Here is an Irish song called, "Captain O'Kane." It was originally composed by Turlough O'Carolan for harp, but I've made this arrangement for a fiddle trio.
This song has a very haunting melody that is played at a slower pace than a lot of Irish tunes nowadays. I believe it is a song about a man who died near a river. From Robert Archibald Smith’s "Irish Minstrel" (Edinburgh, 1825), "O'Kain was Captain Henry O'Kain who died of his wounds 'on the banks of the dark rolling Danube." From O'Sullivan's, "Carolan - The Life and Times," based on Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," 1831, "Captain O'Kane (or O'Cahan), was a 'sporting' Irishman of a distinguished County Antrim family who was well-known in his day as 'Slasher O'Kane.'"
I think we can gather from these sentences that Captain O'Kane was a well-known Irishman who perhaps died a really tragic death outside of Ireland -- the Danube is a large river in Europe. I would guess he was in a war of some sort since he went by "Captain" and "Slasher," but that's just a guess. Before I had even looked up anything about this song, I used to think the title referred to ship kind of captain, rather than an army kind of captain -- but after the research, I doubt there were many Irish ship captains sailing down the Danube back then...but who knows? :o
To add more to the confusion, song is also known as, "The Wounded Hussar." A Hussar is often thought of as originating in central Europe as a Hungarian light horseman. The Danube passes through Hungary -- so a Hungarian Hussar seems to be an interesting thought that somewhat fits -- but I think Hussars are usually thought of as a European thing around this time period, instead of Irish. Ireland later developed a Hussar army, but I couldn't find much about one existing back in the mid 1600s - early 1700s.
Hmmm... I'll add this to my list of things to wonder about that we'll probably never know the true answer to....
The song appeared in both Ireland and Scotland around the time Carolan was alive. It's often found in old music books from both Ireland and Scotland, which really shows how this music could spread around back in the day -- and folks definitely didn't have Internet, recording devices, or notation software to help remember all the tunes back then! All of these old tunes were passed around by-ear to other musicians until publishers and transcribers began to write the melodies down in music books.
The sheet music for this arrangement is available in my Irish music book of Carolan arrangements for violin: 15 Irish fiddle airs, duets and trios. This particular arrangement of Captain O'Kane is my "feebie" from the book. It can be downloaded for free if you save and print the images from my website (linked below).
Music book: bit.ly/15IrishFiddleAirsPDF
Here are the two pages of sheet music for this arrangement of Captain O'Kane:
bit.ly/CaptOKanePG1
bit.ly/CaptOKanePG2
If you liked this arrangement, I hope you might consider buying the whole music book! =) I really put a whole lot of thought and effort into each arrangement.
It was so cold when I filmed this! My goodness...it was the coldest I've ever felt filming a video. It took a good ~20 minutes of huddling over the car heater before I regained feeling in my hands -- never-mind my feet lol. It doesn't look all that cold outside, but it was much colder than it was filming the Ghost Ship music video.... But I survived, and so did my "outdoor filming violin." :o
It's bad to play your violin in really cold temperatures, which is why I use what I call my "stunt violin" for making music videos like this.
We've had a few snowstorms since I made this video, so I guess winter has officially started... I miss summer already... I hope you are having a good season so far!
Thank you for watching, and I hope you have a good rest of the week! =)
~ Katy
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#Irishmusic #Carolan #Violin #Fiddle #FiddleTune #KatyAdelson #Music #Trio #turloughocarolan
Software and equipment used:
Full list of all my basic violin equipment:
www.katyadelson.com/about/viol...
Violin gear:
Violin: 1899 Ernst Kreusler “Copy of Antonius Stradivarius” violin from Germany
Bow: CodaBow Luma
Strings: Evah Pirazzi Violin Strings (with a ball E)
Rosin: Salchow Rosin
Shoulder Rest: Bonmusica Shoulder Rest
Software used (for Macintosh):
Garageband for attempted sound mixing
Final Cut Pro for video editing
PicMonkey.com for the ending cards
Camera:
Canon 70D + 18-135 mm kit lens
Microphone for audio recording:
Blue Woodpecker
3 ноя 2019
