This weeks tune of the week, and of the year, is an Irish hornpipe called the Tailors twist usually played in D on the fiddle. It’s tabbed in double C in Ken Perlman book.
Before I continue, let’s hope this new start to the year can eventually see a curbing of this awful virus that has taken so many lives , caused financial misery to millions and undoubtably caused severe mental disorder associated with loneliness and fear.
The tune tailors twist has fascinated me for many years. I first heard it in Ireland played by Dickie Deegan a British Uilleann piper with a gorgeous set of Geoff Woof narrow bore pipes in D. These pipes produced a mellow tone similar to the old flat sets made a century ago, before the harsher bigger bored concert pitch D become popular due to performances in concert halls where more volume was required. I learnt to play the tune on my Uilleann pipes and Tin whistle, the instruments I played back then in the 1980’s.
Years later while learning clawhammer, to my surprise, I came across the tune again in a Ken Perlman tuition book called melodic clawhammer banjo. It was well above my capabilities at the time but I beavered away at it.
About 7 years ago, struggling with the tune, I laid down a challenge to our host of TOTW, Janet Burton to simplify the tune a tad, which I knew she’d take up! She produced a subtle tuning change that negated the need to fret the 5th string at the 7th fret which made the tune a lot easier to play and took nothing away from its beauty. Here is the link to previous discussion
There aren’t many versions of The tailors twist about in 5 string clawhammer formats. There’s mine, Janet’s, and this fine one from hangout member Yigal Zan
I want this year to be a year when more people have ago at this delightful tune. I was going to tag another rare hornpipe to the tune of the week the Ballyoran hornpipes the end of the tailors twist, but am struggling to play it in either Janet’s tuning or even Ken’s as it is a g tune and so much harder to play out of double c or Janet’s tuning. So that’ll have to wait a while.
Here is my latest version, where I’m back in double D (capo 2nd fret and 5th string tuned up to A as per Ken Perlman advice)
Here are other great versions on traditional Irish instruments, the oldest recorded version being by James Morrison on fiddle in 1935
The Tailor’s Twist was one of a set of two hornpipes recorded by James Morrisson on August 10th 1935, for Colombia. This Sligo fiddle player was born in Drumfin near Collooney and died in New York in 1947. It was also transcribed by Breathnach from the piper Tommy Reck, and published in his 3rd volume.
If you have Amazon you can find Grainne’s lovely harp version here:
I hope some of you reading this will have a go at this lovely little hornpipe, it’s a little gem!
Janet’s tabs
Here’s my latest version of it but I’ve played it in that many tunings now I’ve confused myself a wee bit. However, I have found some nice variations and a few easier ways of getting the notes required. I’ll have to tab it out tonight and practise it tomorrow and hopefully get it posted tomorrow.
Thanks for showcasing this Irish reel, Neill. It's a dandy, though challenging to play. In my attempts to simplify it, I'm finding it's hard to leave out some of the notes that would make it yet easier. I'll be thinking upon that challenge this week....In the meantime, here are my tabs and the recording I made of The Tailor's Twist several years ago.
Thanks again to Ken Perlman whose life's work on the banjo is legendary and who still actively teaches. Check out this on-line camp on March 13-14, with instructors Ken, Riley Baugus, Joe Newberry, Allison De Groot, Chuck Levy, and Lukas Pool: suwanneebanjocamp.com .
For some reason, the above tab wouldn't open. I have re-saved Neill's png file in a pdf portrait mode. I don't know if the landscape mode I used when previously saving it had anything to do with the problem.
Neill told us that Tailor's Twist is titled after the thread used by tailors, so I did a bit of research, learning the difference between thread and yarn. This article defines thread as being twisted fibers from three sources: history of thread. In this article, nineteenth century occupations in Ireland (in Mayo County) a tailor is included amonst many, with explanation of the politics and history affecting jobs.
Tailor's Twist is a hornpipe. Ken Perlman, in his book The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Islands gave a good description of hornpipes, stating that they have the same structure as a reel, but are played at a slower tempo. He said that they're almost always played with swing eighth notes (as shown in Neill's tab below). I once learned a term for this -- the "Scottish snap." When I play Tailor's Twist I tend to simply emphasize the eighth note that should be rhythmically pronounced, though I'm not holding the eighth note a bit longer than the following one, as in swing notes.
Neill, you do a nice job with the ornamentation. I'd like to hear a comparison of playing Tailor's Twist with vs. without swing notes.
Interesting stuff this thread/twist link. In Uilleann piping a tight staccato run of notes used in ornimentation of a tune is called back stitching. Patsy Touhey, a piper from Chicago used it extensively. His recordings are pretty scratchy now but paddy Keenan plays quite a few back stitches in this video at 2 mins 36 seconds onwards here
I think the title of this tune fits perfectly and I’m certainly going to add the 4 staccato notes I’ve tabbed in the variations at the bottom of my tab. You could do the same again in the 3rd bar of the B part of the tune playing the 1st string at fret 3 with 4 semiquavers
Janet, without the swing notes it would sound like a slow reel. One feature nearly all hornpipes I’ve heard share, is the telltale "daa-da daaaaa" at the end of each part and they usually have runs of triplets throughout the tune. I’ve tried speeding the Tailors twist up a gear or two in the past and you get to a certain point when the “swing” disappears and it becomes a reel. A really technically good player of the tune could probably still get the swing at speed but not me. Also the emphasis in hornpipes is on beat one and three which is is not the same as reels were the speed hides the rhythm somewhat. In the end I think it depends on interpretation of the tune and how the tune feels when you play it. I think the rolling rhythm is based on the rolling walk of sea faring folk which was incorporated in their dance music .
