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The Man With The Concertina


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Hi, Jim. Steve had said in his initial post that had come up with the words which he included on a PDF. The PDF had chords with the words so I assumed that you had included them. But after your post I now assume that Steve added the chords. Jack

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Hi, Steve, I mis-spoke again. I didn't mean Lawson's tune but the lyrics, and really only one verse from your song was actually appropriated from Lawson's but I think also there is some connection along the way. I tried the chords that Jim Lucas included but they did not seem to work just right, and I wondered whether the verse and chorus had the same chords. I think the Lawson poem plays well with chords in the key of F which also allows several melody variations. I am going to try to pick out your tune in F. I really do like the swing of it.

 

Thanks for catching me out. Those chords, mine not Jim's, have one chord that's not needed. In the last part of the verse when you get to the word "steamer" you hold the G and don't go to the D chord. I wasn't paying attention when I knocked up those lyrics/chords.

 

Key of F, OK, whatever suits your range. I find I sing a lot of songs in the key of D.

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I had a little time this morning, so I banged together the notation of what Steve sings, together with the chords he supplied. The rhythm changes verse to verse, so this is just the first verse.

X:1
T:The Man with the Concertina
M:C
L:1/4
K:D
FG|:"D"AA F>G|   AA A2| "G"B>c dB|"D"BA2   F/F/|
    "G"GG  EG|"D"FF D2| "A"GE A,C|"D"ED3|1z2zF:|2z2zd||
    "G"BB  GB|"D"AA FA| "A"GB  AG|"D"FA2      d|
    "G"BB  GB|"D"AA FF|"E7"EE B>c|"A7"BA3|z2zF||
    "D"AA  AG|  F>F FE|    Dd  dc|"G"cB2   B/c/|
    "G"dd  BB|"D"AA FG| "A"AA  GE|"D"ED3|z2    |]

As always, you can copy the above and paste it into the window at http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html for conversion to gif or pdf (suitable for printing). You used to be able to do midi, too, for listening, but that button seems to have disappeared.

Edited by David Barnert
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Hi, Steve, I mis-spoke again. I didn't mean Lawson's tune but the lyrics, and really only one verse from your song was actually appropriated from Lawson's but I think also there is some connection along the way. I tried the chords that Jim Lucas included but they did not seem to work just right, and I wondered whether the verse and chorus had the same chords. I think the Lawson poem plays well with chords in the key of F which also allows several melody variations. I am going to try to pick out your tune in F. I really do like the swing of it.

 

Thanks for catching me out. Those chords, mine not Jim's, have one chord that's not needed. In the last part of the verse when you get to the word "steamer" you hold the G and don't go to the D chord. I wasn't paying attention when I knocked up those lyrics/chords.

 

 

 

 

Oops, I've had another look. It shouldn't actually change to the G until you get to "steamer". I've corrected this here and in my original post above.

The Man with the Concertina.doc

Edited by Steve Wilson
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I had a little time this morning, so I banged together the notation of what Steve sings, together with the chords he supplied. The rhythm changes verse to verse, so this is just the first verse.

X:1
T:The Man with the Concertina
M:C
L:1/4
K:D
FG|:"D"AA F>G|AAA2|"G"B>c dB|"D"BA2F/F/|
"G"GG EG|"D"FF D2|"A"GE A,C|"D"ED3|1z3F:|2z3d||
"G"BB GB|"D"AA FD|"A"GB AG|"D"FA2d|
"G"BB GB|"D"AA FE|"E7"EE B>c|"A7"BA3|z3F||
"D"AA AG|F>F FE|"G"Dd dc|cB2B/c/|
"G"dd BB|"D"AA FG|"A"AA GE|"D"ED3|z2|]

As always, you can copy the above and paste it into the window at http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html for conversion to gif or pdf (suitable for printing). You used to be able to do midi, too, for listening, but that button seems to have disappeared.

 

Wow David, that's great. I played through it and there's just a couple of places where I think I play it a bit differently. Counting the bars (measures) without regard to the repeat, in bar 11 I play A not D, in bar 15 it's F# not E. And the G chord moves from bar 21 to 22 as I corrected above. Sorry I'm not sure how to change your code above so I'll leave it to you if you want to.

