The Devil Skin the Peelers

Hello and welcome back!

This week, I've got a tune I had been saving for the occasion of not having enough time to do something else - the else which I intended to do being a jig in D Major which I think is worthwhile, but was not able to bring up to par in time. This tune is short and sweet - very fun, and I imagine very good as a short interlude in a set of blisteringly fast jigs.

It's called The Devil Skin the Peelers - a timeless sentiment. Each part is only twice four measures. It appeared in the book immediately before the Corraboth Jig, and just a few more before the tune that I am saving for later. I think these pages significantly raised my expectations for the rest of the collection, and my ratings have become skewed.

I am not entirely certain why I enjoy this tune so much, but I will list a couple of reasons:

• It lends itself to great speed on the concertina. It's a joy to play. The B part, somehow, always confuses me a little and requires me to remain in focus so that I don't play the second ending first. It's also very easy and pleasant to embellish. It sits comfortably within the C row of the instrument, so it should be accessible to a lot of instruments. I haven't seen a whole lot of one-row concertinas, but I know they exist.
• The key becomes (to me) pretty ambiguous in the B part, and puts me in a mind to stick to G chords for the entire B part, and A chords for the entire A part. Since the tune is so short and so fast, this is a powerful, driving movement - 1, 7, 1, 7, switching every 7 seconds at the speed that I'm playing it. This doesn't mean that different chords don't work, though - the melody is very simple, and a D chord goes nicely over the A as well.
• Despite being a miniature, it has all of the usual theme and development and repetition that is customary. There is just one measure repeated at the end of each part, but that's plenty - in fact, a lot of the tunes in the book feel a bit too repetitive for me, but this somehow isn't one of them.

Anyhow, here it is.

(PDF download)

I've made one small change to the score: removing gracenotes that I simply couldn't manage from the first and third notes. These gracenotes were a half step down from the note they preceded, and I figure that players might naturally add this embellishment if they deem it appropriate.

The tune could certainly go slower, but if I could push it faster, I would. It's just such a good time.

Anyhow, my pitch for this tune is that it could be added to a lot of jig sets simply because it's so tiny.

I hope you enjoy the tune!

Axel