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[smiley]

The National Library of Australia has digitised the original recordings of Sally Sloane collected by John Meredith in the 1950's. I've recently discovered that web links to individual tunes and songs can be shared, which is handy for someone wanting a quick listen to a particular tune. Each link goes to an intro page and after clicking Accept you click the play icon to hear the tune - actually the track will play anyway if you just wait.

For instance:

Sally Sloane's set tune is at http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn3355944/0-510~0-600
Jig, unknown name http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn3361661/0-1294~0-1393
Mum's mazurka http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn4581820/0-349~0-430
Sally's Varsovienna http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn321624/0-1275~0-1354
Mountain Belle schottische http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn321624/0-1355~0-1411
Jack's waltz http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn321624/0-1678~0-1782
The Sporting Paddy (on fiddle) http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn3356434/0-389~0-446
Coming Down the Mountain (on fiddle) http://www.nla.gov.au/amad/nla.oh-vn3356434/0-447~0-523

and a particular favourite of mine - Annie Shaw's waltz

While its natural for tunes to evolve over time and place (especially in aural traditions), the ability to listen to possibly the first recording of a particular tune being played by a traditional player in their home environment is something special to me.

[BTW The NLA sound archives staff are always interested in what people are doing, so I'll share any feedback with them.]

[Steve_freereeder]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting the links!

Sally Sloane's Barndance and Varsovienne are already popular tunes in the east of England. 

[pbsalt]

Thanks for that - I'll enjoy trying to track down "Sally Sloane's Mazurka" which Iris Bishop and Martin Wyndham Read have popularised  in their Australian tunes workshops. Just had a quick look and haven't found it yet - I need to spend more time in there. Interesting that many of the tunes just have generic names , "Mum's mazurka" ,  "Mazurka 2 etc"

[smiley]

My old librarian instincts are telling me to go through Meredith's tapes and add links to all Sally's tunes ... but that'll have to wait until I get back from holidays.

Were the Australian tunes at Iris & Martin's workshop written out? I'd be interested to see the selections and versions they chose.
A couple of Aussie friends with lots of experience playing in bush bands are heading to England in October. They're playing some folk club gigs as 'Springtide' but I reckon they'd happily lead a bush music session if they were asked.

[Anahata]

Were the Australian tunes at Iris & Martin's workshop written out?

Iris certainly had music for an Aussie tunes workshop she did a Whitby a few years back, so the answer is probably yes. Handwritten (I assume by Iris) and photocopied, as I remember it.

I'm going to look out for Springtide now...

[smiley]

I'm going to look out for Springtide now...

Their website is http://www.springtidemusic.com  and they'll be playing at Islington folk club on Oct 15th.
Greg's a melodeon player from way back. His bushband is called the Inland Navigators http://www.inlandnavigators.com.au (early explorers were convinced there was an inland sea in the middle of our dry continent).

[pbsalt]

 pm sent  of the tunes  from one of the sheets at Iris and Martyn's Whitby workshops

[smiley]

Thanks Paul

They picked a good selection of Aussie tunes, but I'd have to admit that I don't hear many of them played around here nowadays. Which probably just means that I'm not going to the right sessions ...

Ian

[smiley]

I've compiled links to the recordings of Sally's tunes at sallysloane.wordpress.com along with my transcriptions for most of the tunes. Some of my transcriptions of Sally's playing are a bit different to the previously published music.

The names of some tunes have changed due to popular usage over time, e.g. "Mum's mazurka" has become known as "Sally Sloane's mazurka" and "Mum's no.2 mazurka" is just called "Mum's mazurka" - all a bit confusing.