The Cliffs of Moher

  1. Joe Nobiling
    Joe Nobiling
    Irish Jig, The Cliffs of Moher, played by Joe Nobiling on a mid 1930s model Gibson mandolin at a slower jig tempo because it's such a beautiful melody and, to me, sounds really, really good at this speed. But maybe I've been listening to Martin Hayes too much. Hope to get to the Cliffs of Moher someday.

  2. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    That's beautiful, Joe. I've never heard the tune. Found it on www.thesession.org, in two different keys, A dorian and E dorian, it seems that the one you are playing closely resembles the A dorian one, here I've downloaded it and will put it on my quickly growing lists of cool tunes to learn! I should be practicing for our upcoming gig, rather than this social group stuff... oh well!
  3. Eddie Sheehy
    Very nice Joe, I could almost see O'Brien's Tower and feel the rain on my face as I cowered behind a stone wall to shelter from the gale-force winds...
  4. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    Cliffs of Moher

  5. CelticDude
    CelticDude
    Yes, when we went to Ireland, the Cliffs were our first stop. It was in July, all of 40 degrees, cloudy, with a good wind. We were not going too close to that edge. Fantastic view, and it was the coldest day we were there. Got up to around 70 after a couple of days, and people were on the beach, while we were still wearing our jackets.

    BTW, nice playing Joe. Fun ornamentation and good tremolo-ing
  6. Joe Nobiling
    Joe Nobiling
    Thanks, y'all. Great pic, Barb. It is the A version, I'm playing.

    Knowin' how blustery and wild it can get there from what y'all have experienced, playin' it faster could probably really bring that aspect to mind quite well, I'd think.
  7. CelticDude
    CelticDude
    Yet another jig we do in the band, with Morrison's and Lark in the AM. Here I just do Cliffs, but the second time thru is more the cliffs of Bulgaria...



    DWP
  8. Susanne
    Susanne
    Joe, whereever you are (haven't seen you post in a while), you do this beautifully!!! Jigs can be wonderful when they're slowed down.
  9. chrisblack
    chrisblack
    Also a tune I really like.....

    Chris

  10. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Nice one, Chris!
  11. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    David, very nice! I couldn't see your smile (haha!) but you did look like you were about to break out into a jig while playing!
  12. Eddie Sheehy
    I've been bitten... watch this space...
  13. Susanne
    Susanne
    What a gorgeous tune!!!!!!! I've had a revival with Irish music these days with my new octave mandolin, so I'll sit down and learn some tunes and this definitely will be one of them!
  14. Marcelyn
    Marcelyn
    This is one I am going to learn too. You all sound great. Thanks for posting it Joe.
  15. Eddie Sheehy
    I was at the Cliffs back in April. The Tourist Board now has a large Parking Lot - with a large fee - and they've paved the pathways all the way up to O'Brien's Tower - which is now a Souvenir Shop and roof-access - for a fee. They have cut Restrooms into the hillside - as opposed to the old days when the "restrooms" were literally cut into the hillside. The View however is still breathtaking and free (if you walk there)...
  16. Susanne
    Susanne
    When we were there we didn't have any cash and they didn't take credit cards for the parking... they nearly asked us to stand there busking for the parking fee (we had instruments in the backseat)
  17. mculliton123
    mculliton123
    I remember the gift shop right next to the parking lot. we climbed against a ferocious headwind to the tower and saw the colorful Auk birds soaring among the cliffs below. amazing place!
  18. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    I was last there Easter weekend of '08 with some pals who'd travelled over from England. We were joking that they needed to put up a sign that said "Welcome to the Cliffs Of Moher Experience!" because it felt like a theme park in some ways - but like Eddie said, the view is still the absolute business...
  19. Jim Baker
    Jim Baker
    X: 1
    T:the Cliffs of Moher
    R:Jig
    O:Ireland
    M:6/8
    K:ADor
    aga bag|eaf ged|c2A BAG|EAF GED|\
    aga bag|eaf ged|
    c2A BAG|EFG A3:|\
    e2e dBA|e=fe dBA|GAB dBA|GAB dBd|
    e2e dBA|e=fe dBA|GAB dBA|BAG A3|\
    e=fe dBA|e=fe dBA|GAB dBA|GAB dBd|\
    e2e dee|cee Bee|GAB dBA|EFG A3|]
  20. gortnamona
    gortnamona
    haven't played this one in a fair while, its a cracking tune about a beautiful but quite frightening place( very windy on my visit)

  21. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Fine playing, Lawrence. Good triplets in there!
  22. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    Very nice celtic picking, Larence!
  23. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Darn it! Why can’t my metronome teach me this?!
    Nice one Laurence.
  24. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Great stuff Lawrence!
  25. Michael Romkey
    Michael Romkey
    Good triplets! Is this by any chance a combination of the second and fifth settings on The Session? (Triplets from the second, descending line toward the end from the fifth.) Doesn't appear to be the ABC quoted above. ...

