The Silver Spear in D — Reel | Tenor Banjo TAB & D Whistle Fingering

Japanese version: The Silver Spear（D調・Reel）｜バンジョーTABとD管ホイッスル運指

“The Silver Spear” is a well-known Irish session reel. This D-major setting has been converted with ABC2Tab for GDAE tenor banjo and D tin whistle. In addition to standard notation, the diagrams show the banjo string and fret and the whistle’s six-hole fingering for every note.

Basic information

• Tune type: Reel
• Time signature: 4/4
• Key: D major
• Tenor banjo tuning: GDAE
• Whistle: D tin whistle

Both scores place all 16 measures in four-measure systems, for 4 systems in total. Ornaments in the source setting are simplified in the banjo TAB so the core pitches and fingering remain easy to read.

D tin whistle: standard notation and fingering

Six circles appear below every note. A filled circle means covered, an open circle means uncovered, and the top circle is nearest the mouthpiece. This setting contains zero notes that are unsupported on a D whistle.

Tenor banjo: standard notation and GDAE TAB

Note names appear above the staff and the TAB appears below it. The strings are tuned G-D-A-E from lowest to highest. Numbers indicate frets, and 0 indicates an open string.

How to practise

1. Keep a steady four-beat pulse and practise the first two measures, then the last two measures of each line.
2. Keep the triplets even instead of rushing them.
3. Connect each four-measure line, then repeat the A and B parts.

Source and conversion method

The melody was checked against public setting #20993 on The Session.

Source: The Silver Spear on The Session

The images were produced by entering the public ABC notation into ABC2Tab and converting it to D-whistle fingering and GDAE tenor-banjo TAB. This article does not reproduce The Session’s page text.