Week #42 ~ Rocky Road to Dublin

Nice collection of instruments there, Martin.

This is a set of two Irish tunes, both of them previous official SAW tunes, so I'm posting it to both threads.

"Hot Asphalt" is a hornpipe also known as "Bonaparte Crossing The Alps", "The Battle Of Waterloo", "Bonaparte Crossing The Rocky Mountains" (the name for our official thread), "Napoleon Crossing The Rhine" and a number of other variants. It's more commonly in G major, but this is the minor key variant in E minor. The setting I used is written as a jig, but it's really the same rhythm as the hornpipe.

http://www.kstez.de/Hot_Asphalt__Ireland_.pdf

"The Rocky Road To Dublin" is a slip jig, here also in E minor, which makes the transition easier. I had recorded this tune earlier this year, but looking back that version is both too slow and too stiff -- the advantage of my post-lockdown technique of not using a click track is that I can play the tune and tempo in my head, not the metronome clicks.

http://www.kstez.de/Rocky_Road_To_Du...__Ireland_.pdf

Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin
Vintage Viaten tenor guitar



Martin

Makes a nice set. Well played, Martin.

Thanks, Fritjof. Fun tunes -- they both have that rolicking high-energy drive of a good Irish pub singalong.

Martin

Good stuff, Martin. As you say, great pub singalongs and bringing back memories of just such occasions over so many years. Glad to read that you have moved away from the click track - you get a lot more fluency when you are not consciously waiting for that click in your ear all the time. A good servant but a really bad taskmaster.

That does work well as a set, Martin. My favourite version of Rocky Road to Dublin is by the band Larkspur, which I'd link here if I could find it on YouTube. I'd like to record it with lyrics one day, but it seems like a big project.

Interesting point about the click track, Martin. I am always recording with the built-in Garageband metronome, but I use it as feedback information on my timing rather than a conductor - if I find that my playing and the metronome are drifting apart, I don't adapt in real-time but I start over. Only if the ensemble of the two of us go together effortlessly the recording will pass.

I always thought the real challenge of Rocky Road to Dublin was memorizing the lyrics - the slip jig it is based on, OTOH, is quite straightforward.

Gelsenbury wrote: "... Larkspur, which I'd link here if I could find it on YouTube."

Is this the right one?


(or direct link) Larkspur album "Age of England". Took me some finagling with various combinations of search operators to find it - for some reason, I didn't make any progress at all until I'd first discovered the name of the album. Internet searches (all of 'em, not just Google) seem noticeably less useful the last few years. Just noticed that this video has been on YouTube since 2014 but has only 18 views... maybe we're not the only people who had difficulty finding it there...

my own favourite version of it is that live Dubliners rendition where Kelly (Luke, not John) inadvertently sings the 2nd verse twice and they never miss a beat.

JL, that's the one! Great singing and such a directness about it. The rest of the album has far more instruments on it! It's a very good album.

The musicianship in the Dubliners version is just amazing.

Because I learned this jig from the sung version, I tend to play it with the coda that's missing in most transcriptions I've seen. I think "coda" is the technical term - my knowledge of "real" musical terms is pretty minimal. "Nyah", "mighty", "hup", "ye boy ye", "ye girl ye", "savage altogether", "bit of whisht, now", "one singer, one song" - those are the musical terminology I grew up with and I understand them perfectly! Played in two versions, Paris Swing "Macaferri" mandolin and Ashbury AT-40 tenor guitar; instruments which have been described recently as peculiar. Ah well, peculiar is as peculiar does, I suppose...

You are certainly burning the midnight oil with your postings, Aidan. It is hard just trying to keep up with you, let alone add comments, so your output is really admirable. Gentle versions of the tune I will always associate with the Dubliners and the raucous singing of Luke Kelly (no relation).

This one hasn’t been published for a while…

Tom Buchanan Tenor Mandola
Gold Tone IT 250 Tenor Banjo

The mandola and the banjo are played nicely together, John, sounds fine!

This is really good, John. As Christian says, the combination of mandola and tenor banjo works very well.

The banjo certainly adds a lot to this version of yours, John. Fine picking.

Much appreciated Christian, Richard and John K… I’ve had the banjo around 15 months now but not managed to play it anywhere near as much as I’d like to.

Thanks, Frithjof.