Irish Flute Tunes

O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland tune number 129   I probably would have been better getting the cat to play it.

I play this tune by direct debit.

Here's another tune from O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland. I hadn't noticed it before, despite its being there since 1907. I don't remember ever seeing a wren either. Maybe because they're so small.

Here's another tune from Francis O'Neill's 'Dance Music of Ireland - 1001 Gems'. My understanding of 'gem' in today's context is a tune without syncopation and notes keeping close company with other notes they don't get on with.

Here's tune number 652 in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland.   It's the best tune between tunes 651 and 653.

As requested, here's an attempt at a flute version of a steadfastly fiddle tune.     X: 1T:Jackson's Reel (sort of flute-friendly'ish)R: reelM: 4/4L: 1/8K: Dmaj|:F|D2FD EDFE| DEFD EAcE|GE ~E2 GABd| ceAc dBAF|D2FD EDFE| DEFD EFGE| ABce dBAG| F/2G/2F EG FDD:||:g|fd d2 ~d3f| edef edcB|A2cA BAcB| ABcA Bcde|fd d2 ~d3f| edef edcB|ABde faea|1fd d2 ~d3:|2fddc d/2d/2c dB||A3A B2AG| FAAF G/2F/2E F/2E/2D| ~E3F GFEG| Agec dBAF|D2FD EDFE| DEFD EG ~G2| ABce dBAG| FAEG FDAF||   Here's the uncut version: https://thesession.org/tunes/1665

Here's a tune high in vitamin C. Also called the 'Belfast March', named after a town low in every vitamin.    https://thesession.org/tunes/5000

Here's a tune I was asked to post here. It's a great tune but I can't play polkas, so I never play them, so I can't play them, so I never play them, so ...   The associated polka dots are here: https://thesession.org/tunes/1560

Here's a tune which Tom Morrison recorded i 1928. London clogs are probably mainly fatbergs in the sewers these days.   Here it is played properly: https://archive.org/details/TomMorrisonTheLondonClog   Here it is written out badly:

This reel was made in space for the flute; sorry this effort isn't as out of this world as the title would suggest.

Here's a tune written by Josie McDermott in honour of Peg McGrath who made one of the nicest flute noises I've ever heard.

A short tune to fill a spare minute. I don't know how much postmen/postwomen (or even postmodernists) whistle now under the burden of Amazon boxes.

Here's a tune I first heard from a recording of John McGuire - Seán's father. The guy in the photo was Jack Rowe - looks like he could blow a flute with the back of his neck. Some feat. Some neck.

Here's a reel which you can hear Denis Murphy playing at: Mount Collins Reel / Doon Reel. There are special wobbles in the second tune which, according to the info at archive.org, are due to a hole being 'punched slightly off-center'. I'd imagine that could cause a wobble or two right enough.   Here are some notes: https://thesession.org/tunes/4026

I hope the title of this reel refers to matters ornithological and meteorological and not medical. I was reminded of this tune today when I heard a recording of Sheila O'Dowd playing it (http://www.colemanirishmusic.com/shop/product.php?id=13 track 16).  It is in Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol. 1  and someone has kindly made the notes available at http://tunepal.org/tunepal/showdots.php?id=11667.  That's about all I have to say on the matter just now.

I've been trying to learn to play a C#D accordion and was reminded of this tune while playing through a few books as a way of telling my fingers that there's more than one melody in the world.  The box playing may be a sort of insurance against tooth loss which would make the flute sound a bit gummy; cleaning and flossing might be an easier approach. This tune is in the book 'Trip to Sligo' under the title 'Come up in the room I want you'.  I played it (on the flute) into the tunepal.org machine and was given the title I've used here.  The person in the 'up in the room' name may even have been addressing the Ballina Lasses at the time of utterance.  I don't know what Tunepal will think it's called if I try playing it on the squeezebox.

Here's a tune with a funny name.  I learned it from a flute player with a less peculiar appellation, i.e. Harry Bradley. I recorded this on a mobile phone mp3 recording app (and a flute) and the end result seems to include some 78rpm type crackles.  That may have been an option which I inadvertantly chose on the recording device.