First I need to apologize for confusing the Scotch Snap with swing notes. The Scotch Snap (also called Lombard rhythm) has an elongated note preceded by a shorter note. Swing notes have a longer note followed by a shorter note, which is what we hear in Tailor's Twist. I arranged my tab by listening to the original Ken Perlman guitar solo, heard below, then simplified it with less ornamentation.
The question I had after our current discussion about the timing rhythm was should I change my tab to dotted, swing notes?
Ken uses dotted notation, like you do, Neill. Here is Ken's own explanation in his book Clawhammer Style Banjo where he explains the timing of a hornpipe on pages 126 -7: "In Ireland, England, and Scotland hornpipes are played with dotted pairs instead of straight eighth notes. A dotted pair is made up of a dotted eighth note (3/4 beat in 4/4 time) plus a sixteenth note (1/4 beat in 4/4 time)....This notation indicates that the first note of each dotted pair is allowed to sound three times longer (2/3 beat vs 1/3 beat) than the second note. This notation is standard for hornpipes, but alas, it is not quite accurate. In actual practice, the first note of each hornpipe dotted pair is only twice as long as each second note. This means that each dotted pair can be thought of as a triplet...."
Though this is a complex explanation, the bottom line is that we need to know what the music should sound like. When I did a dotted note tab and played the midi, it didn't sound right. Now I understand better why. To really make a correct tab -- a triplet within each dotted pair -- would take some extraordinary thinking on my part. I tried it already and it didn't look right, so I'll leave it for another day.... :) For now I'm satisfied that it sounds okay played on clawhammer banjo.
Note that Ken Perlman calls this "Taylor's Twist," as if it's somebody's last name rather than a person who sews cloth. Either way, he sure plays it beautifully. Ken Perlman's Taylor's Twist
Another apology -- a mistake on copying from Ken's hornpipe timing explanation in the above post. Here is the corrected explanation from his book on pages 126 -7: "In Ireland, England, and Scotland hornpipes are played with dotted pairs instead of straight eighth notes. A dotted pair is made up of a dotted eighth note (3/4 beat in 4/4 time) plus a sixteenth note (1/4 beat in 4/4 time)....This notation indicates that the first note of each dotted pair is allowed to sound three times longer (3/4 beat vs 1/4 beat) than the second note. This notation is standard for hornpipes, but alas, it is not quite accurate. In actual practice, the first note of each hornpipe dotted pair is only twice as long (2/3 bersus 1/3 beat) as each second note. This means that each dotted pair can be thought of as a triplet...."
All technically complicated stuff Janet. Somehow I think you can just feel the hornpipe rhythm. I think Ken probably just confused the spelling of the title as I’ve never seen it spelt Taylor’s anywhere else. I like to think of the Beatrix Potter story about the Tailor of Gloucester when I play it.
The Hornpipe rhythm also varies from England to Ireland. The English hornpipes to me don’t seem to have the same amount of swing and are played straighter.
I think one significant way to see the difference between a reel and a hornpipe is by watching the dancers who dance the tunes. The difference is clearly obvious then.
Your video was exemplary in comparing the timing difference between a non-swung beat and a real swing beat. Celtic tunes often have a "lilt", which is how I perceive the dotted note or swing note timing. Today, more than yesterday, I successfully began a tab using Ken Perlman's triplet idea and, indeed, the MIDI file in TablEdit produced the timing I'd expect to hear for Tailor's Twist. The PDF below contains the first full two measures, but I've already concluded that it's unnecessary to change the tab. Either I need to use dotted notes or to write at the top of the tab with the idea that the HELP menu from TablEdit offers -- simply indicate the timing in words. One phrase suggested was "shuffle beat," but the actual needs of a hornpipe wasn't being addressed in the HELP menu. Perhaps just "hornpipe swing beat" would say enough for the tab to be rendered accurate. And, as we both feel, it's imperative to hear the music and feel the beat for any of this to be meaningful.
Upon listening to the first pattern in the hornpipe bodhran video (which was well done and informative), I found myself counting 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, or 1-and-a, 2-and-a, 3-and-a, 4-and-a. Indeed Ken’s triplets. Regarding the speed, the presenter said that the slower the speed, the more the advanced dancers could display their skills .
Yes, and that’s because it gives the dancers chance to perform more steps etc. Same in reels. Reels are dance tunes but are played at sessions so fast they loose their way. Ornamentation is missed at the need for speed. Every time I listen to a piper or whistle player I subconsciously applaud when I hear them perform a well executed roll in the right place. All those little features that make a tune are lost when played too fast and it becomes a blur of noise.
Neill worked further on the piece and asked me to upload this newest tab with a B part variation and he'll post a video later in the week. In the meantime, I've worked on an old Scottish dance piece (Birks of Invermay) for a couple of days and in this one hear a lot of syncopation, as opposed to a swung beat (and it's not a hornpipe) . Though I don't find syncopation in Tailor's Twist, there is something about both of these Celtic melodies that is uniquely lovely and recognizable. I wonder if we can call it the "lilt" in their style.
i pinched this off Dan's Patron page on which he publishes instructional material, tune breakdowns, tabs and other great material pertaining to clawhammer banjo technique. Well worth joining if you want to learn his techniques
