Irish Flute Tunes: Recent Episodes

Michael Clarkson

Traditional Irish Tunes Played on the Flute (iflute@googlemail.com)

* Tune Index all Muddled up *

I've just posted a tune here for the first time in months. While I was on the site I noticed that the tune names are no longer in alphabetical order. I think they are now in chronoligical order. If you just type Ctrl +F and then put in the tune name, or part of the name, it will take you to the link for that tune if it is on the site.

Some recordings not playing

Some recordings go missing from this site from time to time; the internet seems to suffer from memory laspses jist like the rest of us. If you find that a recording doesn't play, please let me know. I have the recordings backed up somewhere (though I'm not sure where) and as a last resort I think I might be able to find some of the tunes in my head and somehow transfer them from there back onto the site.

Hello. This site contains recordings I have made as a source of tunes for people who play the flute, or other instruments for that matter. They are often just versions of tunes as I remember them. My memory isn’t the best so in some cases I cheat and find the dots online. In some cases the online versions and the dots inside my head aren't quite the same so there may be a sort of 'average' appearing. I usually play the tunes once through slowly to make them easier to learn, then I have a bit of a run at them to give another view of them. I hope this approach is OK. If anyone has any comments, or tune suggestions, please get in touch (iflute@googlemail.com).

Thanks, Michael Clarkson (Belfast, Luxembourg and on the Dublin-Belfast Aircoach).

Slowing Down Tunes

Just in case the tunes on this site aren’t dull enough, you can slow them down using recent versions of Windows Media Player (I’m sure there are plenty of other ways of doing this too).

In Windows Media player click Now Playing at the top of the screen then pick Enhancements and then Play Speed Settings. There is a nice range of speeds displayed but I can only get the half speed one to work. That’s probably enough to be getting on with in any case.

Tune number 748 from O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland - 1001 gems

There are 1000 tunes in this book with better names but only some of them are better 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: 1 T:Jackson's Reel (sort of flute-friendly'ish) R: reel M: 4/4 L: 1/8 K: 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've been living in a teeny weeny flat in Luxembourg for the last three weeks and have been afraid to play in case the people in the teeny weeny flats above and beside me objected. I finally got playing last night in a pub at a session with 4 flutes - just like home only the drink was a lot dearer. This tune was mentioned (not by me) but nobody knew it well enough to play it. I've given myself a crash course in playing the tune today in my teeny weeny apartment in this nice little country. I think the first half of the term 'crash course' might be the most relevant here. I'll blame that on my fear of annoying the residents near my little Luxembourgish lodging.

I think Tommy Peoples made this tune up. Best to find a recording of him playing it, or any other tune for that matter.

This jig is also known as 'Health to the Ladies'. It's a good tune for getting used to playing in A as it doesn't need any G sharps. As for the identity of Sweet Biddy Daly: I think she was the alter ego of Sour Suzie Knightly.

https://thesession.org/tunes/327

Here's a reel composed by Josephne Keegan. I can't tell you much about the title though I know that a gate is like a door with the outside on its inside and outside; a Mullagh (or mullach) is a hilltop and so lots of hilly places are named after this feature:http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/mullach.

Here are some dots: https://thesession.org/tunes/2243

Here's a reel which was included in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland in 1907 as 'An Bhó Mhaol / The Hornless Cow' but was recorded by Liam Walsh in 1933 as 'The One Horned Cow' https://archive.org/details/LiamWalshTheFairyReelTheOneHornedCowTheLimestoneRock. The beast must have sprouted a bit in the intervening 26 years; unless 1930s Waterford had a population of bovine unicorns - possibly only visible to Uilleann Pipers. Maybe it still does. (There's a baby battering a table in the background of this recording - more in time than many percussionists).

Here are the cow's dots. https://thesession.org/tunes/2825

Here's a Lonesome Jig. It only has 681 companions on this site so far - no wonder it feels a bit isolated.

Here's a tune I've managed to overlook during the years I've been putting tunes on this site. It refers to the Blarney Stone the kissing of which is reputed to leave a great facility for fine talk on the lips which were in contact with said stone. I was taken for my contact with the Blarney Stone when I was a child, though I think I was held the wrong way up and the incorrect bit of me made contact with the little rock of eloquence. You can find the dots here:https://thesession.org/tunes/5

I've just got my nice old flute back from a period in a flute hospital so felt inspired to post a tune on it before I break it again.

This tune appears to be the third Mama's Pet I've posted here so she'll maybe able to open a small zoo. I'm not sure what species this pet is or even how many limbs it has, if any, or whether it has fur or just skin or scales. The details I could find are here: http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=1290-12.abc-1-Mama~s~Pet

Here's a tune popular among some fiddle players in Donegal. I'm not sure whether it is unpopular among everyone else in that county but I'll maybe avoid playing it there just to be on the safe side. There is a version of it here: http://thesession.org/tunes/11250 taken down from the fiddle playing of Vincent Campbell (presumably one of the Donegal fiddle players amongst whom this tune is popular). I've also heard a recording of John Doherty playing it and I first learned it from another fiddle player, i.e. Paul O'Shaughnessy who has a keen awarness of the Donegal fiddle zeitgeist.

Just grabbing a rare moment in the house when not being entertained / attacked (it's a fine line) by children. The first 2 minutes of that moment have been used up by playing this reel. www.tunepal.org told me it is called the Walls of Limerick. I have it on a recording of John McKenna on the flute with Michael Gaffney (I think) on the banjo. The notes at http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=266-hnr2.abc-2-Walls~of~Limerick%2C~The look very like it. I'm sure all will be revealed and explained when 'Imminent' becomes 'Recent' in a while ... http://www.johnmckenna.ie/irish-time/.

Here's a tune which John McKenna recorded. To hear it played properly in digitised ex-shiny-shellac format you'll soon be able to buy the CD referred to here:http://www.johnmckenna.ie/irish-time/

The notation here isn't too far off the way McKenna had it (closer that I could manage in any case). http://thesession.org/tunes/12577

Here's a reel I just heard on a recording of the Donegal fiddle maestro John Doherty. There are a few written versions here: http://tunepal.org/tunepal/search_titles_new.php?q=last+night%27s+joy As for the title - I think mine was finding half a packet of Kettle Chips and only being beaten 9:3 at Connect Four by my phone.

Here's an old, neglected Sligo jig. There's a recording of Paddy Sweeney from Moylough in Sligo playing it on a fiddle in 1937: http://archive.org/details/PaddySweenyRogersJigVillageJig. I like listening to recordings like that of tunes played at a quick pace and then hearing people who extol the virtues of Coleman, Sweeney, Killoran et al, giving off at people for playing too fast when they are playing much slower that their heroes every played. I'm sorry if that was a very clumsily cobbled sentence - I'm not used to the heat - a bit of which has been visited upon us of late. You'll be able to find the tune in squashed tadpole form at http://thesession.org/tunes/11483 and play it at whatever speed you like.

Here's a jig from the South West - mar atá Co. Clare. I associate it with Willie Clancy. I'm not sure whether its title refers to the direction the air flowed through his pipes while he played it. I think my flute was more Mecca-wards when I was playing it on this occasion - that would just be a west wind - with slight precipitation towards the end of the tune.

For disciples of the dot there's always http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=8445-75.abc-1-Southwest~Wind%2C~The.

Here's a Gan Ainm - one of a host of Gans Ainm in Breandán Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann 2. At least the person BB got the tune from had an ainm - namely Michael Ryan, a flute player from Co. Sligo, so (that's 'so' the conjunction rather than the Sligo 'SO' that you may see on a numberplate in Ballymote) I'll call the tune after Mr. R. Mr. B. gave the reel the rather appealing number 142 in his book.

Here's another Lad O'Beirne's reel. I don't know much about it.

The notes in dotty form can be found here:

http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=1209-misc-tunes2_A-M.abc-30-Lad~O~Beirne~s~Reel~%28a%29~%28key~D%29~%25~misc%3CBB

Here's a close relative of the 'Lark in the Morning'. This one has fewer parts - from my playing it sounds as though it may be missing a wing and part of its voice.

http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=87-cces-tunes2.abc-20-Morning%7ELark

Here's a reel I was reminded of today by listening to a recording of Brendan McGlinchey, the great fiddle player from Armagh. He plays it in C on the recording but I'm all at sea without a paddle in that key for this tune so I'll wear my hat with a 'D' on it for now.

Here's another effort on my Rudall and Lazarus flute. The version of the tune here is decidedly dodgy. I half learned it lots of moons ago before I ever heard a recording of it. A more reliable version can be got here: http://tinyurl.com/auc5x3n . I was reminded of the tune today about 10 minutes after the postman kindly delivered a copy of this lovely recording: http://claddaghrecords.com/WWW/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=3521 (the packaging was quite hard to open otherwise I'd have heard it a bit sooner).

Here's my latest attempt to play my old Rudall flute. I've been using a combination of insulating tape, knives, scissors, super glue, our child's skin moisturiser and kettle steam as tools of resuscitation; maybe I should be trying them on the flute.

http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=2708-25.abc-1-John~Dwyer~s

Here's a jig which comes from up Sligo. Dots can be found up here: http://tunepal.org/tunepal/show_tune.php?tunepalid=2272-21.abc-1-Up~Sligo

Here's an old jig played on an old flute.

This poor flute is falling apart, maybe due to modern nasties like central heating which weren't about when it was young. It seems not to like being 'My Warmer Fife'.

Here's a tune I've played for years. I never knew a name for it so I played it into the magic tunepal.org machine and that is where this title came out of. My first part for the tune is a bit different from the versions on the computer but I suppose there's no harm in that. It's worth taking note of the advice on the photo even if the tune is of no interest.

This also goes under the name of 'Lavan's Favorite' in 'Ryan's Mammoth Collection'. I've tried to play it fairly close to the dotty version here: http://www.oldmusicproject.com/AA3Sheet/1201-1800/Sheet-1501-1600/1551-LarryChoice.gif (Larry Lavin's Choice).

A combination of warm weather and a bit of recent, regular playing has allowed me to get through this tune on my boxwood flute without it falling apart (that's the flute I'm talking about - not so sure about poor Larry's reel).

Here's a fairly straightforward version of a popular reel in A. I avoided any G sharps in the slow version lest I may sustain a cut finger. There may be one or two (sharps and / or damaged digits) lurking around the quicker version.

Here's an approximation of O'Neill's version of a popular jig. The dots can be found at: http://www.oldmusicproject.com/AA3Sheet/0701-1200/Sheet-0801-0900/0812-GirlsBanbridge.gif

If you want to hear it played properly you could do worse than click on this link: http://archive.org/details/MichaelColemanGirlsofBainbridgeCherishtheLadies .

The name in Coleman's version is 'Bainbridge' - maybe a reference to characters in Beryl's very early work (she'd have been 8 at the time).

Here's a different sort of tune by way of a change. I've just played each part singly the first time round. If I appear to be rushing a bit during the quicker version that's probably because I was being distracted by the smell of the 'Young's Chip Shop Fish Fillet in Crisp Bubbly Batter' which is in the process of being turned into my dinner in my oven. I bet Carolan never had that problem. If he did occasionally salivate over the notion of some 17th / 18th century convenience food it was probably not too much of an encumbrance on his harp playing anyway.

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.

1 + 1 = ?????

Never could add up (or hit a high 'A' - worried about hiatus and all that stuff).

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.

Here's a slightly dry-mouthed and dry-fluted go at "The Tempest". My mouth is now so dry after playing it that I can't even type any more nonsense about it.

Here's one I was asked for. For some reason (maybe because I almost never go out playing) I haven't heard this tune for a while so this version mightn't be very up to date. It may have a chance of being recognised as at least a relative of the "Flowing Bowl" which does get played by people who do go out.

I've recently been reminded of this one. I never knew its name until about ten minutes ago. Maybe in another ten minutes' time I'll know the notes as well.

I think Paddy O'Brien wrote it. It was probably a lovely tune when it left his fingers first ... like they say in Belfast about the Titanic - "it was all right when it left here".

I don't know that I've ever played this tune before but I've been asked for it so here is an attempt. I'm more of a terra firma person myself but I hope this maritime melody has survived my mal de mer.

I've put the apostrophe before the last "s" thinking that this tune was the property of a single salt.

Here's a tune which I think is named after a bridge. Talking of bridges, I think I learned this on the fiddle in B flat. My fingers seem unwilling to coax this tune out of a 2 keyed flute in that key so here it is in C. I'm not sure whether C belongs to it but that's how it came out this time.

Here's one I've been asked to record. I had to look it up and I'm a bit uncertain of ho it goes. This version is probably sufficiently washed-up to at least have some shore connections anyway.

Here's one for flutes with flats. It's a bit vague here as per usual but it's a nice wee tune.

This is one I was asked to play. I don't know whether the version of the first part that goes up to a high 'C' is the normal one or whether the more land-based one rules the waves or waves at those who rule the land. I think I heard this tune from a recording of Leo Rowsome who as Rí na bPíobairí ruled over something himself.

If anyone listening is fussy about tune versions then this particular one will probably send them straight to www.vexed.com. Hopefully most other people will either like or ignore as they prefer.

As usual the playing here is a bit vague. The tune just occurred to me so I thought I'd play it while the sausages were cooking. They're done now - probably about as half-baked as this recording.

Here's a reel which I was asked to play. I'm not writing a disclaimer with the "Iwas asked to play" bit. It's just that I'm so glad to have been asked that I can't help but mention the asking in the posting.

I used to think this was a new fangled sort of a tune but the likes of Willie Clancy played it and Francis O'Neill has it in his collection from 1907 (I missed the centenary balloons anuraidh).

Here's my Friday evening go at it anyway. (The name makes me think of taking leaves intravenously. I've (y) more chance of taking leave of my ....).

I've been asked to play this. Having tried to play it I think I know why it I never did before now (I think it might be awkward on the flute). I couldn't even work out what the first note ought to be. I don't think I have enough of a bunker mentality.

