Fiddle Studio: Going to a Session in Dublin (St. Anne's Reel)

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Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Megan Beller. And today I'm bringing you a setting of St. Anne's Reel from a session at the Bru House in Dublin, Ireland.

Hello, everyone, I hope you are well. Today I'm going to be talking about the jam that we went to in Dublin. I've been transcribing the tunes and bringing them to this podcast. We went to Ireland in June. And I actually didn't bring my fiddle along, I was so worried about putting it in the overhead bin.

I used to travel with my violin and I would always put it either under my seat, that was kind of sticking out. Or sometimes the flight attendants would put it in their little locker. But neither of those work right now, nobody wants to touch your stuff because of COVID. And they won't let you put something under your seat that's sticking out like a violin case. So I'd have to go in the overhead bin.

I just couldn't get out of my head, the image of somebody opening the overhead bin and the case falling out onto the ground and the violin falling out and everything being very traumatic. Because I was worried about that I didn't bring my fiddle, I probably would next time. I'm over it. Now I saw other people traveling with instruments, I really wish that I had had my violin in Ireland. And the next time we go, I will just put a lot of padding in the case, stick it in that overhead bin make sure when the plane lands, I get up and get it back into my hands as soon as possible. And I think that'll be totally fine.

My husband brought his flute because you can just put a flute in a carry on. And we were staying in Clontarf, which is a northeastern neighborhood in Dublin. The session we went to was actually in Fairview just right next door. It wasn't far at all from where we were staying. Charley found the session for us. When I went back to try to look up Clontarf sessions. There was, I guess, a whole controversy involving Coultas and Clontarf, from like 10 years ago. And if you really want to go down a rabbit hole on The Session, you can look up Coultas and Clontarf. There was a huge to do about everything. Sometimes it's just fun to read about other people's gossip.

In any case, this session was a lovely session. It started a little on the later side for me. Around 8pm people started gathering, they got drinks, a lot of people were drinking Guinness, some people were drinking tea. The person that I was having a conversation with said, 'Oh, that's so Irish, drinking tea at a bar at your session'. And there was a lot of chatting. Finally by around 9pm people settled down to play some tunes.

The tunes were a real mix of things, I would say more variety than the Irish jams that I've been to in the US. Just because there were reels and jigs and hornpipes and slip jigs. Some of the sets were played up to tempo, some of them were played under tempo. There was a real mix of speeds even though there weren't any beginners there. There were also songs included and waltzes and slower tunes. I enjoyed the variety.

They sang one of my favorite songs, which is Wild Mountain Thyme, a folk song that I grew up with. And they also did a song called The Ballad of Saint Anne's Reel. That song features the tune St. Anne's Reel, which is the fiddle tune I'm going to be sharing for you. It's a lovely song to you can look it up on YouTube, there's verses and then they play the tune. It all works together really well.

I think I have made my peace with the overhead bin. So the next time I go to Ireland, I will definitely be bringing my fiddle.

Our tune today is the fiddle tune St. Anne's Reel that's featured in the song The Ballad of Saint Anne's Reel, and this is a reel in D major. It's French Canadian. It was made popular in the 1930s by Joseph Allard, the French Canadian fiddler. The title might refer to the town Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré on the St. Lawrence River. So the tune is likely older than that, but it's been played a lot since the 1930s. Charley and I are gonna play it here for you. I hope you enjoy.

Hey, thanks so much for listening you can head over to fiddlestudio.com for the sheet music to this and all of the tunes I teach. I'll be back next time with another tune for you have a wonderful day.