    It's too bad my late friend Joe's videos (the first in this string) seem to have vaporized. All things must pass, including YouTubes.
  26. gortnamona
    gortnamona
    thanks folks. Michael, it could well be, i do chop and change parts from different versions, some because they flow better to me and others just because they're easier to play
  27. Robert Balch
    Robert Balch
    Great playing. I like your triplets too!
  28. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Thanks for this new recording, Lawrence. Great to listen to!
    I link it to the official Week #273 where we find your 2014 recording, too.
  29. gortnamona
    gortnamona
    thanks for the kind words Frithjof and also for the link, i did look for the official version but my old eyes just didnt see it, always nice to look back at older recordings in the hope of seeing some improvement , some really nice versions there including your own on a super looking mandolin
  30. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    There seem to be two threads for this tune. I'm posting on this one, since it has the most recent posting (by Lawrence).

    Just a gorgeous tune. Kevin Burke calls it a "miserable jig," but I think that all he means by that is that it isn't to be played at breakneck speed. It's clearly anything but miserable.

  31. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    As much as I like the hard driving jig playing Lawrence and how he throws in the triplets, I like your clean playing, Richard, with accurate executed embellishments. Beautiful!
  32. Gelsenbury
    Gelsenbury
    It captures the whole majesty of that landscape.
  33. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    I really like your interpretation of this great tune, Richard. You show that jigs can be played slowly but still be very enjoyable and the melody is brought out so well at this pace.
  34. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Thank you, all. I really like Lawrence's version - immensely skilful - but I suppose I always tend to the more lyrical. The version I learned holds that initial high A, which not all do, which I think helps the effect. (Also, to tell the truth, this was one of the first jigs that I learned, because it is one of my favourites, and I couldn't initially play it any faster than this, so this became my way of doing it.)
  35. gortnamona
    gortnamona
    thoroughly enjoyed your version Richard , i wish i could pick so cleanly and thank you for the compliment , if i was playing the the tune today i would probably replaced the triplets with doublestops. Frithjof, you made my day with the hard driving jig comment , i like to imagine im playing in the drunken die hard session thats still going two days after the fleadh is over
  36. Frithjof
    Frithjof
    Oh, Lawrence, don’t destroy the picture I have of you!
  37. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Nice one Richard, and funny that you mention Kevin Burke referring to it as "miserable", I've always found it to be dark sounding, like if it was playing as part of a soundtrack in a film it wouldn't be during a happy scene, at least that's the impression it leaves with me!
  38. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Kevin Burke: "miserable", Jill: "dark sounding" - let's not forget this is A dorian. The Dorian scale (aka "angry minor") has drama, sadness and revenge built right into it. While the Ionian scale (aka major) is still dancing around the maypole, the Dorian scale is marching towards it, chain saw in hand. I like Dorian, and I like your rendition, Richard, which adds the air of tender care for heroes slain for a good cause.
  39. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Eloquent performance Richard, each note carefully played, and definitely not happy feelings.
    So thanks for the motivation to try and play an exuberant version with other wildly different emotions!
  40. gortnamona
    gortnamona
    i think a lot of jigs played slowly have quite a melancholy feel to them
  41. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Just played it very slowly on my squeaky fiddle, Laurence. Triplets are sooo easy.
    I feel the tune can have a 'proudly walking down the Strand', stately, grand and joyously optimistic feel to it. And spritely too if up the tempo just a little.

    This can work especially well if the Am are replaced with C majors, and even Bb replacements to spice it up instead of those deliciously depressing G majors.
    But then again, that would be quite a different tune
  42. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    I really enjoyed your recording. Richard. I don't hear drama, sadness or revenge, just a nice melody picked in a beautiful way!
  43. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Thanks to all of you.

    Lawrence, your version would go so much better in a session - mine would never hold up (and no one would hear it).

    Jill, I guess that ominous is probably the word (for musical reasons that Bertram expounds). They are a threatening part of the landscape, if beautiful.
  44. Aidan Crossey
    Aidan Crossey
    Great versions so far... My take on this tune which is one of the first I learned way back, when years still began with a "1".