Anyway, here's a sort of run at it. I hope there are only 3 parts in the tune. That's certainly all there are here.

Maybe this rendition will offend someone out there into learning the tune properly. I'm away out now to get wet and educated.

Here's another tune I was asked to post. Posting ponies; is that like Pony Express are are they just post ponies?

Anyway, I'm never too sure of the first part but that wasn't the focus of the query to which I'm trying to respond here. I hope I haven't forgotten about any parts either. It's a good job that the latter bits (another equine apparatus related term) hadn't too many low notes as on finishing the tune I noticed that my foot joint (hoof?) had fallen off.

I hope that the tune is OK, though, and promise that no animals were hurt in the recording of it.

Here's a fiddle tune. The flute's only really a fiddle with more holes and fewer strings so it's probably acceptable to play fiddle tunes on it. It even starts with the same letter.

I vaguely remember being in a group once, many years ago, and "Mooncoin" was the polite one of the two names it had. That's my only connection with Mooncoins.

I've just been asked to play this tune so here is an attempt at it. I'm about to go and do the washing up now and am feeling a bit uneasy about what may be lurking under last night's saucepans. A few wriggling elvers may actually be quite an effective dish dirt dislodger though.

Here's a reel I was asked to play. My postings of late have been about as frequent as my blacksmith sightings, merry or otherwise, but being reminded of this tune at least stirred me into a brief flurry of activity. This particular tune is very suitable for the flute and provides ample opportunity for anvilesque hammering sounds on the D notes. On this occasion I seem to have let most of these opportunities slip by but at least it's nice to know that they will still be there the next time I try the tune.

Here's a common reel. I thought I'd probably have played this one already but I didn't see it on the site. Maybe I called it by another name ("don't kiss me Kate" perhaps).

I hope this version is OK. My recall facility for tunes has been a bit vague lately.

I'm not really the right person to be playing this great composer's tunes but as I'm the one who happens to be nearest this computer, I'll have to do. I've just called this No.1 to mark it out from any subsequent PF reels which I might play in future.

This is yet another tardy response to a request to record a tune. I'm delighted to be asked to play specific tunes as it saves me having to think them up for myself.

I had to look this one up on the internet as I didn't know it. I hope my dot to note transfer has allowed the tune to arrive without being too scathed.

I think this tune is in B minor. My bad spelling allows me to think of digging in the ground for stripy, stingy things (stingy as in needle-arsed rather than tight arsed) but that's neither here nor there in the context of this tune.

(Sorry for using the 'a' word).

Here's a fairly popular one, as are many enchanted things and persons.

Here's another tune I was asked for. I've tried to oblige but I haven't quite got my sea legs. I might have been better scuttling this attempt.

Here's another request. I'm afraid I didn't recognise the name of the tune so I looked it up in www land. It sort of sounds familiar; mouth organs spring to mind (if that's a thing they can do) and by the end of the tune I thought I maybe knew the start. The version is at the mercy of whoever put it on the internet and whether he or she has the use of a reliable set of ears.

Here's a tune I was asked to play. I'm sorry it took me so long getting round to it. There are a few other tune requests that I'm currently in the process of taking even longer over.

I played a three part version at the end of this recording. I've heard three parts from a few people, one being Paddy Canny. My problem regerding part 3 may be that in fact Paddy can whereas I canny play it but I thought I'd try anyway.

I was asked to post this tune and am grateful to have been asked. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it myself. The setting here may be a bit dodgy but that may help to take the bad look off some of the other tunes I have played recently.

I have another reel which I've been asked to play but I think I'll need to excavate a particular tape recording before I can chance the second half of it. I'm off now to look for a shovel.

Here's another Martin Wynne thing. I'm not sure where I learned it but it seems to have been hovering about in quite a few places. If I can think of MW3 I'll have a got at it too.

I was asked ages ago to play this tune. I'm sorry it took so long but I always got distracted any time I set about playing it.

I think this is the number two variety of Martin Wynne reel. I'll have to get round to recording at least one other so as to bring about a Wynne Wynne situation.

I can't think of anything to write about this reel so

I can't promise that this tune will provoke as enthusiastic a reaction in other people as it did in Bess. Maybe she didn't get out much. I think it's a decent tune all the same which maybe doesn't get out enough either.

I was asked to play a reel of this name. I know there are several boys, and more than one Ballynahinch for that matter, in this country so I hope I have correctly identified all parties involved. If I have got the wrong tune please let me know and I'll try to mend my ways.

I've finally got around to playing this one which I was asked to play ages ago. The second part has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I hope I haven't made it even more of one with this effort. I think some of the notes are right and the order in which they appear is mroe or lses KO.

(This tune had a helium fit earlier. If it is still all Pinky and Perky tomorrow I'll record it again. In the meantime I'd recommend slowdown software).

(26/01/2008 - I've rerecorded the tune now. The only problem may be that I've forgotten some of it in the meantime).

This is my recollection of a fairly common reel. I was asked to record this one and I has taken me that long to do so that I can't even remember when I was asked. Maybe I wasn't asked at all. I think I have at least one other reel I'm meant to be putting on as well. Once I improve the organisational state of my life even to the lower reaches of chaos I will do the other tune too.

Here's another Paddy Ryan's Dream. Mr. Ryan must have been some sleeper.

I think this one is close to the version that John Doherty used to call "Mooney's Reel".

Here's my attempt to play this tune as requested to do so. I'm not too familiar with playing it on a flute and I fear that my playing may be straying in the direction of being the sort of dream Paddy Ryan, or anyone else for that matter, may get after consuming too much cheese at bedtime.

I know a different version of this tune which I'll maybe try once this one I've woken up from this one

This is a very popular reel which I just remembered I hadn't played on this site yet. I'm running out of popular tunes to play by this stage so when I do recall one I get a temporary happiness boost which is most welcome, especially on a dark Sunday evening like this one. I try not to remember tunes on Friday afternoons as happiness boosts on those occasions would send me over.

I'm not sure about the two names this reel gets called by. I suppose when someone wasn't able to remember one of them then the other sprang to their mind as an obvious alternative.

I think that daycaps, mornigcaps and other headgear have left me vexed and clueless regarding the name of this reel.

It was recorded by Michael Coleman around 80 years ago. I don't think he had a name for it. I'm not sure where this name came out of but it conjures up some interesting images though I can't quite tell what they are of.

I was asked to record this which is a good thing as otherwise my memory wouldn't have stumbled upon it. Now my mental recall has been provoked, I hope this is the same Reel of Rio that got lost in it years ago.

I don't know what the "Rio" in question is. Maybe its just that the name sounds better that "The Reel of Lagan".

Here's the one which comes after the one which I haven't posted yet. This one and the one which isn't here are tunes from Fermanagh.

Here's another port gan ainm. Níl port le hainm fágtha agam faoin am seo.

I seem to have run out of names of tunes to post so I'm going to have to start ganning ainms for the next while.

I learned this jig from a piper who has an ainm - Robbie Hannan - but whose ainm for this jig escapes me just now. I was never sure just how the two parts of the tune got on with each other but sometimes I can sense an uneasy peace between them.

This tune is also played as a reel with an extra bit thrown in. I'm sorry about the mess up at the end. I suddenly realised that I had seven minutes to finish the tune, upload it, write a comment, digest my dinner (I suspect that may actually take days) and catch the start of the film which appears to be the only thing on TV tonight.

I'll try the reel version soon.

Here's my attempted response to a request for this tune. Like most old and popular tunes it has lots of versions. I hope that this is at least in some way related to some of them. The Christmas to New Year period is left my memory more muddled than usual. I hope to be more organised in 2008.

I never knew much about customs, new, knew, known or none in particular but here's a tune relating to them which I hope isn't too taxing.

Here's a nameless wonder. I don't suppose it would be very sociable of me to spend time posting tunes on the internet tomorrow, even ones with names, so here's my Happy Christmas effort. I hope Santa is kind to everyone and the tunes make it down the chimney without too much incident.

Here's a reel from my holidays. I don't play this very often so I hope my version has survived the years of neglect I've so lovingly administered to it.

Here's a jig which I think is actually a single jig. I don't really understand all these different jig types so I'll just play the notes and leave the counting to those better qualified than I am. I think I first learned this tune from a book of the same name by Francie McPeake. This version is probably a bit different but as I can't find the book I can't be sure.

I'm better at knowing what time it is than knowing what day or year may be around about me. As it is cold and often dark quite early, I suspect this tune to be fairly seasonal about now. My version of this tune becomes less reliable as the day approaches but people who really know the tune will hopefully still recognise this approximation.

I'll try to think of something else to play between now and the Santa season's epicentre.

I can't really see what particular use could be made of a golden keyboard apart from for naming a tune after. It's a while since I either heard or played this tune (apart from about 3 minutes ago) so I can't guarantee that some keys on this particular board may be a bit more pig ironish than golden.

Sorry it's been so long since I posted a tune. The last thing I can remember is thinking that I was getting seasonal amnesia (I don't rightly know whether Santa will be able to fit it down the chimney, though). This tends to reduce the regularity of tune postings.

Here's one anyway. I'm not sure whether the title refers to the said mountain's hue or to its being made of recycled hills. It certainly can seem on occasions to be a fairly recyclable reel. It's a nice one all the same and helps flute players to believe that tunes aren't all that hard after all.

Here's a jig I nicked off a record of Johnny Cronin and Joe Burke (that's Burke with a beard and banjo rather than a beard and box). The name is sometimes given to Father O'Flynn's jig as well.

(Thanks Bernie for telling me the name of this tune).

Here's a reel which is as un-ainm-ated as I feel today having been at an over-crowded, over-priced and over-cooked Christmas (it's barely even December) dinner last night. At least now it's just an over dinner without a hyphen in pursuit.

Whatever about the name, I know enough about this tune to be able to say that I'm playing it in the key above its normal one. The present key is much easier on the flute than its G minor neighbour.

I have to go out into the rain now and listen to the shouts of the man who drinks beside the bus stop. He appears very placid in good weather but anticyclones seem to upset him. Hopefully the bus won't be too long in arriving.

Here's my very belated response to a request to post this tune. I hope late turns out to be better than never.

This is the name this hornpipe is given in Alan's Irish Fiddler. I think I've heard other names, and none, for it too. It's a good tune for exercising the G# key. I've included instances of both hitting and missing it throughout the tune.

Here's a reel which I think has Fermanagh connections. If I knew about FJMcG I'd be more sure of this.

I played the tune in a big, empty room so each note probably repeats itself about ten times. Just like my cooking.

Here's another tune I was asked to put on.

One of my problems with playing this tune is that is seems to have far more notes than I do. Another is trying to identify what these notes are and in which order they ought to come. I tried looking at Reavy's book "Where The Shannon Rises" to see whether his version would shed any light on the matter but this just reinforced my view that none of his tunes are normally played the way he wrote them.

Anyway, here's an attempt at an average of the myriad settings of this tune which tend to be lurking about the place.

Here's a tune which it was suggested I play. It was written by Junior Crehan. The tune is maybe a bit too melodic for the likes of me to play so I hope I haven't mangled it too much.

I've often had rain flowing down my back but that doesn't normally inspire anything other than cursing.

I was told this name for this tune by someone I sometimes trust. I'm not sure whether this is one of those occasions.

I hope it's a nice jig whatever its name is.

The first part of this tune should really be played an octave lower on a fiddle, complete with nice growly bits. I'm afraid a flute is all I had to hand so this is the best I could do. I'm never sure how to end this tune on any instrument. Maybe not starting it would work.

This is a John Doherty tune which is also known as the Monaghan Switch. There are a few versions on the go but this is the one which is stuck in my head at the moment. It's more or less the same as the version in the book "The Northern Fiddler".

I was asked to play this tune and am very grateful to have been reminded of it. I apologise if my evening's libatory recreations have blurred Barney's notes too much. There's a flute player from my town who recorded this tune in a more sober manner. If my version's vagueness is too vicissitudinal then verification could be found in the vicinity his CD. He is called Marcas.

Oíche mhaith,

Michael.

This is a version of Dr. Gilbert's Reel. I could do with the services of the same Mr. Quack as my hearing, breathing and tuning are all away with it. I Think it's just what's known as a cold but I intend moaning about it all the same. Sorry if this sounds worse than normal. It's hard to sneeze and maintain in-tune-producing breaths down a flute at the same time. Maybe I should try dissolving the Lemsip rather than snorting it.

Comes from big cow's?

Here's a very popular reel. I don't know a wild pile about it.

I think I have one of these which helps me cook.

Here's a nice plain tune which shouldn't do anyone too much harm.

Here's a hornpipe I was asked to post here. It took me about ten minutes to put the flute together as I'm tired after being away for a few days. I do the travel thing very badly. If I can put myself together in ten days I'll be doing well. As for putting this tune together ...

A popular jig. I can't tell you much about it now as I have to rush off now.

Related to the emery bard.

Here's a song turned into a jig.

Sorry for the higgledy-pigglediness of the posts over the next few days. I'll tidy them up next week.

Here's a nice hornpipe from County Clare. Some nice things do come from that county, so I'm told.

Here's one I was asked for. I'm not too sure of the second part so I looked it up. I hope I didn't mess it up too. The tune itself should be nice enough and strong enough to survive the slight mangling I gave it.

Here's a nice, simple reel which is really a song. I think I probably heard it on a recording of Michael Tubridy at some stage.

I stole my wife's flute to play it here. There could be a slippery slope here somewhere.

I think this tune is also known as "The Brown Coffin". I thought of the first title, and hence the tune, when I went into the kitchen to check on my dinner and was greeted by acrid fumes which made my eyes feel like I was wearing contact lenses made from slithers of onion. Now that I have eaten the dinner the second title is starting to annoy me.

I think this tune is much nicer than my cooking. I've moved it up one from the G minor key some people play it in.

The first part of this tune seems to have about as many endings as prople who play it. It's a cheerful sort of tune for all that.

