The Killavil jig played by Patsy Hanly

A brief analysis by Peter Laban, 28 November 2002

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Introduction

From a recording by Patsy Hanly, most likely from the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Patsy Hanly is one of the great fluteplayers in the Roscommon style, powerful music with great drive. The Killavil jig is a very popular one with Sligo associations. Killavil is the name of the district where Michael Coleman was born.

Commentary

First part. Hanly opens the tune with great power, raising the Es into the second octave and sailing through the first part with great vigour. While introducing the tune he is not straying very far from the standard version.

The second part sees the introduction of a few touches that are to develop further: the opening in Bar 13 BEB gets reversed in Bar 17. The repeat of the part develops the tune further Bars 14-15 taking the melody upward instead of using the rolls of the previous playing.

The second playing of the tune builds on the first playing: the Es of the opening bar are left in the lower octave this time and the A in that movement that was introduced in Bar 5returns here. Bar 29 sees the opening BEE BEE reversed and the Es are turned into short rolls, very effectively shifting the rhythm of the bar. He seems to go into this same figure in the repeat of the first part in Bar 33 but instead develops most of the part into a large scale mood-changing melodic variation, straying a good bit away from the basic melody. He then returns to the straight and narrow for the second part, only introducing minor variation to round up the tune.

Notes

This is what I thought I heard when writing the notes. Please use the soundclip in conjunction with the notation to get a grasp of the finer detail in the playing.

Peter Laban, 28 November 2002