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 mistakenly rendered “Cock of the North,” which is a name for a very different tune.
British ten pence coin, new design
The version of “Tenpenny Bit” here is closest to that found on the 1974 album Irish Traditional Fiddle Music by John and James Kelly (with Michael Crehan and Michael Gavin), though they call it “Up Sligo.” Our title here refers to coinage, tenpenny bit, a British ten pence coin (pronounced “ten pee”) and equal to ten one-hundredths of a pound sterling. The new design is certainly different.
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 Windows.” According to the other, which came from his daughter, the tune came to him while he was in a basement, and having nothing to write it out on, he used a dusty windowsill as his comp book. Though it has acquired many other names for the usual reasons — various versions of “I picked his tune up from so-and-so, but never learned (or forgot) the title.” In that vein it is called “Austin Barrett’s,” “Mulvihill’s,” and “Blasket Sound Jig” — named for the place where it was acquired, rather than than the person from whom it was acquired — by the way, Blasket Sound is on the Dingle coast, co. Kerry, near the Blasket Islands, of course. In other parts of Ireland it is usually called “Harding’s Jig” which is a corruption of the composers name. It was originally carried to Ireland by Liz Carroll and played during a radio interview. Sometimes it is played as just a two-part tune.
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 it on to the eccentric Sligo flute player Séamus Tansey (b. 1943), who in 1965 won all-Ireland and Seán Ó Riada’s special radio Fleadh Cheoil. Tansey released the tune on the album Seamus Tansey (1970), and is the author of the two volume work The Bardic Apostles of Innisfree (1999, 2009) — the latter sponsored by Michael Flatley. Though often ranked in the top three or four most influential flute players, he is also called “Shameless Tansey” by some in reference to his notorious interactions, such as his infamous 2004 letter to Sharon Langston (read out-loud on the 21 October 2004 RTÉ phone-in radio show Liveline by her father, Paul, concerning a concert held three weeks prior, on the night of the All Ireland football final in Dublin). Anyway, our tune here is also on the Arty McGlynn & Matt Molloy album Music at Matt Molloy’s (1992) in the set “Jackie Coleman’s > Pigtown Fling.” It is also on the Le Ceoltóiri Cultúrlainne CD Foinn Seisiún 1: Traditional Irish Session Tunes (2006), and on the Corner House CDThe Friendly Visit (2006) — Corner House is Davey Mathias (guitar) and Andi Hearn (fiddle, vocals) who run the Redbird School of Irish Music and also do Skype lessons. Our tune here is in Phil Rubenzer’s Midwestern Irish Session Tunes (2000) as well.
Corner House, Friendly Visit (2006)
This is a fairly simple reel which can easily get more intricate as you develop your skills. It has one tricky bit, and you will encounter similar challenges in many tunes. Here, you need to bounce between a B and an E, which on fiddle, mandolin, tenor banjo, and bouzouki will work best if you hold down two strings with one finger. As this is something you’ll need to do in many tunes, you might as well get started on it as soon as you can.
Further, one way of putting more Nyah in a tune is to hold the notes and let them ring as long as you can (legato), rather playing with a more staccato style. Also, there are lots of ways to chord this tune, and what I have here is a basic progression, and probably is the most common simple chord progression used. One of the simplest alternative things to do, of course, is to substitute relative minor and relative major chords: Em for G and vice versa, Bm for D and vice versa, and F#m for A and vice versa. Doing so will alter the flavor of the tune a bit, and so is worth working through with a friend or two. You will also want to listen carefully to the melody players at your own session to determine which chords will work best — in that endeavor you will, of course, need to be able to distinguish between some of the basic looks of approval and the well-know fiddler’s scowl!
This is a polka written by the prolific tune-composer and accordion player Paddy O’Brien (1922-1991) of Nenagh, co. Tipperary (pictured right). The name is common enough, and so don’t confuse our man here with others, such as the other Paddy O’Brien (b. 1945) from Castlebarnagh, co. Offaly, who also plays a two-row button accordion.
