Irish Reel Suggestions?

[Jody Kruskal]

I have a St. Pat's bar gig this year with a handful of people I don't really know. I've got lots of jigs and polkas and songs but not really enough reels. Any suggestions? Standards that every Irish player should probably know are what I'm asking for, nothing too obscure please. Easy tunes would make my life, well... easier, but your favorite session tunes would also be very welcome.

[Greg Jowaisas]

Here are some of my favorites that can be fashioned into medleys:

 

Man of the House Em

The Merry Blacksmith D

The Silver Spear D

The Torn Petticoat Am

Cooley's Reel Em

Mountain Road D

The Drunken Landlady Em

 

Many put "The Maid Behind the Bar" and "Sligo Maid" together.

 

"The Concertina Reel" is a lot of fun and some play it along the row in C

 

Have fun!

 

Greg

[Jim Besser]

I have a St. Pat's bar gig this year with a handful of people I don't really know. I've got lots of jigs and polkas and songs but not really enough reels. Any suggestions? Standards that every Irish player should probably know are what I'm asking for, nothing too obscure please. Easy tunes would make my life, well... easier, but your favorite session tunes would also be very welcome.

Congress reel

Gravel Walks

Father Kelly (dead easy)

Dick Gossips (is this actually Irish? I'm not sure)

When all else fails, there's always Drowsy Maggie

[Daniel Hersh]

I have a St. Pat's bar gig this year with a handful of people I don't really know. I've got lots of jigs and polkas and songs but not really enough reels. Any suggestions? Standards that every Irish player should probably know are what I'm asking for, nothing too obscure please. Easy tunes would make my life, well... easier, but your favorite session tunes would also be very welcome.

 

Here are some of my favorites that can be fashioned into medleys:

 

Man of the House Em

The Merry Blacksmith D

The Silver Spear D

The Torn Petticoat Am

Cooley's Reel Em

Mountain Road D

The Drunken Landlady Em

 

Many put "The Maid Behind the Bar" and "Sligo Maid" together.

 

"The Concertina Reel" is a lot of fun and some play it along the row in C

And also:

Temperance

Sally Gardens

Star of Munster

Banshee

Earl's Chair

Julia Delaney

Morning Star

Wise Maid

[Wolf Molkentin]

When all else fails, there's always Drowsy Maggie

And what a great little tune it is! Anyway, some say they won't even give it a try...

[Jody Kruskal]

Thanks Greg, Jim and Daniel. Based on your help and some research at the Session site, I've put together a list of reels that I can play for my St Pats gig. Now on to the medleys. How to combine them and others? Here is a list of reels I now play. If you could tell me medley titles you associate with any of these tunes that would be very helpful.

 

 

D

Farewell To Ireland

Rolling In The Ryegrass

Concertina Reel

Morning Star D/Em

Wise Maid

Wind that Shakes the Barley

The Fairy Dance

Maid Behind the Bar

The Silver Spear

Merry Blacksmith

E Dorian

The Drunken Landlady

Man of the House

Tarbolton

Cooley's

Ships are Sailing

Em/D

Cup of Tea

A Dorian

The Congress

Matt Peoples'

Laurel Tree

The Torn Petticoat

The Monaghan Twig

Star of Munster

G

The Bird in the Bush
Green Fields of America
The Banshee

Miss McCloud's
Temperance

Swinging on a Gate

Far from Home

Sally Gardens

Father Kelly’s
Walker Street

Farewell to Whisky

[Azalin]

I think what you call "medley" is called "set" in Irish set dancing. So you're actually looking for popular ceili dancing sets? You could make up the sets yourself by picking tunes from your list half randomly, if they seem to fit nicely with each other. The tunes you have are popular session tunes, they're not all necessarily popular dance tunes. This is beyond my knowledge but dancers tend to love some tunes more than others because of their structure even if they all have the same time signature. I'm sure a few people here playing for Irish dancers could come up with sets played by popular ceili bands.

[Jody Kruskal]

Thanks Azalin. Actually, I'm going to play these tunes in a bar which will likely be noisy and perhaps so loud that nobody who is five feet from us will even know we are there and we will have to duck when a beer bottle goes flying by... well that's the worst case scenario. The best case is that it will be more like a concert with happy drunken folks singing and clapping along.

 

Regardless, any dancing, though welcome, is not expected. If they do dance it's very unlikely it will sets. I bet polkas would work the best and it would probably be just couples, not Kerry sets.

