Poll: Tune Of The Month For May

[Jim Besser]

May will be here before you know it, which means it's time for another poll to select a cracking Tune of the Month. In keeping with the TOTM goal of including tunes from various musical genres, here are three fun choices.

Cooley's Hornpipe

It's about time we had an Irish tune on the TOTM poll, right? Not my area of expertise, but this is obviously a genre with a huge concertina tradition and a lot of great tunes.

I've chosen Cooley's Hornpipe - in part because it's a cool tune, in part because it can be played in a variety of styles. I know I will work it out in a harmonic style, more like the English players; I'm sure those inclined to the Irish tradition will do it that way, with all the interesting ornamentation.

(is this player a c.net member? I love her collection of hornpipes on YouTube).

It's also on one of Noel Hill's CDs; you can't get more Irish than that.

Parson's Farewell

It's a fairly common English country dance tune and often played in a stately, almost classical manner, like this.

But it can also be played as a driving, raucous dance tune; check out the

version (second tune in the set, starting at about 1.40) , or this group of UK buskers.

 

Personally, I really enjoy tunes that work in widely divergent styles, and this is a great example.

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss (also called Fly Away My Pretty Little Miss)

American oldtime music is great fun on concertina; our own Jody Kruskal has put out several fabulous CDs of oldtime tunes and songs, and if you don't have them you should run out now and buy them (by 'run out' I mean go to CDBaby)..

Here's a nice easy tune that sounds great played simply. Or crank it up and make it a driving dance tune. It's a fiddle tune, pure and simple, but as Jody has demonstrated, the concertina can be a darned good substitute. Listen to Jody's version here.

as a tune for contra dancing, with yours truly part of the infamous Glen Echo "Wall of Sound, led by fiddler extraordinaire Steve Hickman. It's the last tune in the set, starting at about 6:28. Interestingly, the first tune in the set - Juliana Johnson - has an A part that sounds very similar to Fly Around...All three tunes in this set - the middle one is "Puncheon Floor" - are great concertina tunes.

Here's a real

, with words. Edited April 25, 2013 by Jim Besser

[Wolf Molkentin]

That's quite a choice - great tunes they are alltogether... Thank you again for working this out!

[david fabre]

Nice selection !

Whatever the vote will be, I'll certainly learn them all...

 

 

About the third one, you may mention that Jody actually provided tabs with fingerings for both C/G and G/D.

 

http://www.jodykruskal.com/tune_of_the_month/fly_around.html

[spindizzy]

Parson's Farewell

 

But it can also be played as a driving, raucous dance tune; check out the

version (second tune in the set, starting at about 1.40)...

 

 

And do we have to do the dancing too? (as david commented, I may have to try to learn them all anyway),

and perhaps someone would like to sing along with the last one!

Edited April 24, 2013 by spindizzy