Fourteen comments
No relation to the William Butler Yeats poem and song "Down by the Sally Gardens", this is a lively reel just made for playing at sessions.
The second part has a great "ascending" feel to it which can be emphasised with the right accompaniment. A chord sequence rising in whole tones works well: G Am Bm finishing with a C, a D and back to G.
The Salley Garden’s
Here is a slightly different setting I learned in a workshop in Sligo last summer and have been playing since:
BA|G2DG BAGB|dBeB dBAB|d2Bd efge|dBAB GEDE|
G2DG BAGB|dBeB dBAB|d2Bd efge|1 dBAB G2:|2 dBAB G4||
dggf g2dg|gabg agfg|eaag a2ea|agbg ageg|
dggf g2dg|gabg ageg|d2Bd efge|1 dBAB G4:|2 dBAB G2||
Sally Gardens: a setting with the downbeat shifted along one beat
I’ve made an arrangement where I shifted the downbeat and played around a little with the melody until it fitted. Any comments are welcome!
http://malcolm.schonfield.free.fr/zik.php?lang=en&tune=shifted_sally_gardens
My dad likes this tune.
Is it just me, or is the end of the third bar in the B part dying to be made into a triplet?
No, it’s definitely gagging to be a triplet. I’ve just played the last two notes in the 1st, 3rd and 5th bars as triplets and it makes them into a cute fluid "chirrup" that playing the notes cleanly just doesn’t.
Variations
Can someone post EVERY bit of ornamentation that comes to their head with this tune. When ever I play it at sessions, the way I play it never sounds right. It varies from county to county I think!!!
Thanks
Variation
Variation I mean!!!#
I play it like this
DE|G2DG BAGB|dBeB dBAB|d2Bd efge|dBAB ABAG|
EDG2 DGBA……
First tune I learned all the way through!
This was probably one of the first Irish tunes I learned.
I learned it on tinwhistle and play it a similar way on the mandolin.
I don’t know, but this tune and the poem "It was down by the Sally Gardens where my love and I did meet—-" are linked in my mind, both because how I played the tune slowly and how sad it sounds. When I speed it up, it turns a sad tune into a somewhat lively and happy one, almost seeming to say: "Hey, bad days happen, but there’s another side to every story."
I love this tune, both because it’s opened up a couple doors for me and I’ve learned alot trying to play it.
Whenever I hear it, the first part starts:
G2DG BdGB | dBeB dBAB
“The Sally Gardens” ~ just what I need right now, an aspirin
Brother Ryan Duns take on it ~ ;-) ~ and does quite a nice job on it too. Now if only he’d work on understanding and managing hornpipes a bit better. :-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1rUGU6m_M8
Sally Gardens
The whistle version on the video is excellent.
It’s identical to the first version I heard played by an English folk musician on a Shand Morino accordion in London in the 1960’s, so it has a certain vintage.
I’m now playing it again on the piano-accordein myself, which is more legato than staccato but the sound of the whistle is much better, it’s "sharper" and immediate - rather like a button-key box, which is more staccato than legato
James D
So who changed the title of this to "Cronin’s", and why ?
Re: The Sally Gardens
Many song/tune titles can be quite mysterious - even impenetrable sometimes - but a sally garden is a willow plantation (genus Salix). Bit of educated slang.
Re: The Sally Gardens
Love this playing :
https://youtu.be/4k4nkXir4PU