(Hybrids of Slip Jigs and Slides in 15/8 or a mix of 9/8 and 12/8 bars)
Imagine if Arnold Schoenberg decided to compose an Irish jig, using his famous 12-Tone technique. It might sound something like this. Not your average Irish jig, an acquired taste I suspect!
If you don’t know who Arnold Schoenberg was, you won’t get the irony of this tune……
Another ‘Slip Slide’, a tune mixing slip jig and slide rhythms, although this one also has regular 6/8 bars in the 2nd part.
The title is a bit of a joke. ‘Parsimonious’ is one of those unnecessary words that pseudo-intellectual people like to bandy about in order to make themselves feel superior. I wish they would be more parsimonious in their usage of this miserly word……
A 9/8 – 12/8 hybrid ‘Slip-Slide’ composed for the 40th Birthday of Danny McCarthy, one my wife’s best friends.
Danny is an exuberant Aussie lady of Irish heritage who was on a one-year assignment in Antarctica as a meteorologist when I wrote this. Vital work in this day and age!
Danny also captains ships professionally and she paraglides in her spare time! The sheet music here reflects Danny’s work and hobbies. It was designed by my wife Celia.
I play all the instruments on the recording – nylon string guitars, steel string guitars, triangle, shaker, hosho and handclaps.
A mystical-sounding Slip-Slide in F Lydian, composed in the car on a road trip towards the town of Geraldine, in New Zealand’s South Island.
Geraldine is a picturesque town, famous in NZ for it’s lovely cheese shop and for Barker’s Food store, who make relishes that are sold in supermarkets across the country. I dedicate this tune to my Aunt in Scotland who is, appropriately enough, called Geraldine!
Recording note: At the end of the piece you’ll hear the sound of an airplane, this is a real sound of a low flying plane that passed over exactly at the time heard in the recording. I kept it there as I like the sound of it!
A slip-slide dedicated to my Uncle Paul, who lives in Ravensdale, Co. Louth with my Aunt Olive in a beautiful home with stunning gardens which Paul expertly tends to.
This tune is incorporated into the orchestral work Oriel Suite which was commissioned by Oriel Traditional Orchestra with funds from the Arts Council of Ireland. Premiere, 8th April 2022 during Feile Patrick Byrne in Castleblaney, Co. Monaghan.
Recently after I’d had a spot of back physiotherapy my wife said to me “You don’t want to end up with a Dowager’s Hump”! I’d never heard that phrase before and immediately thought the title was like one of the quirky names of old Irish tunes! So I put the title on this tune which I had just composed that day.
This is an unusual and tricky kind of jig in 15/8, with a sneaky 12/8 at the end. Think of it like a slip jig mixed with a slide, hence I call it a slip-slide.
Hopefully you won’t get the hump with this tune………..
A tune composed the day I got the first shot of the Pfizer Vaccine.
One of the unexpected side effects of the vaccine is that it induced me to compose three strange tunes in the one day!
This is the first of them – A kind of jig I like to call a Slip-Slide because of the 15/8 time signature.
Sciorradh agus Sleamhnaigh (Slip-Slide)
A tune composed for the fiddle concerto Aontacht. It begins the third movement.
Santa’s Slip-Slide (15/8 hybrid of a Slip Jig and a Slide)
A tune composed for Sinead Hayes’ 2020 Tradvent Vitual Tune Calendar. Premiered on 24th December 2020.
Hauraki Corner (Slip-Slide)
A tune composed in Auckland, New Zealand, named after an area close to where I lived at the time of composing the tune.
Fig and Leif’s Frolics on the Farm (Slip-Slide)
A tune composed in Marlborough Sounds on the South Island of New Zealand, but inspired by two lovely dogs my wife and I minded for a while near Waitomo in the North Island of NZ.
Fig and Leif love their daily walks around the beautiful Stubbs’ family farm there and they are full of fun and frolics!
The Locrian Slip-Slide
A tune composed using the unusual Locrian mode which, on the white notes of the piano, is the seven notes starting from a B note. B, C, D, E, F, G, A. It is very rarely found in Irish traditional music. I challenged myself to compose a tune in this mode that sounds somewhat Irish. Did I succeed?!
The Bunbeg Slip Slide
As used in the song The Mad Magician, from the album Draiocht. It is split in two parts on the recording. The first half used in the middle of the song, the second half at the end. I originally composed it as one piece like below.
Nostalgia (Slip-Slide)
A tune composed for Music for the Departed, also used in the guitar piece The Mahatma of the Glen.