Here's a tune called Peter Wyper's hornpipe.  It is named after one of the Brothers Wyper who is pictured above.   I had intended posting a smaller brace of Wypers but couldn't find the shrink button to resize the photo.  You could look at the photo on a smartphone screen to make it small but I think the text would go all exiguous at the same time.

Here's a tune which as was correctly pointed out to me, I had forgotten to post up to now. I've played it on a poor, old and sick Rudall flute. I had even taken a picture of the flute but it's been so long since I've posted a tune here that I've forgotten how to include a photo (or else this site has forgotten how to have photos posted on it). The flute can't remember how to play bottom Ds yet. I'll be leaving it into a flute hospital in Galway shortly - maybe a bit of hypnosis from beyond the Pale will remind it of this particular alphabetic bark.

Here's a tune I was asked a while ago to play. I've always been a bit allergic to this tune - I'm not sure why - I think something bad like the house falling down happened the last time I played it and that left a bit of an impression which didn't please me too much. It's a good tune all the same. I think it's really 2 jigs joined together. I'm away to stand outside for a while in case this house isn't up to the Knocknagow test.

I think this is also called The Collier's Jig.  There's a collier's reel too which has the same general selection if notes in it.  I'll post it on the site if it's not already here. I've been reminded a couple of times lately that some people are finding some use for some of the tunes on this site so I thought I'd try to add one or two more.  It remains to be seen whether they'll fall into the useful category or otherwise.  I have a couple of requested tunes still to post as well.  I'm just being delayed by not knowing them and almost never having a flute closer that about 20 feet away.  If I attended to the latter matter then my chance of sorting the former should increase accordingly.

Here's the one that goes with the other two (Paddy O'Brien tunes I posted a while ago).  I've just been reminded that I missed this one.  I hope late is better than never.

Here's a reel I've just been asked to play.  It was composed by Sean Ryan.  I found a couple of written versions on the web and this effort is sort of a cross between both and neither of them.  Sorry if some (or most) of the notes are a bit on the fuzzy side.  I found some ready salted crisps just before I found the notes for the tune.

I think there's also a jig with this name - or is that 'the milker that masticated the mattress' ?

Here's a tune I never knew the name of until the arrival of the magic tune finding machine http://tunepal.org/tunepal/index.php. I see that people now even have telephones with this facility on them.  If someone sneezes at a session these days there's likely to be an iphonophile who will be try to identify the sneeze as some polka or other.  Any extraneous noises in this recording have passed without being interpreted as anything other than normal noise - any other noises are supposed to be the tune.

Here's a tune I think I learned from a recording of Jackie Daly.  It is also in Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann (vol 2) where the version is the same but for one note in the second part (answsers on a postcard to ...)

Here's another Paddy O'Brien reel which goes with the previous one though usually before it and another one rather than after it and before another one which isn't the same 'another one' I referred to on another part of this sentence just before now - I hope that all makes sense. All these tunes and information about them and Paddy O'Brien are to be found in an excellent compilation which is available from this site:  http://www.paddyobrienbook.com/

Here's a reel composed by Paddy O'Brien.  It is often played after two others in a set.  I don't know the other ones either.

Here's a great reel for the flute.  I'm sure I stole it from somewhere but the scene of that particular theft is now out of reach of my memory.

I've been at around 3 sessions in as many months and this tune was played at 2 of them (albeit by the same person).  According to my statistical analysis this tune is therefore played at 66.66666% of all sessions. I'm afraid that the flute here sounds a bit like it has a cravat stuck up it somewhere; possibly with a maritime person attached.

Sorry for the lack of tunes in the last while.  I gave up playing for a while - as I sometimes do - and have only played the flute 4 times this year. The perenthesised '2' in the title here doesn't doesn't refer to the modesty of Jenny's shellflsh harvest target but just to the fact that there's already another tune with this name on the site.

