as has happened in the past, several hundred, most being reels. If you do the search with the swing, you get just three results, and one of those, et voila!, is this, Shanahan’s…

There is an alternate way, where I would end up doing all the work for you lazy sods that can’t be bothered, and the experiment proved that, but I’m not planning on doing that. I will continue as I have, submitting swung tunes with the > & <, and then in the ‘comments’ giving it bare bones for those that prefer it that way. I see that as useful and informative, including for beginners, to see a tune stripped down to its bare minimum. And, yes, thanks to Phantom Button for getting me to do that consistently. But I’m not going to flatten everything just because a few haven’t got the time to do a more thorough ABC search.

Bickering and continued bitching isn’t going to change that for me. Personally, when scanning music, ABCs or dots, I love seeing that swing notated, it speeds up the process for me, as it is clear when used what’s a swung tune and what’s a reel. The reels outnumber the other by some considerable amount. Is that not enough flat transcriptions to keep you busy, if that is your preferred entertainment?

Go out and learn a few new tunes and stop ragging on my use of what PB calls ‘dinxters’, what the f-k difference does it really make? If you can’t play a decent hornpipe, you need to learn, if you can, however you like to take them, bless you… May it be a skill and appreciation that lasts to the end… I have enjoyed and appreciated many way swith the form, including played as reels…

As this isn’t a dictatorship in your control, aside from our dear webmaster Jeremy, I’ll be on my way, and continue to notate as I have, swung if it’s swung in the submission, straight for the likes of PB in the ‘comments’… :-/

To > and not to >

Having studied and done longhand notation, with pen and ink, and a lefty, and also having set type, a pain in the arse but fun in its own way, and having used a hell of a lot of software notation programs, since the beginning ~ I know that it is easier and cheaper to do it without the swing notated. It is also, speaking of the old days, a problem with raised black levels and ink and dust getting stuck in small spaces. So, without the swing notated, it is just easier, and you use a hell of a lot less ink. That was also true with software, a simple note is easier than fiddling with adding swing… That just makes sense, so, with this issue, the choice not to was usually economic ~ less hassle ~ less time ~ less ink ~ less to clean up ~ less spoiled results…

PB, with regards to Nigel, who doesn’t need my defense, he said " inexperienced players"! I don’t see how your wave of links fits that comment, do you?

I think Jack’s point, though I’m not certain, is that the players in those videos are experienced and highly regarded, yet play those hornpipes, for the most part, with very little swing. Quite a bit less than dotted notation would suggest.

Yes!?… And lovely ear candy it is… ;-)

‘Dotted’ notation suggests, it is not a tyranny and the interpretation varies between straight and roughly 2:1, as most folks know, rather than the strict interpretation of 3:1, though I have heard them taken to that extreme, as with midi, which no one in their right mind would take as scripture, hopefully… Notation is a skeleton, lifeless, a shadow of a tune, it can only suggest possibilities, some other ways to consider. You are free to make your choices as to how you take it…good or bad…

I prefer and choose to notate tunes usually swung, such as hornpipes, barndances, flings ~ as something different from the more prevalent reels… Why should everything in 4/4 look the same? I don’t see sense in that, personally… I appreciate, enjoy and celebrate difference, in this music too… That isn’t going to change…

That is also why, despite all the problems and hassles, older collections often did notate swung tunes as swung…

“Roches Collection of Traditional Irish Music” ~ 3 volumes, 1891 - 1927

Another Irish collection that gives it as it is, while avoiding adding a long list of the Scottish collections that do…

Nigel, my point is in response to your statement that the dotted music is necessary to prevent unexperienced musicians from playing hornpipes incorrectly. But playing with little or no swing is perfectly acceptable in the tradition, as per my examples. My position has always been that the dotted music notation is unnecessary and possibly misleading. People can determine for themselves whether or not to add any swing to it. Furthermore, I think it’s far less common to add as much swing as dotted music indicates.

I’ve already discussed this with ceol many times and it wasn’t really my intent to reignite the controversy in this thread. My initial concern was based on the search results of an advanced search using that feature in this website. Apparently there was some sort of glitch that prompted my contribution. But regardless of that, when the notion of a hornpipe being incorrect if it’s represented without dotted music notation came up I had to respond.

”~ as much swing as dotted music indicates ~”

~ only if you read it wrongly…or lack the necessary experience and understanding. I’d be very surprised if that applied to you PB, so what’s your real worry ~ you can’t spare a few seconds to do a more complete ABC search?

