Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper

Subject: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 18 Aug 99 - 03:01 AM

THERE WAS AN OLD PIPER

There was an old piper, old and hoary, Who lived in the town of (?) Ballaboreen. This old piper, he played before Moses, And this the only tune that he could play: Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!

Now, this old piper, old and hoary, Who lived in the town of Ballaboreen, He died one day and he went down below, And this the only tune that he could play: Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!

When the devil saw this old man, He said, "Put him down in the frying pan! For this is another old piper, I vow, Put him down with the others for to play! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!

(The final note sung in a descending groan, like the old pipe running out of air.)

Learned from Seamus Ennis
London, 1958

Subject: Lyr Add: THERE WAS AN OLD PIPER
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 18 Aug 99 - 03:13 AM

Okay, let me try iy again!

THERE WAS AN OLD PIPER

There was an old piper, old and hoary,
Who lived in the town of (?) Ballaboreen.
This old piper, he played before Moses,
And this the only tune that he could play:
         Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
         nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
         Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
          nyah, nyah, nyah!

Now, this old piper, old and hoary,
Who lived in the town of Ballaboreen,
He died one day and he went down below,
And this the only tune that he could play:
         Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
          nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
         Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
         nyah, nyah, nyah!

When the devil saw this old man,
He said, "Put him down in the frying pan!
For this is another old piper, I vow,
Put him down with the others for to play!
         Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
          nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
         Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
         nyah, nyah, nyah!

(The final note sung in a descending groan, like the old pipe running out of air.)
^^
Learned from Seamus Ennis
London, 1958

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: MMario
Date: 18 Aug 99 - 09:23 AM

Sandy - any way at all you can post the tune for this? I would love to have this for Scottish Weekend at faire!

MMario

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 18 Aug 99 - 10:31 PM

Darn it, MMario, I'm the classic cyber-klutz. I don't know squat about posting tunes. If Blessings Barbara knows the tune (I think we must have sung it at one time or another with her friend, Ray Frank), she could post it. Otherwise, call me on the antique device invented by Alex Bell, and I'll sing the darned thing for you! 860-364-5661. It's a short song, won't cost you a whole lot, even with AT&T.

Sandy (still trying to catch up with the 20th century, in time to join the 21st!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Ewan McVicar
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 06:07 AM

I've no idea where / when I learned it, maybe from the singing of Dominic Behan, but the town sounded like Bellamoray, and the nyahs can be sounded through the nose while the nose itself is pinched shut and one beats carefully on the throat (just below the adam's apple if one has one) giving a very warpipes sound.
The tune's in general is very like 'Strawberry Fair' - "singing singing buttercups and daisies", except that in the third line there is a descending line from high doh -
doh, lah soh, fah me fah me doh lowlah. Fourth line is lowsoh doh, me, ray doh, ray me, doh.
Chorus repeats lines 3 and 4.

Hope that helps

Ewan

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: MMario
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 09:14 AM

Now if I knew "Strawbery Fair"......

Sandy - I don't have access to a phone! (well, except at work and that's pushing it a little too far)

AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Ewan McVicar
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 04:45 PM

Oh, all right.

The bones of the first two lines are:

lowsoh, doh doh, ray lowsoh, doh doh, ray lowsoh

doh me, ray lowsoh, doh doh, doh me

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Susan of DT
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 09:04 PM

Sandy - if you have the sheet music, send it to Dick for entry or a cassette for that matter

Subject: Tune Add: THERE WAS AN OLD PIPER
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 11:38 PM

Nope, Susan, I don't do sheet music either, but the do-re-mi's of the way I learned it (also sung this way by Dominic Behan, I'm pretty sure) are:

(low) sol, do, do, re, LA, do, do, re, LA
There was an old piper, old and hoary
La, do, do, re, la, do, do-mi-sol.
Who lived in the town of Ballaboreen.
(high) do, do-la, sol, sol, mi, re, mi-re, do, (low) la, sol.
This old piper he played before Moses
(low) sol, do, do, do-re, do-re, mi, do.
And this the only tune that he could play.

