Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID# 1899 (A Thousand Farewells)

RhythmBars8-bar phrase structureMode
Double jig32AABBD Major
Transcription of first 2 bars of A Thousand Farewells
 about these two bars

These two bars are the start of the transcription in the book SR (details in the Bibliography below).

Where do you get the tune titles?
Titles given to this tune in the sources listed below (plus notes of mine about this tune):
A Thousand Farewells / Rowe's Jig / Toneroe's No. 2 / Bill the Weaver's Jig (misattributed to B. Tonerowe [sic] in book JKg 3) (composed by Seán Ryan)
What do the "track#tune" codes mean?

cd 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). Album details
and contents
19962#1[TF] Martin Dowling, Christine Dowling, Daithi Sproule. A Thousand Farewells. Martin Dowling (fiddle), Christine Dowling (flute, vocals), Daithi Sproule (guitar).View album details
~200211#2[MaRaf] Mary Rafferty. Hand-Me-Downs. Mary Rafferty (accordion, concertina, flute, whistle).View album details

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 #211 in [JOL] Terry Moylan. Johnny O'Leary of Sliabh Luachra. Dance Music from the Cork-Kerry Border. [available]
As jig #94 in [MM] Martin Mulvihill. First Collection of Traditional Irish Music.
On page 12 of [SR] Brian Ryan. The Hidden Ireland. The First Selection of Irish Traditional Compositions of Seán Ryan. [available]
As jig #68 in [JKg 3] Josephine Keegan. A Drop in the Ocean. Traditional Irish Tunes Collected by Josephine Keegan. [available]
As tune #236 in [Raff] Lesl Harker. 300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty. [available]

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): 1986
Please cite your source when you use information from this document.
© 2000–2008 Alan Ng, agng@facstaff.wisc.edu. Questions? Comments? Please use the easy Feedback Form. Thank you!
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