” ~ the notion of a hornpipe being incorrect ~

~ if it’s represented without dotted music notation ~"

You NEVER got that from me, ever, not from the first time you started bitching about this ‘way-back-when’ and up to the present…

I also never read that in what Nigel contributed, seeing his defense for dotting, but not seeing him actually trashing the contrary…

This is curious, those of us, and I’ll include Nigel, as I’ve never seen him attack anyone on site here for not dotting a hornpipe contribution ~ those of us who dot, as far as I know, but I’m sure with me, have NEVER commented in a bitchy way when someone notates a hornpipe flat. So, you might say, with good defense of that point, that we’re what you could safely call ‘open minded’ about it, no problems. But for some reason some folks get riled and entrenched against the act of dotting the notation of a hornpipe.

So, by your firm and inflexible convictions, should we burn all the many old collections that have done this over the centuries, as somehow inferior and a foul influence? Should I trash all my O’Neill for that awful Krassen edition? Should I toss out Athole, Skye, Marshall, Roche ~ sorry, the list is quite endless…

Don’t bother answering. I’m not throwing anything out…

As our experiment revealed the ">" dinxters don’t matter in the search feature; so it’s a moot point. But on the other question I still maintain that the ">" dinxters are unnecessary and misleading in the context of Irish hornpipes. There are probably certain tunes where the dotted music might be necessary, but I think it would be the exception more than the rule. I know very little about Scottish music, and it might be necessary there for all I know, but my concern is regarding the Irish music.

;-)

I have, however, been known to pass on recordings of some really awful playing of hornpipes, but to be completely honest, it wasn’t just the hornpipes I found irritating my aural senses…

”~ the “>” dinxters don’t matter in the search feature ~” PB 8-)

Oh yes they do… That was my experiment that worked. That has been undone, as I’m not going to repeat it with every swung tune I’ve ever contributed, or will contribute in the future…

I didn’t accuse Nigel of "attacking" anyone or anything; his comments appeared to indicate that the music needed the dotted "speed bumps" to prevent unexperienced players from playing hornpipes like reels, i.e., sans swing, or at least that’s what I read. My response was to that point and not intended as anything other than a point for discussion.

But after the glitch went away this hornpipe showed up in a search I did sans ">" dinxters. That would indicate the software ignores the dinxters in an ABC search.

Sorry PB, I take your point of clarity… It was a nice rush of links by the way, enjoyed by me… Thanks…

Try that search again… The count will have reduced by one…

Well how do you like that? The results didn’t ignore the ">" dinxters this time. The advanced search feature belongs in the Twilight Zone I think. But according to these results we’re back to my initial point that adding the dinxters complicates and makes more difficult any searches done with the ABC based search feature.

It was my ‘experiment’ that gave you that added result. It was a ‘timed’ one…

We only complicate things for ourselves in limiting what we choose to do or not do… So, you live with your limitations, but don’t blame them on others… Take responsibility…

Ok.. so we’ll just have to work a little harder to find your hornpipe submissions… 8-)

To > & < & not to > & < ~ and all the infinite other possibilities, keys and ways

It has never bothered me, not even a consideration, to do my searches several ways. I love the sometimes ‘surprise’ results… But, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. If you get flustered searching for something and would like help, you know, if I’ve the time, I’d gladly help, but I’m not going to do more for you than I already have in my submissions… Sorry…

But, bless you for trying… ;-)

Dinxter

What’s a dinxter anyway? Google doesn’t help!
"No questions involving Dinxter found with the requested statuses"
"There are no branches related to Dinxter today"
"dinxter is offline"
"Thanks for that dinxter"

or even the related dzong
"Dzong architecture (from Tibetan རྫོང་, Wylie rDzong) is a distinctive type of fortress architecture found in the former and present Buddhist kingdoms"

I think I’ve wandered into parallel universe…

A Big Smiley :-)

Dinxters are like rabid smilies, remember Pac-Man, and the female equivalent? Well, dinxters are like that but with teeth. So, stay out of maize mazes and dark alleyways and you should be reasonably safe, unless of course you’re in San Francisco expecting to find an Irish session. Then, beware the dinxters, carry mace and a bulb or two of garlic in your pocket… If they start to be a threat, eat a raw clove, that should protect you for a couple of hours…

(Shanahan’s) Dotted Hornpipes

Thanks for your explanation, Phantom Button. I enjoyed looking at some of the links you presented, but in all the ones I looked at, the hornpipes were played in irregular rhythm, however slight. I’m not an advocate of playing irregular rhythm as notated, but its presence gives one an indication that we’re not dealing with regular rhythm, and that then one’s experience can relate the tune in an appropriate manner. I tell people when encountering a "snap" in Strathspeys not to play it strictly as the notation suggests, but to play it as a snap. We can recognise where the snaps are by the way the tune is notated.

Having said that, I’m in some sympathy with your point of view. However, I’m in favour of giving inexperienced players a visual clue about how to play a hornpipe by using its dotted notation, and I don’t think we should sacrifice that for the sake of a search facility.

We really shouldn’t be conducting this discussion here.
Shanahan’s Hornpipe -I like it!