       (high) do, sol, re-do, la,
     Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
     (low) sol-do, do, re-mi, re-do, sol.
     Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah.
     (high) do, sol, re-do, la,
     Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,
     (low) sol-do, do, re-mi, re-do, sooollll(ending in a great descending whinny!).
     Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyyyaaaahhhh!

All the "nyahs" are sung through the nose in as unfavorable an imitation of the pipes as possible.

Gawd, I hope those does 'n rays are close to right! I don't know how to indicate the sliding notes properly, I'm afraid.

Sandy (a musical-klutz and lousy proof-reader, as well) P.S.: I actually like the pipes! Honest!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 19 Aug 99 - 11:44 PM

Remember, the final cascade is sung ONLY at the very end of the song (not on the earlier choruses). I think I left out a "do" right before the "do-mi-sol" in the second line of the verse. Damn! E for Effort, but no cigar.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Ewan McVicar
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 05:28 AM

Sandy,

Excellent piece of work! Time we started a solfah backlash. It was good enough for Greig and Duncan, should be usable still.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: MMario
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 08:57 AM

My post from yesterday got lost....but I will repeat it.

thank you! I can do my famous "line-counting" trick from this and get something that I can hear. (Which is the only way I learn music.)

Thank you! Thank you!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Barbara
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 10:25 AM

Hang on, and I'll see if I can turn solfah into cybertech. Actually, when I first learn a song, I put it into my book with numbers above the words. The numbers correspond to the notes of the scale. Our high school choir director demanded that we be able to render a passage back to him in those numbers, and while I wasn't fond of him, the system is useful.
Yes, Sandy, I had heard it before, and now I know where. But I wasn't sure of the tune, so I'll transcribe your solfah later today and post it.
Blessings
Barbara
who has been busy getting a life instead of hanging out here... EZR and wife will be here tomorrow! Think I should clean house?
Nah, I didn't think so either.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: MMario
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 11:02 AM

hmmmm - be interesting to see how close I come to what Blessings B produces.....

MMario

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 01:40 PM

Hey, Blessings B: I knew I could count on you! Too bad you were away when I was going through all that sol-fa stuff for nothing. This is much more important than cleaning house for Easy Rider. (Please tell him I'm sorry they had to leave bbc's party before he really had a chance to share some of his music with us. Caroline and I started responding to some requests, dammit, and sort of hogged the show! I'm sorry for that, too.)

We've sort of missed you around here lately, lass. Glad to see you're back. Regards to Ray, if you're in touch with him.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Cormac
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 04:11 PM

This song was written by a gentleman called Carl Hardebeck, a devotee of Irish music who was responsible for many pianoforte arrangements. However, he did have a pet hate - pipers, in recognition of whose musical talents he composed the Oul' Piper. The place, I believe, was "Ballynaboree." Don't look for it on a map - it's a made-up name. Cormac

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 20 Aug 99 - 08:13 PM

So that's why I couldn't find it! I probably wasted as much time searching in the atlas as Blessings Barbara did in vacuuming her living room for Easy Rider! Glad to know the genius behind the song. Now I can give proper credit when I sing it. I think it was Oscar Wilde who observed, upon hearing the pipes, "Thank God there's no odor!"

Sandy

Subject: Tune Add: THERE WAS AN OLD PIPER
From: Barbara
Date: 21 Aug 99 - 01:35 PM

I was tempted to just post this, but, gang, actually I cheated. I discovered I needed the time as well as the notes, so I called Sandy and Caroline and they sang this for me over the phone -- i harmony, yet! (The chorus has a drone on Do and/or Sol).
So, here ya go
Blessings,
Barbara

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Click to play

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ABC format:

X:1
T:
M:4/4
Q:1/4=100
K:C
C8|F3/2F/2F2G2D2|F2F2G2D3/2D/2|F2F3/2F/2G2D2|
F2F2FAc2|-c8|f8|-f2f3/2d/2c2cA|GAGFD2C3/2C/2|
F3/2F/2F3/2F/2G3/2F/2G3/2A/2|F8|f7/2d/2c7/2A/2|
G7/2F/2D7/2C/2|F2F2G3/2A/2G3/2F/2|c8|f7/2d/2c7/2A/2|
G7/2F/2D7/2C/2|F2F2G3/2A/2G3/2F/2|c13/2||

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: j0_77
Date: 21 Aug 99 - 02:13 PM

I beg your pardon folks but as a memeber of NPU I must protest (Grin) Really the Uilleann Pipes *can* be used to play most kinds of music. In fact there is a Chromatic Set.

