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Thread: A Fig for a Kiss

  1. #1

    Default A Fig for a Kiss

    Hi all,

    I've posted a series of tutorials for this tune. You can just learn the basics of the plectrum style or try to play triplets and Irish style ornamentation.

    If you have a go I'd love to hear how you get on.

    See the 'advanced' page at www.thecelticmandolin.co.uk

    John
    Edinburgh

    Note, nothing is for sale there. It's all free.

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  3. #2
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Fig for a Kiss

    Hey John: I love your site and have a fondness for slip jigs as well as figs so thanks so much. I just started working on one of Martin Hayes' video tutorials but will get to the fig jig soon, I hope. BTW I would love to know the story behind the enticing title. Did he offer her a fig for a kiss and then another fig, etc. Or does it have some sort of mythological symbolism. Hmmmm...

    I love your playing on that page as well. Great work! I didn't think there was too much ornamentation.
    Jim

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  4. #3
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Fig for a Kiss

    We know the tune as "Gurgling the Churn". I like kissing more than gurgling.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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  6. #4

    Default Re: A Fig for a Kiss

    Gurgling the Churn is a great name. I notice that there are loads of names for it on thesession.org, and a few 'churn'.

    Fig For A Kiss, Figs For A Kiss, Gáire Na MBán, Glugar An Mheadair, Milk The Churn, Ní Maith Liom Pog, The Old Dutch Churn, Rinnce Is Ceól, The Splashing Of The Churn, Two In A Gig.

    Perhaps 'a fig for a kiss' is some kind of chat-up line.

  7. #5
    Registered User DougC's Avatar
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    Default Re: A Fig for a Kiss

    My favorite version of this tune is from a 1991 recording called Dance Across the Sea by Mark Roberts (flute) and Sandol Astrausky (fiddle). Mark and some others on the recording were in a band called Touchstone. Claudine Langille, plays mandolin on the recording.

    Fig for a Kiss can be played as a round. It is a lot of fun this way because it works well and it ends on the same note. My wife and I play it this way and maybe we got the idea from the recording. I'll have to give that old CD a spin soon. It was, and is... one of my very favorite recordings.
    Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile

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