Here's a melodic sort of a tune. It used to be the theme tune of the TG4 programme "Geantraí". It may well still be but it's on past my bedtime these days so I haven't seen it or heard its intro. for a while.

This might be related to Scotch Mary's tipple choices. It's definitely related to the Dublin Reel. I've heard this tune called "The Cock's Tail Reel" too. As for this rendition (very ordinary), I can't quite recall when I played it but I hope it isn't so bad as to be offensive.

Ta CW for reminding me of this tune on C&F. I'm never too sure about C# vs. Cnat in pt.3 but I love this reel.

As for Mary's taste in whiskey (or whisky) ... what's wrong with Power's or Jameson's? (apart from the paranoia they induce)

This was recorded by Tom Morrison in 1928 and probably by several other people since. Maggie may be in them and I'm note sure that I'm out of them yet myself.

This is the 500th posting I've put on this site so I'm away for a lie down and to think of a few tunes for the next thousand.

I once heard someone I know describe 2 women as being standing like "frillies in a field" but I have had little exposure to paddock based arums.

This is a fairly popular tune which seems happy to have as much or little done to it is one may prefer.

Here's a tune which seems to be going through my head a bit recently. I think this os because Raidió na Gaeltachta are using it as the theme music for their pick of the week show "Rogha na Seachtaine", which often seems to call out from my radio when I'm washing potatoes for dinner. With the soon to arrive winter here, the tap water will get colder and I'll get sore hands washing the spuds. Three months of crunching at gritty tubas awaits me if I'm to save my fingers aching with the cold.

Here's the tune I used to hear at sessions all the time played along with Dinky Dorrian's. For some reason it and Mr. Dorrian's reel seem fairly absent from the sessions I hear these days. Sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder. In my case it just makes my recollections of this, and of "Dinky's", grow vaguer.

In any case, here what remains of my recollections of it. I'm sure www land contains some less time-bevaguened versions.

The Dermis can be taken from the feline by various means. This one might be less painful (but you'd really have to ask Tiddles).

'E's between the 'A's in the second part seem the ease the journey a bit. Just a notion but it might sound normal enough in a crowded pub.

Here's a reel which was released into the wild by Francie "Dearg" Byrne who was a fiddle player from Kilcar, Co. Donegal. It is often just known as "Dinky's". I was reminded of it by its being mentioned on the C&F flute forum today. I didn't know it was a hard tune until I tried to play it here. I think it is easier on a bowed flute with strings but it is probably quicker to practice it a bit on the flute than to go off and learn the fiddle just for this one tune.

It's worth getting hold of RTÉ's CD "The Donegal Fiddle" to hear the late, great Mr. Byrne playing it.

Here's a single reel from Co. Clare. I've always been well behaved when in Co. Clare so all I know of this courthouse is that it has a reel named after it. I suspect it hasn't heard the clatter of a gavel for some time.

I'm never quite sure the title of this tune refers to someone's name or is an instruction.

It is a very popular tune and is on a lot of recordings. Packie Duignan recorded a particularly nice version of it.

This reel started out as a perfectly respectable 2 part creation but Michael Coleman threw a whole pile of other bits at it. He must of been either having a very bad or a very good day.

Here's my attempt at remembering it.

I don't think I've recorded this one already. If I have then the previous attempt is buried in the oblivion which befits its qualities. This tune is probably usually played in something approaching A minor. It also seems to quite like being played a key up the ways so I've 'B' ten as well. I think that's as far along the alphabet as I'll venture today.

Here's a slide which gives its name to a great record of Juiia Clifford and Denis Murphy from Sliabh Luachra. The name may have other connotations too but I don't understand them, whatever they may be.

Here's a tune I was asked to play. I haven't chanced it for a long time as the clouds in the sky above here seem to have forgotten how to move so this tune never seem to come to mind. It was composed, I think, by Neillidh Boyle who was a remarkable fiddle player from near Dunglow in Donegal. His birdsong impressions are equally as memorable as his tunes about his cumulus companions.

I hope the tune survived my memory lapses and general inability to play at the moment.

I don't know much about this one apart from how it goes (sort of).

I'm not sure what the name of this hornpipe refers to. I far too young to remember ha'pennies. The "Poll" sometimes manifests itself as a "Paul". That makes things even less clear to me.

Brendán Breathnach got this jig from James Byrne's father John and included it in Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol. 2. That was very considerate of him.

I know the title doesn't narrow down this tune's identity particularly well. Mind you, neither does "Gan Ainm" which is the other label I have for it. You can hear it played properly on a record that Tommy Peoples and Matt Molloy made some time ago.

Here's a popular reel. Mr. O'Connell's had his followers too, in places.

This is probably more messy than mossy the way I play it but it's a good tune despite that.

Here's a very popular jig. Thanks Mary for reminding me of it. I seem to be struggling a bit with it in places. I think this might just be my blackwood flute getting jealous of its new sibling.

This is really a fiddle tune but apart from the differences with strings, shape, holes, method of playing, sound and a few other things, a flute is just like a fiddle. I'm not sure whether this is really like a tune but it'll pass a couple of minutes finding out.

Here's a very common tune. Don't try singing Yeats to this version.

I think I'm getting used to this new flute now. I'm not quite so sure about being used to the recording levels to stop the Ps escaping from the MP3 files of it.

Andy McGann called this as above. John Doherty called it "The Fantastic Reel". I think I should call it a day.

I'll try again tomorrow. I'll call that Friday.

Here's a slip jig. There are a few with this name, maybe not one for every hill in lovely Leitrim but at least two or three. I'll try to remember them.

In the meantime I'd better go off and feed my hungry new flute with almond oil.

Here's a nice jig from a fiddle player I met the only time I was ever in America.

I'm playing it on a brand new flute here and I have also been eating chicken too recently. I'm not sure that that is a perfect set of circumstances for flute playing but I hope the tune is decipherable amidst the lathe whirring and the distressed clucking.

This tune has probably stayed too many whiles in its limbo place prior to my posting it now. As a result I can't remember how badly I played bits of it so I'll just apologise for it all.

Here are some humours. I hope you like them. Bye bye for now.

It was such a good night that it required two reels to do it justice.

Here's a popular reel commemorating a recent evening's enjoyment.

Here's a flute-friendly tune. I'm sure Mrs. C was very genial too.

This is called "Mick Hand's Reel" on a Mary Bergin record. That's tantamount to a hand mount. Whatever all this amounts to it is a nice reel.

This one has just raised its head inside my head for some reason so here it is before I forget it again.

Here's a fairly inoffensive sort of tune. That in itself might be reason enough for playing it.

I still haven't got round to playing the new ones. They appear to be in the process of falling off at the moment so I'm maybe best leaving them to it.

Here's Mama's other pet. It think it is currently my pet Mama's Pet.

Here's one of Mama's pets. I know of at least one other so Mama must never have been lonely.

This is also known as the Sweep's hornpipe. Poor old Béal Feirste could do with a good brushing. Now that the whole town is a smokeless zone there are probably plenty of spare bristled implements with which to effect that very same cleanup.

For such a simple reel there seem to be a lot of ways of playing the second part. I've had a go at a few of them here.

It's a great tune for the flute.

I don't know which Dillon liked this one - Bob, Thomas or the rabbit from the Magic Roundabout, but I admire his, her or its taste.

Here's a 12/8 single jig. It's a sort of pipey thing but a flute can think that it is a pipe when necessary.

There seem to be quite a few tunes with this name. Most of them are slip jigs. I think I know what causes them to slip.

It took me about ten minutes to get anything even resembling a tune out of my flute this morning. I'm sorry if this tune sounds excessively reluctant.

Here's a reel I think I heard from James Byrne who is a great fiddle player from Donegal. I'm not sure what scowling looks like (I've led a charmed life) so apologies if the attached image is erroneously selected.

Here's a jig which doesn't seem to get just as much playing as it used to. Maybe scattering mud has been superseded by slinging it.

This version is fairly close to the one on O'Neill's book although my copy is very old and grubby and it can be hard to tell whether some of the black marks are notes or just scattered bits of dirt.

Here's a tune referring to a multi tasking person who can also be drunken, yellow and have daughters. I'm sure there there are more things to add to that list too.

Here's a popular reel. I've probably seen an otter as recently as I have played this reel until now and I hope the notes have more or less landed where they belong.

Here's a reel which shares part of its name with a well known flute player. I'll not say which part of the name applies.

I might have played this one on my plastic flute but I'm not sure. I've been to Dublin and appear to have left most of my memory there.

This is probably cruelty to a Crowley but here's the second half of the pair anyway. I'm posting this in absentia (one of my favourite places) so it will probably be on the wrong side of the introduction for a day. I'm sure that all means nothing but I wanted to type it anyway.

(This is another plastic flute experiment)

Here's one I've been asked to play. I was never sure what to do with the first part (maybe play it on a fiddle) so I might be floundering a bit here. I hope I haven't mangled it too much. If I was Charlie and was welcomed by an attempt like mine here I wouldn't be too pleased with Jenny but I did try.

Here's a Crowley's reel. There are a few of them. Michael Coleman must have been a fan of Mr. Crowley as he recorded a few tunes named after him. I've played this one on my plastic flute. I hope Mr. Crowley doesn't mind.

I know that I heard this tune from the Donegal fiddle player James Byrne but I don't know for sure whether this is it's name. He does play one of this name so there's a chance I'm right. As for whether I remembered how it goes; who knows? I think it sort of goes like this. There's a record of James Byrne's playing which has this tune on it but I have it as an LP and my machine to making LPs sing has lost its voice and so I can't check.

Here's a tune I was asked to play and used to hear in sessions all the time. Maybe that's got something to do with the fact that I used to go to sessions all the time. I made slightly heavy weather of it here. Maybe I should try playing the crowbar and floating the flute.

Here's a common reel. I played it here on a plastic flute. I'm not sure whether playing reels into a computer using a plastic tube is really all that wholesome, or holy for that matter. I'm pleased with the flute, though.

Here's a nice thing, except if you're a fox. I suspect no foxes ever look at this site so I'll not be overly concerned about upsetting any of them.

Here's a fairly popular reel from Fermanagh which I heard on a record of Cathal McConnell. That's all I have to say on the matter.

This reel is also known as "The Mountain Lark". Neither playing with packets of steam nor larking on mountains are particularly safe activities but playing this tune on a flute should be fairly harmless.

Here's a reel which fairly popular and which I like despite never knowing whether E, F natural of F sharp should be in second part. Here's a go at it anyway.

Here's a nice reel which Michael Tubridy played on his LP "The Eagle's Whistle". I've been stealing a lot of tunes from that LP lately which is odd as I haven't heard it for at least ten years. I have it buried somewhere in my record collection which is, in turn, buried somewhere in my dust collection.

There are world wheels of the reel variety but here are the ones in jig time. This jig can be found on one of Mary Bergin's records, among other places.

I had intended to post a different tune but I must have forgotten to upload it and as a result it is languishing on my computer at home. I, on the other hand, am languishing somewhere else.

Here's this tune instead. I think Bobby Casey used to play it.

Here's a reel written by the great flute / whistle / saxophone player and singer Josie McDermott. I think it was called as above but I'm not totally sure. I'm sorry about the minor choking fit towards the end. I should really rerecord the tune but I have to go out before the shop shuts.

Here's a jig which had this name put on it when it was put on "Kerry's Own" Paddy Cronin's LP. It was made into dots in Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol. 3 (number 7).

I don't think it's played all that often but it is a comfortable tune for playing on a flute.

Here's a nice jig (I have yet to admit to playing any horrible ones but I'm sure there are plenty of emetic melodies on this site) which comes from the tin whistle playing of Paddy Breen from Co. Clare. Michael Tubridy put it on his LP "The Eagle's Whistle". There's a recording of Paddy Breen to be got too, in case anyone is really keen.

http://www.folktrax.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/menus/cassprogs/078.htm

(26/09/2008 The link above doesn't work any more. This one does: http://web.archive.org/web/20020605035813/www.folktrax.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/menus/main.html

A search on the page for 078 will then find the recording. It a fine recording of a great musician. I hope it is still available. The contact details on the site will hopefully lead you to it.)

I might start using this road myself instead of the train which took 5 hours last Saturday to get there from Belfast.

This is yet another popular reel which I hadn't remembered until now.

Here's yet another one that got away. This is close to the version the box player Joe Cooley from Peterswell, Co.Galway, played. He mightn't have had a blocked left ear, though. I think it's either blocked with bits of forgotten tunes or else maybe that's were all the odd socks are.

The stereo version of this reel is very popular in sessions.

Here's another tune which I thought I must have recorded already but doesn't come up in a search of this site. I suppose it's like so many other things I think I've ever learned which don't come up in a search of my head either.

I seem to remember this reel being quite pleasant and also quite popular in sessions.

I did a search for "Fairy" on this site and nothing came back for it. I'll take that to mean that this is the first time I have posted this tune. It's a fairly popular fairy tune.

Here's a reel which I think comes from Fermanagh. Eddie Duffy came from Fermanagh so that's who I'm associating the tune with. This is all a but tenuous but it might be right despite my best efforts.

I was asked to post this popular jig so here it is. I've recently heard some people playing a couple of extra parts at the end of this tune. I get the impression that the only function of the other parts is to make those who play them feel pleased with themselves for being able to remember four bits all at once. As a two part jig I think it an excellent tune.

I'm putting on a Father Kelly's (2) without first posting an FK's (1). I know that this is the wrong way to go about things and I also know that this tune isn't either of the tunes which I think really are called Father Kelly's. I saw this tune with the FK tag on it in a book. If anyone has another name for it, please let me know.

Thanks for the name, Harry. I'm glad it wasn't Nelly.

I've been trying to be organised by recording tunes in advance and then posting them over athe subsequent days. This is OK when I have names for them but I've labelled this mp3 file as "ganainm17-18" and I can't really remember what it is. I suspect that it is a reel from which appears on pages 17 - 18 of the book "A Trip To Sligo". If I'm right then it's a good flute reel and the Trip to Sligo version comes from the playing of Colm O'Donnell (although I have neither access to the book or to a sound source to check). On the other hand it might just be Danny Boy or Nelly the Elephant. That mightn't be so bad either as I'm probably posting too many reels anyway.