Here's a new post after a very long gap.  I couldn't remember where I left the internet.  I was sent an mp3 file of someone playing this tune far better that it is played here.  I know that Séan Keane recorded it at some stage and hear it from time to time in sessions but I can't remember exactly how it goes.  I found a transcription in the bit of the internet referred to below.  I'm afraid I've lost / mis-ordered a few notes during the eye to mouth process but here's an approximation - hopefully enough to get a more accurate and diciplined person started learning the tune. http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/2748

Here's a slip jig which is really the tune of a song.  I think I have a CD somewhere including a recording of Séamus Ennis singing the song but it has been hidden somewhere more obscure than the side of the sofa by a young child. I've had to rely on memory therefore for the way the tune goes. The title means something like "The fair haired Canavans".

I'm not sure I've ever seen a turnpike gate so I'm not sure what qualities one might have to get a reel named after it. Anyway, here's a tune called after such a gate.

Here's another request from long ago.  I don't think the tune's title refers to a domestic measuring tool.

I was asked back in August to play this tune.  I've at least managed it before October ended.  The flute hasn't forgiven me for spending a lot of the last hour playing a miniature version of itself (I think baby flutes have a special name but I'm always getting the 'cc's and 'll's confused in the spelling) and blowing into a big flute has proved difficcullt - (it's happenned again only worse). Anyway, thanks Mary for telling me about this tune on 2nd August, and I hope it sounds OK.

I was asked to record this tune so here it is, only a few days late.  I've always just known this tune from afar so if it sounds like I'm a bit unfamiliar with its finer points (like the notes and stuff like that) then that's probably just because I am. Like most of CL's tunes, it's a fine piece of music and might be strong enough to emerge intact from my mangling.

Here's a popular reel - so popular that it has taken me 3 years to think of it.

I've been laptopless for a while so have hadn't been able to post any tunes.   I now have a new laptop and it and an old flute have combined to record this not so new jig.  I'm not used to the recording level on the new computer so this post may only be audible to canine creatures.   Maybe they can be persuaded to bark a louder version out if necessary.

Here's a nice jig.  I can't type any more as I can hear a baby stirrng; a baby who cares little about this site and the words and notes thereon.

I've finally got around to looking at a couple of requests to record tunes.  This is the only one I've got around to playing though.  It's also the only torn jacket I've given any attention to although I seem to have several, the holes in which heavily outnumber the arms I can find to put through them.

Here's a tune I was asked to play.  It is named after the great Sligo fiddle player whose name escapes me just now.

This isn't really a flute tune.  It comes from the fiddle playing of Francie Byrne from Kilcar, Co. Donegal.

All I know about this tune is what I read about it in Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol 5.  It says there that the fiddler James McEnery composed it.  I hope I'm not decomposing it too much here.

The title of this tune (and song of the same name) translates as "The Seaweed of the Yellow Cliff". - a tune caught between a wrack and a hard place perhaps. There are a few versions of this tune but I could only think of this one just now.  I still have to think of the other tunes which are on my list to play here but my thought processes are running very slow these days.

Here's a tune I stole from a recording of Con Cassidy. I don't know much about it, except for what the notes are.  I suppose that's a start.

Here's a jig I heard on a recording of Michael Gorman.  It's called Guiry's favourite in O'Neill's. I was a bit distracted by an infant with a new set of noisy birthday presents but hopefully the tune recovers sufficiently frequently to make it possible to pick up.

I'm a bit behind on recording tunes at the moment.  I'm even behind with being behind with things.  I think that's what's behind the delays. Anyway.  I was asked for "The Lads of Laois", so here it is / they are, unleashed.  I think I was asked for a nice version.  I never really had a nice version so I had to record a nasty one. I listened back to the start of this recording through my computer's speakers and it sounded as if the tune was being played underwater on a trombone but maybe once it has been hung out on the web for a while it'll dry out a bit.  I'll record the other tunes on my list once I find the list.

