The Job of Journeywork
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"The Job of Journey Work", in Gaelic "Greim/Mir Obairaonlae" or "Obair an Aistir", also known as<br> "Stone Grinds All" is an Irish and Scottish set dance (cut time or 4/4) in D Mixolydian (Roche) or<br> D Major (Goodman, O'Neill) or D Major/Mixolydian (Cranitch, Joyce, Mulvihill, Stanford/Petrie).<br> The parts are played AB (Standord/Petrie), AABB (Cranitch, Goodman, Joyce, Mulvihill, O'Neill,<br> Roche).<br> Francis O'Neill (1922) said this set-dance tune was derived from a song air. Samuel Bayard (1954)<br> published a study of a tune family he called "The Job of Journeywork".<br> The second strain of the melody has been the one which has spawned the most variants,<br> one of many of the "standard building blocks" (Ó Canainn, 1978) of the Irish melodic tradition.<br> Joyce (1890) states the tune was "a great favorite" in some of the Munster counties twenty or<br> thirty years before he first published his volume in 1873.<br> The first printed appearance of the tune appears to be in Glasgow musician and publisher<br> James Aird's Selection of Scotch, English Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 3 (Glasgow, 1788).<br> It is perhaps based on an older air called "My Wife She's Ta'en the Gee" (not to be confused with<br> Nathaniel Gow's different air of the same name).<br> The set dance is contained in vol. 2 (p. 155) of the large mid-19th century<br> music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper James Goodman. The great<br> East Clare fiddle stylist Paddy Canny's recording of the tune has been called the standard for<br> modern settings and was used as the theme for the radio program of the same name in Ireland.<br> There are melodic similarities to the old-time standard "Over the Waterfall" but not enough to<br> establish a definitive connection between the two. <br> In Irish tradition "Job of Journeywork" is one of the five tunes called the Traditional Sets<br> (i.e. set dances), along with "St. Patrick's Day", "The Blackbird", "The Garden of Daisies" and<br> "King of the Fairies".<br> It was printed in<br> Howe's 1000 Jigs and Reels (c.1867),<br> Joyce's Ancient Irish Music (1890),<br> O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903),<br> Stanford/Petrie's Complete Collection (1905), <br> O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907),<br> O'Neill's O'Neill's Irish Music (1915),<br> Hardebeck's Collection of Jigs and Reels, vol. 2 (1921)(as "The Journeyman's Job of Work"),<br> Roche's Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 2 (1927),<br> Reavy's The Music of Corktown (1979),<br> Mulvihill's 1st Collection (1986),<br> Cotter's Traditional Irish Tin Whistle Tutor (1989) and<br> Cranitch's The Irish Fiddle Book (1996).<br> It was recorded by The Chieftains on The Best of the Chieftains (1992), Paddy Keenan on <br> Paddy Keenan (1975), Michael Coleman, <br> and many others.<br>
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