Some tune arrangements by Paddy O'Brien of Co. Tipperary In the summer of 1995 I was playing in a session at The Barge Inn, aka Larkin's (Garrykennedy Co Tipp). I was chatting to the Landlord Dan Larkin about music in general and suddenly he jumped up and went upstairs. He returned some time later with a very bad photocopy of a series of tunes arranged by Paddy O'Brien for his ceili band. Dan asked me to make copies and get as many people as possible playing the arrangements to keep Paddy's music alive. Working with computers and being a fan of the internet I thought the best way of getting it to a large audience would be to put the music on the net. Some discussion on the IRTRAD (Irish Traditional Music) mailing list brought about the decision to translate the tunes to abc format and put them on the Ceolas archive. Problem was I didn't know abc. An invaluable volunteer turned up in the shape of John Walsh of Vancouver, B.C., Canada, who launched into the work with great speed and enthusiasm. I scanned the photcopies and produced GIF files which were then ftp'd to John. He then turned the tunes into abc and sent them back for proofreading. I must at this point stress that John deserves most of the praise for doing the large amount of work this project entailed. I don't know how many hours he must have spent trying to read the bad GIFs and then transcribing the tunes, listening to them and then making adjustments. It didn't end there as the tune files needed formatting, notating and putting into their original sets. Anyway, I passed the tunes back to Dan Larkin for proofreading and also to try to answer some of the questions John raised. At the time of writing I have not had time for feedback yet but we have decided to put the tunes up as abcs and GIFs whilst waiting To help with accuracy and for possible reasons of research in the future we have included the questions John raised and also a list of changes he made (including things that he felt were typos by Paddy or resettings to save writing sharps all over the place). When all feedback is received we will put new versions of the files on ceolas with an update document. At this time we will also include postscript files and DVI files. I spoke to Eileen O'Brien-Minogue (Paddy's daughter) at the Fleadh Ceol in Liostowel this year and told her what we were doing. She was happy that Paddy's work was being disseminated to a wider audience. Please respect the fact that copyright for these a rangements resides with the O'Brien family and if recordings or reproductions of any kind are made abide by the copyright laws. Lastly I must say that myself and John have made this music available for purely altruistic reasons and are making no money from this at all. Long live the tradition :-) Dave Gabol, Dublin, Ireland, dgabol@dub-co.bru-ro.dhl.com Fiddle, ex-whistle, excrutiating uilleannn pipes John Walsh, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, walsh@math.ubc.ca--uilleann pipes, mainly; whistle and flute when feeling in a quieter mood. *************************************************** All of this stuff is before the tunes in an effort to encourage people to read it so that they realise what is genuine and what might be transcription errors or typos in the originals. For those new to Irish Trad on the internet it might be useful to know that there is software available to turn the tunes below into staff notation. The files below are set up to run nicely through abc2mtex, Tex (or musixtex) and dviwin. They can also be viewed through a commercial package called abc2win. This entire file should run smoothly through abc2mtex without alteration. *************************************************** Below is a list of questions/changes John made to the files. I must stress that the original photocopies were very bad (in some cases the notes were unreadable for a couple of bars). By the time they were scanned and turned into GIF files and sent to John they were somewhat worse. *************************************************** o In the jigs, where he beams 4 notes together and writes a "3"--I've made them into quadruplets (which beams 4 together and writes a 4) instead of a triplet-plus-one as I did on the first draft. o Made a few--not many--changes to the length of pickup notes here and there, but only where they bothered me on the playback. (He often writes a quarter note pickup instead of eighth.) o I changed all the D mixolydian tunes to one sharp. (Search for K:DMix to see