I've been pursuing my fascination with 18th Century tunes and have gone back to a facsimile copy of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay (1729) which I got in 1961. At the back are many tunes and words on which he based his 'librettos' much as Robert Burns did. The sources were mainly books like Pills to Purge melancholy' by Thomas D'Urfey (1719-20) ed. Playford. Charles II was big fan of D'Urfey. Gay frequented 'low life' venues but doesn't quote the colloquial words, other than in his spoken bits. His song words are a bit more down to earth than D'Urfey's and reflect the 'racey' times he lived in.

Anyway... even D'Urfey's words are a bit twee and I reckon he lifted older tunes, so which came first? earlier folk songs and tunes or did the ordinary people take the tunes and do their own thing? My gut reaction is that the tunes were older and you can always put new words and parodies to them.
A lot of black print broadside words seem a bit florid . has anyone got a copy of the earliest words to a fairly well known tune or did the toffs appropriate them in print? (Sounds a bit Marxist, I know, but I'd like to get an angle on it)

Michael,
The more I sing and listen to folk and traditional songs, the more I get the impression that good tunes are more scarce than good lyrics. How many songs in England, Ireland, America and Australia are sung to the tune of "Villikens and his Dinah"?
And then there are very old tunes that have spawned a large number of variants, like "Lillibulero" (Ride a Cock Horse, Rock-a-bye Baby ...) or "The Battles of Marlborough" (Mary Jane, Baa-baa Black Sheep, and a French tune lifted by Mozart ...)

Maybe it's because the lyrics go out of date more quickly, both linguistically and thematically, and it seems a pity to throw out the baby (tune) with the bathwater (lyric)!

It works across genres, too. Recently I downloaded a sound file of "Lady Cassile's Lilt", an 18th century Scottish composition for English guittar. The theme was practically identical to the tune of the Jacobite song "Wae's me for Prince Chairlie", which I learned at school. (My middle-term ambition - to keep this concertina-relevant - is to transcribe this rather lovely guittar composition for Crane duet. Got to learn the duet first, of course )

It would be interesting to know which was the "original".

Cheers,
John

I'd love to try that too, so if you get a Crane duet transcription I'll give it a try. Actually, if you have a reference to the dots or abc for the English guitar version I'll attempt a transcription.

Larry,
Here they are; dots as PDF file, performance by rob McKillop as mp3! Hope the zipped file comes across as an attachment.

My first idea is to put the top notes on the right hand of the Crane, and the bottom notes and chords on the left hand, an octave lower. Let's see what you make of it.

Cheers,
John

Sorry, attachment didn't work.

Try these links:
for sound file
for dots
Cheers,
John

I've corrected the link to the mp3 file, but I haven't managed to figure out how to get to the dots. I think it may be a problem with spaces in the file name not working properly on my Mac browser. Could you check the URL and try again on that part of the post.

Thanks
Larry

Larry, try typing: www.johndallas.de/ladie c tuning.pdf

What do you think of the mp3 - which is actually the music of which the dots are but a meta-level?

Cheers,
John

This link works.

That worked. The performance on the guitar is lovely. I think the version in the sheet music should be playable on a treble English concertina without modification. For a Crane I agree that having the lower part down an octave would make all of that part be left hand and all of the melody part be on the right. I'll have to try that too.

Here's a typeset version for the Crane:
Click to view attachment

Iｔ iｓ my understanding that Skene MS in the pdf indicate skene mandora manuscript (c. 1615).
The term mandora here is is a small lute-like instrument. Please refer to the Scottish Mandora section in Wikipedia(en).

American lutanist Ronn McFarlane made a recording of this tune on mandora as in original manuscript.
You can find tablature for both mandora and guitar transcription from MelBay "The Scottish Lute" book.

I feel original mandora version is quite simple than version in above pdf.

BTW, Ronn McFarlane also plays Scottish, English and Irish early musics with the band named Baltimore Consort with some songs. In Lyric card in their CDs they wrote full lyrics and pointer to source manuscripts. Their informations may be relevant to this topic.

Just FYI,

--
Taka

Larry,
Thanks for the PDF! That was the kind of transcription I was thinking of. The bass string of the guittar is C, and so is the bottom note of the Crane, and the high notes of the accompaniment are still on the Crane's left side. The arrangement itself is very suitable for a duet, being basically two voices with a few chords thrown in. When my sight-reading gets better, I think this will be one of my first "classical" pieces.

Chers,
John

IIRC a lot of the tunes Gay used in the Beggar's Opera were pre-existing tunes, and had already been published as dance tunes in various editions of Playford's Dancing Master from 1651 onwards. Where Playford sourced his tunes from, of course, is a whole other area.

If you're not already familiar with it could I introduce you to the splendid work of the Village Music Project at http://www.village-music-project.org.uk/: to over-summarise wildly the raison d'etre of the VMP is to try to answer precisely your sort of question, and provide historical accuracy and ownership in place of conjecture. I don't know whether there's been a particular study of the sources of the Beggar's Opera, but the VMP is probably the place to start if you want to do your own!

Thanks Steve, a good link to trad tunes.And welcome to the forum to a fellow Manc ( although I've lived in Sheffield since 1959)

Thanks for the dots. I've printed it out and will atttempt it on my Hayden Duet -- it's the right range for my stock 46-key Stagi.
--Mike K.

I've known this song as "Johnnie Faa", or "The Gypsy Laddies".
You'll find the song text here
including this footnote:

So I would think that the "Johnnie Faa" words are older. Would "Lady Cassile's Lilt" be an arrangement of an older traditional song tune?

I've always loved the 7 Gypsy type songs> One side of my family were Irish travellers who settled in Manchester and they identified with the 'fly boys' in these sort of songs. As a kid I shivered when my Auntie sang ' he cast his glamour over her' We had a lot of old ballads in our family repertoire


Apparently Sir John Fall, in the 1600s 'abducted' his lover, Lady Jean Hamilton , wife of the 6th Earl of Doon from Ayrshire.( she was obviouly a willing victim) His team were hung it is said.

Here's a tune that John Gay used, called Poor Robin's Maggot which I think was in Playford. We play it in our Toronto session with Roman Wall and Moon & Seven Stars.
Gay put words to it and called it 'Would you have a Young Virgin " ( Air 21) The tune is now sometimes called "Virgins"
Robin

Thanks!, What was a 'maggot'?
Mike

In everyday terms, it's the larva of a fly.

But in the context of old English dances, it's more like "invention" or "fancy" (the noun, not the adjective).