The polka here is in The Compositions of Paddy O’Brien (1992), by Eileen O’Brien. Eileen O’Brien and Willie Fogarty then recorded it, along with many of Paddy O’Brien’s other tunes, on the CD The Compositions of Paddy O’Brien (1993) where it’s played in the set “Amir’s Delight/Humours of Bahrain/Sheik’s Fancy.” Paddy O’Brien, the first cousin of the well-known composer and fiddler Sean Ryan (d. 1985), began composing in the 1940s and continued until near the time of his death, may he rest in peace. Some of his better known tunes include “Dinny O’Brien’s,” “Cooley’s Hornpipe,” “The Boys of Lough Gowna,” “The Coming of Spring,” “The Nervous Man,” “Ormond Sound,” “The Foggy Morning,” “Hanly’s Tweed,” “The New House,” “The Banks of the Shannon,” and “The Ormond Sound Reel” — the latter refers to his own Ormond Céilí Band. Eileen O’Brien writes “Paddy Ryan from Coolbawn in Co. Tipperary won the All-Ireland in 1965 playing [Paddy O’Brien] tunes. Paddy [Ryan] refers to a visit he paid to Paddy O’Brien prior to competing in the competition. During this visit Paddy gave these new compositions to Paddy Ryan and the end result was that Paddy Ryan was successful in achieving first place in the competition.” Our tune here then appeared on The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra’s CD Highland Cathedral (2007), in the set “Dancing In The Streets/Dan Larkin’s Polka/Humours Of Bahrain/Sheik’s Fancy/Amir’s Delight” (track 12), and on the Liam Farrell & Joe Whelan CD They Sailed Away From Dublin Bay (2008), but oddly titled “Taylor’s Cross.” It was again published in The Definitive Collection of the Music of Paddy O’Brien 1922 – 1991 (2009), with an introduction by Eileen O’Brien.
This polka is played in G and in D, and is known by lots of different names. Here are some of them: Andy Boyle’s, Ballydesmond, Cathy’s Favourite, Dan Macks, The Dargin, The Evening, Glenside #1, The Hen Dance, Kerry Polka #1, Kevin’s Polka, The Mist On The Glen, Pat Horgan’s #1, Shoe the Donkey, The Varsouviana, and The Waterford.
This reel is named for the Sligo piper Michael J. Anderson (1865-1947), who would eventually be called “Piper Anderson.” He was a flute player until he emigrated to the States as a teenager, where he learned to play and make the uilleann pipes. His home, at 1459 Amsterdam Ave., New York City, became a popular gathering place for Irish musicians in the city. Anderson also ran a pub on the island where traditional Irish music was often played, so he quickly became well-established in the traditional Irish music community, and himself played the Hippodrome (O’Neill, Irish Minstrels and Musicians, 1913). He traveled back to Ireland in 1904 with five sets of pipes and the intention of reviving the piping tradition there, as the practice was a rare one in Ireland at that time. However, he decided to move back to the New York in 1905, having met with too little success. A contemporary of the renowned fiddlers Michael Coleman (1891-1945) and James Morrison (1891 – 1947), both also originally from County Sligo, he apparently taught them both some of the tunes they became well-known for playing. He traveled back to Sligo in the 1930s and in addition to teaching Tommy Hunt (1908-1994) to play the pipes, he also performed with Killavil, co. Sligo fiddler John Brennan. He again moved back to New York, and stayed until 1946, when he returned to Ireland for the last time.
Those who learned this reel from the playing of Seamus Tansey play high part first, while everyone else plays it with the high part second. Apparently, the Seamus Tansey version works best “when coming from a tune in ‘G'” (Tommy Walsh, Irish Tin Whistle Legends, 1989). Noel Hill & Tony Linnane play the other way in the set “Anderson’s Reel / Carthy’s / Sweeney’s Dream” on their eponymous album Noel Hill & Tony Linnane (1979/2006).
