Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID# 550 (Drunken Sailor)

RhythmBars8-bar phrase structureMode
Hornpipe80AABBCCDDEEG Dorian
Transcription of first 2 bars of Drunken Sailor
 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 TPtts (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):
Drunken Sailor, The (2nd in set The Drunken Sailor on TPtts) (also with a 6th part)
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
19718(1:08)#2[TPtts] Tommy Potts. The Liffey Banks. Tommy Potts (fiddle).View album details
~198813#1[NH 1] Noel Hill. The Irish Concertina. Noel Hill (concertina).View album details
~19964#1[LN 1] Laurence Nugent. Traditional Irish Music on Flute and Tin-Whistle. Laurence Nugent (flute, whistle).View album details
~20006#1[LC 3] Liz Carroll. Lost in the Loop. Liz Carroll (fiddle).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 hp #63 in [HN] Henrik Norbeck. Henrik Norbeck's Abc Tunes. [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): 1971