Irish Flute Tunes

This one used to be played by Con Cassidy. I should maybe let lazy dogs lie and not try to rush them. The tune bit me in a few places on this occasion for not following that advice but time constraints and all that these days ... (25/08/08 - apologies - this isn't the Lazy Dog Highland - Marin is right.  When I get time I will get this sorted out.  The dog looks sort of comfortable here though).

I was asked to play this a while ago but haven't had much of a chance to play anything lately. The request referred to the "lovely flowing style" of a certain well known flute player.  I'm afraid I can only do stumbling but the tune can still hopefully be learned from here.

Here's a tune from a list of ones I was asked to play. I learned it years ago as the "Flying Rockets" / "Robert Emmett's Flying Spaceship". As is the case with sunsets (I think they require the sun to be in the sky at the start of the setting process), I haven't heared tell of this tune for a long time.  I hope I've remembered most of the notes.

I think I have another version of this tune posted here.  In a moment of inspiration I called it "Barndance".  That moment of inspiration occurred at 2 o'clock on a Sunday morning after many, many hours in a pub. Hopefully this version is slightly less "inspired" (though it's still a bit shabby in parts).

Here's one I forgot about.  Maybe I forgot too much about.

I'm sure nobody was wondering what it sounds like when a person plays a jig they don't know while looking out at a pissing wet August afternoon.  Just on the off chance that anyone was ...

I've seen this tune with a "Hinch" and also with a "Hench". I was never a good henchman so I'll stick with i before e

Here's a tune which I found lurking amongst the ones which I must have uploaded at some stage.  I don't know why I never posted this one and I'm too much of a coward to listen back to it to find out.  I'll leave the mal de mer to others. There is a lovely tune called "The Rolling Wave".  I hope this is like it but I'll not bet on it.

Here's a tune which has the same number of names as it has parts. It may also have other names I don't know about.

There's a jig called "Kitty's Rambles" / "The Rambles of Kitty" (depending on which form of the genitive case is to the fore) but this one is nothing like it, apart from having the same time signature, structure and almost the same name.  I've never seen this one referred to as "The Rambles of Cat" but I have seen "Whelan's Old Sow" (but not "The Old Sow of Whelan") pinned to it. Neither tunes' na...

Here's a reel composed by Edward V Reavy.  I hope I haven't decomposed it too much here.

Here's a version of a popular reel from South West Donegal.  There's at least one other version of this tune and once I've got over the trauma of trying to remember this one I'll try to remember it too. I've put 2 tunes on today as it being the twelfth of July, there are lots of other flute players and their friends clogging the streets of Belfast and causing businesses and places of entertainment...

I was asked to play this reel and here's my attempt to oblige. Séamus Ennis's father wrote the tune and there's a great rendition of Séamus playing available on a CD. I think youtube even has a video of the same performance. My attempt at picking through the tune is far from what the real thing is but at least it's in 'D'. (I had to find some good point to refer to).

This is a fairly common tune. I'm sorry if it appears hurried in places but I was getting withering looks from a baby while I played it and that put me off a bit.

Here's a very popular jig which I was asked to play.  It's especially popular among people who are learning to play the flute or the tin whistle.  Stair carpets have a lesser regard for it.

I've been asked to play this one so here it is.  There are lots of versions of it and I'm never sure which one is closest to a standard one.  I'll not guarantee than this effort will make people any the wiser as to the answer to that question.

As with a lot of apparently simple tunes, there are lots of variations of this reel.  This is in danger of not being any of them.

Here's a very common hornpipe. I'm sorry about the sound. I listened back to it (I normally don't) and it sounds as if I recorded it in a particularly cavernous public lavatory. May it was the same one in which some 1970s record companies used to record their traditional music LPs.

I've been asked to try this one.  Well, at least I tried.  I sort of learned it once off a Michael Coleman record but I don't have that record any more so I'm relying on memory; never a wise move in my case.

Maybe safer with the twig if time is an issue.

Here's yet another reel. It differs from the others which I've posted in that it is called "The Antrim Rose" while they are not. I am currently sitting in said county with a thorny, fragrant flower of the genus rosa within 8 feet of me. I don't think that has anything to do with this choice of tune though. There are plenty of other things even closer to hand than roses but I'm not about to play "T...

I'm sorry about the clicky G# key in this one.  I think my fingers may need a drop oil too.

Here's a slightly dry-mouthed and dry-fluted go at "The Tempest".  My mouth is now so dry after playing it that I can't even type any more nonsense about it.

Here's one I was asked for.  For some reason (maybe because I almost never go out playing) I haven't heard this tune for a while so this version mightn't be very up to date.  It may have a chance of being recognised as at least a relative of the "Flowing Bowl" which does get played by people who do go out.

I've recently been reminded of this one.  I never knew its name until about ten minutes ago.  Maybe in another ten minutes' time I'll know the notes as well. I think Paddy O'Brien wrote it.  It was probably a lovely tune when it left his fingers first ... like they say in Belfast about the Titanic - "it was all right when it left here".