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School of Mandolin: Irish Mandolin
by Joe Carr & Michael Gregory

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Beginning Irish Mandolin

by Michael B. Gregory

Here’s a very catchy polka called The Upperchurch #1. It is the first of a pair of popular polkas from the wonderful cd Cairde Cairdin by fiddler Diarmuid O’Brien of West Limerick. You can listen to samples of all the tracks at Diarmuid’s website

There are many other very interesting tunes on this album and I recommend it highly.

You can also find a slightly more sophisticated version of this melody in Dave Mallinson’s wonderful book of 100 Irish Polkas, available from Mel Bay Publications.

An accompanying cd is also available.

Mally (as the author is affectionately known) lists as an alternate title for our tune 1-2-3-4-5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive, the well-know child’s nursery rhyme that is often sung to this melody. If you do a search at YouTube.com, you’ll find a dozen or more videos in which the rhyme is sung.

If you listen carefully to the provided mp3’s, you can hear a few ways in which the tune can be spiced up a bit by playing double stops (a melody and a harmony note played simultaneously, usually on the string below the melody note) at strategic places. You are encouraged to find others – there are no rules other than to make sure it sounds good. An example occurs in the very first measure where the melody note is B. I’ve sometimes played with it the harmonizing D note on the open D-string. Listen for the other examples and, of course, make up your own.

upperchurch_1_slow.mp3 |  upperchurch_1_tempo.mp3

We’ll get to The Upperchurch #2 in the next issue.

As usual, you may send comments, suggestions and other inquiries to me at michael.gregory@und.nodak.edu

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