 

No, it's session tunes I'm looking for and I suspect that there are common groupings for many of these classic tunes. "Make 'em up yerself" is good advice and I will, lacking guidance from those that surely know better than I do about the world of ITM.

[Daniel Hersh]

Thanks Azalin. Actually, I'm going to play these tunes in a bar which will likely be noisy and perhaps so loud that nobody who is five feet from us will even know we are there and we will have to duck when a beer bottle goes flying by... well that's the worst case scenario. The best case is that it will be more like a concert with happy drunken folks singing and clapping along.

 

Regardless, any dancing, though welcome, is not expected. If they do dance it's very unlikely it will sets. I bet polkas would work the best and it would probably be just couples, not Kerry sets.

 

No, it's session tunes I'm looking for and I suspect that there are common groupings for many of these classic tunes. "Make 'em up yerself" is good advice and I will, lacking guidance from those that surely know better than I do about the world of ITM.

 

I would suggest that you think about keys when you put your sets of tunes together. If your accompanist can handle it (some DADGAD guitar players can't) key changes from one tune to the next - say D to Em to G in a 3-tune set - make the sets sound more interesting to many ears.

[chas]

I'd second that. Tune sets including major to minor changes and vice versa are effective. Moving up is also a good principle - whether that means adding a sharp, e.g. a tune in G followed by one in D, or changing to a tune that starts on a higher note. Some tunes just work well in certain positions. I play Sally Gardens followed by Old Copperplate and ending on Earl's Chair. You can really up the energy on the offbeat with the Earl's Chair and it's a great finish, hanging on that last B. The High Reel in A is good to go into from something else because of the high first note.

But much depends on context, in sessions, (not your question, I know) tune choice can be a fun way of orchestrating the set - a tune a fair few people know followed by one only two people know and ending on something everyone knows!

And while there are some tunes that are generally played together, such as the famous Michael Coleman set of Tarbolton, The Longford Collector and Sailor's Bonnet (played by the man himself at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V7ji57f0Is ), a lot of sets are really local developments associated with particular locations, sessions, groups of players. Making up your own is fine.

 

Note: the word "set" as used above does not refer to set dancing. Mind you, I came across some ceilidh band members in Clare who didn't know the names of individual tunes but called the whole set by the name of the dance/figure they'd been playing it for all their lives.

[Peter Laban]

I think what you call "medley" is called "set" in Irish set dancing. So you're actually looking for popular ceili dancing sets?

 

How much confusion can you stuff into one post? 'medley' is perfectly fine as is 'set' or 'selection'. None of these refer to set dancing, which is not related to 'ceili dancing' (in the Siege of Ennis etc sense of the word), although they may be used for dancing a set.

[Azalin]

 

I think what you call "medley" is called "set" in Irish set dancing. So you're actually looking for popular ceili dancing sets?

How much confusion can you stuff into one post? 'medley' is perfectly fine as is 'set' or 'selection'. None of these refer to set dancing, which is not related to 'ceili dancing' (in the Siege of Ennis etc sense of the word), although they may be used for dancing a set.

 

 

Yes I actually meant Irish ceili dancing. There was an extra "set" word which did not belong there. Anyway I just realized he said he's playing in a bar, I missed that word!

Edited March 1, 2014 by Azalin

[Azalin]

Thanks Azalin. Actually, I'm going to play these tunes in a bar which will likely be noisy and perhaps so loud that nobody who is five feet from us will even know we are there and we will have to duck when a beer bottle goes flying by... well that's the worst case scenario. The best case is that it will be more like a concert with happy drunken folks singing and clapping along.

 

Regardless, any dancing, though welcome, is not expected. If they do dance it's very unlikely it will sets. I bet polkas would work the best and it would probably be just couples, not Kerry sets.

 

No, it's session tunes I'm looking for and I suspect that there are common groupings for many of these classic tunes. "Make 'em up yerself" is good advice and I will, lacking guidance from those that surely know better than I do about the world of ITM.

 

Yes sorry about that, I don't think drunken patrons count as ceili dancers There are many popular sets for sure, as others have pointed out. One I really like is the Copperplates (the old and the new), the first in G, then Am. Some sets in sessions are popular because they come from recordings, but I even heard sets popular because of the names of its tunes, like the "pitchfork" set, Sporting Pitchfork and Rambling Pitchfork. Another great set, both tunes in D, The Skylark and Roaring Mary. One last set, I heard often: "Fred Finn's" and "Kiss the Maid Behind the Barrel". The first in D, second in G. I really like the switch in that one.