Now I admit there are people who get themselves into a knot while learning and they sometimes assume (BIG MISTAKE) that audiences don't know the difference between a good player and a beginner (Same applies in Europe to Old Timey Banjo) I guess it's cause in America the instrument is relatively new so these errr users errr play errr sorta errr welll ya know 'TRY to' errr play tunes IN PUBLIC. Now that really P*******s me off. Very Trying on my ears.

I make reeds for the Chanter (Pulease don't ask me why) for a craft hobby and I know the Chanter pretty well, I used to play it early in the morning when some of my neighbors insisted on partying late. They moved :) An old Irish Air at 6 am in Eb in the second octave on a good Chanter is gureat introduction to true note value and awakens neighborly behavior FAST. Gauranteed - BTW email me if you have a 'neighborhood' err problem - I do it as a service too :)

I have a few tunez on the Chanter but I would NEVER play in public or a jam. My favorite BTW is 'The Wndering Minstrel' 6/8th and an air, 'Blind Mary'.

Interesting to note that the instrument unlike like say the Basson cannot play with any expression simply because the reed is enclosed and can only play pitch varying with pressure of air from the bag. Any attempt to lower volume lowers the pitch!!! Sooo you can't play 'like' a classical player might! I believe that in time some device will be added so that 'expression' is possible. Guess it needs inventing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 21 Aug 99 - 03:20 PM

How about an electronic pick-up going through an amp with a foot-control for the volume level? You could even add deliberate distortion, rather than the accidental kind.

Seriously, folks, I love the pipes. Especially the quieter types (Uillean, Northunbrian, etc.) When our number-one son was six-months old, we stayed with Jeannie Robertson in Aberdeen, Scotland, for a week. Her husband, Donald Higgins, and his brother, Isaac, were both Highland pipers. They lived in a tiny, stone house with a built-in echo. One afternoon the two men marched in tight circles around the living room, playing some very stirring tunes, full-blast. Number-one son thought it was great! We learned what the pipes sound like with reverb,too!

Caroline (she's not for sale; the green song-linky thing points to a Jerry Rasmussen song about a town named Caroline) reminds me that the McPeakes recorded "There was an Auld Piper" on one of their LPs. All this expended energy might have saved, had I remembered that! Still, it's been fun, and Blessings Barbara has done herself proud!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 21 Aug 99 - 03:22 PM

Please correct my typo! That's "Northumbrian!"

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From:
Date: 21 Aug 99 - 09:24 PM

okay - what I came up with has a least a vague resemblence to what Blessings Barbara transcribed. vague being the operative word!

MMario

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: alison
Date: 23 Aug 99 - 04:59 AM

Sandy, check out Mediaring thread

you can sing into your computer and email it to any of us who can transcribe tunes and we'll be able to do them for you. works pretty well. It is easy to download, and you just record voicemails and send them..... saves you the cost of a phone call too.

here's another thread send me a voice mail

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 12:52 AM

Alison: I'm afraid that's all too complicated for both me and my machine. When the new computer (Caroline's loaner from the State) gets it's monitor fixed, and we manage to connect it to the telephone line and begin to use it for all this sort of Mudcatting around, maybe we can add a microphone and other fancies. Till then, I'll just bookmark the threads you've given for later study, and thanks.

Sandy (cyber-klutz)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Art Thieme
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 09:24 PM

Who was that guy? Damn, I can't remember his name. He was a jew's harp vituoso and he was a duo with a French lady back in the late 70s or early 80s.---Can't recall her name either.

