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Poll: Tune Of The Month For February, 2014


Jim Besser

Poll: Tune of the Month Feb 2014  

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January was a great month here at the Tune of the Month forum, with many lovely versions of Josefins Dopvals and a lot of interesting discussion. Let’s keep up the momentum next month!


Here are three tasty tunes to consider to drive away the February blues.


The Blossom and the Rain: Written by Brian Peters, one of my favorite concertina and melodeon players and the composer of many memorable tunes.


It's a very pretty waltz/air that Brian plays on melodeon, but works very well on various concertina systems. It was the Melodeon.net Tune of the Month in November, and there were so many nice versions, I thought I'd offer it up here on c.net.


Here’s Brian playing it. It's not a hard tune, but there's a lot you can do with it!


And here's the melodeon.net Tune of the Month link for this tune.


Tra Veglia E Sonno: And now for something completely different. This classic Italian mazurka has been background music in various movies, usually played on a mandolin or - less frequently - accordion. But trust me, it’s a great and challenging concertina tune and lots of fun to play.


Here are a few examples. Note that the A-B-C pattern varies a lot.







Sheriff’s Ride: This has been one of my favorite Morris tunes for years. I believe this is known by a number of other names; I can’t remember what they are, but I’m sure some c.netters can remind me!


Here’s the prolific Lester Bailey playing it on melodeon. (If you haven't visited his Tune of the Day blog, you really should; this is the motherlode of great tunes, mostly English. Find it here.)


My own Morris group, the Foggy Bottom Morris Men, does a somewhat deviant version of Sheriff's Ride, with an extra phrase in the B part, courtesy of the late BIg Nick Robertshaw, master of the Jeffries duet system. And another group in our area, the Rock Creek Morris Women, recently wrote a new dance that uses this great tune in its original form. It’s such a beautiful dance I can’t resist linking to it here.


So what are you waiting for? Vote for the tune you'd most like to learn and record!

Edited by Jim Besser
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Yep, Sheriff's Ride, is also commonly known as Wraggle Taggle Gypsies, from the song it's the tune for.

 

 

Here's some ABC:

 

X:1

T:Sheriff's Ride - Litchfield

M:4/4

L:1/8

K:Em

BA|G2 E2 E2 FG|AG F2 E2 B2|e2 e2 e2 fe|d2 B2 B3 B|

d2 d2 ed dc|dc BA A2 E2|G2 A2 dc BA|B2 E2 E4||

e2 e2 e2 fe|d2 B2 B3 B|e2 e2 e2 fe|d2 B2 B3 B|

d2 d2 ed dc|dcBA A2 E2|G2 A2 dc BA|BE E2 E2||

 

It's a minor tune and comes out in Em when played, for example, on a D/G melodeon.

 

Chris

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Hey, 12 votes already, and more than a week to go before the new month starts.

 

Lets go! :)

 

Impressive! Let's keep it going.

 

Five days to go, and at the moment it's a 3-way tie with 7 votes each.

Jim B., better get your 3-sided coin ready. ;)

(Actually, a regular die would work nicely, with two of the faces -- opposites is probably simplest -- to select for each tune. ... Only if needed, of course. B))

 

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Musings on two of this month's tunes.

 

Tra Veglia E Sonno. This is not a tune I have come across before. My limited Italian, translates the title as meaning: Between Wakefulness and Sleep. :)

 

Also, when listening to Brian's tune, The Blossom and the Rain, I was struck by how certain parts of the tune remind me of the Boda Waltz, a previous TOTM. What do others think? I wonder if Brian knows the tune and was subconsciously influenced by it?

 

Chris

Edited by Chris Drinkwater
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"Also, when listening to Brian's tune, The Blossom and the Rain, I was struck by how certain parts of the tune remind me of the Boda Waltz, a previous TOTM. What do others think? I wonder if Brian knows the tune and was subconsciously influenced by it?"

 

 

Well, Chris, up to the moment it was brought to my attention I hadn't heard of 'Boda Waltz' and, having checked it out on Youtube (played by Jody Kruskal, as it happens) I can say pretty definitely I've never heard it before. The first couple of bars of the 'B' are similar to 'Blossom', though if there was any subconscious borrowing going on, I think it's more likely to have been from 'Silent Night' which shares the same phrase. :)

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Even if Tra Veglia E Sonno does not make the cut, does anyone have sheet music for it ?

Robin

 

Let's see if I can attach this...

 

This is more or less the version Randy Stein and I play in our band The Squeezers.

 

I'll post a recording when we get a relatively clean one!

 

We're playing it in a medley with John Kirkpatrick's wonderful Dance of the Demon Daffodils.

 

1 Anglo, 1 English, 1 melodeon (Gus!)

Tra Veglia e Sonno in Dm.pdf

Edited by Jim Besser
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Looks like the only thing thing that could dismount the sheriff would be massive civil disobedience. B)

 

I don't think we involve ourselves in things like that around here Jim! ;)

Good to see that my *almost* unbroken record on here and melodeon.net of never voting for the winner remains largely intact. I made the mistake once of voting for a jolly little tune and it won :o , bad form that. :rolleyes:

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Looks like the only thing thing that could dismount the sheriff would be massive civil disobedience. B)

 

I don't think we involve ourselves in things like that around here Jim! ;)

 

Isn't civility one of the things concertina.net is famous for?

Even when we're disobedient, we're civil. :)

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