By the River of Gems

[texasbagpiper]

Looking for sheetmusic for

By the River of Gems
cant find it...

[texasbagpiper]

I noticed its listed under tunes on The Uilleann pipers of Southern California website... No sheet music though... I'll keep lookin

[Sean Dillon]

Try The Cumman Na bPiobairi Collection of Pipe-Friendly Tunes. By John B Walsh. I know it has Seamus Ennis's version within. An amazing book well worth a purchase.

The US pipers club and the NPU sell it as far as I know

Sean

[Pat Cannady]

PLEEEAAASE tell me you're just going to learn it by ear. It's not a hard tune and it's well worth taking the time to learn it that way - it will reward your efforts. Sheet music is useless for learning airs, anyway.

If it's too much bother to strap on the pipes and work with slow down software on your computer, just use a whistle to get the tune down and then listen repeatedly to absorb the nuances.

Best

[texasbagpiper]

PLEEEAAASE tell me you're just going to learn it by ear. It's not a hard tune and it's well worth taking the time to learn it that way - it will reward your efforts. Sheet music is useless for learning airs, anyway.

If it's too much bother to strap on the pipes and work with slow down software on your computer, just use a whistle to get the tune down and then listen repeatedly to absorb the nuances.

Best

I wish I had the time to do it that way believe me...??? :roll:

[PJ]

... work with slow down software ...

On a slow air? It would take weeks go play through just one time!!

I know I'm going to get crucified for saying this but I think one of the nicest versions of this air is Davy Spillane's.

[Joseph E. Smith]

I think you ought to listen to Brian MacNamara's version, over and over, then let your mind, ears and fingers do the rest. Pat C. is absolutely correct... learning a slow air from sheet music is really quite useless. Immerse yourself into the tune, then make it your own.

It is far too precious of an air to mess with notation IMHO. But I guess, to each their own.

[Cynth]

I have just been listening to that air on Brian Mcnamara's CD.

I have a question that may seem stupid, but it is well intentioned. I've been listening to some sean-nos singing and I've been enjoying it. I am not at the point where I would try to play a slow air, and probably will never be.

But....some of the singers ornament their singing a great deal and have a very melismatic (hope that is the right word) style. If I were to want to play the slow air from a certain song, how would I know what notes were the actual melody of the song and what notes were part of the ornamentation and elaboration of that particular singer? I wouldn't want to copy, I don't think, the particular singer's exact interpretation of the song. Certainly in some parts I can hear where the song is, but sometimes I really have trouble following the line of the melody. So I might accidentally include notes in my version which I didn't know really belonged to the singer.

So that's why I keep thinking that I would want to see the skeleton notes of the song. Now I know this is the wrong approach, but can anyone see what my problem is and help me in my thinking? I suppose one thing to do would be to listen to more than one singer sing the song if that is possible.

[KDMARTINKY]

Best and most haunting slow air I ever played on whistle was "The Immigrants Daughter" . Its a beautiful tune that just grabs my heart and I can actually feel what the young lady is going through.

[PJ]

I would want to see the skeleton notes of the song.

Writing down music is relatively recent in ITM. Prior to that it was handed down like in the oral tradition. Even the earliest manuscript of a tune would probably just be the interpretation which that the particular collector managed to find.

That said, there are a book of slow airs called Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland which I don't own but which I've looked at. That might be what you're looking for.

According to Liam O'Flynn, Seamus Ennis was working on a collection of slow airs called "Fifty Dark Horses" but I don't think he finished it.

[texasbagpiper]

I like Davy's version as well

[Cynth]

I did have the impression that whatever was written down was just the particular way the tune or song was heard that one time. So do you listen and pick out what seem to be the most important notes or do you include what might be the particular ornamentation of that singer? I guess maybe it doesn't matter as long as the air does't become unrecognizable.

[PJ]

Different pipers have different methods but one of the more accepted methods seems to be to base your interpretation on how the tune is sung.

LOF supposedly listens to sean nos singers interpreting a slow air and bases his interpretation on that. Seamus Ennis insisted on the importance of being able to sing at least one verse of an old song before one could interpret it.

[djm]

There are several collections of sean-nós songs available. I understand exactly what Cynth is referring to. The intention in the oral/aural tradition is that you would know the basic tune from childhood, understand the Irish lyrics, and appreciate the individual singer's choice of where to hold a note, where to add ornamentation, etc. For lesser beings such as myself, I have used the song books to get the basic melody, but this does not teach the correct timing. I then listen to the differences between each verse of the sung version to pick out the differences from verse to verse of that particular rendition. Instead of listening to many songs, I just listen to one song over and over until I can hear the bare bones of the tune underneath, and then can tell where ornamentation might be appropriate.

djm

[Cynth]

This makes sense to me. That the singers do know some basic melody, which could have variations, and then they make that into their own personal song. So we would need to have some way to know the basic melody. And then we listen to it being sung to understand the phrasing. But you said "timing", not phrasing. Do you not think the basic melody would give you the basic timing which would be changed to some degree by the individual singer?

I do have wonderful very literal translations for each song on my CD, so the phrasing makes much more sense that it would otherwise---I don't think I could "sing" it if I didn't know the meaning of the words.

I encountered in one of my whistle tutorial books the notes for a slow air. The notes sounded beautiful but I could not make sense out of it---I just couldn't figure out where it was going, and there were phrasing marks as well. That is when I started to understand that you would have to hear the song being sung and, I think, have some translation of the words as well to be able to play it.