Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID# 361 (Colonel McBain)

RhythmBars8-bar phrase structureMode
Reel32AABBE Dorian
Transcription of first 2 bars of Colonel McBain
 about these two bars

These two bars are the start of my transcription of how this tune was played – the first time through – on the recording MOK (details in the Discography 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):
Colonel McBain / Col. McBain / Colonel McBain's / General McBean / Seán Frank / John Frank / Johnny's Wedding / Sporting Molly / Sporting Mollie / The Duke of Clarence Reel / The Devonshire Hunt / Brian Boru / Dan Sullivan's Reel (compare Mother's Delight #2915 and Sean Frank #2896)
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
199314#2[MOK] Máire O'Keeffe. Cóisir. House Party. Máire O'Keeffe (fiddle).View album details
19945#1[MvC 1] Moving Cloud. Moving Cloud. Paul Brock (accordion), Maeve Donnelly (fiddle, viola), Manus McGuire (fiddle), Kevin Crawford (flute and percussion), Carl Hession (piano).View album details
~9999[0] various. Alan's personal digital recordings.

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 #1403 in [1850] Francis O'Neill and James O'Neill. O'Neill's Music of Ireland. [available]
As tune #645 in [1001] Francis O'Neill and James O'Neill. The Dance Music of Ireland. 1001 Gems. [available]
As tune #156 in volume 1 of [R] Francis Roche. The Roche Collection of Traditional Irish Music. 3 vols. [available]
As tune #182 in [CRE 1] Breandán Breathnach. Ceol Rince na hÉireann 1.
As reel #40 in [Cobb] Dan Cobb. Cobb's Music of Ireland. [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): 1903
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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