I've not much to say about this one. It's called by this name in the "Trip to Sligo" book. Some of it (the tune and / or the book) is fairly pleasant.

Here's a barndance by way of a change from all the tunes that aren't barndances. This tune is called "Jamesy Gannon's Barndance" on a record of Michael Gorman, the Sligo fiddle player but then so are about half a dozen other tunes on the same recording. I've also heard this tune in more Northern climbs such as Donegal. Here it is in no geographical setting at all.

Here's a popular reel. I've seen this reel called "Dillon's Reel" on www.thesession.org where someone has written that this isn't called the Bellharbour Reel.

Wharever about its name, some of its notes are pleasant enough.

Here's a good simple jig. As for the sentiment in the title; well ...

Here's a nice hornpipe. The second part is supposed to have a couple of D sharps in it but my flute wasn't really convinced.

Here's a tune that was probably not written by a horse. Very few are. In fact, it was definitely not written by a horse. It was written by Co. Galway flute player Vincent Broderick.

I put this on before but in company. I've just been asked to play it so here it is on its own. It's only about 9:00am which is a bit early for trimming velvet or anything more elaborate than toast or toenails but I did my poor best.

Here's a reel from the late, great Paddy Mills from North Mayo.

Here's a Donegal version of The Maids of Castlebar. A don't know whether there's a Mayo version of The Donegal Reel.

I'll record The Maids of Castlebar as well when I get a chance so that the reference to McFarley's being a version of it makes some sort of sense.

Here's a popular and melodic jig which is called by this name in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 5. It must have been taken down a long time ago. I don't remember there having been a sun to set recently.

Here's a popular jig dedicated to some semi fossilized plants which usually get thown on a fire.

Here's one which Seán McGuire played. It's reasonably flutable for all that.

Here's a very very popular reel. As for the activity described in the title, I know little of it. The limit of my experience of plumage related activities would be the odd unsuccessful attempt at ruffling.

The Donegal fiddle player John Doherty played a few tunes which he called "The Cameronian Reel", none of which are the normal one of that name. This one was also recorded by Michael Coleman at some stage but I can't remember what he called it.

I've played the first part single here. It maybe ought to be double, or maybe I would have been better leaving both parts out completely.

I never had a name for this jig but it appears as "The Broken Lantern" in Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol. 5. This is more or less the version in that book too.

Here's a popular reel which is sometimes also called "The Sword in The Hand" - worth two in the bush.

If this playing of this reel sounds bad, I'm blaming a big toe infection. It's making tapping time very uncomfortable.

The name of this reel always reminds me of wallpaper. I suspect I'm missing the point but I see more walls than birds or other flocking creatures in my daily life.

Here's a reel which sounds like a few others but isn't any of them.

It's a great tune for playing on the flute.

Here's a reel celebrating the colour (color) of the grass in the USA. Willie Clancy was one person who played this tune.

This reel seems to be a Sligo thing (recorded by Michael Coleman and his ilk). I'm not sure exactly which Baile Átha Cliath Beelzebubs are referred to in its title.

Here's a piping jig usually associated with Willie Clancy. (It may well not usually be associated with him at all but I couldn't think of anything else to write. Willie Clancy did play it, though).

Here's a very flutish sort of reel. It's a good one for just blowing at and flapping the digits a bit.

Here's a piping jig which Willie Clancy and then the Bothy Band made popular.

I'll not write anything about its name.

Here's a reel which is often in 'F'. I have it here in 'D' and 'G', either of which are a bit flutier. 'F' is often better for spelling a flute than playing one.

Here's a waltz for a change. It comes from Fermanagh and goes more or less like this.

Here's a reel I was asked to play. Make sure you ask the gate owner's permission before trying this. I remember being shouted at as a child for just climbing on a gate, let alone oscillating on it.

Here's a very popular reel. It is particularly suited to the flute.

Here's a set dance or long dance. I'm afraid the daisies are a bit wilted here but hopefully someone out there will revive them.

Here's one which I was sent a while ago (thanks Billy) and have only got around to posting now.

I know about rolling out the barrel. Here another way to barrel roll.

This tune is on a record of PJ Hayes and Paddy Canny.

Here is the four part 'D' version of the previous jig.

Here's a jig the title of which sometimes states the apples as being Gillan's and not Gillian's. As Gillan is just a Gillian with an eye missing then bad spllenig probably accounts for this. There are two main versions of this tune. Here's the two part one in G.

This is the one some people call "The Copperplate" while calling the one I call "The Old Copperplate" "The Copperplate". If you search this site for "Copperplate" you'll find the one I call "The Copperplate" sandwiched between 2 other tunes which I neither call "The Copperplate" nor "The Old Copperplate". I hope that clears up any potential confusion.

Here's a reel written by Larry Redican. I could never really get all that constellation stuff (or anything to do with the universe for that matter). The nocturnal lanterns all just look like dots to me. I'd love to be able to look up and see "Ursa Minor" or "Pegasus" or "The Sturmey Archer 3 Seeed Hub" but all I get are dots.

Nice Reel though. Thanks again, C.

(The rest of the list is going to require a bit of head scratching - hard to do while playing a flute but nothing ventured ...)

This is another of Reavy's tunes. I had to check in a book of his tunes to see which one matched this name. I then had to check the order in which my fingers waggled in order to bring my version towards some sort of approximation of the way he had written it.

Hopefully this version should be close enough to play with people with better powers of recall than mine.

It is one of Reavy's most popular reels.

The picture is just a blatant ploy to allow me to quote Sherlock Holmes when asked what had happened to the gates ... "Lemon entry, my dear Watson" (primary school, 1975).

This is a very popular reel, again from my new list (thankyou).

I hope all gates that should be, are now very verdant indeed.

Here's another one from my new list. I hope it's the right one.

I've already played it as "Amhrán an Tae" (The Tea Song) but as I used a different key and a different name, I'm claiming that it is a different tune.

It's a good tune to exercise the G sharp key although the wee finger on my left hand seemed fairly reluctant to be party to procedure. I think I'm going to play tunes with no notes in them at all for the next while - sort of John Cage on the flute.

Here's a reel which I've recently been reminded of. It has been recorded by many people in the past, none of whom made it sound as foul or paultry has it does here.

This is actually a picture of a jug of Tasmanian Iced Tea but it looks quite nice. The picture I first found of a punchbowl had something disgusting in it.

Talking of things disgusting, I afraid the playing here isn't all that pretty but it might be OK as a raw material for someone else to make a tune from.

Here's a tune about a Dundeen. It's the first reference to Dundeens I've heard today.

I think the fiddle player Paddy Killoran recorded this when the Dundeen was not just quite as old as it is now.

Here's a hornpipe from a new list of tunes I have. I first heard it in 'A' but my fingers refused to acknowledge this and I've played it here in 'G'.

Here's a Reavy tune which is often just known as "Reavy's". I don't know why.

Here's a good tune. It's particularly good at being the one after the one before it. Paddy Killoran made a good job of it on a record about 70 years ago.

A nice reel which is nice to play. All very nice indeed.

Here's a very popular reel. I'm surprised I hadn't put it on the site before now. It suits most instruments which people use for playing Irish traditional music. The ones it doesn't suit are probably just too hard to please, or to be pleased with.

Here's a tune I was asked to put on. I wasn't aware of knowing a "Wedding Reel" so I just made a stab at this version: http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/518 . It's more a "Reading Reel" here and in order to expunge some of my most dodgy notes it may have to be a "Weeding Reel".

I've played the second part as plainly as possible here. I suspect some people (especially a few in the list on thesession.org of those who have recorded it) might put a bit of syncopation into this part but I'm around eighty million percent allergic to that particular activity in most traditional tunes.

Here's a nice jig which I stole from the same place as the previous two tunes.

Another bit of Bothy Band booty. A Tar dis to Sligo would be handy. The roads are better now than they were but it's hard to find them under all the cars.

Here's the first of today's "sure he's just nicking tunes of Bothy Band records now" tunes. I stole it from a Bothy Band record. Ir's a sort of slide / jig but I'll keep it in the jig section as I'm too far north for sliding.

Not much to say about this tune ... common as muck but feels better in the ear than muck.

As with most common tunes it's common because it's a good tune and so people like it. It's also a good reel for learning on the flute, without too many "funny bits".

Here's a Micko (or is it Micho?) Russell reel. It sounds a bit like something else - don't they all?

I'm never sure about the Micko / Micho thing. A badly written "k" can have a fair bit of "h"iness about it so maybe they're the same thing. I'm sure there are plenty of people who know the answer to this crucial question.

I think this jig is from a song : "The Roll-ick-ing Boys of Tan-der-a-gee".

All I know of Tandragee is that the Northern version of Tayto crisps are made there. Whatever about other questions of nationality, surely the two Tayto communities in Ireland could come together.

Here's a great reel for flute, fiddles or flugelhorns. I'm working of the layout for an irish fluglehorn tunes site but it's not ready for air yet.

Here's a reel to get misty-eyed about while you travel out on the high Cs. If you know any fiddle players who haven't quite got round to playing elevated notes it can be a fairly passable recreation to watch their various ways of playing the second part of this reel.

If someone could clone Clones then there would be no need to miss Monaghan ever again.

Sorry for trotting out the same puny pun as before. I have no imagination.

This reel is a good stalwart of sessions and recordings wherever Irish traditional music is played. I hope this version is OK.

Someone else misses it too.

Here's another pelt peeling for poor felix.

I've not played this tune for years as there used to be someone living here who played it all the time. The only thing more annoying than that was almost any other tune he played. My immune system is just beginning to allow the tune back into my head now.

Like ways to skin a cat, there is more than one set of notes to make a Miss McDonald's Reel. This is a nice light sort of a one.

I've been mostly dining on stout, gin, water and nervously nibbled nails over the last while - not a burger in site. I can't say that I miss McDonald's at all. In fact I'd be happy if the one in the centre of Belfast wasn't there. It makes the surrounding area smell of stale fat which isn't very nice for the tourists who are waiting across the road for their rain soaked open top bus tour of the city. At least when the bus arrives it takes them away from the smell of I'm Lovin' It.

Here's a nice reel I was asked to play (is this it, M?).

I used to hear this tune more than I do now. Maybe that's just because I need my ears syringed.

This sounds like the stage between mass arrests and sentencing.

I think this tune is on a record of Kevin Burke and Jackie Daly. I know it is in CRÉ 3, number 119 as that's where I stole this version from.

I never knew the name of this tune and seems to have about 6.3 half versions of it floating around in my head.

While I was in the process of stealing tunes out of Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol 3, I found this version with this name. It is number 116 and comes from Roger Sherlock's flute playing.

Here's a tune I was asked to play. It's on Matt Molloy's first record. I don't know where he got the tune or the name from. It sounds a bit odd played slowly but here goes ...

(The quicker version seems to recover its composure a bit)

Brendán Breathnach put it in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 3 (No. 12) in case you want to see the dots, or blood spatters.

Here's a flute friendly sort of reel. Brendán Breathnach got it from Denis Murphy but it appears on a few other people's records, including one of Mary Bergin and one of Matt Molloy.

My playing here is more Lame Knack Cross than Lománach Cross but hopefully it is still a cross that is possible to bear.

I must have pressed the wrong buttons on the recorder. Poor Lucy sounds like she's calling for rescue from an oil drum, or maybe it's a big soup tin.

This is a good sturdy reel of Scottish stock - more soup. I hope Lucy isn't stuck in an echoey BROTHel.

Here's a common enough reel named after a far from common fiddle player. The tune may well have other names but this is what Roger Sherlock called it on a record.

Here's a jig Mary Bergin recorded. It's not a long way to Old Tipperary from this tune on the same record.

Here's a tune Brandán Breathnach collected from the South Sligo whistle player Jimmy McGettrick and included in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 2, number 215.

Here's the one after the one before it. This tune is fairly hyperphenominally popular and can be found rattling around sessions everywhere. I'd imagine Miltown Malbay is getting its fair share as we speak.

Here's a reel named after a great Co. Galway piper who moved to America and made a great success of his career as a musician and entertainer. I believe he was hyperphenominal.

I just impaled my food (I meant to write "foot" - never ask a spellchecker to make your dinner - fish fingers are where I draw the line) on a cassette (pre-recorded / legal and all that) of Matt Molloys's first record. Never walk round an untidy house with bare feet. Anyway, this tune is on that record. I had to keep time here with my wrong foot as the right one was (and is) still sore. I hope this hasn't interfered with the flow.

Here's one a good friend reminded me of recently. I'll now maybe give my poor old Rudall / Willis / Murray creation a chance to rest and settle into its newfound freedom from its 3 year long subescalatory incarceration.

Here's an Ed. Reavy composition. I was reminded of it this week by the fiddle player Dónal O'Connor - one of Dundalk's finest musical exports to Belfast.

Here's another John Doherty tune. He's been ringing in my ears of late.

I remembered after playing the tune that this old flute has low C keys. Maybe I should have used the C# key in the first part. On second thoughts, I shouldn't have. That note belongs on a fiddle.

Here's a John Doherty sort of reel. I can't remember how many times each to play the parts. I was out playing last night and the person who started this very same tune had a similarly random approach to this matter also.

Like a cheap Parisian tablecloth or an Irish Times crossword, or maybe a flag you find by driving far too fast.

I'm carrying on with my poor George Rudall's rehabilitation so please forgive the fluffier bits in this playing.

I've just found my poor, neglected George Rudall flute in the cupboard under the stairs. The thing is around three million years old (early 1820s - is that just 2 million then?) and Sam Murray rescued it a bit more recently than the 1820s.

It's not firing on all cylinders due to my neglect but I thought this reel would be a fairly gentle device for coaxing it back into some sort of life.

I heard this tune on Michael Tubridy's excellent "Eagle's Whistle" LP.

