Annotation:Rocking the Cradle (1)
X:1 T:Rocking of the Cradle, The T:Rocking the Cradle [1] M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Moderato" B:P.M. Haverty – One Hundred Irish Airs vol. 3 (1859, No. 251, pp. 122-123) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:D (D/E/)|FFF GGA/G/|FFD (ED) (D/E/)|FFF (A/G/)FE|EDD D2 (D/E/)| FFF GG=A/G/|FFD (ED) (D/E/)|FFF A/G/FE|EDD D2|| (A/B/)|(=c>dc) (B>^cd)|(AA/G/A/)G/ FDD|(=c>dc) (BAF)|A>B^c d2d| (d>ef) (d>ef)|(A A/B/A/)G/ FDD|(D/E/F/G/A/)B/ (A/G/)FE|EDD D2||
ROCKING THE CRADLE (Luasgugad an cliaban). AKA – “Rocking a baby that's none of my own.” AKA and see "I sat in the vale." Irish, Slow Air (6/8 time). D Mixolydian/Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. A piece in which the cry of a baby is mimicked by the fiddle. O’Neill found the song and air almost entirely forgotten and had an imperfect setting himself. The one he printed in Music of Ireland (1903) was taken from an American publication of c. 1850, though he found a “fair version” in Smith’s Irish Minstrel (Edinburgh, 1825). O’Neill included two versions of this tune in his Waifs and Strays of Irish Melody (1922) where he remarks upon performance peculiarities among Irish fiddlers:
To bring out the tones approaching human expression the fiddle is lowered in pitch, and the fiddler holding a long old-fashioned door key firmly between the teeth lightly touched the bridge of his instrument with it at appropriate passages. Those expert In manipulation produced very amusing if not edifying results.
A good description of “Rocking the Cradle,” remarked O’Neill (Irish Minstrels and Musicians, 1913), was to be found in the biography of John Coughlan, the Australian piper. According to Caoimhin Mac Aoidh, the great Sliabh Luachra fiddler player Padraig O’Keeffe employed the technique (a recording of which can be heard on his album “Kerry Fiddles”), though it was also known and used in Donegal by John Doherty. References were also made regarding it's use in Scotland. The technique has become an anachronism and is seldom demonstrated by modern fiddlers.