4 replies to this topic

[Ptarmigan]

Och what else can you do on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon .... once the Rugby match has finished!

Anyway, I loaded up Garage Band & iMovie and with a bunch of my own photos & playing my trusty Baritone Treble, plus Fiddle, Mandolin & Tin Whistle ... this is the result.

Ye Banks and Braes!

Well, I had to do something to cheer myself up after yesterday's defeat, at the hands of the auld enemy!

Cheers,
Dick

Edited by Ptarmigan, 05 February 2012 - 08:10 PM.

[Kautilya]

Och what else can you do on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon .... once the Rugby match has finished!

Anyway, I loaded up Garage Band & iMovie and with a bunch of my own photos & playing my trusty Baritone Treble, plus Fiddle, Mandolin & Tin Whistle ... this is the result.

Ye Banks and Braes!

Well, I had to do something to cheer myself up after yesterday's defeat, at the hands of the auld enemy!

Cheers,
Dick

Very nice but I was so looking forward to instruments AND the sing-righter you put in the billing.

So, what happened? Did Rabbie ring up on his mobile and cry off saying he was trapped in the snow and could not make it?!

Edited by Kautilya, 06 February 2012 - 05:57 PM.

[Anglo-Irishman]

Very nice but I was so looking forward to instruments AND the sing-righter you put in the billing.

So, what happened? Did Rabbie ring up on his mobile and cry off saying he was trapped in the snow and could not make it?!

Dick,
I missed the words, too. Ye Banks and Braes is a poem, after all, even though it's probably more often sung than recited.
By the way, I wouldn't say it has to be sung by a female singer. If it were a dramatic monologue, yes; but it's a lyrical poem, and very often the "lyrical first person" is not identical with the writer, reciter or singer.

So I got out my MD recorder and Crane duet and had a go at it. No mulitmedia - its on my server here as a simple mp3.

This is the first time I've played it on the Crane. I just used the chord sequences I use on the 5-string banjo when I'm singing it. Harmonies left, melody right. Recorded live at one take, i.e. not dubbed-over.

Enjoy - I hope!

Cheers,
John

[Ptarmigan]

Good job John.

I think the reason they say it is usually sung by a woman, is because the last two lines refer to the singer loosing her maidenhead & being left with a baby inside her.

Mind you, judging by your deep Bass voice, I'd say you probably lost yours, a long time ago!

Your Mp3 makes it very clear why they call those Concertinas ... Duets.

However, it's such a lovely melody that I think it's well able to stand alone, but there's a very good reason why i didn't actually sing this myself ...... I canny sing! .

Cheers,
Dick

[Anglo-Irishman]

Good job John.

Thanks, Dick!

I think the reason they say it is usually sung by a woman, is because the last two lines refer to the singer loosing her maidenhead & being left with a baby inside her.

Point taken!
But on the other hand, the lines about stealing the rose (which the singer has just pulled) and leaving the thorn is one of those beautifully layered statements. It can be taken literally, but the allusion to pleasure and pain, which the rose conventionally symbolises, is pretty obvious. More specifically, the rose could be a beautiful woman that a man "took", and the thorn she left with him could be withdrawal symptoms, or a dose of something even more unpleasant. Of course the unexpected "he" in the last line suggests that there's another significance, and we get the word-play of a rose being a flower, so taking a rose away is "deflowering". And then it occurs to us that another word for thorn is "prick."
Yes, Burns was a classical lyricist, one of the best, not just a folksy songsmith!

Mind you, judging by your deep Bass voice, I'd say you probably lost yours, a long time ago!

No comment!

Your Mp3 makes it very clear why they call those Concertinas ... Duets.

Yes, definitely! To port that arrangement to my other instruments, I'd have had to use the guitar or banjo for the accompaniment and the whistle or mandolin for the instrumental verse, so I'd have had to dub the second instrument over the vocal/accompaniment track, and I could never perform it live. The left end of the Crane is as good as any guitar, and the right end as good as any fiddle or flute - and that's basically how I used them in this recording.

BTW, I recorded with the mic pointing at the centre of the bellows, and didn't turn the right end of the Crane towards it. I think the volume balance came out pretty well, considering how quite a few posters here complain that the left-hand accompaniment drowns out the right-hand melody on their duets.

I must say, this kind of tune-swapping in the forum is fun. Everyone has a different slant on specific pieces or on music in general, and there's always something to learn by it. We must do more of it.

Cheers,
John