This title sounds more like some sort of cherry-topped cup cake but the tune itself sounds like a reel. It's another tune from a many years ago maestro. In this case, the fiddle player James Morrison.

A lot of horses (and a very good Londis supermarket as far as I recall). This reel was made famous by Michael Coleman who recorded it many years ago. That could really have gone without saying as he died many years ago. I heard people saying they knew a tune so well that they could play in in their sleep but never ...

Here's a tune which I'm glad to be able to put on here. I glad to and an on here at all. The site www.went away for a while but the hosting people kindly got it back for me.

This tune was previously recorded by a flute player called Matt Molloy. I'm sure some people may have heard of him.

Here's another Reavy tune - a barndance this time. I'm a bit rusty at it but you should get the idea.

Here's a jig from Mr. Reavy. I'm told it can break a person's arm with one of its wings,

Here's a reel composed by Edward V. Reavy. I fear it may be somewhat decomposed here by Michael J. C. Reavy's tunes are usually robust enough to survive even my minor brutalities. Hopefully this version is learnable.

Here's a good tune (197 in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 3 is almost the same as this version). I played the bits twice in the slower version. I think once is more normal - the unity of one and all that.

There's a bit of the bass of a Richard Thompson CD coming through the ceiling too - hopefully not enough to get me into bother for copyright infringement.

I was feeling guilty for neglectful cruelty to a website. Hence the three tunes in the one day.

I'm away out now to play some in a pub.

Here's a reel named after the Kerry fiddle player Denis Murphy - sorry Johnny Cronin.

I'm not sure whether to play the parts single or double. I never thought counting up to 1 would be such a challenge.

Here's a reel in A minor. It often appears in G minor but my fingers aren't feeling too Geed up just yet. It's a nice one for the flute in this key too.

Here's an ornate sort of hornpipe from Paddy Taylor's playing.

Here's a hornpipe which I think De Dannan did.

This poor jig is much maligned. To add insult to injury I've put it in the 1100 rpm spin cycle towards the end. I think it recovered eventually.

Here's a slightly out of season reel.

I great piping reel. Sure, the flute's only a wooden pipe anyway.

It probably is ... G & T

(I'm sorry if I've played this already, although I don't think I have)

Here's a fairly melodic reel. I can never make out what they're chattering about.

It can be a bit inconvenient when they do that.

Here's a nice hornpipe from the South West.

I heard this reel from the fiddle playing of John Doherty. He played it in "G". I've tried it in "G" and then "A". I'm told a nine pint coggie is a vessel which holds nine pints of beer. I know a few two-legged coggies (although the number of legs diminishes as the pint count increases).

I've never investigated what this name is about. It's probably just "Fasten the Legging" but even that's quite far from the first think I'd look up in a phrasebook prior to going on holiday.

A nice simple reel.

Here's a Sliabh Luachra thing, I think.

A gardening Jig

Here's a good reel for the flute.

A ringing jig.

Don't be late.

Here's a Denis Murphy tune with a great name.

Here's a good standard jig. It seems to get a bit neglected these days.

I've always wanted this to be the salamander reel. The picture is of a salamander from the Spanish Armada. Maybe it came from Salamanca. It was very kind of the Ulster Museum to lend it to me.

I have fairly vague memories of the lats time there was a new century. I suspect the title of this tune refers to the one before that. The absence of my having been born adds to my amnesia regarding that event. I hope I've at least remembered the tune. I think it is in O'Neill's and on the "Contentment is Wealth" record of Sean Keane and Matt Molloy. You could check those sources for a bit of reassurance.

A version of his tune is in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 3 under this name. I've never heard a name for it in "real life" or "reel life".

This is what this reel is called on Noel Hill and Tony McMahon's LP. I have the end a bit iffy ish - especially the first time round. I think it recovers after that but I then smelt my dinner when I was nearly finished and my mouth began to water. I'm a fairly bad cook (potatoes, tinned tuna and the rest of yesterday's packet of salad) but I was hungry. That'll learn me.

I hope the tune's nicer than my meal.

Here's a particularly flutey reel.

There aren't all that many notes in this tune. I sometimes think that makes it a bit tricky but most of the time I'm not thinking about anything at all.

It can be found on Noel Hill and Tony McMahon's i gCnoc na Graí record. They seem to have been able to work it out OK.

Here's a reel associated with the Roscommon flute player of this name.

Here's the one after "The Galtee Rangers".

Here's a popular reel.

I was asked by David T to play this tune. He heard it from a Cd of Harry B who called it "The Old maids of G". I learned it years ago from a book by Brian V under the name "Johnny When You D".

Here's a Sliabh Luachra reel. It's name makes me hungry and I'm away to fry some breakfast.

Here's one I heard on a record of Frankie Gavin and Paul Brock. I think it's also on Frankie Gavin's flute LP which is one of the best commercial flute recordings I've encountered. I don't spend all my time encountering commercial flute recordings. If I did I don't know what my opinion would be.

This tune sometimes gets "Wellington's" reel and probably other names to boot. It's also in "A" on occasions. I've played it in "G" here. An easy life is often best. (Fiddle players don't necessarily like "A" either as it makes them drop the fiddle trying to reach the higher notes.

Here's what I remember of this tune.

I'm not sure whether the title refers to a penny dropping in Castleblaney or to something sticky. Which ever if the above (or adjacent) is true, the tune seems to have stuck the years OK.

Here's a slow tune for a change. It's probably easier than a lot of slow tunes to pick up and, unlike a good book, I'm sure it will be even easier to put down. If I get enough requests to so do, I'll remove it.

Here's a polka. My apologies to polka land people for my interpretation of it.

A lot of them are good tunes for learning and are well suited to the flute.

Here's a Sligo Maidish type of reel. There are different version's of this one around. This one's more or less the same as the one in the book Alan's Irish Fiddler.

I'm only after finding a link with all the tunes in that book: http://www.oldmusicproject.com/allans.html

They also seem to have O'Neill's Music of Ireland on the site. Aren't people kind?

I saw this name for this tune in a book. I can't remember which book at this stage. My memory is like the result of a vagueness generator being put in a cheap food blender (both food and blender). This reel sounded familiar to me when I recorded it but that was a couple of long days ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Most of the water was mixed with other, more potentially confusion inducing liquids, and the bridge was the sort which lives in a mouth.

I hope the tune is OK notwithstanding all this.

Here's a standard tune, albeit with a lot of non standard versions. It is often played after "Down The Broom".

I hope it really does go like this.

Here's a tune that's listed in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 3, No. 188, as "Gorman's Reel". It sounds a bit like an A minor "Sporting Nell". I don't know when a minor sporting Nell is like a sort of under 18 camogie player.

Whatever about that, it's a nice reel and easy enough in this key.

Here's a fiddle tune which I hope is flutable.

I think this jig is associated with Jimmy Lyons, a fiddle player who came from Teelin in Co. Donegal.

Here's a requested reel. I'm told that when asked was it a piece of string it replied that it was afraid not.

I learned this as "Bridie Morley's" (or was it "The Bride Morley"?) from Packie Duignan's playing. The version in Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol 2, number 229, is almost the same as this.

It's a great tune and thanks Mary for suggesting it.

Here's another polka. This one's from a wee bit further north. It's a good tune for the flute.

Here's a popular polka. I think I'm from a bit too far north to understand them but I can but try.

This is a tune with a great name.

I'll tidy up this post tomorrow. I'm feeling too vague just now.

Today is now tomorrow and I'm fit to add that I heard this one on Paddy Carty's LP. It's named after "The Balloon" which was a pub in Fulham, London owned by Con Curtin from Kerry.

Here's a reel which can be found on a record of Tommy Peoples and Matt Molloy - all quite quick and E flattish as far as I remember.

I can't write much about this tune due to my having an industrial strength hangover to wrestle with. I recorded this tune yesterday, before I went out. I recall feeling quite well then.

Here's a jig I was asked to put on. I looked it up on the internet and got these particular "Google's Frolics". I hope they are the correct frolics.

I've known this tune for years but I never knew its name. I've learned more tune names in the last 2 months than in the preceding 2 decades.

I'm not sure why it is.

Here's a nice plain reel. It's on, among other places, "The Eagle's Whistle" LP of Michael Tubridy which is well worth a listen.

Here's a good reel. I must try excavating my Matt Molloy record which has this tune living in its groove.

More potatoes

(I was trying to remember this last night and then I saw it on the Chiff and Fipple site: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=50746 - Fipple & Chips)

Here's a very common jig. The "Walsh" seems fairly interchangeable with "Welsh". The "Tatter Jack" bit refers to "An tAthair Jack", i.e. Father Jack.

Here's a popular tune which is handy on most instruments. Judging from this recording the flute mightn't be one of them but that's just my fault. It sounds grand on the flute when other people play it. I had a bit of bother at the end (more Fermoy Losses than Lasses) as I heard the potatoes boiling over in the kitchen when I was nearly done. There should be enough of the tune intact up to that point to be able to get the idea of it.

Here's today's carbohydrate ration in a reel.

I usually can't remember which order the parts go in this tune. They sort of go round and round. Hopefully they're OKish here.

Here's a reel which I think I remember being on an LP of Julia and Billy Clifford. I just stole it from O'Neill's 1001. Only about another 987 to go.

Here's a good reel. That's the main thing.

Here's Gregg's / Craig's / Greig's pipes. Surely Greig's ones were on a church organ.

It's a good noise making opportunity for flute players. I know there's more to music that raucous rackets. I approach subtlety as I mature. I feel a bit of ageing in my water. I'm not sure how I feel about that feeling.

I don't know whether this could refer to the young Tom Ennis.

I'm starting to steal tunes from O'Neill tunes. (158 / 1001 in this case). I'm not nicking ones I don't know at all but I'm having to give my memory a kick in the backside the odd time. Sometimes this can be a fairly risk-laden manoeuvre.

Here's a nice jig named after a by now fairly aged Tom Ennis.

Tunes like this used to be two-a-penny. I think they're now 7.1096488 a Euro.

Here's a nice jig. I can't tell you a whole pile else about it.

Here's a popular jig. I'm sure I heard it on a well known record of a very recognizable musician but my memory seems to have fled my head.

Here's another request. I'm afraid I don't know it too well and I just nicked it from the notes on the net.

Here's one I was asked to play.

It sounds like Martin wins here but it sounds very unlikely that I will. I'm a bit rusty on this tune so I looked it up. I wouldn't swear by this version, or at it, I hope.

Here's a popular tune. It might be called "Molloy's Favourite" but I know at least one other reel with that name but a different set of notes. It's probably really got the same set of notes but in a different scatter pattern.

I'm probably sounding as if I'm playing the flute with a mouthful of spiders (both in mine and the flute's mouth). I hope the tune is discernible amongst all the effey hisses. Is that in Turkey?

Maybe someone can come up with a reliable name.

This is a good insistent sort of sounding reel.

Here's the commonest reel of them all. I managed to make a Mess McLeod's out of it towards the end but there are hopefully enough intact bits left to cobble a tune out of.

This is a nice tune for the flute without too many twiddly bits. There's a version if it in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 5, number 192.

Here's a very melodic jig. Mr. Jackson never let the midday pass him without his brush and his breeze.

Here's a good reel from the Donegal fiddle playing repertoire.

P.S. I'm sorry I've nothing to write about this batch of tunes. I recorded them all early this afternoon and was full of inspiration and of comments. The site was down at my time of greatest need and now, on my and its return, I'm just full of pints of stout and without a word in me to get out of me.

Here's a great flute tune. There's a version of it in Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol 5, No. (# - I hope I didn't make a hash of my attempt to be trans Atlantic) 197.

Here's a tune with a great name.

Here's a tune I was asked to record. I looked up its name on the internet and found on www.thesession.org. I don't know it and I'm sort of rubbish at reading music but here's an attempt. It's on a Kevin Crawford CD so maybe that's a good place to go to hear it if you don't trust this version (I wouldn't trust me at all). I'm fairly poorly stocked in the flute CD department but I'll maybe go out and get that one myself.

I hope this effort is of some use.

I prefer mine in a sandwich. Here's a nice traditional sort of tune.

Here's a good standard reel which is kind to flute players.

Here's a jig which is found on a lot of old recordings. I doesn't seem just as common now. I've yet to hear it on anything more recent than the latest Iron Maiden CD. (They made a great job of it).

Here's a popular three part reel. I don't know much about it but believe it to be named after a city in the eastern part of Ireland.

I'm meant to be doing something else at the moment and so had better go and attend to that thing.

I'll have to follow that instruction shortly. In the meantime, here's a reel.

Here's a common reel with at least two names. I don't know what county the fisherman was from.

Here's a good tune. My favourite thing about it is that is has hardly any notes in it.

I always think of "ABCD Goldfish" when I hear this reel. Google will know what I mean.

Here's another tune I found behind the sofa. I think I hadn't put it on the site due to the mess I made of playing it. At the moment I haven't a whole pile to choose from so here it is anyway. As I said just now, there'll be better efforts on soon. Promises promises. (Honest, Guv).

I don't think this really is Murphy's Reel. It's a common enough reel but I've forgotten its name. Can someone enlighten me?

What with one thing and another I've not had a chance to put on tunes today. I have just found this one lurking on my computer from when I put it there ages ago. I'll hopefully get a chance to record a few more in the next couple of days. After that I'll have more time.

Thanks for your patience.

Here's a very popular reel. I'm trying to pick tunes than don't have names starting with "The". I'm sorry for messing up the index with all the thes.

As for going over the moor; I think a few bog-holes got me an the way. I seem to have fallen foul of a hummock or two too.

I can't settle today. Hopefully normal service will resume shortly.

Here's a real flute / fiddle tune.

I'm not sure how I ended the last part first time round. I think there's maybe a better variation the next time. I can't bear to listen to it myself. I don't know what "Down The Broom" is meant to mean. Maybe it's a bit like sword-swallowing with bristles.

Here's a reel called Fergal / Farrel / Fearghal / Anyone You Want O'Gara.

