Jig · G major
The Kesh
The jig everyone learns first and nobody stops playing. If a Knoxville session is friendly to beginners, this is usually the second or third tune you’ll hear.
Sheet music session skeleton
Press play and the notes light up as they sound. The instrument is a synthetic stand-in (General MIDI); better sampled Celtic instruments are on the roadmap. Tempo slider is the “warp” control in the player.
ABC notation — copy into any ABC tool
X:3 T:The Kesh R:jig M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=116 K:G |:"G"G3 GAB|"D"A3 ABd|"G"edd gdd|"D"edB dBA| "G"G3 GAB|"D"A3 ABd|"G"edd gdB|"D"AGF "G"G3:| |:"G"B2B d2d|"C"ege "G"dBA|"G"B2B dBG|"D"ABA AGA| "G"B2B d2d|"C"ege "G"dBd|"C"gfg "D"aga|"G"bgf g3:|
Listen
Open the beat-synced play-along for this tune
Where it came from, where it went
A double jig in G, widely popularised in the 1970s revival and now a fixture of session “sets” worldwide. Its place on the first page of nearly every tutor book makes it the shared handshake of the Irish tradition.
Sources for the full entry will be listed here — collection, page, and date — in the same way an essay cites its references.
Related
- Soldier's Joy — Reel / breakdown, D major
- The Braes of Mar — Strathspey, A major