Irish Flute Tunes

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 just versions of tunes as I remember them. My memory isn’t the best so some of the versions and the titles might be a bit astray but hopefully they’ll be of some use. 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).

At this stage tune suggestions are particularly welcome as my "isn't the best" memory has started to resist my attempts to plunder it for any more material. Thanks,

Michael.

(The tunes are split over a number of pages to stop the pages being too slow to load. To go to the next page, please click on Previous Entries at the bottom of the page, otherwise use the index on the left of the screen to navigate to a specific tune).

These tunes are now available via iTunes so you don't even have to go through the displeasing process of accessing this site directly to hear them. Hearing the tunes may be hardship enough in itself.  I don't really know what the iTunes caper means but a search for "Irish Flute Tunes" will point to where this stuff lives in iTunesville.  The URL via which to subscribe is http://irishflute.podbean.com/feed .  If that all made no sense to you then welcome to my world.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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).

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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

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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

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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'.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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 ...)

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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/

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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.

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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.

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