Playing in F, D minor, G minor on C/G Anglo

[michael sam wild]

Just as I was about to start this post I noticed that neill had put one up about Rees Wesson and his concertina (C/G) workshop at Gleanings in Shropshire. Rees demonstrates what I mention here and on the other linked videos http://www.youtube.c...be_gdata_player

 

 

In another post I commented on Kitty Hayes and the way she played a lot in F in the old style. In the days when 'flat' pipes were in C tuning it would have been much more common to play along in F and Dminor. Heres a nice video clip

 

 

I have been talking to my friend Brian Howard in Sheffield who is a pipe maker. It appears that pipes in D tuning came in at the end of the 19th C ( Brian said it was to make pipes louder for the American halls where most of the Irish pipers like Tuohy changed to D sets) and certainly, as Mick Bramich points out in his book in the section on the key of F on the C/G Anglo, O'Neill has very few tunes with Bflat key signature, though they were common in older tune books in Ireland ( he cites the Darley and McCall Collection from just prior to WW1)

 

I find fiddlers and flute players and D/G melodeon and concertina players moan if I start to play such tunes! although we have an old boy my age (72) who plays a Clarke C whistle who likes them.

 

If you listen to Mary MacNamara or Dympna O'Sullivan you find such tunes and Martin Hayes once mentioned playing with older C whistle players like Joe Bane, in F , Dminor , G minor and C. Mickie O'Donoghue played concertina, (a German two row C/G) in the old style along the C row . I trawled through Dan worrall's book but found no mention of playing in F and i also noticed that in the Clare Set rrecordings there was no mention in the sleeve notes of the keys played and the tuning of the concertinas. It's a matter, for me, of playing along and analysing what goes on by ear and using the slowdownwer which I have finally adopted!

 

 

I was listening to Kitty Hayes and after playing along for a while I got my head round what she was doing and it came along nicely, even the reels in F felt very comfortable ( as a child I started on a C mouthorgan which helps). On the first track she goes from Cooley's Jig in C to Cliffs of Moher in G minor. I found this much nicer than the commonly played D to A minor. When I checked in O'Neill I noted that it gives an F# key signature but that the tune makes little sense , if you change to F natural it flows well so the G minor key is the one you play in.

 

 

I would be interested in communicating with others who find this topic engaging. I have been working on F in my lessons with with Brian Peters on the key of F for English tunes and like the key and the chords you can use. it's a nice key for singing I find.

 

 

 

I don't get to Ireland as much as I'd like much nowadays but I understand 'C Sessions' are quite popular, I know they are with players of East Anglian players with C and C/F melodeons.

Edited July 1, 2012 by michael sam wild

[Kautilya]

 

I would be interested in communicating with others who find this topic engaging. I have been working on F in my lessons with with Brian Peters on the key of F for English tunes and like the key and the chords you can use. it's a nice key for singing I find.

 

Quite. There seem to be too few of us who give a F about this area and if we go forth and propagate we might increase more such playing (if not by quality, then sheer force of numbers! Steve Freereeder from the 'other side' has been campaigning for more Cs.

 

What would help me more than owt else would be a practical list of interestin toons to practice, preferably with the midi.

 

I have been diggin em out of song books but often a lot are American ones I have never 'heard' of so I have to pass em over as the score leaves me cold. Even then I have only found a handful.**

 

I have to say I have taken the easy path by putting down my 20B CG Lachenal and using several CF melodeons (including my CF Paolo which you have played Mike) and a beat up old Erika with severe asmtha but nice deep basses).

 

** I dont know whether I mentioned this after Swaledale here but seems to be nice F piece

 

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/songs/lost_chord/chordharm.pdf

 

and the background

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/songs/lost_chord/chord.html

[michael sam wild]

Hi Pete

 

If you can't find any in F play ones you know in G. If you can play along by ear try the Kitty Hayes CDs or Youtube

 

 

 

Here's a nice vid of TG4 Geantrai from 2002 , in Pepper's bar, Feakle, east Clare when Kitty was 76!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Mike

Edited July 1, 2012 by michael sam wild

[Dirge]

 

** I dont know whether I mentioned this after Swaledale here but seems to be nice F piece

 

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/songs/lost_chord/chordharm.pdf

 

and the background

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/songs/lost_chord/chord.html

Ohno no no no no please please no

[Kautilya]

Hi Pete

 

If you can't find any in F play ones you know in G. If you can play along by ear try the Kitty Hayes CDs or Youtube

 

 

 

Here's a nice vid of TG4 Geantrai from 2002 , in Pepper's bar, Feakle, east Clare when Kitty was 76!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Mike

Okeydoke. will have a go. ta

[David Levine]

No problem playing in F or Bb on the fiddle. But it's a lot trickier on the flute (D) or on the concertina. If I'm to play well I need to have a flute tuned in C or a Bb/F concertina. That's the problem with dedicating oneself to playing cross-row in D and G on the C/G Anglo. My English pal, who usually plays up and down the rows (a la Kitty Hayes) in C, has trouble playing fast in D when he comes across to Co. Clare.

