Annotation:Old Man Rocking the Cradle (The)

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OLD MAN ROCKING THE CRADLE, THE. AKA - "Rocking the Baby to Sleep." Irish, Air (3/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABC. This is a song tune related to "Seanduine (An)." O'Neill (1922) says it is a descriptive piece wherein an old man gives voice to his woes, punctuated by the wailing of a peevish child and its calls for its Ma-ma. Skillful fiddlers and pipers would imitate those cries. The fiddle was lowered in pitch and the fiddler would lightly touch the bridge with a large door key held in his teeth to simulate the tones of human expression." Donal Hickey, in his 1999 book on Sliabh Luachra musicians, Stone Mad for Music, confirms that the great Kerry fiddler Pádraig O'Keeffe (1887-1963) performed this trick: "...he made the fiddle intone 'mama, mama'...For this novel tune which is based on a lullaby, he would put a large door key in his mouth and use it to mute the fiddle: the 'mama' sound. Like that of a baby crying, would result."

Source for notated version: piper Willie Clancy (1918-1973, Miltown Malbay, west Clare) [Mitchell]; the Rice-Walsh Manuscript, a collection of music from the repertoire of Jeremiah Breen, a blind fiddler from North Kerry [O'Neill].

Printed sources: Mitchell ('Dance Music of Willie Clancy), 1993; No. 130, p. 104. O'Neill (Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody), 1922; No. 4.

Recorded sources:

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