Chiff and Fipple Forums

I've just learned "The Old Favorite" jig (slightly different setting than here but this is the basic tune http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/56) and I love it, can't stop playing it.

What other tunes are out there, simple in design but highly addictive?

Cheers,

Jason

Maud Millar



R

I really think some of the simple tunes are the best ones. They just have great melodies, which is why people still play them. Played well, they are great. I love Billy McComiskey's playing of the Sally Gardens. Doesn't get much more simple of a tune or much better music. It's how you play them.

B

Rob Sharer wrote:Maud Millar

Which one?

I like O'Mahoney's Hornpipe. Nice, bouncy-bouncy tune that others can pick up fairly easily and it's very catchy. Great warm-up tune, as well, just to get the blow going.

Behind the Haystack is super easy, but I can't get enough of it.

Primrose Lass

BrendanB wrote: I love Billy McComiskey's playing of the Sally Gardens.

When I started playing the flute, the Sally Gardens was the first tune I played. It was already in my head because before I played the music I was a set dancer, and in my first series of set dancing classes the teacher had us dancing across the floor of a ballroom that's nearly as big as a football field in order to learn the Clare reel step. Back and forth we went, every Wednesday night for ten weeks, dancing to a tape of a tune starting slowly and gradually speeding up to proper dance tempo. The tune was the Sally Gardens, and it was a custom tape played by Billy McComiskey.

That was over twenty years ago. I still love Billy McComiskey's playing of the Sally Gardens. And God I'm old.

The Laurel Tree is another I've just started playing and love that's fairly simple in design. I often hear this type of Aminor tune as a slow reel, such as Castle Kelly. Played slowly, I find the Laurel Tree rather hypnotic.

I really like Tobin's Favorite (jig). Sounds good slow or fast.

Pull the knife and stick it in again and leitrim jig

sbfluter wrote:I really like Tobin's Favorite (jig). Sounds good slow or fast.

Tobin's is one of my fav's as well.

The tunes that are in your head already. I just decided to learn "The Ballad of Gillagan's Island" without all the key changes. No one notices and it makes it easier for folks to sing. The "Andy Griffith Song" and of course "Theme to the Brady Bunch." "Flintstones" is next.

The Maudabawn Chapel

Now, to be serious: "George Whites Favorite" and "Pull the Knife"

The tune "Sally Gardens" reminds me of the time when I used to entertain old folks in nursing homes. I played the guitar and sang, mostly, although I did play the harmonica on occasion. One of my friends, Bill, wanted to come along a sing a few tunes, and one of the tunes he chose to sing was Sally Gardens. I played the accompaniment on the classical guitar. We did pretty well on our one performance of Sally Gardens, if you ask me, but I don't think the old folk were very impressed. They kept nodding off in their wheelchairs. They were probably a little like my Dad; if he didn't know the words to the tune, he didn't want to hear it. Nothing artsy for him and evidently not for the folks in the nursing home either.