New Songs for March Gigs?

[deadend3]

Wondering what new songs you all may be working for gigs this high holy season.

Here's one stopped doing a couple of years ago and working on bring back.

[multidon]

Not really, as our St. Patrick's day (entire month of March, even into both Feb. and April)playlist is made up of 100 percent chestnuts. The only thing I would call new is my reworking of "Lark in the Clear Air". I have never been happy at all with the way the words fit the tune, although the tune is beautiful. I did further research and found the true original tune as "Kathleen Nowlan", aka "The Tailor's Son". The tune is basically the same with only a note or two different. I reworked our arrangement and we now do it as a tune (instrumental) only, as it was apparently intended to be in its original form.

[Randi Gormley]

Yeah, our usual group does purely traditional music, too -- meaning unless it's a liz carol tune, it's at least 200 years old (or feels like it). We have a gig in a couple weeks with a different group with a singer -- so we're doing Galway Girl, Black and Tan and Dirty Old town, but everything else is more in the nature of Out On The Ocean, Dusty Windowsills and the Fox Hunter slip jig. yes, we ARE a surprise and occasional disappointment to our audiences!

[CelticDude]

I've come up with 2/3 of a set: Clumsy Lover and The Wedding Reel. I need a third tune that keeps the theme going. There isn't a The Divorce reel, is there? I'm also reviving a set or two that I used to play.

[foldedpath]

I've come up with 2/3 of a set: Clumsy Lover and The Wedding Reel. I need a third tune that keeps the theme going. There isn't a The Divorce reel, is there? I'm also reviving a set or two that I used to play.

Unfortunately some of the best candidates if you're going for tune titles are jigs, not reels, like "I Buried My Wife and Danced on Her Grave." For the Irish repertoire, there probably isn't much with a divorce theme, considering the traditional background of Catholic culture.

There is a reel called "The Repeal of the Union" with an alternate title of "The Millstone" which might fit thematically, although I don't know how it would work in a set with those other tunes.

For a public performance, I think you're better off just picking tunes that sound good together in a set, and then change the names if you need to. For instrumental tunes at a St. Patrick's Day performance, nobody cares about the names anyway.


P.S. I'm not gigging this March, kind of burned out on it, and our duo doesn't do the kind of drinking songs people want anyway. We did get a request through an agent for a party in Seattle, but that's a long way from where I live and it probably wouldn't have paid enough for an overnight motel. I'm getting too old for a 3 hour drive home from a gig that ends late, unless the pay is truly spectacular.

[Randi Gormley]

we had an 'elopement set' of jigs, haste to the wedding, saddle the pony and off she goes. What our fiddler puts with Wedding Reel is Farewell to Erin. so you could have the lovers emigrate .....

[Eddie Sheehy]

I've come up with 2/3 of a set: Clumsy Lover and The Wedding Reel. I need a third tune that keeps the theme going. There isn't a The Divorce reel, is there? I'm also reviving a set or two that I used to play.

"I Buried My Wife and Danced on Her Grave" kinda skips the Divorce part which wouldn't be allowed in Holy Catholic Ireland anyway...
and you could squeeze in "An Phis Fhluich" ahead of the Clumsy Lover...

[CelticDude]

Eddy, I like it! It keeps the theme AND allows not one but two transitions from jig to reel (or vice versa).

Yes, I know the audience won't know or care about the names but I will. And maybe my guitarist would notice. Although, as he's also my son, I could get into a wee bit of trouble...

[Colin Lindsay]

with the finale to the 'elopement' set being... Cock Up Your Beaver....
and on that low note... I'll get me coat.

[John Kelly]

Oh Colin, you are awful!

[Mike Anderson]

with the finale to the 'elopement' set being... Cock Up Your Beaver....
and on that low note... I'll get me coat.

The boys of Tandragee really ARE rollicking, aren't they?

[Randi Gormley]

What a scream! I'll pass it on to our tunemeister! It's the kind of humor that puts him in a snarking place for hours.

[Mike Scott]

with the finale to the 'elopement' set being... Cock Up Your Beaver....
and on that low note... I'll get me coat.

I like it! I am sure it will become a regular tune at most sessions........