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Gallagher's Frolicsby Roger Landes"Gallagher's Frolics" is a Double Jig I learned years ago from Rebecca Pringle, a great Irish-style fiddler from Missouri with whom I played for a time in the Midwestern Irish group Scartaglen. I find that it is a great tune for integrating Long Rolls into your mandolin, octave mandolin or bouzouki playing. In my previous columns I transcribed each tune three ways: 1st time - bare bones melody; 2nd with some ornamentation (see my column in the February/March Mandolin Sessions for an explanation of these ornaments); 3rd an even more ornate setting, utilizing many or most of the ornaments that I use on the mandolin. This seems to be a good approach so I'll stick with it again for this column. Play through the first, unornamented transcription a few times (at least 5-6) to become familiar with the shape of the tune. Be sure to keep to our agreed upon picking pattern for double jigs: Down-Up-Down, Down-Up-Down. Playing the tune without ornaments is a good way to practice this pattern. Do this until it is second nature and becomes your "default setting" for double jigs. In this first transcription you will notice that in the A part there are many beats with three 1/8th notes of the same pitch: bars 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. In the 2nd and 3rd transcriptions these beats will be occupied by ornaments, but for now, use those three-note beats as opportunities to really get the slight lengthening of the first notes (and shortened second notes) that are so important to the "lilt" of an Irish jig. In the 2nd transcription I have introduced Long Rolls (see "Mandornaments" in my Feb. 2005 column). As you start to work these in, make SURE that you are playing very slowly and that you maintain the picking directions in the tablature. This is important to keep the feel of the jig. As you would imagine, it is the left hand that is most important to accomplish the roll. When rolling the E on the 2nd fret of the D string (or the B on the A string) fret the E with your index finger. Pick the first note using a downstroke, and then, using your ring finger, hammer-on to the upper note and immediately pull-off again back to the E. Make the hammer-on and the pull-off almost the same motion. We're not looking to hear the pitch of that second note so much as interrupt the vibration of the 1st note and separate it from the 3rd. The same goes for pulling-off to the 4th note - we just want to separate the 3rd note from the 5th. The advice I got early on about playing Long Rolls on the uilleann pipes and whistle has been very helpful: that the 2nd and 4th notes of the Long Roll (sometimes misidentified as "grace notes") are not melodic notes, they only serve the rhythm of the tune, and so they should be very short - much shorter than the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes, which have both melodic and rhythmic attributes. Long Rolls are not melodic sequences so much as rhythmic events. I think of them as rhythmic gestures- that are used over and over in myriad ways within many different types of tunes. Practice these E and B Rolls and then transpose them to the 2nd fret F# on the E string and also to the 2nd fret A on the G string. In the 3rd transcription I've notated Muted Triplets* because I think they make very effective replacements for the Long Rolls in the 2nd transcription. I particularly like these since are reminiscent of the staccato triplets that uilleann pipers play. Please mix and match these triplets with the rolls in the 2nd transcription, moving them around within the tune. Feel free to play only a few of these ornaments the first time through a part, adding or replacing them on the repeat. As with our previous tunes "Bush on the Hill," "Peter Street," and "Tom Billy's Jig," don't use all of these ornaments in a single repetition of the tune, rather I've condensed the many possibilities into one time through the tune. I would make a point of playing each of these ornaments at least once over the three repetitions, but never all of them in one repetition. A word about Modes in Irish traditional music: The Double Jig "Gallagher's Frolics" gives us an opportunity to discuss the other two of the four modes used in Irish traditional music: Dorian and Aeolian. Aeolian is familiar because it is often referred to as the "Relative Minor" of the major scale (Ionian mode). That is, if you play the same notes that are in a major scale starting and ending on the 6th note of that scale, you are in the "Relative Minor" key. Aeolian is to Major (Ionian) as A minor is to C Major, or B minor is to D Major, or E minor to G Major, etc. There is a similar relationship between the Major scale (Ionian mode) and the Dorian mode. The Dorian mode can be easily found by starting and ending on the 2nd note of the Major scale (Ionian mode). Dorian is to Ionian as E Dorian is to D Major, or A Dorian to G Major, or D Dorian to C Major, etc. If you are thinking that the Dorian mode is similar to the Aeolian, your ears are not deceiving you. They both have the "minor" feel-both modes have a minor tonic or "I" chord, but there is one important difference: the 6th note of the Dorian mode is ½ step higher than the 6th note of the Aeolian mode. In the case of "Gallagher's Frolics" there is only one C# in the tune, in bar 12 of the B part, but, since there are no C naturals, this lone C# defines it as being in the Dorian mode. Since the C# is mostly a passing tone between two D's one could just as well approach this as a straight minor tune in the Aeolian mode. Since the only C in the tune is sharp, this is reflected in the two sharps key signature, but don't let that fool you into thinking that this tune is in D major, which shares its key signature with E Dorian. What's the difference between E Dorian and E Aeolian beside one note (C# or C)?
In Dorian, the IV chord (A) is major - in Aeolian it is minor. In Dorian the VI chord (C#) is diminished but in Aeolian it is major (C). In Dorian the II chord is minor but in Aeolian it is diminished. Chords for this tune are E minor, D major, G major and B minor, with A major and F# minor possible, too, but not as typical. *See my first column (Feb. 2005 "Celtic Mandolin") for an explanation of why these ornaments are called "triplets" when they are really just 2 169th notes in the space of an 1/8th, followed by a third note with is also and 1/8th. 1st Tanscription:  2nd Transcription:  3rd Transcription:   |
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