It's a popular tune in sessions under all of its guises.

I think one of its legs came off when I was playing it. Maybe I'll be able to get it made into a flute.

The Rafferty's seem to have had a flair for picking names. Here's another Páidín. There were a few more of them as well.

Here's the commonest Páidín from this family.

I usually associate this tune with Seán McGuire. For one of Seán's offerings, it's a bit tame but that's a great help to those of us with fingers only numbered in single figures unlike dodecadigital demons of the late, great Mr. McGuire's ilk.

Here's a reel which I heard on a Paddy Killoran record. I'm not sure how well I learned it but here is an approximation of how it goes.

I've not played much clothing related material so far. Here's a good garment based reel. I've played it double here. I'm not sure whether that's the proper way but it seemed appropriate for stockings.

Here's a nice tune which shouldn't hut the fingers too much. I'm not so sure about the audial appendages.

Here's a popular reel. It's so well known that I know absolutely nothing about it.

Here's another one from your man.

Here's another Paddy Taylor reel. I never know the difference in this tune between C naturals / C sharps, the first part / the last part or how it goes / doesn't go.

It's a bit like the trouble I have with semi-colons / commas / -s and so on; I hope this version isn't too much of a Cat astrophe.

Sorry there's no picture with this one. I did try.

Here's popular reel. I've played it double here but it might really be single. There was rain forecast today and I think I'm getting into Noah's Ark mode, not that two heifers would save the breed, or would they? I'm not a vet.

Maybe this reel will be renamed "The Stiletto in the Ghetto" or "The Stiffey By the Liffey" in honour of the one in the picture. It probably already has. I'm usually a few years behind the times.

I think the tune is also called John Brennan's Reel.

Here's a tune from the playing of the late Mickey and Francie Byrne from Kilcar in Donegal. I think the name comes from the Irish "Ríl na nGlórtha" meaning "The Reel of the Voices", rather than from its own, undeniably splendid qualities.

It's great on the fiddle as the second part gives plenty of scope for growling - The Growly Reel. You can sort of hum while playing the flute to get a drone effect but that's really, or ought to be, a private activity.

(This is as close as I remember it, Brendan)

I have a tape of the Donegal fiddle player, Vincent Campbell, playing this highland. On the tape e says he got it from Mickey Doherty and that Mickey Doherty called it "The Iron Man". He did, however cast some doubt on the reliability of Mr' Doherty's tune names.

I'm starting to have to rattle my way past my skeletons and hoik out tapes in order to remind myself of tunes. I might be saved by running out of storage space on the server at some stage but in the meantime I keep on rattling.

I'm sure this one is actually le hAinm but I can't remember the name. It's on a very popular record - Noel Hill & Tony Linnane's LP. I've lost this record so I can't get the name of the tune. If someone can remember the name, please let me know and I'll update the title here.

I've 2 suggestions now for the name. Is it now "Kitty's Wedding to Joe Cooley"?

... Joe Cooley seems to be in the lead at the moment.

Here's a reel which is sometimes played in A. I always thought it sounded a bit scary in that key. Here's a slightly less disturbing version in G.

I'm still in hornpipe mode. The is a fairly common one and is also quite cheerful.

Here's a popular hornpipe named after a bay named after a popular city.

It's usually in G minor but I've played it here in A minor which is a bit more flutish.

There's a fairly new sewerage treatment plant in Galway Bay. I don't know whether hornpipes were used in its construction or not.

Here's a popular hornpipe named after a popular city.

I think this reel was found under one. I had a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when I was playing it; it mustn't have been ripe. The fact that my mouth was curled up it the manner of a cow licking pee of a nettle might help explain why the playing is a bit more miss than hit.

I can't tell you much about this tune. This version is fairly close to the one Sonny McDonagh recorded for Brendán Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol 2.

Here's a tune I heard on a Tommy Peoples record a good few years ago. The passage of time might explain how my memory of which note go where has gone who knows where. For a fiddle tune, I think it's OK for the flute.

Here's a tune I learned years ago from a transcription of John Egan's flute playing. It was in a journal called "Ceol" which Brandán Breathnach used to produce in the 1960s. I used to go to the Central Library in Belfast in the 1980s and photocopy tunes from it.

There may well be another name for this tune but I don't know it. I think it's a lovely, straightforward sort of tune. The grammar in the title might be slightly amiss but the notes are OK.

Here's a reliable old reel. I'm not sure what kind of master it is whose return is being commemorated here but the outcome is fairly palatable in any case; not that I'm advocating that this tune should be eaten.

Here's a reel from the playing of Paddy Taylor, a flute player from Abbyfeale in Co. Limerick who played a wooden Bohm flute.

I can't tell you much about this. I think of it as one of those common tunes which I never hear. There a lot of tunes with that air of virtual commonness about their airs (not sure about their grace-notes).

I'm having to jog my memory by flicking through a few books to see the start of tunes. This particular aide memoir lives in Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol1. I'll very likely be looking through Vols 2, 3, 4 (not sure about this one; it has some very strange things in it) and 5 to be reminded of more tunes.

Here's a jig called "Let us be drinking and kissing the ladies". I haven't really much to say about that.

It's a good jig and a popular one. I believe some things in the title are also popular in certain quarters.

Here's a popular reel called after a Banshee / Bean Sí / Bean Sidhe. I think it's in the key of heebee G bee.

Here's a reel in "C" named after the great, late fiddle player, A McG.

When I play tunes on the flute in "C" there always seems to be a slightly bronchial drainpipe sound going on. Sometimes the flute sounds funny too.

Being a bit parochial, I usually associate this tune with a different, fairly recently lost fiddle player, Seán McGuire.

Maybe I'll just call it McG's reel.

Here's a highland. The playing is a bit more gormless than Gormond here but it is getting late and I find it hard to be otherwise.

This is a fairly common tune. I hope you like it.

Here's a nice sparce reel Like lots of tunes that Micko Russell played, it is not cluttered by too many notes. So many tunes played these days sound like the putting to sound of a manuscript which just been sneezed on - by someone quite poorly at that.

It's sometimes good to have simple things around too.

Here's a very very very popular jig. One reason it's very very very popular is that it's fairly easy to learn.

This might not be the "O'Mahoney's" you were expecting (as if people sit around expecting hornpipes of whatever name) but I noticed it under this name in "Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol 2. I always just called it "do you know this one?". Brendán Breathnach took it down from Denis Murphy's playing for CRÉ 2. I'll go with the present name as I always believe what other people have written.

Here's a popular tune. My only doubt is that I might have leaned it at a concert of something far removed from Irish traditional music. Now I come to think of it, I'm fairly sure I've never been to a concert so I probably got the tune from a record so it should be OK. I did get taken to the zoo once when I was about seven.

There might be something Scottish, maybe even Scott Skinnerish about this jig.

I heard it from Sean McGuire but I'm OK.

I hadn't played this tune for a long time until I thought I had been asked to record it here. Once I'd finished the process I realised that "The Green Groves of" is not a synonym for "Farewell to". I'll maybe take a trip to the airport and get some inspiration for the tune I was supposed to play.

(I think I had a mish-mash of farewell to green groves in Erin's Ireland earlier. I hope this particular tangled hank of yarn has now been been unravelled )

Tá súil agam go bhfuil an leagan ceart agam an iarraidh seo.

There are too many ways saying bye-bye to places.

Here's a good reel. I tried playing "The Green Groves of Erin" and ended up with a mixture of that and "Farewell to Erin". Thankyou Alex for pointing that out. Here's a tune as a compromise.

"Éirinn " should have 2 "n"s in the dative case anyway (I nearly said "in any case" - I hate languages). At least "Ireland" is less mutable.

I'm away to check my grammar and my tune versions.

Thanks,

Michael.

Here's a very popular jig. It's a nice tune which is good on the flute. I think I heard a good recording once of the Leitrim flute player Packie Duignan playing it on a record which was made of him and Seamus Horan.

Here's reel from the Donegal fiddle player, John Doherty.

I got it from an old tape where he was introducing the tunes. This is the name he gave it.

Here's one I was asked to play. I'd never heard the name before so I looked it up and found this tune. I'd always wondered what it was called.

The internet tells me it is also called "Coleman's Cross". It fails to mention what's annoyed him.

Does it gather any moss?

This is a Donegal fiddle tune which I was asked to play. It's also called "The Gravel Walks to Granie", referring to a place in Donegal. It sounds good on 2 fiddles with one of them playing a drone on a low A.

I'm sorry I couldn't demonstrate this but between holding the flute and typing, my hands were sort of tied, and very tired.

Here's a very melodic and cheerful hornpipe which was recorded by, among others, Paddy Killoran.

It's a great tune to change into from another, slightly less contented, hornpipe. There are plenty of these about so I'll not suggest any ones in particular.

Here's a very popular reel. It's especially good for learning. I wish I could identify with the subject of the title. Things mightn't seem so LOUD this morning.

Here's a very common reel which is sometimes called "The Poor Scholar".

Regarding scholarly matters, I have exams next week and the week after. I'm supposed to be studying for them but have been spending too much time footering with this site. I picked a fine time to find a new hobby. At least if I flunk them (that word seems to look ruder than it sounds) I'll still have a place where I can complain about it ad nauseum. (I've just discovered how to do italics). I'll try to do us all a favour and leave my flunking aside. Enough asides.

Good night.

Here's one of those tunes which lots of people say is very common but can't remember the last time they either heard or played it. No I come to think of it, I've never heard anybody say "Hey, isn't The Morning Star a popular reel?". I've spent too much time typing stuff on this site and am starting to come out with solipsistic claptrap.

It is popular though, I think.

If you find the record "The Star Above The Garter" of Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford, you'll have a good version of this reel close at hand. If you do find the record (either in LP or CD format), it might even be mine. I never had much luck instilling a homing instinct in my copies of that recording.

I think I said I'd record this tune in my note about "The Bank of Ireland". I'll have to be more careful in future.

This tune was composed by an Italian / Scottish violinist called Parazotti. I think it was in E flat. I used to try it on the flute in D. On this occasion I appear to be all at sea.

Here's a very popular reel. I think someone asked me to record this; sorry it took so long.

I'm not sure about naming good things like tunes after banks is totally appropriate. The tired old utterance "at least Dick Turpin wore a mask" comes to mind.

There's another tune called "The Bank of Turf" which is I suppose, referring to another Bank of Ireland, i.e. a bank made of Ireland. I'll maybe record it if and when I remember how it goes.

There's another one called "The Banks". It's not really a flute tune but I sometimes try to fool it into thinking it is. I'll have a stab at it now.

I learned this tune from the Donegal fiddle player, James Byrne. I thought long and hard about the name and came up with this one.

Here's a popular hornpipe which deserves to be so.

I'm off for a pint. I don't have to go to California for it which is a relief, although I'm sure the pints are excellent there.

Here's a march popular with flute players where I come from. I'm not sure where it came from originally.

I think the "pike" in question is the weapon variety and not the ingredient Olympic divers include to get more points per plunge. Are the extra points as compensation for any potential lacerations they might sustain if the pike bites them? Maybe the chlorine in the pool sedates it and stops this from being a risk anyway.

I played it a second time on a piccolo (or pikeolo) but got very self-conscious as people playing little flutes haven't always got on too well with my neighbours. Anyway, I think the tune suits the tiny treatment.

Here's a slightly less common Gordon's reel than the Lordy version. This one has the marked advantage of being much shorter. I'll have to work myself up to recording the longer one in the next while. In the meantime, I'll go for the Gordons that goes in a glass, with a slice of lime.

This is a very popular tune. I hope you like it.

Here's a great tune for learning. I hadn't played it for a while and had forgotten how good it was for relearning as well.

I'm not sure whether the Blackthorn Stick was made from part of this, or whether it was bought from ebay or ebough. (The spellchecker thought it was neither of the above, or the beside).

It's a good tune anyway.

Oíche mhaith.

Here's a popular reel which should be a safe bet at most sessions.

I'm afraid I didn't have much time to record this tune so its regal qualities are a bit left to the imagination here. I'm sure they'll be reinvigorated when someone else plays it.

More humours - / ; / ... ? this time in the form of a hormpipe which is a nice, melodic minor-sounding one.

I might have first heard it on Michael Tubridy's "Eagle's Whistle" record where he played it on a concertina. There's some lovely flute playing on that record too (all well as the concertina playing I mean).

I've just realised (the spellchecker wants a "z" in "realised" and "spellchecker" to be 2 words - it can go and ztrangleitzelf for all I care) that I have put hardly any hornpipes on this site. Here's a nice common one called "The Plains of Boyle". I put some more on soon.

Cheers,

Michael.

Here's a fairly common reel which should sound well on a flute. I think the prickly nature of its title has had an effect on my playing and there are more than a few holes in it but you should get the jist of what ought to have been going on. (I was wondering whether I should limit the number of tunes I record per day / week so that the tunes don't disappear off the first screen before people have a chance to see them. On the other hand, the index makes them fairly accessible wherever they end up. Any thoughts? )

Here's a great jig which I think was made popular by a recording of Michael Coleman. Michael Coleman came from Killavel, Co. Sligo and settled in New York where he worked as a tram conductor (I know that wasn't his primary reason for being there but so be it). He was frequently pestered by executives from the likes of Decca and Columbia records to record tunes for them on the fiddle. Fortunately the allure of tram life wasn't always too powerful to be overshadowed by the record moguls' offers of dollars and other, unstated rewards.

I never quite knew what "Tell Her I Am" meant. In an attempt to make some sense of it, I put it into an anagram machine. I was repayed with "A Hell Remit".

There you go.

Here's a piping reel (Willie Clancy again) which is possibly a version of "Colonel Frazer". There's another tune called "The Braes of Busby" which sounds like a version of it too.

I'll record the other 2 tunes with reasonably long intervals between them so you don't hear them all together and find out that they really are just the same tune with different names and that I'm running out of things to play. If that happens I'll have to start singing but I only know one song - a Patsy Clyne number as it happens but copyright restrictions might have me scuppered.

