Hooray for leap years.
Farewell to Muirheadhttps://youtu.be/NWzr_n4Hqg4So, I wasn't particularly inspired by this tune at first - although it would have been a good opportunity to break out my baritone ukulele again and figure out some finger picking, I'm a fan of what you did there btw, Graham - honestly I think the tune really calls for that kind of accompaniment.
As it's my plan for 2020 to try and not skip any months, I decided that the correct choice would be, given that the tune falls between a single octave of tonic-tonic, to explore playing the tune in a non-native key on the DG, and eventually gravitated towards A major for this tune. I figured out a two octave arrangement and some right hand side chords that I really quite enjoy playing, and give a lot more power to the melody, I think. My run at the tune derailed after fumbling the change into the B music of the last repeat, so, I had another stab at it and eventually got an acceptable result, so, tacked it on during the intermediary section I decided should be part of the tune.
Stops:
Thirds out
Low voice is toggled on after first repeat
Low Fundamentals on
Well, that was a fun adventure. This is the first time I've sort of... really focused on arranging and figuring out any chord problems with the box in my hands - typically I use an ABC editor to figure out what chords I want to play. I paired back adding the G# for most of the E chords because they sounded fine without it, plus, even get the above recording was pushing myself a bit - from hosing up my good run at it, I spent another 5 minutes just hammering away at this section to get through it without any big mistakes, and it's less perfect than I'd like. But, it's nice enough. I did think about a key change, I believe Graham said it went from F to Bb? Which would be ticking around by 1 flat, so, I'd be jumping from A to D? And what fun could D possibly be, so, I think if I'd been going to do it I would have kept a version in E major and tried to go to A major or something. Ultimately I like my low A octave too much, and it didn't seem to work as well to drop down as it did to jump up. Some of my 100 day of practice videos are about this tune - I've not forgotten about it I've just been sick with the flu, still, somehow.
Also, thank you, Anahata, for the ABC, I used your transcription as reference. I did actually end up thinking about borrowing an A435 Bb/Eb to try and play a 'slightly flat Bb' which would fall between A and Bb, just because the thought tickled me a bit.