Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID#1402 (Never Was Piping So Gay)
| Rhythm ? | Bars | 8-bar phrase structure | Mode ? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reel | 32 | AABB | G Major |
about these two bars
These two bars are the start of the transcription in the book ER (details in the Bibliography below).
Titles given to this tune in the sources listed below (plus notes of mine about this tune):
Never Was Piping So Gay (composed by Ed Reavy)
Discography
Here are all recordings of this tune considering only the indexed recordings. I have discovered by careful listening that these sources are in fact musically the same tune, regardless of the tune titles they use, key changes, retuning, etc. They are listed in order of when they were recorded.
| Year Recorded |
Track #Tune? |
[Album code] Artist. Title. Primary musicians (instruments). |
|---|---|---|
| ~1967 | 24#1 | [CmA 1] various. The Coleman Archive Vol. 1: The Living Tradition. |
| ~1996 | 1#2 | [PCln] Pat Cloonan. Pat Cloonan's Thanksgiving. Patrick Cloonan (accordion). |
| ~2002 | 9#2 | [BCw 1] Brian Conway. First through the Gate. Brian Conway (fiddle). |
| ~2005 | 4#1 | [InTndm] Kevin Burke and Ged Foley. In Tandem. Kevin Burke (fiddle), Ged Foley (guitar, vocals). |
| 2007 | 14#1 | [AbsIr] various. Absolutely Irish. Mac Benford (banjo, vocals), Darrah Carr (feet), Liz Carroll (fiddle), Karan Casey (vocals), Brendan Dolan (piano), John Doyle (guitar, bouzouki, vocals), Seamus Egan (banjo, flute), Eileen Ivers (fiddle), Rhys Jones (fiddle, guitar, vocals), Joanie Madden (flute, whistle), Billy McComiskey (accordion), Susan McKeown (vocals), Mick Moloney (banjo, mandolin, guitar, vocals), Robbie O'Connell (vocals, guitar), Niall O'Leary (feet), Jerry O'Sullivan (pipes, whistle), Mike Rafferty (flute), Athena Tergis (fiddle). |
Bibliography
Here are all transcriptions of this tune under any title whatsoever – considering only the indexed books – listed in chronological order. I have discovered by careful comparison that these are very similar to this tune as played on the recordings listed above.
| As tune #3 in [ER] Joseph M. Reavy (compiler). The Collected Compositions of Ed Reavy. |
| As reel #622 in [HN] Henrik Norbeck. Henrik Norbeck's Abc Tunes. |
| As reel #361 in [Cobb] Dan Cobb. Cobb's Music of Ireland. |
If you are considering using the above transcriptions to help you learn this tune, I invite you to check these practical Tips for Learning Irish Traditional Music. See also: So why do you bother indexing books and abc?
Year of the oldest source for this tune, considering the recordings and transcriptions listed above (note that I concentrate on sources after 1900): 1967