Julia, The tune in Geoff's transcription is the same one as appears, much simplified, on The Session. It is good that Geoff made such a serious effort to transcribe Billy's timing and ornament - never an easy job.
I think this one is the 'real' Sliabh na mBan. That one on the You Tube clip had a composer ascribed to it, so is automatically suspect. Oddly, nobody said 'Nazi' in the course of that critical discussion... John -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Julia Say Sent: 06 February 2010 10:17 To: nsp; Dru Brooke-Taylor; Richard Shuttleworth Subject: [NSP] Re: Sliabh na m'bhan (was Gaelic Pronunciation) On 5 Feb 2010, Richard Shuttleworth wrote: > Although the tune on page 44 of book 2 is a really nice tune, it isn't > the same one that caused my original enquiry. I think it is a relation but where it came from I have no idea. >your tune (Slievenamon) > agrees with a tune identified as "Sliabh na mban" in the Roche >Collection of Traditional Irish Music, which I have always found to be >a pretty authentic book. The*tune* sung on the contentious clip appears to me to be a version of the song "Bonny Bunch of Thyme" sung by amongst many others, Ray Fisher. (who a few folk on here might be interested to know is coming home for the day, today). I can't speak for the words on the clip since I don't have the Gaelic about any part of my person (thanks, Matt!) >I am working from a version that appears in print in the old Billy >Pigg's Compositions and a Selection of his other Repertoire that was >produced some years ago by Adrian, Colin, Julia and G Warren (who I >unfortunately do not know). I've never met Geoff either, but in the 1960s he was a member of the London pipers who travelled north to hear Billy Pigg amongst others. We have corresponded. In 1990 he kindly presented all his group's transcriptions to the NPS. The book you have, Richard, was a very temporary production for one specific Pipers Gathering. I am currently working on a version of the tune to be included in a book of Billy's repertoire. The tune in it may be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le1rntXsDsg played by Gay McKeon who is the CEO of the Uilleann Pipers Society (NPI). So presumably should know. > Adrian recorded it on his cassette Jane of Biddlestone and called it > "Sliabh na mban" but with the English subtitle of The Iron Man and > attributed to Scott Skinner. I don't know what happened there, I don't have the tape insert to hand, but Billy played both "The Iron Man" by Scott Skinner, and Sliabh na m'bhan. He may have learnt Sliabh.... from the Doonans, again I don't know. There are recordings of both, which were correctly identified by Adrian in the collection of material he gave me. I have looked at various abc versions on the web and not found anything satisfactory. I also identified the two tunes that John Gibbons mentions. Geoff's transcription relies on irregular barring and the abc of it is thus: X:8278 T:Slieve Na Mon S:G. Warren L:1/8 E:14 K:G .D .G {cd}.c|B3 A/F/ G3 B/d/|{a}g3 a2 g {fg}f d2 B|\ {cd}c3 (3A/B/c/ {de}d3 (3e/d/c/|{Bd}B G {d}c B {F}A3 {F}G2|G4::\ .d .e .f|{a}g3 d{g}f {ef}e d A {Bd}B3 .d .e .f|{a}g3 d{g}f {ef}e {de}d A|\ {Bd}B3 .D .G {cd}.c|B3 A/F/ G3 B/d/|{a}g3 a2 g {fg}f d2 B|\ {cd}c3 (3A/B/c/ {de}d3 (3e/d/c/|{Bd}B G {d}c B {F}A3 {F}G2|G4:|** There is no time signature. For those unfamiliar with abc, the bits in curly brackets are grace notes. Ordinary brackets precede triplets. abc may be found at www.abcnotation.com. The dialect I use is a complicated one designed for use with abc2mtex - which is where the backslash and asterisk symbols above come from.. I hope all this is of use / interest to someone Julia To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