I've just been asked to play this tune so here it is.  I'm not too sure how reliable this version is but it is maybe a bit closer to the version common in Ireland than the version on another website near you.  I think it mightn't originally be an Irish tune so maybe the funny version is the normal version where the funny version comes from and the normal version is maybe ... etc. This is also known as "The Cliff Hornpipe".  Whether that's the Cliff of "Summer Holiday" fame, I don't know.

I was asked a while ago to play this.  I think I've already played it under a different name but I'm happy enough to post it with this name and look like I know more tunes than I really do.  I can't remember what the other name I called it was so this is probably the one I'll use in future.

Here's one I wasn't asked to play.  I wasn't asked not to play it either so as it doesn't seem to be here already I thought I'd give it a go.  I think I was half the age I am now when I last played this tune and if I live to be twice the age I am now I'll either have too few teeth or too much sense to play it again. There's a touch of a farting in the bath sound about it.  Maybe it's more of a windpipe than a hornpipe.

Here a very long hornpipe which I've been asked to play.  I maybe played it a bit too fast the second time around but as it has so many parts I had to rush to finish it before the shops shut. (This version is vaguely like the one in Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol. 3 - No. 208)

I had to look this one up in "The Book" when asked tp post it.  I found it in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland, 1001 Gems (No. 469).  I had just previously found "The Book" on the sideboard by the door into the kitchen.  There is some audible dissent in the background but O'Neill was from Bantry so I'd trust this version OK despite the critical opinion which is to the fore in parts of this recording.

I found a 'please play the battering ram' email so here's said man-ewe (not Man U which I believe is a soccer team). This rendition is more sheepish than extraordinary but most of the notes are there.

I was asked to record this tune so here it is. I don't know what key it should be in.  Here's a go at it in D minor and then A minor.  I heard something once about dropping a piano down a coal shaft and getting A flat minor.

There's a character in The Magic Roundabout called Mr. Rusty.  I fear that my Homme de Fer may have become a Fear Meirgeach himself.

Here's a Paddy O'Brien reel (I think). Instead of a jolly seven here I think I have a fairly happy seven and a mildly miffed number 8.  The overall recording quality is a bit dodgy here and the sound of the sean nós shouting infant in the background maybe doesn't help things too much (no infants were harmed in the making of this post).

I can't think of any quick tunes at the moment so here's a slow one.  I want to spell this "Cois Abhainn na Seod" but forces I don't understand take me to the spelling I used instead.  This is a song air which comes from Cúil Aodha in Co. Cork.  I probably have it all wrong but I never go to Cork so I should be safe from close quarter retribution at least.  (The title in English is "Beside the River of Gems /  Jewels - I know how to spell that anywaieieieiy).

I just got an email from a pigeon fancier, or at least someone who wanted me to post this tune.  So here's my pigeon-post, or maybe pigeon on the gatepost.  I'm surprised not to have recorded a pigeon on the gate to date, but better late than never at any rate.

Here's a reel which I think Paddy O'Brien (from Smallhillsville) composed. The hills may be small but they seemed to take an age to upload onto this site.  They must be the wrong shape for internet pipes.  I know little of hills and tend not to go anywhere more topographically elevated than upstairs in a not too tall house in a low down town.  I hope the tune's shape hasn't been too distorted, either by its journey to the web, or by its time spent in my mildly mangled music head.

I've finally got round to playing another tune.  I stole my wife's flute to play it as I can't remember where I left my own.  The fact that this recording sounds like it was made in a sewer is no reflection on the flute.  The recording wasn't made in a sewer; I'd never bring someone else's instrument into such an environment.  Now I come to think of it, the same flute was once found in a wheelie bin after a burglary.

Here's a tune I was asked to play.  Some people associate this time of year with Yule logs.  I appear just to have a backlog but this will hopefully have removed at least a sawtooth's fill from it. One reason I'm so slow about posting tunes these days is that I can't remember the names of any more of them.  I got this one by asking  Mr.Google about the name I was given.  He seems to call it 'The Girls of Farranfore'.

Here's a jig about a betting Priest, or a Priestly bet.  I don't know how he fared in the gamble but the jig flutters on to this day. There are a few versions of this knocking about.  This is more or less like the one in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland.

