Melodeon.net Forums
Discussions => Recordings and Videos => Topic started by: mselic on April 07, 2019, 03:21:14 AM
-
Nice playing from Eamon McElholm & Johnny B. Connolly (no relation to the other father/son melodeon-playing Johnny Connollys!) What's the name of the first tune, anyone?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtGlPKPmI-Y&list=LL3bkKM0f2ppyK_XB5hC6Ntw&index=2&t=0s
-
The title should give you a clue. ;) It's one of many tunes known as The Blackbird aka An Londubh, this one a 32-bar hornpipe.
In case you don't know the other two are Jackie Coleman's and The Caucus (at Secaucus), a tune composed by my friend Jean Duval and named by me. (:)
-
The title should give you a clue. ;) It's one of many tunes known as The Blackbird aka An Londubh, this one a 32-bar hornpipe.
In case you don't know the other two are Jackie Coleman's and The Caucus (at Secaucus), a tune composed by my friend Jean Duval and named by me. (:)
"Blackbird" was my first guess, but the tunes I found with that name did not match this one. The problem is I learn all these tunes from YouTube videos but then never have a name to attach to them! I end up forgetting that I know the tune unless I jot down something to remind me...it always helps if the name attached to it means something to someone else, particularly when you look at a list of tunes that you've learned and can't remember which tune goes with the name ;)
Nice bit of trivia with the naming of the third tune. Good to know. Thanks, Steve - hope you're doing well these days!
-
Matt I'm doing fine, thanks! Trust the same goes for you.
I only listened to a few bars of each tune last night. I have just realised why their interpretation of the Blackbird sounded a bit off to my ears - the one-row box has no C-natural, which to me is an essential feature of the tune's character. If you look at Norbeck's first setting here (http://www.norbeck.nu/abc/display.asp?rhythm=hornpipe&ref=9) you will see that the C-nats are quite prominent - they give a lovely mixolydian flavour. I play bar 7 of the B part exactly the same as bar 7 of the A part, so the C-nat asserts itself in the second part also.
So - in my view not a good one-row piece, sorry! The fakery denatures the tune too much. (:)
The Caucus (as everyone calls it nowadays) is pentatonic and so suits the one-row better. A bit more about the origin of the tune (https://thesession.org/tunes/2764#comment386263) (I think Jean has lost count of the number of CDs it has been recorded on) and its name.
-
When I played this one for my first teacher Jack Conroy and called it “the blackbird” , he said “no that’s the The old blackbird”. I guess that would distinguish it from the blackbird set dance.
John gannon plays a nice version, I think Johnny O’Halloran does this one to.
There are versions with no Cnat. Maybe not correct but sound good to me.
First one here
https://thesession.org/tunes/4101
-
I've since found several versions of the Blackbird featuring the Cnat, and it's certainly becomes a different tune at that point. Having heard the melodeon version first, I actually like it better (sorry!). I would almost consider them as separate tunes.
Thanks for the links, Steve. I don't actually use notation in learning tunes, and have only ever done it by ear. I'm sure if I sat down I could figure out the written music, but I'd still have to hear the tune to get the feel of it. The YouTube half-speed function does wonders when you have to figure out a fast passage and can't make out all the notes. Works for me, anyhow...
-
I actually like it better (sorry!)
Huh! You probably like eating fish and chips without vinegar... ;D
-
I actually like it better (sorry!)
Huh! You probably like eating fish and chips without vinegar... ;D
C nat every time. And vinegar.
-
I actually like it better (sorry!)
Huh! You probably like eating fish and chips without vinegar... ;D
Nope - sorry...I listened to the various versions of the tune some more, and I have to admit the Cnat does work better. I realize that I just liked the melodeon version better than some of the other renditions I heard on YouTube, but the Cnat was not the issue there. Now the C# sounds off to me! Dang...s’pose I’ll have to play it on the D/C# instead.
PS - vinegar!
-
If you like the Cnat version then try playing the tune in A(modal) on a D one-row melodeon. When David Munnelly showed me this approach he said the old melodeon players in Co Mayo weren't too fussed about which key a tune was played in. If you don't read ABC notation then copy and paste this into an ABC player and listen to the MIDI playback.
X:1
T:The Blackbird
R:hornpipe
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:Amix
ED|CB,CE DCA,E|AB cB A=GEC|D2DC DCA,B,|CDEC DFED|!
CB,CE DCA,E|AB cB A=GEC|EA=GE DFED|C2A,2 A,2:|!
|: cd|edce dcB2|A2 AB cAE2|edce dcBA|cedc B2 cd|!
ecdB cAB2|~A2AB cA E>D|EA=GE DFED|C2A,2 A,2:|!
-
I'm sorry to butt in, but I've got to ask: I don't understand the references to playing a tune featuring C natural on a D row instrument. What am I missing?
-
I'm sorry to butt in, but I've got to ask: I don't understand the references to playing a tune featuring C natural on a D row instrument. What am I missing?
D major with a C natural is D mixolydian. On a D one row, you can play in A mixolydian (F#, C#, and G natural instead of the G# normally present in A major).
-
I'm sorry to butt in, but I've got to ask: I don't understand the references to playing a tune featuring C natural on a D row instrument. What am I missing?
On a D melodeon you can't play it with the C natural so you have to change the tune, some might say for the worse, by substituting a C#.
-
OK, folks - how about the third tune in this set? Would you consider it a jig or a slide?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMPvnyoSDyM
-
It's a jig. Were you asking the name as well? "My Darling Asleep".
-
Thanks, Steve - I was in fact asking for the name as well, although I realize now that it wasn’t clear in the way I worded the question.
This begs another question, and perhaps worthy of another thread altogether; how to distinguish a jig from a slide? I’ve studied up on this, but still sometimes find myself surprised when I discover a tune I thought was one thing turns out to be another...
-
This begs another question, and perhaps worthy of another thread altogether; how to distinguish a jig from a slide?
As in many areas of human experience, there is doubtless some overlap between categories (:) No doubt you have heard the explanation that slides have a greater predominance of "dum-tee" note patterns where double jigs are mainly made up of "dum-ti-ti" note groups, i.e. crotchet/quaver (quarter-note/eighth-note) combinations as opposed to three quavers (three eighth notes). This is a guide.
Another distinction is that slides are often written in 12/8 rather than 6/8, and you can certainly play them that way: this is what I think of as "the Chieftains way" of playing slides, with two strong beats in a bar of 12/8. But Jackie Daly insists that to play slides for dancing in Sliabh Luachra you have to have twice as many strong beats as that, as you will hear from his foot tapping when playing slides. So I wonder whether they shouldn't be written as 6/8 systematically - Sliabh Luachra slides at any rate!
As an example of overlap, the tune known as "The Old Favourite" is supposed to be a jig, but I find it works very well as a slide, and we regularly slip it into a set of slides when playing for a polka set. I would find "My Darling Asleep" too, er, lumpy to use for a slide though. :|glug
-
we regularly slip it into a set of slides
I've nothing to contribute to this topic and thus I normally don't participate in discussions of this kind...
But I have to comment that the thought of slipping into a set of slides made me smile a bit.
-
we regularly slip it into a set of slides
I've nothing to contribute to this topic and thus I normally don't participate in discussions of this kind...
But I have to comment that the thought of slipping into a set of slides made me smile a bit.
(:)