Déardaoin 20 Bealtaine 2021

Pádraig O'Keeffe World Fiddle Day 2021

To mark World Fiddle Day 2021 ITMA is delighted to make available more than 500 interactive scores and contemporary transcriptions of tunes originating from Pádaig O'Keeffe manuscripts donated to ITMA by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in 2015. To mark the dissemination of this wonderful collection ITMA has invited fiddle player Andrea Palandri to share here some of his favourite tunes from these, and other Pádraig O'Keeffe manuscripts in the ITMA collection.

Andrea Palandri
Andrea Palandri, April 2021

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. 

Listen to Andrea play four sets of tunes chosen from the O’Keeffe Manuscripts

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. 

Polka set

Andrea Palandri discusses the Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscripts

Untitled [tune no. 28], polka ; Untitled [tune no. 85], polka / Andrea Palandri, fiddle

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


Reel set

Untitled [Ladies cup of tea] [tune no. 30], reel ; Untitled [Murphy’s] [tune no. 59], reel / Andrea Palandri, fiddle

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

Jig set

Untitled [tune no. 7], jig ; Untitled [tune no. 8], jig ; Untitled [tune no. 9], jig / Andrea Palandri, fiddle

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

Slide set

Untitled [tune no. 104], slide ; Untitled [tune no. 27], slide / Andrea Palandri, fiddle

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.

21 tunes chosen by Andrea Palandri and made available as interactive scores

Interactive scores and PDFs are also available for the 700+ tunes available on the ITMA website.  For details of the full collections available see Pádraig O’Keefe Resources at ITMA

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