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[Clive Williams]

Many of us will have been to festivals/workshops over the past few months; why not polish one of the tunes you learned there up and show us what you learned?

Ah you say... but I haven't been to any workshops! Well, me neither. How about playing a tune you've learned over the summer? I've been working on one of the previous ThOTM entries which I've fallen in love with; perhaps I'll have a go at that.

Ah you say... but I haven't learned any new tunes! Well, I for one won't know the difference, and technically, it's still summer until September 21st, so why not learn a new tune now and play it for us?

Ah you say... I live in Australia, and it's not summer here. Yep, you've got me there. Play us a tune anyway!  

Cheers,

Clive

[ladydetemps]

Just to clarify do you have to have learnt it in summer or is it for the whole year?

[Steve Fox]

Just to clarify do you have to have learnt it in summer or is it for the whole year?

We'll never know!  Just cheat!

[Sandy]

I think mine might be a tune heard lots over the summer but 'What I am going to learn when the children are back at school !'
 

cheers
Sandy
 

[HallelujahAl]

do you have to have learnt it in summer or is it for the whole year?

Since we are always learning I think whenever and whatever will probably be ok.
 

[Clive Williams]

Just to clarify do you have to have learnt it in summer or is it for the whole year?

We'll never know!  Just cheat!

Yep, spot on! 

[ladydetemps]

Just to clarify do you have to have learnt it in summer or is it for the whole year?

We'll never know!  Just cheat!

Yep, spot on! 

Thing is if cheating is allowed there's far too many tunes I've 'learnt'.

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

I've no idea when I learnt this tune, it just popped into my head, but I've only been playing it since the weekend ... that counts as summer doesn't it?

I was told what the name of the tune was on Monday night but something or other has caused me to forget who and what. Nothing to do with the fact that the pub was selling off beer (cheap!) at the end of their weekend beer festival of course  

It's a well known tune, but which one  

Something or other hornpipe

---

 http://www.playogg.org

[Clive Williams]

I've no idea when I learnt this tune, it just popped into my head, but I've only been playing it since the weekend ... that counts as summer doesn't it?

I was told what the name of the tune was on Monday night but something or other has caused me to forget who and what. Nothing to do with the fact that the pub was selling off beer (cheap!) at the end of their weekend beer festival of course  

It's a well known tune, but which one  

Something or other hornpipe

---

 http://www.playogg.org

Cheers Andrew - certainly not a tune I've heard before. What are you playing by the way - it has a really nice clean sound.

(BTW: I tidied up your URL)

Cheers,

Clive

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Cheers Andrew - certainly not a tune I've heard before. What are you playing by the way - it has a really nice clean sound.

(BTW: I tidied up your URL)

Cheers,

Clive

It's my venerable little Dino Baffetti black pearl (played through an SM57 mic).  I've always loved the sound.

[Ollie]

When I get round to it, I will pop up a recording of a tune written on my holidays! Though, not by me. This rather nifty little tune was written by my friend whilst we were at Shrewsbury. I think it'd make a brilliant Morris tune.

X:1
T:The Rhubarb Triangle
R:Jig
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:A
D|:"G"DGF GAB|"G"d2e dBG|"Em"B2e e2d|"D"BcA DEF|
"G"G2F GAB|"G"dBe dBG|"D"ABA DEF|1"G"G3 G2D:|2"G"G3 G2B||
|:"G"BGG GDD|"C"EFG "G"D2D|"G"DGF GAB|"D"A2d d2c|
"G"BGG GDD|"C"EFG "G"D2G|"D"ABA DEF|1"G"G3 G2B:|2"G"G3 G3||

[DRUMKILBO]

 Learnt a few tunes on the melodeon this summer, specifically I was looking for tunes that I could play a reasonable bass with....not very session friendly as I'm playing the strathspey in A flat minor and the reel in B major. The reel, Mrs. Dundas of Arniston, was composed by Wm. Gow, eldest son of Niel Gow but not so prolific as a composer as he only wrote 7 tunes, this tune was written originally in 'C'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1XadLdIzY

Ian

[Lester]

When I get round to it, I will pop up a recording of a tune written on my holidays! Though, not by me. This rather nifty little tune was written by my friend whilst we were at Shrewsbury. I think it'd make a brilliant Morris tune.

X:1
T:The Rhubarb Triangle
R:Jig
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:A
D|:"G"DGF GAB|"G"d2e dBG|"Em"B2e e2d|"D"BcA DEF|
"G"G2F GAB|"G"dBe dBG|"D"ABA DEF|1"G"G3 G2D:|2"G"G3 G2B||
|:"G"BGG GDD|"C"EFG "G"D2D|"G"DGF GAB|"D"A2d d2c|
"G"BGG GDD|"C"EFG "G"D2G|"D"ABA DEF|1"G"G3 G2B:|2"G"G3 G3||

I guess the key should be G not A?