  45. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Another wee gem, Aidan. The sound of your unaccompanied mandolin is all that is needed and the tempo, as in Richard's posting, lets the listener enjoy the melody so well.
  46. Aidan Crossey
    Aidan Crossey
    Thanks, John. The tempo thing is interesting. I was listening last night to some recordings I'd made about 20 years ago and I was appalled at how fast I played and how many trills I was chucking in left, right and centre. As time has gone on I find that I've gravitated towards a slower tempo and a somewhat more spartan right-hand style and I favour less the single-note trill find myself leaning towards a two- or three-note triplet or an occasional variation of the standard phrase without any right-hand chicanery.

    The tempo issue is one of the reasons I started to drift away from playing in sessions. There was a preponderance at one stage of players who seemed to treat their instruments as drums with strings. The idea seemed to be to play as loudly as possible, emphatically underlining each accented note, at ridiculous speeds and in the process they probably only played about half the notes in the bare-bones melody and left themselves no breathing space for any sort of diversion. I know that not all sessions are like that - and I've had the pleasure of many of those - but when there are three or four sessions locally which tend to comprise pretty much the same bunch of people in different combinations, I was feeling less and less incentive to haul myself out for the evening.

    To be fair I do recognise, of course, that this is merely a personal opinion and that the players in question are entitled to play at whatever speed they like and with whatever tubthumping style they like. And I also recognise that certain instruments, e.g. whistles, are fast by their very nature - not so much physics to contend with - and therefore it stands to reason that where there are one or two fairly dominant whistlers in the session, the pace will likely be a tad brisk when they start a set.

    But, for me, there's something about listening to - and playing - a tune which is a few bpm shy of dancing speed which is immensely satisfying. I can't always keep things as slow and steady as I'd like but it's an aim I'm working towards and I find that it requires immense amounts of concentration. (And in that regard, I'm not the only one afflicted by acceleritis. I was listening to some scratchy old recordings of Bobby Casey a while back and I'm sure that by the time he'd finished one or two of the sets I was listening to, the bpm count was at least 50% higher than his starting point.)

    All of which is a long-winded way of saying thanks for your kind words, John.

    By the way, I see you get a namecheck at the session.org (at least I assume it's you. :-) See https://thesession.org/members/147268

    Very best.

    Aidan
  47. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Aidan, we are in accord in so many of our ideas about playing tunes. I too am not a fan of the fast-draw merchants, probably because at the age of 78 I am no longer able to generate that speed - okay, even when a lot younger I could not do it either. I really do prefer a strong melody and so many of the jigs and other danse tunes take on a new life when we approach them in a slower manner and try to embellish them not with speed but with considered phrases or ornaments.

    Re the reference on The Session to The Royal Bar Innellan: I admit to being that John Kelly. Martin the owner is a great friend and our sessions each Thursday are great fun and very mixed. There is a very strong West Coast influence and pipe tunes can sometimes dominate, but we always accommodate other tunes which visiting players may bring along, and we even have singing! I was not aware that he had posted this entry till you highlighted it here. Thanks for that.
  48. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Superb, Aidan. I have particularly enjoyed what you call the variation of the standard phrase, on this and other postings recently.

    Unlike you and John, I am not a session veteran, so I feel it is hardly my place to comment. But, as you know, I am very much of a like mind on this. When everything is played at the same brisk session speed it becomes very samey. And when you talk about dance speed, surely session speed is too fast for anyone to dance to. You would need to slow down for someone to dance an actual jig or reel. This high octane stuff certainly has its place, but it is by no means the only way of playing.

    John, good to know where to find you if I am at a loose end on a Thursday night in Innellan.
  49. Aidan Crossey
    Aidan Crossey
    @John... Sure, 78 is but a mere stripling in traditional music circles. I've heard that Paddy Fahey was still playing and composing into his 90s and beyond.

    @Richard... You'd be surprised at the speed which some dancers request. I've not often played for dancers but I got roped into playing with a few others for a set dancing evening once. I was struggling to keep up with the other players (and, to be fair, they were all much more accomplished than me). But even so, there were a few occasions when one or two of the dancers suggested to us that we were playing too slow and needed to pick the pace up a bit. That said, in my mind I have a rough rule-of-thumb speed hierarchy which, in descending order of velocity, goes something like boy racer/wham-bam-thank-you-mam/whoops!-there-goes-a-string session -> relaxed session with competent players -> dancing speed -> my comfort zone -> slow session/beginners' session. :-)
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