Be nice to have another lifetime to work these things out with just the D flute and the C/G Anglo concertina....

[michael sam wild]

Do many people still play C pipes in your area David? The Northumbrian smallpipes are usually in F as they were meant for gentler playing in the house. Maybe as the pubs close and we lose music licenses people will go back to the kitchen.

[Kautilya]

No problem playing in F or Bb on the fiddle. But it's a lot trickier on the flute (D) or on the concertina. If I'm to play well I need to have a flute tuned in C or a Bb/F concertina. That's the problem with dedicating oneself to playing cross-row in D and G on the C/G Anglo. My English pal, who usually plays up and down the rows (a la Kitty Hayes) in C, has trouble playing fast in D when he comes across to Co. Clare.

Be nice to have another lifetime to work these things out with just the D flute and the C/G Anglo concertina....

Looks like I will be twisting TomB's finders to play this on Bf/Eflat Liliput at Whitby Middle EaRTH.... just so I can see how it is done, you understand!

 

Then he can flaut (as in flute but also as in flaunt)it whichever way he wishes at the Ship Irish sessions (which I find somewhat overthetopandsquashedunder the table at too great a speeed for my liking - at least the room on the harbour side, with the roadside room at little more musically friendly and slower).

[Kautilya]

 

** I dont know whether I mentioned this after Swaledale here but seems to be nice F piece

 

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/songs/lost_chord/chordharm.pdf

 

and the background

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/songs/lost_chord/chord.html

Ohno no no no no please please no

Dirge - TomB says he is confused but would you have the dots for a piece which he recalls go something like

 

"Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, I gently ran my fingers.. over the vicar's knees........:

[David Levine]

Mike-- I have played in very few C sessions in north Clare. Eb sessions come around once in a while. Most musicians aren't equipped to play in keys that they aren't used to. C and Eb sessions tend to be exclusive affairs since not everybody would carry around a C or Eb flute and most fiddlers are reluctant to tune and retune their fiddles. It isn't good for the fiddle and can take a while before it settles into the new tuning. When there have been C or Eb sessions they have generally been open to people with instruments tuned in that key (flute and pipes). Nobody I know could play in Eb unless it is the home key of their instrument.

 

In general, if you are accustomed to playing in any key on an instrument then of course you can play in any session. But again, few musicians that I play with can be so flexible. One wonders if it is worth the time and effort it would take to be able to play well in any key.

[Wolf Molkentin]

Dirge - TomB says he is confused but would you have the dots for a piece which he recalls go something like

 

"Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, I gently ran my fingers.. over the vicar's knees........:

Obviously one of the many parodies of the Sullivan Song "The lost chord"...

 

And then the monkey came around and took his seat on the organ...

 

(visit him over here)

Edited July 6, 2012 by blue eyed sailor

[michael sam wild]

David thanks for getting us back on thread that's interesting about sticking with what's generally accepted. I used to be confused about Eflat recordings, thinking they had been speeded up mechanically.( I gotan Eb whistle to play along ) Then I listened to Tony MacMahon, Joe Cooley etc and realised they had higher pitched instruments, although I know fiddlers who take it up a semitone for brightness.

 

 

I am finding F on the C/G OK. I use the Bflat notes when I want them off the accidental rowfor notes and the Bb and Gminor chords but I noticed that on the Kitty Hayes Remembered CD on Cliffs of Moher in Gminor , when she played on her own for a few bars she fudged the Bb by just tipping the B. When the accompanying musicians came in again they used Bb.. She didn't seem to use Bb in key of F. I find quite a few fiddlers are ambiguous about B/Bflat ( same as F/F sharp) I like that aspect of Irish traditional tunes.

 

 

 

I did read that the modal tunes may have derived from monastic music on the white notes of their portative organsand this passed intop the folk traditiosn , even to Iceland with the monks who settled it, even before the Vikings

[Kautilya]

Dirge - TomB says he is confused but would you have the dots for a piece which he recalls go something like

 

"Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, I gently ran my fingers.. over the vicar's knees........:

Obviously one of the many parodies of the Sullivan Song "The lost chord"...

 

And then the monkey came around and took his seat on the organ...

