As you can see, from the bouncing red ball, baconworks has not really caught on outside of the United States. Although you may notice a slight rise and fall from Switzerland during the month of August in ‘07, which coincides with my trip to Basel. I guess if I want more foreign traffic I’m gonna have to start scheduling more European vacations.

A fox, closely pursued by a pack of dogs, took shelter under the covert of a Bramble. He rejoiced in this asylum; and for a while, was very happy; but soon found that if he attempted to stir, he was wounded by thorns and prickles on every side. However, making a virtue of necessity, he forbore to complain, and comforted himself with reflecting, that no bliss is perfect; that good and evil are mixed, and flow from the same fountain. These Briars, indeed, said he, will tear my skin a little, yet they keep off the Dogs. For the sake of the good, then, let me bear the evil with patience: each bitter has its sweet; and these Brambles, though they wound my flesh, preserve my life from danger.

I was digging through some old recordings and found this track. I recall that as I was practicing one evening this tune just sort of fell out of the mandolin. So, I slipped into my studio, if you can call it that, and put it down for posterity. I never really did much else with it.

Before posting it today I had to give it a name: Fox in the Bramble

What does a fox, a bramble, and the above fable have to do with this tune? Nothing really. I just like the word bramble and I thought the fable was a nice reminder that problems, viewed from another angle, aren’t really problems at all. Instead, they are the things that add dimension to our lives, build character, afford us opportunities, and at the end of the day, give us a good story to tell.

Good lessons for crazy times.

As the seasons passed barley would be found growing above the croppy holes and came to symbolize the regenerative nature of Irish resistance to British rule.

In the nineteenth century the Irish poet, Robert Dwyer Joyce wrote a ballad entitled Wind that Shakes the Barley, which repeatedly references the barley as a young lad has to decide between the love of his lady or the love of his country.

As our last track on the 1999 Amadán album, Sarah Kennedy sang a A cappella version of this haunting song.

Alright, I promise, no more videos for awhile. I just couldn’t stand to have that IE6 post at the top of my blog for more than ten minutes.
 

Now, I do not really want to spend my free time trying to prove that IE6 is the problem. But, if your running IE6, the same IE6 that was released seven years ago, I might recommend upgrading to something else. Anything.

Alright. Sorry for the diversion. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Planxty:
Dónal Lunny on bouzouki
Andy Irvine on mandolin
Liam O’Flynn the uilleann pipes
Christy Moore on harmonium and bodhrán

In almost forty years no one has done it better. Check out the Balkan inspired weirdness at 3:24. Mighty.
 

The tune, as he described, made him think of an old ship, sails full of wind making headway through the vast ocean. He could hear the waves crashing against the sides of the ship. He could imagine the sound the ship would make as it pitched up and over the swells of the sea. And with that he decided to add some percussion. I listened. His descriptions came to life. As the tune ended and I was reaching to pull the phones off, I started to say that I didn’t want it to end. Then I noticed a gleam in his eye, he raised one finger and said, ‘wait’…

The thing I love about this recording is that it has taken turns that I couldn’t or wouldn’t have done on my own. Luke does not come to this recording with the shackles of how percussion or bass is supposed to sound in Celtic music. It is just not part of his musical background. This is new material for him. Consequently, he, unknowingly, breaks some traditional rules and adds a new dimension, an entirely appealing dimension, to the music…and that is exciting.

Also, there has been some interest by a couple of new musicians in recording some additional tracks. So, with any luck, we may soon have a fiddle track and a resophonic tenor guitar.

In the interim, I’ve created an image map of the various iterations below. This gives a nice visual representation of how much activity is happening:
 

Check it out.

This got me thinking about why it has been fun to play and record The Marlin Spike. I’ve written a lot of tunes. Some of them I just don’t care to ever play again. But I enjoy The Marlin Spike. And it seems that others do too. Why? What makes it likable?

So, to help answer that question, I decided to do a little graphical analysis on The Marlin Spike comparing it to The Kesh Jig. Now, bear in mind that The Kesh Jig may be the most popular Irish tune in the world. You can find a recording of The Kesh on no less than seventy-five albums. In fact, it is built-in to any whistle, flute or fiddle when you buy it. Comes right out with no training at all.

The Marlin Spike, on the other hand … well, let’s just say it has a ways to go to catch up to The Kesh.

Here is what I did: I looked at both tunes and color coded all the measures. Blocks of color that are the same are thematically the same. If a color only appears once, it is because that measure is unique. So here goes, first The Kesh (take a listen to an mp3 I found out on the web):
 

 
You can quickly see that the first three measures are thematically the same as measures five through seven. Next you can see that measures nine and ten are thematically the same as thirteen and fourteen. Also, I’ve tried to indicate that measure thirteen and fifteen are very similar as well.

Another way to look at this is that there is an A section that is repeated twice and a B section that is repeated twice. The A section is essentially broken into two halves that are basically the same. The B section is also broken into two halves that, although a bit more unique, thematically don’t differ all that much. The only unique measures are towards the end of the phrases.

Ok, on to The Marlin Spike, which can be heard here.
 

 
In The Marlin Spike we see an entirely different story. There are so many colors, in fact, that I had to move away from primaries and secondary colors and start using tertiary colors to identify unique measures. The exceptions, of course, are the last two measures of both the A strain and the B strain, which are exactly the same. There are also some other minor similarities. For example, the first half of the fourth measure is the same as the first half of the fifth measure. Likewise the first half of measure six and fourteen. Other than that, the measures are unique.

One subjective observation that I have made when comparing how these two tunes sound, verses analyzing their structure, is that similar measures placed towards the tail of the strain seem to have a less defining affect on the overall theme of the tune than similarities towards the beginning of the strain. For example, The Kesh’s major similarities are in the beginning of the strains while The Marlin Spike’s similarities are a the tail end of the strains. The heart of The Kesh is very much defined by those opening measures. They are the ‘tell’ of that tune. In fact, I would put money on the fact that anyone that has ever played and Irish tune would be able to name-that-tune with just the first measure of The Kesh. I would also argue that it would be much more difficult to name-that-tune, even if The Marlin Spike was super-duper-famous, with just the seventh measure, which is the measure that is again repeated in the fifteenth measure.

It is, therefore, my observation that similar thematic measures towards the end of a phrase are less likely to be consciously noticed by the listener. I do believe, however, that they do serve a valuable purpose. They serve to give the tune a foundation so as not to feel random or thematically lost. Those measures tie up all the loose ends and bring it all home, which makes us feel good.

So, what is the conclusion? Well, The Marlin Spike is more thematically complex than The Kesh. There is more variation, which certainly keeps things interesting. Does that make it better. ‘Fraid not. Just different. Because of its complexity, it may have more appeal to those who have been playing this style of music for many years. Following that logic, it may be unappealing to those who are fairly new to the jigs and reels and may be looking for tunes that are a bit more grounded up front.

Suffice it to say, that as a tune author, these are things that I intuitively think about as I’m writing. To dial up the interest, repeat measures less often; to drive home a theme, repeat measures more often. Admittedly, this is just one lens to view a tune through and, luckily, there really are no rules.