[Ollie]

It should. I meant to change that, but forgot; I transposed from C using the Montreal tunebook, which converted to F when I asked it to do G. 

[HallelujahAl]

Learnt a few tunes on the melodeon this summer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1XadLdIzY

Ian

Bloomin' marvellous!!! many thanks for posting these Ian - another couple of tunes for my mp3 player!
AL

[forrest]

 This is a snippet of a little hornpipe that I worked on in my 'spare' time. Was collected and performed by Daithi Sproule, and offered on the recording called "Trian", which was where I first heard it. Has some wonderful lyrics too, but I'm no vocalist, alas.......

               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMfHWqrKi3g

[ladydetemps]

The playing you can hear clearest is mine as the phone was right next to my box...so all my mistakes can be clearly heard. lol!

Sweeps Hornpipe/Worcestershire Hornpipe
http://www.onmvoice.com/play.php?a=28919

[Clive Williams]

Well, I haven't been to any festivals/workshops this summer, so learning opportunities have been restricted slightly. However, I did learn this cracking tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJFii4UqF5M

... from here, of all places. Anahata played this towards the end of the Morris Tunes month; this tune has captivated me since. It's written by Robin Griggs, melodeon player with Pig Dyke Molly, who passed away in early 2008, as a tribute to another deceased Pig Dyke Molly member, Mike Hurry. Anahata took this tune and arranged it for a dance in memory of absent friends.

For something that's written on and for a standard 2 row melodeon, it's an astonishing tune. It teaches 2 new chords in the first few bars, has a seemingly simple but frustratingly difficult bass rhythm, and plays with chord conventions like they don't exist.

I think I'm going to be learning this tune for a very long time - my take on it here is by no means perfect, whatever that means, and I've found that bass rhythm that Anahata and Robin Griggs get going in the tune (long-short-short) really hard to get. It may not seem to be that hard, but trust me, I've been finding it really hard to do, and if I do manage it, it usually kills all life and bounce from the melody. There's a mix of it in this version; I switch it on when I get to a bit where it stands out and the melody dies down for a few beats, then go back to improvising the bass for the trickier passages.

Pig Dyke have very kindly made recordings of Robin in action available here: http://www.pigdyke.co.uk/bandcd.php - and his version of this tune at the bottom (labelled 'Mike') is quite astonishing. Bear in mind that it's played on a standard 2 row 8 bass. If you haven't listened to Robin's playing close up before, take a listen to it now; I'd heard him play with Pig Dyke many years ago when I used to do morris things much more often, but I didn't hear the detail of what he does (who does across a car park?) and it's fantastic to be able to hear it properly.

I've played this on the newly acquired and restored Hohner Preciosa in Bb/Eb; I think every melodeon has some tunes that it just loves playing, and this is the tune that this Hohner taught me when it said hello.

[Anahata]

However, I did learn this cracking tune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJFii4UqF5M

Wow - I'm at work and can't hear this yet, can't wait to get home now, but I'm really pleased someone's taken an interest.

has a seemingly simple but frustratingly difficult bass rhythm, and plays with chord conventions like they don't exist.

Doesn't it just! If it's any consolation, I had exactly the same problem with the bass rhythm, and as for the chords, I never met Robin so all I has was his sound recording (I don't know if having a video helped you),
and it took a long time to work out what those chords were by ear. Bass note, bass chord and tune rarely all fit together, and Rob's genius was that the combination worked where conventional chords wouldn't have done, and the harmonic progressions occasionally converged in the right places to resolve the tension.

(the bass rhythm) may not seem to be that hard, but trust me, I've been finding it really hard to do, and if I do manage it, it usually kills all life and bounce from the melody.

When I finally got some bounce into it, I got criticised - it doesn't actually want too much because the purpose of the dance requires that "wistful and weird" feeling that Robin got so well. I do have to play with more bass punch when our drummer is absent, or the dancers don't have a rhythm to time their stepping; with the drum, I can afford to flatten it more.

Dave Parker, our Sousaphone player, has a fabulous bass line to go with it too.

Thank you for posting this, and congratulations on facing the challenges that the tune presents.

But before we get too far into mutual back-patting for our skills in learning the impossible, we now have a 10 year old boy in the team who is playing Rob's tunes on a pokerwork as naturally as breathing. And he's only in the team as a dancer, after having learned the broom dance purely by watching a YouTube video and then performed it in public after no more than a brief run-through to see if he could actually do it...

[Clive Williams]

(I don't know if having a video helped you)

It certainly did - thanks very much! Particularly helpful on the opening chords and the cross rows bit - the rest I could pretty much work out by ear, but it's also reassuring to have confirmation that the fingering I was working on was in the right ball park!

Hope you still like my version when you hear it!