Short and sweet...

...'tis the Brink of the White Rocks, both versions. the first starts with a nonet pickup in G major. After many takes, version 1 sounded like a song. 4 doodads. more talented fiddlers wouldn't have had to make such a long effort.

Now, here's a little note of struggle, not jihad. just struggle. after 20-30 playings of B of WR, V 1, it sounded decent, I played some other songs and came back. I had lost the thread and had to start around square 2 or so (of 30).

Then the next page reveals The Coolin with variations, which takes 14 lines, which is a lotta dots. Surprisingly, the second reading sounds like a song. 4 doodads, because of its uniqueness.

I deserve a stir fry of Curried chicken tonight!

Who was O'Neill?

I just got to wondering who authored this tome which fails to mark the key signature at the beginning of each line and which packs the black dots so close together. Living, dead? Animal Vegetable or mineral? (probably mineral by now, see below)

Wickipedia:

Francis O'Neill (August 28, 1848–January 26, 1936) was an Irish-born Americanpolice officer and collector of Irish traditional music.

O'Neill was born in Tralibane, near Bantry, County Cork. At an early age he heard the music of local musicians, among them Peter Hagarty, Cormac Murphy and Timothy Dowling. At the age of 16, he became a cabin boy on an English merchant vessel. On a voyage to New York, he met Anna Rogers, a young emigrant whom he later married in Bloomington, Illinois. The O'Neills moved to Chicago, and in 1873 O'Neill became aChicago policeman. He rose through the ranks quickly, eventually serving as the Chief of Police from 1901 to 1905. He had the rare distinction, in a time when political "pull" counted for more than competence, of being re-appointed twice to the position by two different mayors.

During his time as chief, O'Neill recruited many traditional Irish musicians into the police force, including Patrick O'Mahony, James O'Neill, Bernard Delaney, John McFadden and James Early. He also collected tunes from some of the major performers of the time including Patsy Touhey, who regularly sent O'Neill wax cylinders and visited him in Chicago. He also collected tunes from a wide variety of printed sources.

O'Neill retired from the police force in 1905. After that, he devoted much of his energy to publishing the music he had collected. His musical works include:

• O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1903), containing 1,850 pieces of music
• The Dance Music of Ireland (1907), sometimes called, "O'Neill's 1001," because of the number of tunes included
• 400 tunes arranged for piano and violin (1915)
• Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody (1922), 365 pieces
• Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby (1910). Appendix A contains O'Farrells Treatise and Instructions on the Irish Pipes, published 1797-1800; appendix B is Hints to Amateur Pipers by Patrick J Tuohy.
• Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913), biographies of musicians, including those from whom he collected tunes in Chicago.

Hornpipes

Well, I'm fiddlin' hornpipes, now. Now that I've played a whole bunch, about 20-30, I feel quite hornpipey. I like most of these little ditties--they're mostly fun to play and some are even interesting, though those with dotted rhythms don't quite amuse me as much. They make me feel unbalanced--I feel like I'm falling to the left. A few of the airs which mix in the 1/16=dotted eighth rhythms, I like. #56 Sailing Back of Whiddy does just that.

If I can figure out how to upload an mp3 of me playing, I will do so to keep the downloads smaller than video.

I'm not sure what makes a hornpipe a hornpipe, though they seem to have in common 2/4 time or 4/4 cut time, a single count pickup, eight bars to a repeat and a second repeat of eight bars. Here's Wikipedia:

any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and elsewhere from the late 17th century until the present day. It is said that hornpipe as a dance began around the 16th century on English sailing vessels. Movements were those familiar to sailors of that time: "looking out to sea" with the right hand to the forehead, then the left, lurching as in heavy weather, and giving the occasional rhythmic tug to their breeches both fore and aft.