Here's a good reel, or at least it was until I blew it down a hole in a piece of blackwood.

It used to get a dryer journey courtesy of Wille Clancy and prior to that, Garrett Barry who was a piper from the generation before Willie Clancy's.

I've been raiding the track listings of a few Willie Clancy records lately. Stealing tunes from piping records is usually a good way of getting flute tunes owning to pipers' reluctance to pick tunes in funny keys. They've enough to be getting on with keeping all their plumbing in some sort of order.

Here's a great reel which I'd probably associate most with Willie Clancy. It's on one of the "Pipering of Willie Clancy" records which Claddagh Records published some years ago.

Between picking cockles, welcoming Charlie, tying bonnets, Danging weavers, getting clinkings coming home from the races and all the other activities she's recorded in tune names as having been involved in, its a wonder she had time to blink (I don't remember there being a tune called "Jenny's Blink", so maybe she hadn't).

Anyway, I hope this tune is of use to someone who is a tad less busy and without a Jenny-esque social calendar.

Here's a piping jig which is good on the flute. It's an especially good one for learning.

I have a Seán McGuire LP somewhere with this tune on it. He called it "2 1/2 New Pence". References to the monetary system in Belfast in about 1972 mightn't have stood the test or time, or be too portable, but I'm just passing on what tiny bits of information I might have about the tunes. I'll maybe be a bit more taciturn as regards the late phenomenon who was Seán McGuire.

Here's a march from John Doherty's playing. I thinks it's originally Scottish, like lots of Donegal tunes. I think its name alone is a reason to play it. It suits the flute well too.

Here's a very popular jig. I'm sorry if you can hear my washing machine in the background.

Here's my valedictory effort for the evening. This is a barndance which the Sligo fiddle player, James Morrison, made popular through a great recording he made of it years ago.

It's a nice melodic creation and it suits flute players' sensibilities as well.

I'm starting to run out of names. I don't know how the tunes will hold out but I'll maybe give up at Ríl Gan Ainm (202).

In the meantime, here's a good reel which is really a fiddle tune. Bits of the second part would normally be an octave lower but hopefully this setting works OK on the flute. If anyone knows a name for this tune, I'd be interested to hear it.

Here's a very popular slip jig. I think it was composed by the Dublin flddle player, Tommy Potts. It's been decomposed and recomposed a few times since over the years.

It's a good tune for the flute and hopefully shouldn't cause people too many difficulties in playing.

This is another popular tune - named after the great Co. Galway box player.

Here's a good standard reel which is very popular in sessions.

This is an entirely rhetorical question at this stage.

Willie Clancy probably would have known more about it. It's a good tune in any case, I hope.

Here's a barndance. I haven't been in a barn for a long time but I hear that the dancing is great in them.

(I think this tune may be called "Connolly's Barndance". Here it is in a different key: http://irishflute.podbean.com/2008/08/08/connollys-barndance/ ).

Here's a nice march from the fiddle playing of John Doherty.

Here's a highland from JD. It's a bit on the tricky side in places. It puts the "High" back into "Highland".

This is a reel from James Byrne's playing. That's all I can tell you.

I learned this from James Byrne who is a great fiddle player from Meenacross, near Glencolmbkille in Donegal. I'm not sure whether it has another name. It sounds a bit like a slide to me. There are quite a few of these tunes which have ended up in Donegal. They must have taken a wrong turn in Killarney one day.

Here's a reel I used to hear a lot. It's also called "The Farting Badger". It deserves to be played occasionally just for that reason.

Here's a highland. I've no name for it, only a few notes.

I can't even remember who I learned this from, let alone its name. I've called it "Masúrca Gan Ainm" as it looks a bit more exotic then "Untitled Mazurca". It was nice of the committee in Dublin to take the trouble to make up an Irish word for "Mazurka".

Here's a mazurka I learned from the playing of John Doherty. I couldn't think of anything better to call it.

Here's "The Skylark's" friend.

A good old sort of a tune.

A great reel. I don't know it's usually played single or double. I remembering it being on an LP of Noel Hill and Tony McMahon with a bit of galloping in the background.

Another drink related tune. I've something on my mind.

This is a popular reel that could go with a Humours of Whiskey chaser.

Today seems to be slip jig day. This is a very popular one. It has four parts (I hope there weren't supposed to be more????) and I hope I remembered them OK here. It's good to have a tune which so popular without being as Capri-corny as this comment.

Here's another slip jig.

Here's another traditional slip jig.

This is a nice slip jig. There seem to be a lot of whiskey related humours cited in the nomenclature of traditional tunes. I'm more a gin / Guinness / red wine / beer / poitín / vodka / white rum / brandy / white wine / sherry / green chatreuse type of person but each one to their own poison.

Sláinte.

Here's a piping jig which should be OK on the flute.

All the best,

Michael.

I can't tell you much about this tune apart from that I like it. I hope you do.

Here's a cheerful sort of reel. I don't know a huge amount about it but being cheerful is a good start.

Here's a great standard reel. It's worth digging out a recording of Séamus Ennis playing this on the pipes to get an idea of how this tune can sound.

Here's a good jig. It's often played as part of "The Fox Chase" but I've given up fox hunting as the animals used to wreak havoc in my house.

This must be a flute tune as it's named after a flute player - a great one at that.

This reels is a bit lonely without its friend "Roaring Mary". I'll add its companion as soon as I can.

Here's a jig which should find noises of recognition at any session.

Here's a well known slip jig. (I had it attached to the post for "Sweeney's Dream" earlier - I hadn't been asking for the right sort of drink).

Here's the way I remember this tune. I'm not sure how standard it is.

(Sorry - I had the wrong tune on this. I've fixed it now.)

Here's a good reel. I don't think it has as severe effects on flute players as it does on lucht na bpíbí.

This is often in G minor but the flute gets a bit displeased by this tune in that key. The A minor version has the added advantage of being annoying to people who do like the G minor version.

(Not sure about the grammar in the title. I suppose it reflects the heartbroken person's view of the being what caused him such anguish.)

A very popular tune - you can probably blame the Bothy Band for that.

As with most popular tunes, it has a good melody and rhythm. That's probably why it's popular. If that's a load of rubbish then it must just be popular courtesy of the Bothy Band. I don't know whether any of them liked it or were just asked to play it.

I think it's quite nice.

Here's a piping reel which is good on the flute. It sounds a bit like some other reels, sure all reels sound like all other reels. This Irish music all sounds the same to me. I just learned one tune and a few dozen names. That's the reason why I've being recording tunes one at a time. It's like the two people who you've never actually seen in the same room at the one time. Maybe there's only really one person in the world. I fairly sure it's not me so it must be you.

Here's a nice, melodic jig which I was asked to record here. It suits any instrument (anthough the C naturals can be challenging on a triangle if it isn't isosceles).

This tune's a great stalwart. Stalwart is a great word. Syllogisms can be musical.

I was asked for this tune and recorded the hornpipe. I never knew it was also a jig but here's the jig. Lovely Leitrim's full of fancies.

Here's a reel which works very well on the flute. Someone once described to me how to play reels in 'G' in the flute; you hold down the top 3 fingers, blow into the hole provided for blowing into, and slap the other 3 fingers down on their allotted holes in time to the tune. That's what I've done here.

Is this the tune Mary?

I had to do a search for this name. The version I found on the internet isn't quite the same as this but here's how I learned it. I never knew it came from a leporid.

Between being coursed, accused of insanity and having their feet cut off to make tunes, they get a fairly raw deal.

Hopefully its a friendly "friendly visit" and not a "friendly" "friendly visit".

It think it's really just a hornpipe. I've taken to recording tunes in bulk and then putting them on a few at a time. There's a danger that this might lead to tunes going on more than once as my tracking system doesn't exist yet. There could even be ones that don't get on at all (they must be the good ones). Hope this one isn't a twin in any case. Safe enough about the "good one" thing.

I don't know much about this tune apart from the fact that it isn't too hard to play and it can sound OK (this instance not withstanding). That's probably all I really need to know.

This reel is often known as "Paddy Carty's Reel". I think he called it "The Day I Met Tom Moylan" but I may well be wrong. I thing the mice must have eaten most of my record collection and I haven't been able to find my Paddy Carty record to check.

I'm not sure how close this version is.

Here's a jig I was asked to play. I seem to remember there being a nice version of it on a Josie McDermott record.

A piping reel which suite the flute.

Here's a jig I was asked to record here. It's a great tune for learning. I hadn't played it for a long time and am glad to have been reminded of it.

A good reel which deserves to be played more often than it is.

Here's a good reel. I'm not sure how standard my version is as I haven't played or heard it for a long time. I hope it's OK.

A very popular piping jig which suits the flute too.

Here's a very popular jig - another suggestion from a flute player in internet land.

Here's a nice hornpipe. A flute player called Alexandre suggested this tune, along with a few other ones. If anyone requests a particular tune, I'll gladly record it as long as I know it. My memory isn't what it was so tunes are exiting my head quicker than they are being replaced.

There are lots of versions of this tune. Hopefully this is fairly close to the commonest one.

Here's a good piping reel. As is ofter the case with good piping reels, especially ones in G, it's good on the flute too.

Here's a popular piping jig. Some people called this "The Piper of the Hearth (or embers)". One Irish translation for a cricket is "Píobare an teallaigh" which = the piper of the hearth. Who knows?

There were a lot of reels names after this chap. This one is normally associated with Michael Coleman.

Here's a very popular jig. It works well on the flute.

Here's a piping reel. It has a few F naturals in it. I tend to play the low octaves with a key and use half-fingering for the high octave ones. I'm a bit rusty with this tune but hopefully it almost makes sense.

Here's a reel with is good for learning and is also a great tune in the standard repertoire of Irish traditional musicians everywhere.

Here's a jig which is good on the flute. I can't comment on the name.

Here's a nice piping reel which suits the flute very well.

Here's a very common reel. It's a great standard tune for sessions.

Here's a reel named after the South Sligo fiddle player , Mr. Finn - Peter Horan's friend.

I put these on separately, slowish then quicker, but I thought that as these tunes have been almost conjoined for the last 80 years, it would be inhumane to split them up now.

You'd be much better getting a recording of John McKenna playing these but, in case you can't get hold of one just yet, here's a version which is hopefully fairly close to the standard one.

Here's the one after the one before.

This is the first of 2 reels which are usually just known as "McKenna's", after the Leitrim flute maestro John McKenna.

I always think of "The Times There are a Changing" but I think the spelling would need to be a changing too (to two?)

Sorry. This is a popular jig although I haven't heard it played for a while.

Here's a popular piping reel which suits the flute. It's often associated with Willie Clancy.

Here's a tune from the fife & Lambeg drum tradition. Some of these have crept into the repertoires of Irish traditional flute players too. I can't remember a name for this one.

Here are 2 reels which were popularised my Michael Coleman. Here's my iffy effort.

Here's a fifing tune. There are some people in my part of the world who play it on big flutes too.

Here's a reel that's popular on the fiddle too.

Here are two polkas. The first one is called the "Shelf" polka. I never heard a name for the second one. Charlie O'Neill originally came from Mount Charles in Donegal and then moved to "the Moy" in Tyrone.

I posted this tune before but it I had the name totally wrong, or the tune, maybe both. I think this one really is called "The Reel of Mullinavat".

Here's a jig with a few B flats and F naturals. Can a flute be a can of worms? I do the B flats with half-covering. The F naturals are with a short key. I was always a bit vague about the exactitude of the accidentals. Anyway, it'll be one source of the tune for whoever wants it.

Here's a reel from the world of piping. I'd imagine the flags aren't the sort which flutter unless the weather is really rough. Did you ever see a paving slab up a pole?

Here's a reel called Eileen Curran. I think I'd rather call these "people reels" - "Eileen Curran's Reel" and so on. The personification of tunes always made me feel a bit uneasy for some reason.

Anyway, the good news is that there ate no G sharps in this tune. Shame about the high C naturals. (I half cover them here.)

Here's a version of the Beare Island Reel with no G sharps. I lay no claims to it being any good. It's just an idea to be playing with.

Here's a good tune for flute players. It's also very popular in sessions (as far as I remember).

Here's a melodic jig which is I don't hear played all that much (I wonder if that could be because I almost never go to sessions these days). I think it deserves a bit of an airing from time to time.

Here's a very popular reel which isn't too cruel to flute players. I'm sorry if I've been cruel to it.

If anyone has any requests (maybe even to stop) please get in touch iflute@googlemail.com. I appreciate any feedback. I've put my shoes back on for this tune as I know the tapping was of use to at least one person. I'm sorry for not having had it in the last few sets. I'll make sure I'm shod from now on.

All the best, and I hope you like the tunes.

The first tune is a reliable old standard. The second one is sometimes played a key below the present one but is handier on the flute in A minor. You can get the dogs to yelp a bit louder in the higher key.

Thanks to William for pointing out that the first tune is not The Reel of Mullinavat. I think it is Gerry Commane's Reel. I'll put the tune which belongs to the "Reel of Mullinavat" on when I get a chance.

Here's a great tune for the flute. It's melodic, easy to play, easy to remember and other people know it (and it's in 'G', which always helps).

Here's a 3 part E minor reel which is popular in sessions.

Here's a very popular reel. Sorry about the abrupt ending. I just remembered I was supposed to be doing something else and ...

More Geese

Here are 2 reels. The first one is very common and I used to hear the second one a lot but haven't heard it for years. I'm not sure why it cropped up in my mind. I've played G sharps in the first part but F sharps would do fine. They might even sound better.

While I'm on an ornithological theme I might as well play this tune. It has high C naturals in the second part. They're probably easiest to get here by half covering the top finger hole.

(16th May 2012 - the original cuckoo seems to have flown off so I've recorded another one).

Here's a piping jig which suite the flute OK. I don't know much about it but I always liked its name.

Here's "The Bucks of Oranmore" again. This time it's played at a slightly more aggressive rate.