 

(visit him over here)

OOps - looks like we are already in trouble from Mike's next post and in for another smack :rolleyes: ) but I am sure The Lost Drink in the parodies is definitely going to get an airing at Whitby!!

I had not realised, until Dirge protested (good on yer Dirge), how many renditions there are from illustrious bodies: from Sir John Barbirolli conducting, through Caruso, McCormack, Jerome Hines.....

[Kautilya]

David thanks for getting us back on thread ....

I did read that the modal tunes may have derived from monastic music on the white notes of their portative organsand this passed intop the folk traditiosn , even to Iceland with the monks who settled it, even before the Vikings

It may be worth digging around in Gregorian chant (plaint chant)and see what comes up in the various keys. Most of the stuff for throughout the year was collected into the Liber Usualis (daily book) by the Solesmes community but the material really dates back to pre and in 6th/7th century so unlikely for there to have been any organs knocking around.

Click on an icon which shows a score.

http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/music/gregorian-chant/chant-liturgical-year/christus-rex-selected-chants.html

 

this appears to be the whole thing: 112MB

I think the Dies irae, dies illa has a couple of flats knocking around in it...

http://www.sanctamissa.org/en/music/gregorian-chant/choir/liber-usualis-1961.html

 

[Anglo-Irishman]

I did read that the modal tunes may have derived from monastic music on the white notes of their portative organsand this passed intop the folk traditiosn , even to Iceland with the monks who settled it, even before the Vikings

 

Mike,

 

I would take this with a pinch of salt! There are many things between Heaven and Earth that pre-date Christian monasticism, and music is one of them. There is archaeological evidence (a large fragment of a bone flute) that suggests that the "doh-re-mi..." scale - the diatonic scale as we know it - was used by Stone-Age musicians. And the modes used in Irish and other musics are nothing more than the "doh-re-mi..." scale using a note other than doh as the tonic. Thus an old book of Irish fiddle tunes speaks in the Preface of Dorian mode as "the scale of re" and Mixolydian mode as "the scale of so." Aeolian mode (the melodic minor scale) would be "the scale of la".

 

So, in the context of purely diatonic music and instruments (simple flutes, harps, etc) the concept of modes is so simple and logical that it could have occurred to anyone, anytime. Modes only appear complicated when we approach them on a chromatic basis. Starting from the major scale, if we flatten the seventh, we get Mixolydian mode; if we flatten the third, we get Aeolian mode; and if we flatten the third and the seventh, we get Dorian Mode.

This is a very roundabout definition compared with the diatonic definition: You've got 7 notes in each octave - the one you choose to start on detemines the mode. You don't need a philosophically trained monk to find that out!

Try it yourself, using only the buttons on one row of your Anglo, or a tin whistle with no cross-fingering!

 

Cheers,

John

Edited July 8, 2012 by Anglo-Irishman

[michael sam wild]

Thanks John, we had a detailed thread once on why the scale starts with C ( my Grandaughter had asked the logical question, why not A) and came to the conclusion that originally it was A, which was logical, with a later G below that (Gamut, ut = do) As a kid I messed about on piano white keys and was scared of black notes! so the modes came quite easily without all the pseudo Greek names. The white notes plus a few accidentals let you play most trad music.

[Kautilya]

Thanks John, we had a detailed thread once on why the scale starts with C ( my Grandaughter had asked the logical question

Just using this as an excuse to cite a piece in C which is a nice illustration of Gregorian chant on the the St Sulpice organ, Paris, by the international whizz Marcel Dupré playing Veni Sancte Spiritus (Come Holy Ghost)and then improvising and jazzing up (as one could do with D G F etc perhaps)

 

Edited July 11, 2012 by Kautilya

[Kautilya]

List of scores and music from Taizé monastic community. There may be some interesting keys in here for you Mike

K.

 

Go see FRENCH MELODY / SONG DATABASE in TUNES on how to see text/chords/listen at this site.("The song box"

 

http://www.boiteachansons.net/Artistes/Taize.php

 

Bénissez le Seigneur Taizé

Bless the Lord Taizé

Bonum est confidere

C'est toi ma lampe Seigneur Taizé V

Confitemini Domino Taizé V

Crucem tuam Taizé

Da Paciem in diebus Taizé

Dans nos obscurités Taizé

De noche Taizé

Dona la Pace Taizé

Fiez-vous en Lui Taizé

Frieden, Frieden Taizé

Gloria... et in terra pax Taizé

Jésus le Christ Taizé

Jesus, remember me Taizé

Laudate Dominum Taizé

Magnificat Taizé

Ténèbre, La

Edited August 1, 2012 by Kautilya