Workshop Information

Recently, we have been trialling running a short tune-learning workshop at the beginning of each session. This involves spending 30-40 minutes learning a new tune by ear. The idea is to increase the confidence of the sessioners for playing tunes by ear and relying less on the music. After we have learned a tune, we will post notes about the tune we learned here.

The tunes here should all be shown as scores. If they're not then it could be your browser doesn't support the library used to draw the music. You can probably see the ABC notation used to generate the music. I'm trying to add PDFs to all the music so you can download that to see the score. Alternatively, use a new browser!

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2014.07.11 - Hardiman The Fiddler (Slip Jig)

So here's a very common session tune that everyone will know. It's called Hardiman the Fiddler and is honouring James Hardiman, author of Irish Minstrelsy (1831). It's a trance-inducing tune that just wants to be played again and again, and it can be quite hard to stop! To stop the tune, play upto the long F-sharp in the first bar as a coda.

Being a slip-jig that has no definitive ending, it can be quite hard to follow the phrasing of the tune, so it's quite important to try to exaggerate the phrasing a little. In particular, ensure you exaggerate the jig rythmn.

It's in the key if D mixolydian which has a single F-sharp, just the same as G major. However, for backing the chords would be mainly D and C, for simple backing. You could substitute Bm and Am in various places for variation.

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X:1
T:Hardiman The Fiddler
R:Slip Jig
M:9/8
L:1/8
K:Dmix
|: "D"A2 G FDE F2G | ABA AGA "C"cAG | "D"A2 G FDE F2 G | Add ded "C"cAG :|
|: "D"Ad^c d2 e f3 | Add ded "C"cAG | "D"Ad^c d2 e f2 g | agf ged "C"cAG :|

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