Here's a slip jig which I was asked to post here.  It's been so long since I posted anything that the requestor has probably forgotten requesting it. I don't know whether you need a special type of fig for a kiss; "can I have a fig please; one of those ones you use for ... ?" and if so is it the same sort which helps with the digestive processes.  Maybe just typing this little 'f' word will ease the blockage in my tune posting pipeline. I must go now and post some Santa cards.

Here's a tune I've been asked to play.  I think there are various cereal crops piled up in hornpipe names.  In these straitened times maybe a little stack is the most appropriate choice for the days that are in it ... innit'?

I've been asked to play this one so here it is.  There's a tune call "snow on the hills" a few posts down.  This one is continuing the theme but maybe has more to do with Kagools than with skis.

Here's a reel which is also called "Murphy's Hound".  I'm not sure how it got these two names or what the connection may be between them.  Something to do with the Isle of Dogs maybe, though as one island is in the Thames and the other in the Atlantic, I may well be barking up the wrong tree entirely.

The question mark is part of the title, not an indication of doubt about what the title is.  Having said (or typed) that, I'm not sure whether said question mark should be in the title.  Maybe I should have typed (or written) 'Anything for John-Joe??'.  I'm not too sure about the hyphen either. Hopefully the tune is more straightforward???

The recent weather which, according to the radio person, is the worst and snowiest since the last time we were told it was the worst since bad weather started to be bad and to be recorded as such, has reminded me that I was asked to post this tune. I didn't know it so here's just a rough guess as to what the dots at www.snowonthehills.org (http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/8535) say it goes like.

Here's a tune I overheard someone asking for. I've a couple more to do too and I'll get around to them as soon as I find where I tied the knot in my hankerchief.

I dinny play this before 'cause I dinny know it right.  Chance I still donny but here's a try. (See CRÉ 3 uimh.145 for more reliable version.)

Here's a wee tune I stole out of Ceol Rince na hÉireann 3 (uimhir 57). I know it's meant to be bad luck stealing or interfering with thorn bushes in the wild.  Hopefully na daoine beaga don't take such a dim view of thorn thefts from tomes.

Here's a slip jig.  It's maybe more of a slip shod in this incarnation.   It's a good tune for anyone with a memory and a set of pipes.  I have neither but tried to make do all the same.

I was asked to play this one so long ago that I nearly forgot but here it is; caught just in time. I used to think the title of this tune has something to do with petrol stations.  I then learned a bit (a very little bit) about spelling.  Any quasi-judicial activitles that used to occur round here tended to be located at the back of petrol stations rather than in front of them in any case.

I think this is also called the "Forget-me-not".  Any notion of a sieve-for brains like playing a tune with a name like that doesn't seem right somehow so I'll just keep calling it Redican's.

There are lots of versions of this highland.  This is in danger of sounding like none of them but it is an attempt to at least resemble a version I heard on a recording of the fiddle player Jimmy Lyons from Teelin, Co. Donegal.  It's far less fiddly on the fiddle than the flute.  If playing it in A is too annoying, just drop it down to G.  The flute seems to like it there but as someone went to the trouble of making a G# key for my flute, I thought I should go to the trouble of pressing it the odd time.

I haven't had many chances to post tunes lately and this one was a bit of a rushed job.  Any sound of a screaming baby in the background is hopefully a reflection on his distaste for bedtime rather than for my playing.  Sorry;  who am I trying to kid?  I've stopped playing now and the baby is now dreaming sweet dreams (of daddies who don't play flutes perhaps).

This one used to be played by Con Cassidy. I should maybe let lazy dogs lie and not try to rush them. The tune bit me in a few places on this occasion for not following that advice but time constraints and all that these days ... (25/08/08 - apologies - this isn't the Lazy Dog Highland - Marin is right.  When I get time I will get this sorted out.  The dog looks sort of comfortable here though).

I was asked to play this a while ago but haven't had much of a chance to play anything lately. The request referred to the "lovely flowing style" of a certain well known flute player.  I'm afraid I can only do stumbling but the tune can still hopefully be learned from here.

