Before The Night Was Out

[Steve_freereeder]

I'm not sure what all the confusion is about

 

1. The ABC I've shown is very, very close to Walter Bulwer's original playing. The only difference from the original transcription shown in 'Before the Night Was Out' is that the first two bars of the 'B' music are now rationalised as shown above, i.e:

[M:2/2] | e2 e2 e2 eg | agec GcBc | etc....

 

Walter Bulwer's original playing had it this way, where an extra crotchet has crept into the first bar and as a result the last two quavers have been pushed into the second bar converting it into an awkward 5/4 time:

[M:2/2] | e2 e2 e2 e2 | [M:5/4] eg ag ec Gc Bc | etc....

 

Walter's playing was renowned for its idiosyncracies ( = mistakes? ) which creep in and have become 'fossilised' as a result of people listening to a single field recording and concluding (erroneously IMHO) that was how it was always played. Walter himself plays the companion answering phrase in the second half of the 'B' music in straight-forward 2/2 time, i.e. with no extra beat and no following 5/4 bar.

 

If you want to go ahead and play it exactly as Walter played it on the field recording, with the extra beat and the compensatory 5/4 bar, that's fine. But if you are playing for dancing, don't be surprised if the dancers get wrong-footed in the 'B'-music . For myself, I prefer to stick to the regularised version all in 2/2 time.

 

2. To answer Alan's query about the key of the tune:

Walter played the 'A'-music in the key of G and the 'B'-music in the key of C, i.e. exactly as shown here and in 'Before the Night Was Out'.

 

3. Lester:

At Melodeons at Witney, we played it on D/G melodeons in the keys of G and C as shown. It was a good exercise in using the F-natural accidental buttons!

 

Hope you are all suitably enlightened

 

Shameless plug: if you haven't already got it, I can heartily recommend the East Anglian tunebook 'Before the Night Was Out' which includes lots of tunes by Walter Bulwer, Oscar Woods, Percy Brown, Billy Bennington and many others from Suffolk and Norfolk. Not only are there lots of tunes, there are also biographical notes of the musicians and nice photos too. Obtainable from the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust here.

 

(Edited to correct typo)

Edited July 10, 2013 by Steve_freereeder

[Pete Dunk]

I'm not sure what all the confusion is about

 

 

Sorry Steve, much of the confusion will have been caused by me creating a midi file based on the dots in BTNWO which included the [M:2/2/] E2 E2 E2 E2 | [M:5/4] etc in the B music as printed. Your rationalisation of the tune is obviously correct and prior to you posting this Chuck Boody (cboody) who is (was?) by profession a musicologist had emailed me to suggest exactly the same thing!

 

I'm sorry if I added to the confusion.

[Steve_freereeder]

 

I'm not sure what all the confusion is about

 

 

Sorry Steve, much of the confusion will have been caused by me creating a midi file based on the dots in BTNWO which included the [M:2/2/] E2 E2 E2 E2 | [M:5/4] etc in the B music as printed. Your rationalisation of the tune is obviously correct and prior to you posting this Chuck Boody (cboody) who is (was?) by profession a musicologist had emailed me to suggest exactly the same thing!

 

I'm sorry if I added to the confusion.

Hey - no worries; no apologies needed. I'm just glad we've all cleared up the uncertainties!

 

On a general point about the triplet crotchet-quaver rhythm which Voyager added into his transcription and which was picked up by cboody, this is a good illustration of the dotted rhythm convention which is mostly taken for granted in notation of traditional music (and jazz too).

 

In strict notation, a dotted quaver-semiquaver pair means three tied semiquavers followed by a single semiquaver, so the ratio of long to short duration is 3:1 which is how it is always played in 'classical' music. However, in traditional music and jazz notation, the same rhythmic pair is invariably interpreted by playing it swing-style with a ratio of long to short duration of 2:1 - "lumpy" triplets rum-ty tum-ty, etc. So Voyager was quite correct in his interpretation, although his notation was unconventional.