Tag: Black

An gearrán buidhe

The Yellow Horse is a curious little song air. We have three independent transcription notations of variants or versions of this tune, under two different titles, in Edward Bunting’s transcription notebooks from the 1790s. They are all three a bit tricky to understand.

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An londubh agus an chéirseach

The Blackbird and the Thrush is a very beautiful old tune. We have what may be a live transcription of a traditional harp performance, noted down by Edward Bunting in the 1790s. However, as usual with Bunting’s work, all is not straightforward, and he has messed us around a lot.

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Is aoibhinn aoibhinn cloigtheach Aontroim

On Queen’s University, Belfast, Special Collections, MS4.29 page 218/216/225/f107v Edward Bunting has made a live transcription notation of a song air.

Beneath the tune, someone has written what I take to be the title for this tune: “is aoiḃin, aoiḃin cleachach aointrim / ah! how handsome the steeple of Antrim is”. I think this may not be Bunting’s handwriting; whoever wrote it seems to have been literate in Irish, writing the letter b with the dot (for bh).

This is a line from the song of “An bile buadhach”. Bunting later published a variant of the tune under that title in his 1809 book. But first of all let us look at the transcription.

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Two difficult sections

One reason it has taken me a long time to get to my next tune is that there are a lot of pages in Queen’s University Belfast, Special Collections, MS4.29 which I have skipped. There is a big section of mostly or entirely Denis O’Hampsey material from pages 164 to 172, which I am skipping because I am concentrating on the other harpers. Then there are two sections which don’t seem to be harp transcriptions. I am less certain about identifying what these are, since my focus has been on spotting the harp style and idiom.

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An bhfaca tú mo valentine?

I made a video demonstration of the song air “did you see my valentine”. I am trying to follow what I think is a live transcription made by Edward Bunting from a traditional harp performance, in the summer of 1792.

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