Here's a standard reel of any instrument. It goes well on the flute. I've played it as a fairly gentle pace here. Hopefull this should make it easier to pick up.

Here's a reel named after a goat. I suppose it's as good a think as any to name a reel after. It's a popular tune and nice to play on the flute. There are plenty of recordings of this. As far as I remember Frankie Gavin has it on his flute record "Up and away" / "Croch Suas é". The same goat is also to be found in lots of other places too. It might even be a "Coat" in some of them.

Hello,

I'm not sure where I picked this tune up but I recently noticed that a version very like this one os in Ceol Rince na hÉireann Vol2, number 313. It's attributed to a musician called Alex Kerr.

Here's a very popular reel.

(PS. I don't know much about the internet. Does having so many tunes on one page make it very slow to load if you don't have broadband? I could change the settings to only have 50 tunes per page if that would help.)

Here's a well known 3 part reel which works well on the flute. I think I only played the bits once each first time round when I was playing it slowly. It should be more or less OK after that.

Here's a very common jig. I think it was made popular by being on a Planxty record at some stage.

Here's a reel which John Doherty from Donegal used to play on the fiddle. As with the previous tune, it has been lying about on the server for a while. I can't remember why I didn't post it. I'll listen to it when I get home and replace it if it sounds too dodgy.

(I've just listened to this one too and know why I didn't put it on before. Bad and all as it sounds, you should still be able to learn the tune.)

Here's a fairly straightforward reel. I think it comes from Fermanagh. I recorded it a while ago and can't really listen to it from where I am now. I'll give it a listen when I get home and if it sounds too embarrassing then I'll replace it.

(I've now listened back to this. It sounds pretty bad. I played it on a flute that had fairly horrible things lurking in its foot joint. The tune's still OK, though, so I'll leave it where it is. The foot joint has since been exorcised of its "stuff").

Here's the third tune of "The Tarbolton Set". As I said, hunt around for other recordings of these tunes as well. I'd imagine there are lots of them, all based on Michael Coleman's effort. It's always good to hear more than one version of a tune or tunes.

Here's reel 2 of the 3. I think the title refers to a rent / tax collector from Longford rather than someone who hoards Irish midland counties.

Here's a good reel for the flute. Playing it without playing "The Longford Collector" and "The Sailor's Bonnet" is a bit like putting a fruit pastille in your mouth without chewing it, so I've recorded the other 2 reels as well. (Hope the fruit pastille reference isn't too parochial).

This tune, plus the next two, were immortalised (were they ever alive in the first place?) by a recording of Michael Coleman. I'd recommend finding a copy of that for a good version. My versions are based on a combination of laziness and amnesia; never an ideal combination, but I've yet to be actually kicked out of a session because of them. They'll probably suffice until you can get hold of other ones.

This is probably the commonest of the several tunes bearing this name. I can't for the life of me think why there are so many. Anyway, it and flutes are reasonably at ease in each other's company.

Here's a popular jig which isn't too painful in the flute. It has a sort of insistent rhythm about it which I think might be why people like it. I'm sure it has other nice points about it as well, I'm just nor up to the task of describing them at the moment.

Here's a good, common tune. I'm sorry about playing it with a mouth filled with nettles but it should be OK for learning. I took a sort of notion that I'd already put this tune on but I don't see it on the site anywhere. Maybe it's the nettles.

Here's a reel that I don't know too much about (as you'll hear). It might actually be called "The Huntsman's Course", or is he coarse?? Anyway, I think it's a nice tune. I hope you do too.

Here are two reels which are common in sessions and hopefully suit the flute.

You can also find a nice version of this tune, along with a wealth of music and information at Greg Bacon's music site http://www.baconworks.com/ It's definitely worth a visit.

The first one is also called "The Cedars of the Lebanon". The second one is fairly common but deserves a bit more of a airing (despite the dodgy start here).

Here's a fairly common jig. I hope someone likes it.

I'm not referring to the number of lasses but to the number of tunes. This one's maybe a bit more common than its namesake.

Here's a reel with the same name as another common reel. I'll put the other one on soon.

Here's a reel that was made for the flute. It's a real South Sligo thing, even though Cloontia is in Mayo. There's a version of this tune in Ceol Rince na hÉireann, Vol 2, number 195, transcribed from Sonny McDonagh's playing.

Here's a jig which is very popular with flute players all over Ireland. I hope someone out there likes it too, whether they be in Ireland or elsewhere.

Here's a tune which just occurred to me. I think it's usually associated with pipers (Leo Rowsome's name springs to mind for some reason) but It's handy enough on the flute. It should be a common enough tune in sessions as well. I hope it's OK.

Here's another common tune, again one which is well suited to the flute.

Here's a very common tune which is popular with people starting to learn the flute. It's got a good melody for playing around with.

Another reel. Sorry sorry sorry. My memory is faulty and can only remember reels at the moment. It's getting harder to know whenever you're within a mile of Dublin these days. It's getting to the stage when Dublin is within a mile of all of us. Bye for now.

Here's a fairly common tune called something or other. It gets "Dang" or "Bang" between Jenny and the tapistrator. I'm neither sure about what happened between Jenny and the weaver, nor about what the proper term for a maker of tapestries might be.

It's a nice tune anyway, I hope.

I think it might be on a Bothy Band record somewhere.

Here's a reel (I'm sorry about so many reels) from Donegal. I heard it on a tape of Francie Byrne from Kilcar. I'll probably run out of tunes quite soon. It's easy enough to know a tune when other people start them but trying to conjure them up while looking at a computer is a bit of a challenge. If anyone has any tunes in mind which they would like to hear played on the flute, please please let me know. Idir an dá linn, bainigí sult as an cheol agus bígí ag seinm ar bhur bhfeadóga móra.

Today isn't one here, buíochas le Dia! This reel is nicer than the weather it describes. It's worth digging out a recording of Séamus Ennis playing this tune. In the meantime, here's a flute version to be getting along with.

I think this tune was made up by box and fiddle player Finbar Dwyer. It has a fiddly G sharp in the first part but is good therapy. Just to prove the point about the G sharp, I've made a mess of it myself in a couple of places. Please don't feel obliged to learn the messes.

(24/04/07 - Just played this one again after hearing the state of the last try. The messes are still there but I've moved them around a bit.)

Here's a tune associated with the fiddle player Jimmy Lyons, who came from Teelin in Co. Donegal.

Here's a reel which Mary Bergin put on her record "Feadóga Stáin". It is in CRÉ 3 (number 123).

Here's a jig which you'll find in CRÉ 3 (number 15). I think it's on a record of Sean Keane and Matt Molloy - Contentment is Wealth, where it is called Connie Connell's Jig.

Here's a well known reel. There's a version of in in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 3 (number 96). I'm not sure how close my version is.

I've never heard a name for this reel but it suits the flute well.

I think this jig is on a record of Bobby Casey, a fiddle player from County Clare.

I've played this reel in A minor. It's often played in E minor as well but A comes before E in the alphabet and E doesn't necessarily stand for "easier" at the moment.

You'll here fiddle players playing this in A minor an octave lower in Donegal (if you're in Donegal listening to a fiddle session, that is). Some of them call it the "Gweebarra Reel".

Here's a jig called by the name above. The title translates into English as "You'll Come Home With Me".

I hope the tune is of some use to somebody, somewhere, sometime, somehow, somewhat, some chance.

Here's a tune about which I know nothing, apart from the name. Still sounding like there's cotton wool either in my mouth ot the flute but hopefully you can still pick up the tune OK. I've never played the flute immediately after coming out of the dentist's surgery but I'd imagine it would sound something like this.

Here's a very popular tune. It's always a good standard one to learn but doesn't get recorded all that often. It's worth digging out a recording of James Morrison playing it to show that it really does have a life.

I've played it slow at first and then quickened up a little.

There's nothing wrong with common tunes. There probably only so common because people like them.

I don't know about Tom Ward's problems but I do know that I'm having bother of my own with flutes. I promise to stop complaining about them 'though. My flute is getting fixed early next week.

This is a good fiddle / flute reel which you can hopefully decipher through the puffs and out of tune bits. Sure it's the message that counts, not the messenger.

Here are 2 common reels which are hopefully quite well suited to the flute. I hope someone enjoys playing them.

If anyone has any particular tunes they want to hear then please let me know. It would be easier for me to do what I'm told than than to think for myself. Good luck.

Here are the last 2 jigs again. I hope they make sense. I've found another flute which I hadn't played for a few years but I thought I'd give it a run out until the other one was fixed. If it sounds bad, that's my fault. It might be harder to get my playing fixed than the flute.

Here are 2 jigs. The first one is probably a little bit less common than the first. I've slowed them down a bit here.

Here are the same tunes again at "normal" speed.

Here are two reels. The first one is very common and the second one less so. I thing the second one comes from Fermanagh. They're both handy enough on the flute (not that you'ld think so from my effort here).

I've also heard the first tune called "The Bench of Green Rushes" but what's in a name? The second tune is very popular and hopefully quite playable on the flute.

My flute is still sick. It just got sick shortly after I started to put tunes on this site. I'm not sure where cause and effect fits in or fit in here. I'm heading off shortly to where a flute doctor lives and hopefully on my return things will be better. In the meantime I'll plough on with a few tunes now and again.

I hope some people are getting some use from this site. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks.

Here's the same jig a bit quicker plus one called the Luckpenny.

Every time I ask someone the name of this tune they tell me that I have the wrong name. I want it to be called by the name I've given it so I'll keep asking. I hope you like this tune and enjoy learning it.

Here's a reel. Don't know much about it but it's quite a nice tune for the flute.

Here's the same highland as before plus another one called Tom Taylor's or The Teelin highland.

Here's a highland. I can't remember it's name but I think it would be quite easy to learn. I've slowed it down a bit here.

Here's the previous tune plus a reel named after the Micko Russell from Doolin, Co. Clare. I think I should have played the parts twice each. It's on Mary Bergin's first tin whistle record if you want another version.

Here's a common reel, slowed down. It's probably a good one for learning as there aren't too many scary bits in it.

Another popular reel.

This is a version of a reel which was composed by the flute player Vincent Broderick.

Here's a simple and slowed down version of a popular jig.

The first tune is Con Cassidy's Jig (another tune from the Teelin fiddle player) and the second is a slip jig which goes by several names. The Leitrim flute player Packie Duignan called this tune "Dever the Dancer" or "Devro the Dancer".

Here's a reel with a few F naturals. The flute still hasn't forgiven me for attacking its cork with a kitchen knive. Flutilation.

2 Reels. Having flute trouble. Just cut the cork in half with a kitchen knife. I'll replace both cork and tunes when I get things sorted.

Two common jigs. I know the name of the first one but wouldn't bet on the second one really being Tobin's, although I wouldn't rule that out either.

Same two tunes as before but a bit quicker - don't know where the third one came out of.

Two Common Reels played slowly.

Here are the same tunes again, a bit quicker.

Here are 2 popular tunes. I've slowed them down here to make them easier to pick up.

Here's the last tune alomg with one in D to save metal fatigue in the F natural key.

This is a version of Juila Delaney's reel. I never really played this on the flute, apart from in sessions with fiddle players. There are a few holes in this version but I hope you'll find that you can play along with more stringy people in a session with this setting.

Here are 2 polkas which John McKenna recorded, as did lots of other people. I've used a bit of helium with these ones.

The first is based on a vague memory of a tape I have somewhere of the fiddle played Mickey Doherty. The second is a reel recorded by one or more of Coleman / Morrison / Killoran (Michael / James / Paddy) in G minor. I can't remember it's name; only that I don't like playing it in G minor on the flute.

Same tunes. "normal" speed.

Here are a jig and a slip jig from the fiddle players Con Cassidy (Teelin, Co. Donegal) and James Byrne (Meenacross, Co. Donegal). I've slowed them down a bit here in case that helps people pick them up. The first one is usually fairly leisurely anyway.

The first one is Amhrán an Tae (The Tea Song) and I've called the second one "Denis Murphy's". Considering the number of tunes the last Mr. Murphy knew, this title is usually a safe bet when you don't know the actual name.

The first tune is the House on the Hill. I think I've heard it called Miss Thornton's as well. I Think I first got it from a recording of Packie Duignan from Roscommon. My mis-spent late youth has probably corrupted my version of it since then. The second tune is called the Ashplant (I think). I know very little about this tune apart from approximately haw it goes (or how to spell "how" it would appear.

The first one is an E minor version of a tune Paddy Carty played in D minor. The second one might be called by the name I've given it. On the other hand ...

For Quinn's reel see RTÉ CD of Pádraig O'Keefe and also Ceol Rince na hÉireann 2, number 171.

Here's the jig The Humours of Drinagh, slowed down to make it easier to learn.

Here's the Mountain Top reel again, this time at normal speed.

Here's the Mountain Top Reel. I've slowed it down in case this helps people learn it.

Here are 2 jigs - Contentment is wealth and Tom Billy's. The second part of the first one often varies. I've taken a sort of average.

The Liffey Banks and the Shaskeen (not sure whether the first one is usually played double or single - perhaps I should get out more and I might know - In fact I'll go out right now.)

The Standing Abbey / Tomorrow Morning (hornpipes).

Shaky start - best learn them without the shakes.

The Blackhaired Lass (name a bit unsure - aren't they all?) / Trim the Velvet

An Rógaire Dubh (The Black Rogue) and The Maho Snaps

Here's Kennedy's Favourite and the Woman of the House. Best listen to a recording of Denis Murphy or Padraig O'Keefe at these to get them right. They're easy enough extracted from a flute.

These are Corney is Coming / The Humours of Scarriff (in G - more humane for flute players' hands) and the Cocktail Reel (a relation of the Dublin Reel but further north west)

Can't remember these too well but they might be some use to someone out there.

3 traditional Irish flute tunes (The Lady on the Island / The Copperplate ? Paddy Fahy's) I haven't got the hang of the technology yet (and arguably not of the flute either). Subsequent entries will be put on with a bit more care.