Anyway, he did it on a jew's harp just beautifully--with all kinds of bagpipe and drone effects on the harp. But he sang it, "There was a jew's harper old and hoary..."" "Playing before Moses" took on an entirely new connotation. It was great. I've got a tape of it somewhere here.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 10:19 PM

John White?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 11:53 PM

Erase that! It was John WRIGHT. Best damn' jews harp player I ever heard.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 02:58 PM

YES, Sandy--that's right. I mean "CORRECT"--WRIGHT!

Art

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From:
Date: 14 Jul 00 - 08:30 PM

Now that the dust has settled on this discussion, I (forever the completeist; sorry) would like to add: The McPeake Family of Belfast visited Washington D.C. and sang The Auld Piper in concert, adding a fourth verse, which I'll append after I check to see it's not already there. They said the song was presented by the composer Carl Hardebeck to their ancestor, a piper who had been trying to give Hardebeck piping lessons. Art is Wright about John's name and the fact that he's the World's Greatest Jew's Harper. The song on John's record is a parody of the Auld Piper that starts "There was a jews-harper ..." John's singing partner and wife is Catherine Perrier, a grand singer, teacher, and scholar. I heard about this thread some time ago but haven't had a chance to look it up till now. Backson, Lani

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From:
Date: 14 Jul 00 - 08:44 PM

The fourth verse (patently an excuse to get folks to sing the chorus again) is: Now, the Devil in anger one fine day Said "Take him and the rest of them away, We'll send them up to the other place above And let them play away...."

I, too, have had a great deal of fun promulgating this song, which I introduce as an undemanding little ditty for folks who have a secret urge to be a bagpipe; all it requires is to sing one of two notes and only one word. I must admit that holding one's nose to emit the proper sound is new to me. -- Aloha, Lani

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 05:35 AM

I'm interested to see the McPeake family are announcing their ownership of another song, again long after the prime actors are under the sod and unable to contradict.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 05:43 AM

Having typed the above, thought I see what the Digital Trad has to say on ownership of Wild Mountain Thyme. The lyric itself says copyright Jimmy McPeake. Beside another old religious lyric which is clearly a part source it is flatly stated that Francis McPeake (old Francie, this, rather than middle Francie, of course) 'wrote it' i.e. WMT. The latter discussion at least acknowledges that the old religious lyric is founded on The Braes of Balquidder lyric and tune. The words 'copyright' and 'wrote' are different things of course. Who is this Jimmy McPeake, by the way? I suppose a current mover and shaker in the family. Can he own copyright on behalf of someone else who made the song?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Barbara
Date: 16 Jul 00 - 01:53 PM

Do you mean "can" or "should", Ewan? I have known a number of songs "copyrighted" by famous performers when they were written by someone else who either didn't know he or she could copyright them, or chose not to..(and sometimes they were dead). Sometimes a word or note is changed, sometimes not even that.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jul 00 - 02:00 PM

This isn't the version I know of THE PIPER WHO PLAYED BEFORE MOSES. The one I have has a chorus something like

We invited him down to the party.
He brought his old pipes just by chance.
We asked him to play a bit of a tune. He said, "NO!
But I'll give you a bit of a dance."
So we gave him a noggin of whiskey,
And poured out a bottle of stout,
And we cut a great hole in the back of his pipes,
And this is the tune that came out!

And then they play madly. Anyone know that one? It's not in the Trad.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Nov 02 - 01:15 PM

I came across this one today, and thought it deserved another refresh. Maybe it will remind me to add the MIDI to Mudcat MIDIs.
-Joe Offer-

---

Yes, it did. It doesn't sound like what I remember, though.
When you first meet her, you get the impression that Lani Herrmann is a serious professorial type of person. Maybe that makes her version of this song even more effective. It cracks me up every time I hear it from her - which is about once a year.
The audience is supposed to make a bagpipe drone song during the chorus, and that didnt' translate very well in Barbara's MIDI.

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: There Was an Old Piper
From: GUEST,Steve Mann
Date: 13 Jul 04 - 11:16 AM

There is a magnificent recording ofd this as the title music for Pasolini's Canterbury Tales. If anyone knows who sings it please inform me at [e-mail]