An Tulach (mazurka) on The Session

Eight comments

:-/ ~ HUH! ~ “This tune has been added to 1 tunebook”

HOW? How did anyone get in there so quickly and add this to their tunebook? Begin the ‘spooky music!’, if not quite as effective hummed and litled by me…

“An Tulach” / “The Hill”

Bless hills everywhere, such a quick high to get to the top and see over the other side, added interest on walks, along with their larger and younger siblings the mountains, and all those lovely and varied rivulets of water, or not if it’s a desert trek…

There is a version of this tune in one of Peter Kennedy’s (FolkTrax) valaued collections:

"Traditional Dance Music of Britain and Ireland: Slip Jigs & Waltzes"
(The Fiddler’s Tune-Book series)
200 Traditional airs with chords
Edited by Peter Kennedy
Dave Mallinson Publications, 1999

Page 49, tune #183, D Major: "Tullagh’s"

Before Peter’s death I was pestering him to take me on as slave labour, to work through his extensive notes and consider these collections again, only with notes for the transcriptions and their sources. I wish he was still with us, I never did get to share a pint with him and some tunes directly, and natter away about our shared passions over that seasoning… Thanks for the music Peter, recordings and transcriptions. I would have been a dedicated slave to the cause, nose to the grindstone…

It is unfortunate that his ‘FolkTrax’ recordings are no longer available. They were rough, quite often an old field recording at the end of a long line of cable attached to his car engine, but they were and are priceless listens… My other hope was to interview Peter and loosen him up for some story telling about his wandering the countryside to record musicians on these isles. There always seems to be controversy with this music, and there was about his work and his profiting from them without some percentage going to the musicians, most of which passed on before Peter did. My concern is with the music, its availability to educate the ears of others. He and I had our disagreements, but those were left in the past when I was offering to give him time for the cause.

Peter has passed over the crest of some hill ahead of me. I hope there are a good slew more rises and dips ahead of me and I hope I manage them without too much moaning or flagging, and with something of a similar spirit… I know, as I suspect was true for Peter, music will always be with me…

Mally’s Traditional Music Store

http://www.mally.com/
Clearance
http://www.mally.com/results.asp?CategoryID=33

Fiddler’s Tune-Book Series ~ Peter Kennedy ~ £2.95

* "Reels & Rants, Flings & Fancies"
* "Jigs & Quicksteps, Trips & Humours"
* "Hornpipes & Breakdowns, Clog & Step Dances"
* "Slip Jigs & Waltzes"

I think An Tulach usually refers to a mound of the archaelogical type rather than a hill, Ceol.

see http://www.focal.ie/Search.aspx?term=An+Tulach+

Yes, it does that as well…another of its charms…

Tulach ~ “Foclór Gaeilge-Béarla”

Foclór Gaeilge-Béarla
Niall Ó Dónaill
Oifig an tSoláthair, Dublin, 1977

Page 1286: tulach ~ low hill, hillock, mound…

+ cnoc ~ hill, mountain (also ‘sliabh’)

‘tulach’ has that grave association too, in my mind… Maybe using that for ‘hill’ has me admitting I’m a whoos and only go on low altitude rambles, rolling contryside rather than anything more challenging, like hills, mountains and deep valleys? :-D

D Major with frills first, then G Major in a basic form…

This also plays nicely in A Major ~ simply or with variations and twiddles…

“An Tulach” ~ flipped around and bare bones ~

An Tulach mazurka

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