More:

There are several traditional folk dance forms of the hornpipe:

• The most common use of the term nowadays refers to a class of tunes in 4/4 time. This dance is done in hard shoes. Perhaps the best known example is the "Sailors' Hornpipe". There are two basic types of common-time hornpipe, ones like the "Sailors' Hornpipe", moving in even notes, sometimes notated in 2/2, moving a little slower than a reel, and ones like "The Harvest Home", moving in dotted notes. Some 19th century examples mix the dotted and even styles. The form dates back to the mid 18th century or earlier, but became much more popular in the early 19th century. Many fine hornpipes were written in this period, many with known composers. In Ireland, examples include "The Groves Hornpipe" and "The Boys of Bluehill". In England, a noted composer of hornpipes on Tyneside was the influential fiddler-publican James Hill (c.1811-1853). The form also became very popular in the United States - "President Garfield's Hornpipe" is a fine example.

• A lively 3/2 time dance rhythm, which remained popular in northern English and lowland Scottish instrumental music until the 19th century. Many examples are still well known and widely played in Northumberland, such as the song "Dance ti thy Daddy", and the variation set "Lads of Alnwick". Often these tunes have off-beat accents, usually in even numbered bars, presumably corresponding to the (lost) dance steps. The form, having short strains, with recognisable tags at the ends, is very suitable for the playing of variations, which has probably accounted for its survival among players of the Northumbrian smallpipes. "Lads of Alnwick", in particular, has survived in the oral and manuscript tradition without major change from its earliest known appearance in the 1730s in William Dixon's MS, until the modern era, when an almost identical 5-strain version was written down by Tom Clough.

• The term was also used formerly to refer to tunes in 9/4 or 9/8 time. These may have been thought of as differing only inessentially from the 3/2 hornpipes. Some early examples of these are also syncopated. The form survives in Northumberland and Ireland. One example, "Mad Moll", or "The Peacock Follows the Hen", has remained current since at least 1698 when it appeared in The Dancing Master. Such tunes are usually referred to nowadays by the Irish name slip jig.

Examples, current in Northumberland, of all these kinds of hornpipe may be found, either recorded or notated, on the FARNE archive website [1]. John Offord has recently republished John of the Green - The Cheshire Way, (ISBN 978-0-9556324-0-2) an extensive study of published and manuscript dance music in these forms from before 1750. This draws heavily on Thomas Marsden'sOriginal Lancashire Hornpipes, Old and New, published by Henry Playford in 1705, as well as other sources. When they play hornpipe some people wear clogs. Hornpipe is a traditional song for sailors.

In 1798 the Reverend Warner Warner jouneyed through Wales. In describing a Welsh ball, he wrote, "The ball was concluded by a contest of agility between two brothers, who danced two distinct hornpipes with so much power and muscle, variety of step and inflexible perserverance, as exceeded everything we had seen.^[2]

Baroque hornpipe

The triple-time hornpipe dance rhythm was often used by composers in England in the Baroque period. It is probably artificial to draw too rigid a distinction between the popular and art-music examples. Many country dance examples are found in The Dancing Master, such as "The Hole in the Wall", by Purcell, and there are also extant theatrical choreographies that use steps from French court ballet, but which characteristically have step-units going across the measure. Henry Purcell and George Frideric Handel composed hornpipes, and Handel occasionally gave "alla hornpipe" as a tempo indication (see Handel's Water Music). Today, the most well-known baroque hornpipe tune is probably Purcell's "Hornpipe Rondeau" from the incidental music to Abdelazer, (which was used by Benjamin Britten as the theme for his Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra) or the 'Alla Hornpipe' movement from the D major of Handel's Water Music suites.

Double Jigs

I don't know the difference between jigs, double jigs, airs, horn pipes, songs, reeels. yet. maybe later. I only know that a playing of the O'Neills Music of Ireland from page 1 going to page 2 then page 3 et al has made the idea more tedious. I have moved on to double jigs for now and have slapped 2.5 (of 5) stars on 701 Doctor O'Neill and 1 star on 702 King Of The Pipers. Boring!

Just what gives me the artistic liberty as a fiddler of Chinese lineage to rate Irish tunes? What more does one need than knowing what you like and still dislike after several playings? These two jigs just didn't seem to grow on me.

