Fiona Gavin with Jimmy Campbell
I am from a small townland near Fintown, Co. Donegal. I received my first fiddle at Christmas of 2008 and I started taking lessons about a year later when I was roughly five years old. My first fiddle teacher was Denise Boyle from Glenties. I was greatly influenced by the late Jimmy Campbell and his son Peter and also got to know the late Vincent Campbell. They told me many stories about the Dohertys, a family of travelling tinsmiths and musicians who frequented this area and passed their tunes on.
The area I live in is steeped in traditional music, especially fiddle music. Our local pub, The Glen Tavern or ‘Dinny’s’ is the epicentre of music and culture. Sessions happen regularly and it is here I got to know other local musicians such as the Campbells, Tara Connaghan, Denise Boyle and Rónán Galvin to name but a few. I started giving fiddle lessons recently and hope to help spread the music and stories.
Fiona Gavin, December 2023
Andrea Palandri is originally from Venice in Italy and has been living in Ireland since 2014. He started to take a keen interest in the music of Sliabh Luachra, and in particular in the fiddle music of Pádraig O’Keeffe, Denis Murphy and Paddy Cronin in his late teens. He has been looking through O’Keeffe manuscripts and studying the bowing techniques found therein for several years now. He is particularly interested in the distinctive bowing patterns taught in O’Keeffe’s notation, in which much of the rhythm and detail of this unique regional style is hardcoded. These manuscripts are an incredible resource for any fiddle player who wishes to study the techniques taught by O’Keeffe to his students, effectively allowing us to carefully retrace the steps taken by some of the most extraordinary musicians ever to emerge from this region.
Andrea choose to focus on 21 tunes from various O’Keeffe manuscripts, 11 jigs, 2 hornpipes, 2 polkas, 2 slides and 4 reels. Each of these tunes was recorded individually and made available on the ITMA site with a full suite of learning resources.
Links to all 21 tunes can be found in this collection.
21 tunes chosen by Andrea Palandri and made available as interactive scores
He also recorded a number of the tunes in sets. Note in the recordings below the sets were recorded in a different key to the individual tunes.
Untitled [tune no. 28], polka from O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor MS A
Untitled [tune no. 85], polka from O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor MS E
Untitled [The ladies cup of tea] [tune no. 30], reel from Pádraig O’Keeffe ITMA-Collins manuscripts, book 2: fiddle.
Untitled [Murphy’s] [tune no. 59], reel from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-Miscellanous Manuscripts
Untitled [tune no. 7], jig from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript C
Untitled [tune no. 8], jig from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript C
Untitled [tune no. 9], jig from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript C
Untitled [tune no. 104], slide from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript E
Untitled [tune no. 27], slide from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript A
Videos, like those above, were recorded for each of the 21 tunes chosen by Andrea. Each tune also has an interactive score synced with the video and a downloadable PDF of the staff notation.
The 63 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from the second of three sets of manuscripts written by Pádraig O’Keeffe for fiddle pupils, and donated to ITMA by Paud Collins from Knockacur, Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry. For more tunes, further information and copies of the original manuscripts, see Pádraig O’Keeffe Resources at ITMA.
Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 19 April 2014
The 51 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from one of three sets of manuscripts written by Pádraig O’Keeffe for fiddle pupils, and donated to ITMA by Paud Collins from Knockacur, Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry. There are 191 tunes in all in the three sets of manuscripts. For all tunes, further information and copies of the original manuscripts, see Pádraig O’Keeffe Resources at ITMA.
Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 19 April 2014
The 77 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from one of three sets of manuscripts written by Pádraig O’Keeffe for fiddle pupils, and donated to ITMA by Paud Collins from Knockacur, Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry. They have been transcribed from O’Keeffe’s unique form of fiddle-music tablature. It is clear from the manuscripts that he was a conscientious and imaginative teacher who continuously shaped the music that he taught to the proficiency level of his pupils. As his notation was used primarily as a memory-aid for pupils following on from his personal tuition of them, it sometimes lacks essential rhythmic and other information. The re-creation here of some song airs particularly is therefore to a degree speculative. For more tunes, further information and copies of the original manuscripts see Pádraig O’Keeffe Resources at ITMA.
Nicholas Carolan, Treasa Harkin & Jackie Small, 19 April 2014.
