Irish Traditional Music Tune Index
Tune ID#653 (Flowing Tide)
about these two barsThese two bars were transcribed by me from how this tune was played – the first time through – on the recording EI 1 (details in the Discography below).
| Rhythm ? | Bars | 8-bar phrase structure | Mode ? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hornpipe | 32 | AABB | G Major |
Titles given to this tune in the sources listed below (plus notes of mine about this tune):
Flowing Tide / The Flowing Tide / Higgins' Best / The Bunch of Ferns / The Picnic Reel (also in A) (compare 2nd part with 2nd part of reel The Picnic #1580)
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.
Click 
to hear the first 10 seconds.
to hear the first 10 seconds.| Year Recorded |
Track #Tune? |
[Album code] Artist. Title. Performers (instruments). |
|---|---|---|
| ~1991 | 6#1 | [TC] Turas Cheoil. A Musical Odyssey: A compilation of music from the traditional musicians of Toronto. Joe Byrne (flute), Kevin Finnegan (accordion), David Papazian (fiddle). |
| ~1994 | 1#1 | [EI 1] Eileen Ivers. Eileen Ivers. Traditional Irish Music. Eileen Ivers (fiddle, mandolin, rainstick). |
Bibliography
Here are all transcriptions of this tune 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 #1750 in [1850] Francis O'Neill and James O'Neill. O'Neill's Music of Ireland. |
| As tune #66 in volume 1 of [B&S] D[avid] Bulmer and N[eil] Sharpley. Music from Ireland. 4 vols. |
| On page 209 of [Krsn] Miles Krassen. O'Neill's Music of Ireland. New and Revised. |
| As tune #83 in [DM 2] Dave Mallinson. 100 Enduring Irish Session Tunes. |
| As hp #24 in [Cobb] Dan Cobb. Cobb's Music of Ireland. |
| As tune #252 in [Raff] Lesl Harker. 300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty. |
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