Redsnapper,

But how do you know whether:

1) the title of the tune you're playing was the original one ascribed by its author?

2) which instrument(s) originally played the tune?

3) the feelings you experience while playing the tune were those intended by its author? And I'm definitely not willing to get into any arguments about the Intentionist Fallacy! :)

It's all conjecture. Obviously, if someone plays a tune like 'The Atlantic Roar' ('Tuam na Farraige') and prefaces this with detail about John Doherty and information about Donegal seascapes, the latter embroidered with a reference to the Malinbeg headland of the same name), then there'll be a tendency for said tune's audience to interpret sounds in ways which it would not have done if the tune had simply been played without any form of announcement. If you, or anybody else, can actually point me to the parts of that tune which implicitly suggest the roar of the Atlantic, without any other interpretation, then I'll get my coat.

I could raise many, many other examples, but I'll restrict myself to one, 'Tom Ward's Downfall'. As listeners to the tune, we don't know anything about Tom nor whether his fate was generally applauded. Sure, it's a reel, but so's 'The Ten Pound Float'. Where are the specific notes in the tune which actually relate to either Tom or his fall from grace?

The upshot, Redsnapper, is that I think you really are reading to much into a tune's title and I would challenge you to name at least one Irish dance tune which is attempting to convey some form of meaning (and I'm not referring to titles, but the actual notes themselves).

Geoff