A new tune each Wednesday (more or less), chosen arbitrarily by your Webmaster, a mixture of traditional and new but traditional in style tunes. Site visitors are encouraged to nominate tunes for this page.
This week’s tune:
Bayne Water, march, air or Bluegrass, take your pick. Alternate title, Boyne Water (and half a dozen other variations), probably originally from Northern Ireland.
Last week’s tune:
Reel des Esquimaux (Eskimo Reel) first recorded by fiddler Isidore Soucy in 1939 (as “Reel des eskimos”), in a ‘crooked’ version that was subsequently ‘straightened’ for contra and square dancing.
Recent Tunes of the Week:
- Sarah Armstrong’s Tune, a contemporary but old-time style reel from southwestern Pennsylvania composed by, you guessed it, Sarah Armstrong.
- West Fork Gals, a traditional Appalachian reel from West Virginia.
- Meg Gray. This E minor reel has a lovely, haunting sound and (from my perspective as a guitar player) beautiful chords.
- The Tooth Fairy (La Fée des Dents), a jig by André Brunet. Check out the video of André himself playing it in 2008.
- Maiden’s Prayer, originally from Poland, a popular Texas Swing hit in the 1930s by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and played around here as a waltz(?). Well, I suppose it qualifies as North Atlantic…
- Waunlwyd War Cry, This Welsh polka must rank as the most cheerful sounding war cry on record!
- Tobin’s Favourite Jig, one of my favorite traditional(?) Irish(?) jigs. Do you know anything about its origin or region? Let me know via the suggestion form.
- The Mouth of the Tobique, a wonderful three-part reel from New Brunswick with some nice syncopation in the C part. From the Perth-Andover area where the Tobique River enters the Saint John. Don’t miss the great accordion rendition by Sharon Shannon starting at 0.49 in the YouTube video (she seems to open with the C part).
- Off to Flamborough, a jaunty new hornpipe by multi-instrumentalist Peter Clayton in England. He writes, “Flamborough is a village on the east coast of Yorkshire, UK. It is situated approximately 20 miles south of Scarborough (of Scarborough Fair fame) on the prominent coastal feature of Flamborough Head.” (east-north-east of York and Leeds –AJ)
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- Background: I started this site about twelve years ago largely for my own convenience, but it quickly grew to be useful for a number of other musicians in my area. Since then it has grown far beyond my original vision, with over 1,100 tunes posted and around 6,000 user sessions per month from more than 30 countries. Until now I have built and maintained the site out of my own pocket but its increasing size and complexity is requiring more outside resources and costs; hence this appeal. So if this site is helpful to you, please consider a small contribution.