which ones they are.) These probably need an extra look-over. o Suggest we omit Lord Gordon--it's not in O'Brien's handwriting or style and isn't in a set. o I changed the E: field and fiddled around a little bit with the line-breaking to make the files print out reasonable nicely, with (mostly) three tunes per page...but this is for 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and may not look good on A4. Here are the questions and comments I had--most were/are in the abc's. 1) Limerick Lassies/Old Copper Plate/Buckley's Fancy Limerick Lassies meas 3: extra dots (GED), possibly an error 2nd part, 8th meas: last 4 notes: ? (not sure what he meant) Old Copperplate: I added left repeat at bar 1. 2nd measure: The F seems to be circled--an error or change? (Could play an "E" there.) Last note, 6th measure: G or A? Second part, 3rd measure: should the first 4 notes be "gfef" or "agef" (as written)? Buckley's Fancy: Can't read what follows "Buckley's". Maybe he calls it "Buckley's", not "Buckley's Fancy", (the title in O'Neill's.) At the end, it seems to say "doh mode", meaning, I suppose, it's in a major key. Might it say "re mode" at the end of the Old Copper Plate? 2) Crooked Road to Dublin/College Grove/Killaghbeg House Killaghbeg House = Ah, Surely (The fiddler Paddy Fahy lived in Killybeg House, near Aughrim--any connection?) 3) Paddy's Resource/Pipe on the Hob/Blooming Meadows Pipe on Hob: (not the Pipe on the Hob that one usually hears) part 1, 7th measure: FDD should be EDD? part 2, measure 3: O'Brien has C#, not C natural Blooming Meadows: part 2, 2nd repeat, meas 2: O'Brien has C#, not C natural. 4) Kilfinane/Paddy In London/Tongs By the Fire Paddy in London: O'Brien did not put the repeat on the last part 5) Hartigan's Fancy/Maloney's Wife/Have a Drink With Me 6) Road to Youghal/Conlan's Well/Holly Bush Not too sure about the Road to Youghal and Conlan's Well. The MS is difficult to read. Do they play the Holly Bush in sessions around there? I hadn't heard it before. 7) Boys of Ballysodare/Pat Tuohy's/Birmingham Boys of Ballysodare: O'Brien writes the C's in the first two parts as C#s, not C naturals. The tune could be written in one sharp. (Second thoughts: just changed the key signature to one sharp.) 8) Christmas Eve/Bunker Hill/Hunter's Purse Christmas Eve was composed by Tommy Coen, of Co. Galway. In the MS, the Hunter's Purse is written as if it were the last two parts to Bunker Hill, and its title is not given. O'Brien writes Bunker Hill in two sharps, but I wrote it in one, since only C natural appears. 9) Bush in Bloom/Congress/Ewe Reel Congress: part 2, meas 6, 4th note: O'Brien writes e. Ewe: 2nd measure--there's some kind of line under the last 4 notes.?? 10) Paddy Reynold's/Jer Quigley's/Hunters' House Jer Quigley's: measure 3, first part: should the d's be c's? 11) Follow Me Down/Milliner's Daughter/Sailor's Jacket Sailors Jacket: O'Brien writes this in D, with all C naturals. 12) Sheehan's/Down the Broom/Kiss Me Kate Down the Broom, 2nd part, 4th measure. (?) 13) King of the Clan's/My Love is in America/Flogging King of the Clans: part 2, last note, 1st meas: O'Brien has an f, not e My Love is in America: O'Brien writes in 2 sharps part 1, last note in meas 2: O'Brien has B, not G 14) Reavy's/Providence/Peeler's Jacket Not sure these 3 are a set! (1st is a hornpipe, isn't it? And the next 2 are reels) 15) Magpie's Nest/Chattering Magpie/Kerry Kerry = Green Fields of Rossbeigh 16) Hill on the Road/Contentment is Wealth/Tell Her I Am Hill on the Road: (= High Part of the Road or Ard an Bhothair) Question: what does "R" mean? It's written above the 5th meas of each part? 1st meas, 1st part--looks like a couple of blobs on the third note: might be Bad cBc instead of BAB cBc? Or is this double-stopping for the fiddler? 2nd part, 4th meas: starts with g or a? Tell Her I Am--O'Brien writes it in 2 sharps 17) First Night in America/Apples in Winter/Rakes of Clonmel Some notes were missing at the left-hand side of the page on all three tunes--better check them. 18) The Bowlegged Tailor/O'Mahony's/Fr. Fielding's Favorite ************************************************** Tunes start below. The purpose of these arrangements was to put together sets of tunes which sounded good together. The purpose of putting all of this on the net was to get the sets played. It would be appreciated if the tunes were played in their sets rather than broken up. ************************************************** (see OBrien.abc)