Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?

Subject: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Marion
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 11:22 AM

Hello gang. This is a jig I got from Rex; he's eager to find out its name and origin if possible. I'll ask him to come by this thread and explain its significance to him.

X:1
T:Rex's Mystery Jig
C:Possibly Scottish
M:6/8
K:A
e|:a2c'e2a|c2eA2c|BcdBcd|efec2e|a2c'e2a|c2eA2c|Bcdefg|a3a2e:|:a2ag2g|fefe2c|e2eefg|a3a2e|a2ag2g|f2fe2c|e2eefg|a3a2e:|

To hear a midi version or see the sheet music, copy and paste the code above into the form at this site: Concertina.net.

Thanks, Marion

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 11:28 AM

You can check out the possibilities at JC's Tune finder here

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 04:10 PM

It doesn't seem to have a Scottish or Irish feel to it ... it reminded me of a 'typical' Morris Dance tune.

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Helen
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 05:01 PM

It reminds me a bit of some of the tunes that Sileas play (two Scottish harpers).

Helen

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 05:07 PM

It's naggingly familiar, and I suspect I've played it at some time or other. It's fairly similar to The King of the Cannibal Islands (previously Vulcan's Cave, and often used for the Cumberland Reel, though it started out as a quadrille), but isn't that tune unless rather mutated. Tunes of that shape often have a stage or Assembly Rooms origin in the 19th or late 18th centuries, and the Morris certainly has a history of adopting popular songs of the day. Although I try to avoid relying much on the "feel" of tunes for clues as to their origins (such things are often very misleading), we have to start somewhere, and Jim's comment may well prove to be the way to go.

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: treewind
Date: 19 Feb 04 - 06:59 PM

Not a morris tune I regognize, but I think it has an Emglish feel to it. I'm looking for something to got with Flos Headford's "The Prince Albert Jig" and this is a promising candidate. I'll try it out at the session I'm going to tomorrow night...

Anahata

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 12:29 AM

The only thing I can say is that is does not sound Scottish to me.. don't know enough Morris music to say...

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: pavane
Date: 20 Feb 04 - 03:46 PM

Doesn't sound like Morris - more like some Welsh tunes I have heard.

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Rex
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 02:30 PM

Marion, thank you so much for doing this. I am amazed that it is possible. The main thing is that I now have printed music so that my sons can play the tune with me. And then you have it out here where everyone can see it and maybe someone will track it down.
Before I go any further, let me request it no longer be called "Rex's Mystery Jig" but rather as I have always known it: "Mike Powers' Jig". I learned this tune from a scotsman named Lloyd Weddell back in Luckey Ohio. It was he that first showed me how to play the fiddle. Not to mention, how to blacksmith, build log cabins, carve wood. He gave my life a whole new direction for which I am most grateful. Well he would play this tune and didn't know the name except that it was "an old scottish jig" that he learned from another Scotsman in town named Mike Powers. Mike was unique among fiddlers as a result of an accident with a stave cutter that made all his fingers the same length. Just straight all the way across. Even so he was quite a fiddler.
I go back to Ohio now and then and visit Lloyd's grave. I have said that should I learn the real name for this tune, I will go to Lloyd's grave and play it and then tell him the name of the tune. I am really grateful for everyone's efforts here. Particularly Marion. So you think it's a Morris tune? Interesting!

Rex

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Helen
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 07:39 PM

Some of the tunes that Sileas play are - is it called Waulking songs, and some are mouth music. That's what this tune reminds me of. Not the well known Scottish tunes, but the more specialised ones. I'll have to listen to my Sileas albums again, and the Poozies which also includes the Sileas harpers Patsy Sedden & Mary McMaster.

Helen

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Helen
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 08:44 PM

If you go to

JC's ABC Tune Finder

and paste in the ABC's of the mystery tune, the Tune Finder finds other tunes with similar patterns.

Have a listen to the one called The Oyster Dance. Not the same, but similar.

I haven't listened to all the ones which the Tune finder found. I started listening to the jigs in 6/8 for a start.

Helen

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Feb 04 - 08:48 PM

MMario provided a link to that function earlier in the thread. I've rarely found it to return useful results.

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Marion
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 10:09 PM

Revised abc version (I just learned how to put the eighth notes in groups of three):

X:1
T:Mike Power's Jig
C:Possibly Scottish
M:6/8
K:A
e|:a2c'e2a|c2eA2c|Bcd Bcd|efec2e|a2c'e2a|c2eA2c|Bcd efg|a3a2e:|:a2ag2g|fefe2c|e2e efg|a3a2e|a2ag2g|f2fe2c|e2e efg|a3a2e:|

I did look at JC's search results that MMario linked to know and didn't know what to make of it: there were 1000 entries, not necessarily jigs, not necessarily in A, not necessarily folk fiddle tunes.

If nobody here knows the tune, perhaps we should be fielding suggestions about research methods. Is there a better way to search the internet for the abc code - at another site, or feeding JC's just one measure or something? Or can anyone suggest a newsgroup or other forum that would be a good place to ask?

Marion

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Feb 04 - 11:38 PM

I've posted it on the TradTunes list; perhaps someone there will be able to pin it down.

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 23 Feb 04 - 02:10 PM

Can you remember the tune played over the intro to a Harry Enfield series of TV comedy shows? It sounds fairly similar.

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Rex
Date: 25 Feb 04 - 12:41 PM

Well I printed it out. Now my eldest son is playing it. Playing Lloyd's old tune. Wow. Again, Marion, thank you so much for doing this.

Rex

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 04:00 AM

was there a prize if you got it right?

Subject: RE: Can you identify this (Scottish?) jig?
From: Rex
Date: 26 Feb 04 - 12:05 PM

So who's to say even if we get it right? Who would know for sure? It's just another mystery that would be fun to track down.

Rex