This reel is one of many that were named for young women. The practice was common in the nineteenth century when all the music that was played, and all the music that had ever been played, was played by living breathing human beings. Though there was the occasional concert, music was most commonly heard in parlors, in pubs, and on porches. Everyday music had to be played in these more intimate settings, as the only way to increase volume was to either hoist them above the fray or add additional players. The sense of privacy back then had more expansive aspects than today, though admittedly it was in other aspects more truncated. The lack of first names was a way to protect her, though it was also a way for her to pretend not to know it was named for her. Naming a tune after a young woman was an indication of your intention, and it was a good intention if she was pleased, and a bad one if she wasn’t.
Jenny Lind, prior to her U.S. debut.
Still, you didn’t want to do it too often, nor would she want many tunes named after her, as both had untoward implications. You’d also have to know her well enough as for some young women having a tune named after you was itself objectionable as it meant all sorts of people would be talking about you in parlors, in pubs, and on porches. And note that it wasn’t until 1850 that a woman’s face was used in advertising, and it was by Phineas T. Barnum advertising Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale” — and she was met by 30,000 spectators when her ship arrived in the States. The resultant association with circus acts made it objectionable for a woman to have her likeness used, so that advertisers had to create fictitious young women to advertise their goods for quite some time afterward.
This is a lively reel at sessions when it’s played, but you might find that it’s thought to be somewhat threadbare at some sessions. Sometimes it’s good to shelve a tune for a while to give it time to re-germinate. Anyway our tune here bears no relation to the William Butler Yeats poem, or to the song “Down by the Sally Gardens,” except for the phrase “sally gardens.” That phrase refers to a willow garden — i.e., Lat. -Salix; Gaelic – Sailleach. A person, group, or town might keep a sally copse for medicinal purposes, as acetylsalicylic acid is a pain reliever, it would also be kept as a source for sallows and osiers for making wicker baskets, furniture, and other household items. Due to density, making for many places of seclusion, it provided spaces away from social observation, the sort of space that Nathaniel Hawthorne elevated to a character in his works. It became a very convenient place for lovers to meet, as the excuse of a headache — which would later play the opposite role in popular culture in the 1950s and 60s — provided an unassailable reason to slip off to a tryst. The idea of a “sally silva” or “willow bosk,” and later of what came to be called “public gardens” eventually became a metaphor for any object of desire. There are many romantic depictions that call on these ideas, such as Édouard Manet’s 1863 “The Luncheon on the Grass” (i.e., “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe”). In addition, the name “Sally” is derived from the same source, and so was once thought of as a pretty sexy name. Today we’re so used to it that there are almost no traces of this social history to be found.
The tune “Planxty Irwin” was composed by Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738), a blind harper often called “the last of the Irish Bards” even though there were traditional Irish harpers living as late as 1792. Carolan is considered a national treasure — his compositions are still often played during a session and are also highly regarded. Focusing on Carolan’s works first will bring you high rewards as a player. By the way, though it is correct to say “Turlough O’Carolan” when giving the full name, when no first name is given one should simply refer to him as “Carolan.”
The recording below starts at 10sec in, so be patient.
Planxty Irwin, slow tempo (whistle, Turlach Boylan)
Tenpenny Bit (Ador)
British ten pence coin, old design
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 mistakenly rendered “Cock of the North,” which is a name for a very different tune.
British ten pence coin, new design
The version of “Tenpenny Bit” here is closest to that found on the 1974 album Irish Traditional Fiddle Music by John and James Kelly (with Michael Crehan and Michael Gavin), though they call it “Up Sligo.” Our title here refers to coinage, tenpenny bit, a British ten pence coin (pronounced “ten pee”) and equal to ten one-hundredths of a pound sterling. The new design is certainly different.
For the ABC click Tenpenny Bit
Tenpenny Bit, med tempo
Tenpenny Bit, the dots
Tenpenny Bit,, Jig in Ador