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Category Archives: Tune Comment

These are comments about tunes: playing them, their history, and opinions

Alabama Rick’s (A)

This Jig was penned by my friend Mike Dugger, and has been recorded by a number of different folks.  About this tune Mike writes “I wrote the tune in 1997 in my garage when I lived on 10580 Gillette Street, in Overland Park, Kansas. I don’t know where it came from but I had just […]

A Night in Ennis (D)

Ennis is a town in co. Clare, just south of Galway, and has a resident population of around 30,000.  It can be a busy little very town in high season, easily tripling the population.  If you’re there, you’ll want to go down O’Connell Street, the heart of Ennis.  It’s a narrow, curved one-way street, lined […]

The Ashplant (Edor)

The term “ash plant” or “ashplant” was once a very common term, and still is in some places.  It is a euphemism used by the young and the old.  For the young it is a teacher’s stick which would be used to point out important locations on a map, to remind students of something written […]

Carraroe (D)

This light-hearted jig is a member of a large family which includes “The Blue Bonnets Over the Border,” “The Scotsman Over the Border,” “Mist on the Meadow,” and “The Mist in the Glen,” among many others.  The co. Limerick fiddler Martin Mulvihill (1919-1987) called this “The Portrowe Jig” in his First Collection of Traditional Irish Music […]

Last Night’s Fun (D)

While there are a handful of tunes known by this name, one being the slip jig better known as “Wink and She’ll Follow,” this reel is the one best known as “Last Night’s Fun,” though it will sometimes be called “Joe Cooley’s No. 1” since it was popularized by the great co. Galway accordion player […]

Broken Pledge (Ddor)

The reel “Broken Pledge” is played in a number of different settings.  It’s often in Ddor, a somewhat rare mode for tunes in ITM, but also shows up in Dmix, in D Ionian, as well as mixtures of these, and much more unusually in Eaeol and Amix. The cryptic title is a matter of some […]

Paddy’s Return (Dmix)

This jig, “Paddy’s Return (from Scotland),” is in a large tune-family.  Some members have been extremely popular for more than 400 years.  The members of the family go by many names, and will go by each other’s names as well.  We play this jig pretty close to the way it’s played by the Foinn Seisiún and found […]

Tenpenny Bit (Ador)

This jig has been around a long while, and has a number of titles. It’s tune tune #969 with the title “Three Little Drummers” in O’Neill’s 1850 (1903) — i.e., O’Neill’s Music of Ireland — and tune #189 and with the same title in O’Neill’s 1001 (1907) – i.e., Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems.  It is also called “Cock in the Heath” which is sometimes […]

Dusty Windowsills (Ador)

Though common in Irish sessions, this three-part jig was actually composed by Johnny Harling (b. early 1960s), a flute player from Chicago.  Two somewhat conflicting stories have been put forth about the title. According to the least plausible one, this jig was inspired by the Kansas song “Dust in the Wind” and originally titled “Dust on the […]

Jackie Coleman’s (D)

It is pretty common for tunes that carry a person’s name to simply be an homage, merely indicating that that person liked the tune and played it often.  Yet, it is sometimes also actually accurately a possessive-indicator, as it is in this case. Jackie Coleman (1928-2001), may he rest in peace, composed this tune around 1954. He passed […]