Here's a tune from a list of ones I was asked to play. I learned it years ago as the "Flying Rockets" / "Robert Emmett's Flying Spaceship". As is the case with sunsets (I think they require the sun to be in the sky at the start of the setting process), I haven't heared tell of this tune for a long time.  I hope I've remembered most of the notes.

I think I have another version of this tune posted here.  In a moment of inspiration I called it "Barndance".  That moment of inspiration occurred at 2 o'clock on a Sunday morning after many, many hours in a pub. Hopefully this version is slightly less "inspired" (though it's still a bit shabby in parts).

Here's one I forgot about.  Maybe I forgot too much about.

I'm sure nobody was wondering what it sounds like when a person plays a jig they don't know while looking out at a pissing wet August afternoon.  Just on the off chance that anyone was ...

I've seen this tune with a "Hinch" and also with a "Hench". I was never a good henchman so I'll stick with i before e

Here's a tune which I found lurking amongst the ones which I must have uploaded at some stage.  I don't know why I never posted this one and I'm too much of a coward to listen back to it to find out.  I'll leave the mal de mer to others. There is a lovely tune called "The Rolling Wave".  I hope this is like it but I'll not bet on it.

Here's a tune which has the same number of names as it has parts. It may also have other names I don't know about.

There's a jig called "Kitty's Rambles" / "The Rambles of Kitty" (depending on which form of the genitive case is to the fore) but this one is nothing like it, apart from having the same time signature, structure and almost the same name.  I've never seen this one referred to as "The Rambles of Cat" but I have seen "Whelan's Old Sow" (but not "The Old Sow of Whelan") pinned to it. Neither tunes' names nor names of tunes ever made much sense to me.  Hopefully this cat's / Kit's / whatever you please sir's, apostrophised journey won't lead to an 'astrophe.

Here's a reel composed by Edward V Reavy.  I hope I haven't decomposed it too much here.

Here's a version of a popular reel from South West Donegal.  There's at least one other version of this tune and once I've got over the trauma of trying to remember this one I'll try to remember it too. I've put 2 tunes on today as it being the twelfth of July, there are lots of other flute players and their friends clogging the streets of Belfast and causing businesses and places of entertainment to close. This gives me a lot of time to spend in the house this sunny Saturday.

I was asked to play this reel and here's my attempt to oblige. Séamus Ennis's father wrote the tune and there's a great rendition of Séamus playing available on a CD. I think youtube even has a video of the same performance. My attempt at picking through the tune is far from what the real thing is but at least it's in 'D'. (I had to find some good point to refer to).

This is a fairly common tune. I'm sorry if it appears hurried in places but I was getting withering looks from a baby while I played it and that put me off a bit.

Here's a very popular jig which I was asked to play.  It's especially popular among people who are learning to play the flute or the tin whistle.  Stair carpets have a lesser regard for it.

I've been asked to play this one so here it is.  There are lots of versions of it and I'm never sure which one is closest to a standard one.  I'll not guarantee than this effort will make people any the wiser as to the answer to that question.

As with a lot of apparently simple tunes, there are lots of variations of this reel.  This is in danger of not being any of them.

Here's a very common hornpipe. I'm sorry about the sound. I listened back to it (I normally don't) and it sounds as if I recorded it in a particularly cavernous public lavatory. May it was the same one in which some 1970s record companies used to record their traditional music LPs.

I've been asked to try this one.  Well, at least I tried.  I sort of learned it once off a Michael Coleman record but I don't have that record any more so I'm relying on memory; never a wise move in my case.

Maybe safer with the twig if time is an issue.

Here's yet another reel. It differs from the others which I've posted in that it is called "The Antrim Rose" while they are not. I am currently sitting in said county with a thorny, fragrant flower of the genus rosa within 8 feet of me. I don't think that has anything to do with this choice of tune though. There are plenty of other things even closer to hand than roses but I'm not about to play "The Dirty Mug".

I'm sorry about the clicky G# key in this one.  I think my fingers may need a drop oil too.