| PREV | LIST | NEXT |
Hello and welcome back!
This week, I've got a tune on the short side, #242 in the book, with an ABBA structure. It's a solemn, baroque-sounding melody, and I don't see it as a session tune. I do want to make sure that most of the tunes I present could find a place in a session, but there are also some really lovely and unusual melodies that I think deserve presentation here.
The name of the tune appears at least, here, in a list of tunes from long ago, remembered by an 84-year-old man named Tom Mulkeen, from Cloondace in Mayo, between 1937 and 1938. There are many familiar tune names on his list, but also previous to that, another source gives descriptions of the instruments and players vital to the music: bagpipes, violins, flutes, and accordions. However, the source also claims that previously, humming was the most common and best way that the music was performed. I'm guessing this was in reference to lilting, but perhaps it more of a mouth-closed type of mouth music in the area.
As for other mentions of the tune, I have only found a poem bearing a similar name (along with a link to a second poem about the river), which seems to fit relatively well with the pacing of the melody, although the last lines seem to be somewhat tricky to line up. I think it would make a good enough song, although there is some question as to whether the tune and the poem are referencing the same river - there are numerous rivers of same or similar name, and it is beyond my power to figure the whole situation out, despite good resources online. It seems, though, that the most famed is the one that joins the Bann, which at least lines up with the second poem.
I have only the one setting to present today, and it is simply a retranscription of the melody as given by the book.
This tune was a little easier to record than the last one, admittedly, although I still spent a long time hemming and hawing about whether I was going to present this tune or another one. I've given the other some more time to cook, and hopefully it will be better for the time given.
I find that the harmony choices that this tune elicits are interesting and poignant. The turnarounds at the end of the B part's lines are lovely and unusual, and all told, this tune uses an ambitious ten out of twelve pitch classes. The one note (one semitone) difference from the first and fourth lines is very enjoyable to me, although it tripped me up more than once during recording. The movement around the G# is also a bit of a pain, but there is a way to make it easier - I just didn't discover it until I had played it too many times for the muscle memory to easily take.
In other news, some of our effects have arrived, including my good microphone! I will be endeavoring to set up a preferable recording environment, and perhaps eventually even re-record some of the earlier tunes, although to be clear, this is nothing approaching a promise. It'll be a great sound quality improvement as well as quality of life - when I record using my current phone, I don't even have access to gain control. Still, it's likely that the phone or the laptop's microphone will find a new lease on life as a room microphone. If I miss having a stereo image, I'll just have to double-track it.
I hope you enjoy the tune!