Irish Tune Category: Sea Jigs

A hypnotic sea jig which pairs well with the previously posted tune ‘Choppy Waters’.

The tune is dedicated to Russell Harris, who co-built and once owned the magnificent tall ship R. Tucker Thompson, a boat my wife worked on in the early 2000’s.

The Tucker Thompson is still going strong as a tourism boat in the beautiful Bay of Islands in New Zealand. Russell took me and Celia out on it one day a few years ago, such a great experience to be out on the ocean on a ship in full sail experiencing the rolling wave of the sea.

An ambiguous jig in the Phrygian mode, which is rarely used in Irish music.

I call this tune type a ‘Sea Jig’, it has a hypnotic rolling sea-like rhythm that is found in traditional sea-referencing jigs like ‘The Rolling Wave’ and ‘Out on the Ocean’. These feel like a different kind of jig to me to regular jigs, so I’m calling them ‘Sea Jigs’.