Shule Aroon (1st Setting)… Shule Aroon (2nd Setting)…

Now these tunes I enjoyed, both at slow and moderate tempos. hummable tunes

4.5 stars each. Click to hear Shule Aroon video.

Warning: low res, low light, low talent

#41 at midnight hour

ok, finally a tune that makes you move your hand to 3rd position. Playable and almost hummable. 4 stars

page 6, 7

The Brown thorn. 4 stars

Page 7 #36 John O'Dwyer of the Glen 4 stars

#40 Gordon's Tune 4 stars

Page 5

I must rate as a terrible fiddler. 3 different versions of Black Slender Boy, none of which sound very hummable. Nor does anything else on this page. I'm rating all this stuff a 1/5. Still, challenging for sight reading.

May not take all those pages in sequence.

New Rating system, page 4 Mary returns

Beginning w this page I will rate the tunes w a new 5 star rating

system. I will alternately identify the tunes by the title or the number used by O'Neill

, 3 stars of 5, playable, a bit easy.

Not sure if this project is challenging enough for me, but I've 345 pages to go. Hard to follow if you can't see the music.But then this blog's for me, mostly, in that it helps me meet a goal.

#16 My Darling I am fond of you

I would retitle this, My darling I fell asleep while playing this.

The Fun at Donnybrook

Worth a few moments

Fare You Well

Short and sweet. again, a few plays, attention to counting and the key signature brought out some of the cuteness of this one

The Enchanted Valley

While I could play this after a dozen or more tries, I did a terrible job sight reading. The tempo, "very slow," helped, but still the grace notes and my shallow experience made for difficult going. Playing it in super slow tempo and careful counting made for a better idea of what the song held.

What is this and how did this start?

This blog follows me as I plow through every song in "O'Neill's Music of Ireland." Here's a little history: I saw the movie "Julie and Julia" which tells a tale of a woman who decides to cook up all the recipes in Julia Child's landmark book--she ends up with a book deal, movie rights and learns how to cook. I play the violin. Somewhat. Last weekend, I thought , hey, I should do with "O'Neill's Music of Ireland" what Julie Powell did with Julia Child's book, not with the goal of a book deal and movie rights, but maybe just a smidgen more talent that I began with in any of my fiddle incarnations. Skip the next paragraph to avoid reading about that.

I started playing fiddle back in grade school and stopped after we'd moved to Las Vegas, NV where my school had no string program. Twelve years later I picked up the same violin and took lessons from Bela Urban at UNLV for 2 years. He nursed me along enough to play a few tunes, like The Swan by Saint Saens and the Gavotte en Rondeau from the 3rd Partita by JS Bach. The violin finally decided that it wouldn't stay fixed after a peg reworking, losing string tension after less that 5 minutes of play--that and getting into grad school gave me the excuse not to play for awhile. I picked it up again three or four years ago. A nearby shop gave me a repair estimate multiple of >$500. I bought a new fiddle that stayed in tune, played it some, found that I hadn't lost everything and offered myself up for sacrifice at the local community orchestra. I found an inconspicuous spot near the back of the group. Twice yearly, we received new music, which I could barely play. I sight read terribly, am not confident about technique and sweat like a whore in church when the going gets rough. Nonetheless, even with my limited time for practice, I could play about 90-95% of the music by the time we reached the performance date.

"O'Neill's" boasts 1850 tunes over 349 pages. The O'Neill fiddle tune book I have is this one.

If you want to hear the tunes on a primitive midi player: click here, scroll down about halfway and click on one of the song categories. If I get set up with a mike and a recorder, I'll try an upload, but no promises.

I have played the first two pages now. At a page or more a day I can do it in a year. My approach includes sightreading, followed by playing the pieces enough to get the gist of them before moving on. I might leave pencil marks in the margins to indicate whether I find the tunes likable or cute or whatever. If I'm diligent, I'll leave notes here to the same effect. Maybe my playing will improve. Wish me luck.