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Author Topic: Tunes that have been "done to death"  (Read 1288 times)

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Alyn Iorwerth

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Tunes that have been "done to death"
« on: December 10, 2018, 07:41:11 PM »

Do other people fall out of love with what are essentially good tunes, because they've been thrashed to death by insensitive players in sessions?
This was brought to mind just last week when a friend played Horses Bransle - it was the first time I'd heard it for about seven years, and it's a great tune. When it was played without fail every single week in a session I used to go to, I got to hate it.
On my current hate list is Boys of Bluehill which I learned way back in the 70s after hearing the wonderful Terry Potter of the Etchingham Steam Band play it on the harmonica. When it was new to me, I loved it, but now I cringe every time someone starts it up.
Ashoken Farewell is getting to be the same, but I have an antidote that I keep at home - Jay Ungar's recording with his band Fiddle Fever reminds me how it can be played.
What we like and dislike is obviously a personal thing, but I'd be interested to know what others have grown to hate.

Alyn   
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Theo

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Re: Tunes that have been "done to death"
« Reply #1 on: December 10, 2018, 07:56:32 PM »

It sounds as if it’s the sessions you don’t like rather than the tunes. I go to fewer different sessions than I used to because of that very thing.  Mainly I think it’s the size of sessions that is the root of the problem.  It’s hard to think of a really good one where there are more than 12 or 15 players. It depends on the size and shape of the room too,  but as soon as you reach a point where each player can no longer hear everyone else than it’s doomed!
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Stiamh

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Re: Tunes that have been "done to death"
« Reply #2 on: December 10, 2018, 09:03:05 PM »

It's hard to avoid aversion building up against tunes when you hear them played badly, even massacred, over and over again. Or even just played not very well.

But things can change. Over 30 years ago I heard a recording of a tune that, at the time, I wouldn't have been seen dead playing. It was Paddy Killoran's recording of The Harvest Home and the tune was instantly rehabilitated for me - it became something exuberant, to play fast and delicately and have fun with.

Similarly I enjoy playing The Boys of Bluehill because, inspired by a recording of Séamus Ennis, I started inverting some of the phrases, as it were, and over a period of years have developed my own setting that I'm quite attached to.

You might get to the point where you break through the aversion barrier. In the world of Irish sessions, tunes like The Kesh Jig or the Butterfly or Banish Misfortune will elicit scorn and curled lips from many who have left the beginner stages behind. But I'll play them with anyone. If they weren't good tunes, they wouldn't be done to death. And when you've really left the beginner stages behind, you will probably find you can do something fresh with them.  :|glug

rees

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Re: Tunes that have been "done to death"
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2018, 09:19:51 AM »

The Boys of Bluehill took on a new lease of life in 2015 when Johnny Connolly showed me how to play it in A on the D row.
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richard.fleming

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Re: Tunes that have been "done to death"
« Reply #4 on: December 11, 2018, 10:14:18 AM »

I read somewhere that the Boys of Blue Hill was the first tune collected by yr policeman O'Neill for his tune collection, from a young fiddler from Mayo working in the Chicago stockyards, who suddenly disappeared into the West and was never heard from again, taking all his tunes with him, and since then the tune has been proofed against getting 'done to death' as far as I'm concerned.
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smiley

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Re: Tunes that have been "done to death"
« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2018, 08:56:28 PM »

The Boys of Bluehill took on a new lease of life in 2015 when Johnny Connolly showed me how to play it in A on the D row.

And of course when you use this fingering pattern to play Boys of Bluehill on the G row it magically comes out in D!
The chords on your D/G box work out too. Its a great way to stimulate your brain, and add some spice to playing the old standard tunes in sessions.
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