Key Signatures For O'carolan Tunes

[Mark Evans]

I've had "The Complete Works of O'Carolan" (Ossian Publications) for awhile now and over the last few weeks have started to plough through it.

 

Have encountered more that a few suprises on tunes I'd picked up by ear: Key signatures and actual structure. I realize Turlough's compositions were transcribed and passed down from one player to another (very cool that), but it forced me to be a little quicker on me feet in playin' situations.

 

A mandolin player I enjoy working with has been courious about playing more Irish tunes and very proudly told me "I've learned Morgan Magan"...So he starts off, and I realize he's playing in G major, not A major. I don't want to dampen his joy and pride so I transpose in me noggin' and after a bar or two I'm not playin' like I was wearin' oven mitts. It changes the tenor of Morgan Magan completely. I asked him where he had gotten the music, "In a mandolin tab book".

 

O'Carolan, shook up folks back in the day...and is still at it! Started me on a project of randomly transposing his tunes in an exploration of how does key signature effect the meaning of a tune. Much fun!

[spindizzy]

A mandolin player I enjoy working with has been courious about playing more Irish tunes and very proudly told me "I've learned Morgan Magan"...So he starts off, and I realize he's playing in G major, not A major.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I started learning this (probably from the complete works) in A and promptly found in was played in G in all the sessions I took it to!

 

I don't know anything about the tuning of early Irish harps, but I expect they might be tuned to a key - concert harps need pedals for all the different keys! And all the music would be transcribed for violins (which seem to like A) and flutes - do they prefer G? Then tere were arrangements of the meoldy lines etc.....

 

All very complicated.

 

Chris J

[Mark Evans]

Ah Ha! You know, I find that in the seisun I attend that O' Carolan tunes are avoided unless the harp player starts them off. The flautist grumbles under his breath and goes for a pint....Is Turlough even considered Irish in some circles?

 

As for the Irish harps I've encountered, they can play in any key...I think so yes. Mabye Morgana can set us straight on dat little issue.

 

Key a G eh, well, next week I'll start off an' see how quick the grumbly ole' flautist goes fer his pint !

 

As for the keys, it's fun. Gary Owen is played by a banjo player friend in G, most everyone else plays it in D....Ha! I do it back ta back in both....they are very different in character....but both make me think of horses, saddle leather and Custers just reward.

[JimLucas]

It's interesting, enjoyable, and sometimes musically satisfying to experiment with playing tunes -- not just Carolan tunes -- in various keys. But one should be wary of jumping to conclusions and inventing "history" through speculation.

 

I don't have the "...Complete Works..." book (really should get it some day), so I don't know what claims it makes as to scholarship, but (correct me if I'm wrong) it's my understanding that none of the Carolan tunes was ever transcribed from his own playing or the keys recorded. (There's the secondary problem of the definition of keys changing over time. The traditional "A" of Scots pipers is a modern orchestra's Bb, while the traditional "A" of Northumbrian smallpipers is a modern orchestra's G. Having mentioned that, I won't pursue it.) Were any of Carolan's tunes among those transcribed at the Belfast Harp Festival, more than 50 years after his death? Most, I believe, weren't "collected" until more than 100 years after that.

 

Much can happen to a tune in that time, and not just a change of keys. In O'Neill's Music of Ireland, the section of "O'Carolan's Compositions" presents two "settings" of "O'Carolan's Devotion". Not only is one written in Dm (one flat) and the other in Gm (2 flats), but the one is in 4/4 time and the other in 3/4 time! It's reasonable to assume that at least one of these is not the way Carolan himself played it, but is it reasonable to assume that either is even very close? Even if there's an earlier transcription, how can we know how close even it is to the "original". I think it's well accepted that harpers didn't play just simple melodies, but were in fact admired for their embellishments... accompaniment and ornamentation, and why not also melodic variation?

 

Many changes may be a result of differences in facility on different instruments, e.g., changing from a fiddler's key of A to a fluter's key of G, but also differences in ornamentation. Other changes may be deliberate, arising from differences in musical taste. But perhaps the most common source of variation is simply inaccurate transmission.

 

More than once I've encountered people playing versions of Carolan compositions which leave out one or more measures, or even part of a measure, or perhaps include an extra repetition of certain notes. I know someone who copied a tune from a published collection, transposing it to a more convenient key, and accidentally left out one eigth note (quaver). He then learned to play it from his transcription, with complete accuracy, including having one measure short by 1/8. Very exciting to hear, but hazardous to dancers. And yet he never noticed that his rhythm was unusual until a friend and I pointed it out to him.

 

The number of faulty transcriptions I've seen in internet tune collections apalls me. I don't simply mean versions that are different from mine. There are many of those, and I consider that to be valid. But when a transcription lists the recording it was taken from, and I have that recording, and the transcription doesn't match the notes I hear on the recording, I consider that an error and a disservice to all those who would like to learn the "real" tune. Sometimes the errors are subtle -- like missing that when Altan plays "The Sunset" there are F-naturals on the second time through the B part, though not the first time through, -- but often they're quite glaring and a clear indication that the transcirber didn't carefully check his work before "publishing" it.

 

Well, that's meant as an example, not my main point. My main point is to caution everyone against assigning too much importance to any sources, much less to any speculative conclusions drawn from them, however "reasonable". None of it is "holy writ". Speculation can be fun, and even artistically profitable, but -- whether it's your own or someone else's -- it shouldn't be confused with fact.

[Mark Evans]

Ah Jim I wish I had thrown that collection in my brief case this morning. The author in his short history on O'Carolan clearly states the collection was gathered from a number of transcription resouces and gives a few of the period plates as example. There is a bibliography but no annotation within the "history". It's a good read, but scholarly...far from it.

 

The author refers to verse that O'Carolan wrote for the laments, but does not inclue them in Gaelic or translation. Gave me a difficult time with Captian O'Kane which I understand has verse and it is only speculated that O'Carolan wrote the verse or tune (still have not seen the verse in translation or Gaelic).

 

So I have to play it in the key given (Em) and see what it says to me. Well, hearing Danny's (Rat face) version said something completely different (Am?) with realized chords, drop dead beautiful and sad (whoever this wounded hussar is, he is young, his wound is fresh and he will not long be). Mine seemed more like an old man with his saddness moving along well enough considering his old wound, with his pint and his pipe waiting.

 

Since then I have encountered several other versions which upon first listen, I had trouble discerning the tune. Slippery this business. I'm sure O'Carolan is having a good laugh over the whole bit and very happy people are still drawn to his music.

Edited February 3, 2005 by Mark Evans