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The Boys From Bleuhill


Henk van Aalten

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Dear Friends

 

This is a link to Boys from Bluehill (763 Kb, MP3) as played by me on my "Marcus" Anglo concertina (20030222).

It is one of my favorite hornpipes. I know it should be played in D as can be found here in the Tunes Database. However (with my harmonica background) I play it in C and mainly on the C row. I have seen that the melody of my version deviates from the Tunes Database version. The push-pull sequence of this melody fits very well with the tune.

Note that this tune can also easily be played on a 20 button C/G concertina.

 

please comments :mellow: and questions ^_^

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This is one of the tunes I've been working on (although in D).

 

Neither my ear nor my eye is good enough to learn a tune, I need to work with a combination of performances and written music. Interestingly, while I can read standard sheat music haltingly, I can read ABC quite quickly, so I'll find myself writing out ABC arrangements of tunes to learn them, rather than to feed them into a computer.

 

The version I'm working from primarily can be found at TheSession.org.

 

I should also add that my personal learning style usually involves breaking things down to understand them, and then putting them together, rather than working at the piece as a whole first. Probably the engineering background.

 

Anyway, if you break the tune down, you find that it is ABCB (that is, the second part of the 'A' section is pretty much the same as the second part of the 'B' section). So the played pattern would be ABABCBCB. If you break it down even further, the items labelled A and B start the same, A is aa and B is ab.

 

In that case, what I really want is to start and end A and C in the same bellows position, at which point I don't need to worry about which iteration of B I'm in to figure out where I want the bellows to be. Fortunately for me, this seems to be working quite well on my concertina.

 

Here is where it becomes a lot less helpful to anyone not using my instrument.

 

Here is an example of the A section, played entirely on the press. Start with bellows full, and it's:

 

F A B A F A D

 

Pointer and middle finger play F A B A F A, jumping up to the G row for the B on the push (this only works if your D row is down a fourth, rather than up a fifth from the G), and then the ring finger for the D on the push on the D row.

 

F A B A B-C#-D E

 

Again, the pointer and middle finger play the F A B A, and then comes the B/C#/D triplet. I was having trouble with this one (getting even playing including a bellows reverse), when I remembered that the D and the E are the only notes in my layout available on both hands. So the triplet becomes B (middle finger, G row, left hand), C# (pointer finger, accidental row, right hand) D (pointer finger, G row, left hand), and then I have either the E on the press with the middle finger on the right hand, or, if I am running out of air, simply reverse directions since the far right button on the G row on the left hand is D/E.

 

The second portion of the A section likewise can be played almost entirely on the draw (only switching back at the end), and if there is interest (since this may not be applicable to other anglo layouts) I can break that down as well.

 

Regards,

--Dave

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Out of interest; is this the same tune as 'Hulabolero all the way'?, or are they just similar, or have i got it completely wrong?

 

Clive.

Clive,

 

As I am not a native English speaker I'm not familiar with the word 'Hulabolero'. I checked Websters and found nothing. I did find the seperate words:

 

Hula: a Polynesian dance marked by undulating movementsof the hips, arms and hands and often accompanied by rhythmic drumbeats and chants.

I did not link to a video file but it was only a sound file :D

 

Bolero: a Spanish dance in triple meter.

I did not realize that I could play in triple meter :(

 

Even Google did not give any hit on the word 'Hulabolero' :huh:

 

So please be more precise in your comment, as I would like to learn from the comments. ;)

 

Henk

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Henk,

 

'Hulabolero' isn't actually a word as far as I know either, its just the name of the tune.

 

If anything, I guess its a bit like some of the nonsense words you get in folk song choruses, eg 'folderloldidero' etc.

 

Come to think of it it might even be 'philibolero all the way' (but definitely not Lillybolero).

 

 

Clive.

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Out of interest; is this the same tune as 'Hulabolero all the way'?, or are they just similar, or have i got it completely wrong?

As I am not a native English speaker I'm not familiar with the word 'Hulabolero'.

Clive's 'Hulabolero all the way' isn't familiar to me, but it sounds like a hybrid of two other tune names, 'Lillibulero' and 'Hullabaloola All the Way'. (Neither of those strange words is meaningful in English, though "hullabaloo" is a term sometimes used to mean "disturbance" or "excitement".) Both are English country dance tunes.

 

'Lillibulero' is defintely not related to 'Boys of Blue Hill'. At the moment I can't recall how 'Hullabaloola All the Way' goes, but I'm pretty sure I would remember if it were significantly like BoBH.

 

Clive, where did you get your tune from?

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Jim/Dave

 

It would look a pretty safe bet that the name of the tune that I am talking about is a corruption/development of one of the two that you two mentioned.

 

However, having listened Henk's version of the 'boys of blue hill', the tune I am referring to is obviously closely related to it!.

 

What I need to do now is get to listen to other versions of your two tunes to see if that casts any light on it.

 

 

Clive

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  • 2 weeks later...
What I need to do now is get to listen to other versions of your two tunes to see if that casts any light on it.

Apologies for the delay. I was away.

 

Here are abc notation for the three tunes mentioned in the above confusion. To see or hear them, copy and paste them individually (one at a time, from each "X:" line to the last line before the break) into the tune converter:

 

http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html

 

Click "Submit" to see the tadpoles and then the "MIDI" link to hear them.

 

First is my quick-and-dirty transcription of what Henk plays in the link at the top of this thread ("Boys of Blue Hill"). Second is "Philibelula All the Way" (and this time I've got the spelling right, though the notes may not agree completely with printed sources, as I did it from memory). Third is "Lilliburlero" as it appears in Barnes (but without the chords).

 

The two hornpipes have a similar feel to them, but are distinctly different tunes.

 

X:1

T:Boys of Blue Hill

N:From Henk, in C

M:C|

R:Hornpipe

K:C

|:EG|AGEG C2(3EFG|AG (3ABc d2cd|egfe dfed|cAGE F2EF|

AGEG C2(3EFG|AG (3ABc d2cd|egfe dfed|c2cBc2::ef|

gece g2fe|defg a2gf|eceg fede|cedc F3G|

AGEG C2(3EFG|AG (3ABc d2cd|egfe dfed|c2cBc2:|

 

X:2

T:Philibelula All the Way

N:Notated purely from memory

M:C|

R:Hornpipe

K:D

fe|dcdB A2GF|EEFG A2 (3ABc|dBAB dfec|d2f2d2::de|

f2f2f2gf|gfe2e4|d2dc dfed|cdBc A2Bc|

(3ded (3cBA Bcd2|(3ded (3cBA Bcd2|e2e2aABc|d2f2d2:|

 

X:3

T:Lilliburlero

N:From Barnes

M:6/8

K:G

G>AGB2B|A>BAc3|BdGc2B|AGFG3::g2fg2d|=f2fe2d|

efgg2d|edBA3|edc Bcd|edc Bcd|edBc2B|AGFG3:|

Edited by David Barnert
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David,

 

Thanks for your effort in resolving this question. As you say "the two hornpipes are distinct tunes". They are still similar enough to confuse me I'm afraid; When I'm listening to them I can tell the difference, but as soon as I try to whistle or play one I can't say which it is. More practise required I think.

 

I was never confused by Lilibolero, I only ever mentioned it becuse the name is slightly similar to 'Philibelula (All the Way)'

 

Mant Thanks,

 

Clive

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Here are abc notation for the three tunes mentioned in the above confusion.

As expected, each of these is different -- to a greater or lesser extent -- from the versions I know. :)

 

I do especially like the differences in Henk's version of Boys of Blue Hill.

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