 

PS I haven't listened to the video again, your code could be right, but I think the above changes are what I played.

 

Cheers Steve.

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Wow David, that's great. I played through it and there's just a couple of places where I think I play it a bit differently. Counting the bars (measures) without regard to the repeat, in bar 11 I play A not D, in bar 15 it's F# not E. And the G chord moves from bar 21 to 22 as I corrected above. Sorry I'm not sure how to change your code above so I'll leave it to you if you want to.

 

PS I haven't listened to the video again, your code could be right, but I think the above changes are what I played.

 

Cheers Steve.

 

OK, so I've made the same changes in my abc notation, above. I knew the low D in 11 might be wrong, but it was hard to tell whether it was a D, an F#, or an A you were singing. That's not a criticism, just a statement of how frustrating it can be to document real music.

 

It's a cute tune, with little bits of Redwing, Big Rock Candy Mountain, and Glbert & Sullivan (the judge's song from Trial by Jury) floating around in it.

Edited by David Barnert
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Curious: Just noticed that the words:

 

I light me pipe and puff a cloud

You’d think it was a steamer
And an old bush tune I’ll finger out
Upon the concertina.

 

are sung to the "C" music when they conclude the first verse, but when they return at the end, they're the bridge ("B" music).

Edited by David Barnert
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Hi, Dave. Thanks for the notation, that's great, and I wish I could do it. If I were still living in Albany, I would beg some lessons. The last time I heard you play was at Victorian Days in Troy.

 

Regarding transcribing... like so many other things, practice is the key. I've told this story before: The first time I tried transcribing a tune (an Irish reel) it took me two full days. The second time it took me eight hours. The third time it took me two hours.

 

Be sure, it's now years later, and I still can't just listen to a tune once and write it down. (My short-term memory is too short.) I still have to do it piecemeal. But I can do it fairly quickly. In fact, I was about to start on The Man With the Concertina when I saw that David had beat me to it. (Thanks, David. :))

 

And when I was "teaching" myself to transcribe, it was with LPs on a turntable. These days tools like Audacity make it much easier to replay selected bits over and over until your sure you have it right. If you start with a tune that's simple but new to you and take it bit by bit, I hope you might even find that by the time you reach the end, your comfortable "bits" are getting larger. ;)

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Curious: Just noticed that the words:

 

I light me pipe and puff a cloud

You’d think it was a steamer
And an old bush tune I’ll finger out
Upon the concertina.

 

are sung to the "C" music when they conclude the first verse, but when they return at the end, they're the bridge ("B" music).

 

Variety is the spice....

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  • 2 weeks later...

I managed to contact Dave de Hugard and have had a response regarding the origin of The Man with the Concertina.

 

He writes:-

 

If you get hold of a copy of Stewart & Keesing's 'Old Bush Songs' the
verses are contained therein under the title 'The Man with the
Concertina'. The verses there are incomplete. They were written by
Robert Stewart (b.1838)who also wrote the verse for 'One of the
Has-beens'. I adapted what Stewart wrote where I felt inclined and
added some verses of my own own - as well as using and partly adapting
the 2nd half of Lawson's 2nd verse in his poem 'The Good Old
Concertina'. Hope this helps. Dave de Hugard

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I managed to contact Dave de Hugard and have had a response regarding the origin of The Man with the Concertina.

 

He writes:-

 

If you get hold of a copy of Stewart & Keesing's 'Old Bush Songs' the

verses are contained therein under the title 'The Man with the

Concertina'. The verses there are incomplete. They were written by

Robert Stewart (b.1838)who also wrote the verse for 'One of the

Has-beens'. I adapted what Stewart wrote where I felt inclined and

added some verses of my own own - as well as using and partly adapting

the 2nd half of Lawson's 2nd verse in his poem 'The Good Old

Concertina'. Hope this helps. Dave de Hugard

Great to hear these details and great to hear the song in performance on Anglo. It's delightful. Let's hear more from Steve! What an honest performance. Please post more of your fine songs! I would love to hear more of what you do.

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Hi Jody,

 

Have you managed to listen to Dave's version with anglo and banjo? You could knock this one up in no time. I myself have to work pretty hard at getting songs to a performance level. I don't regard myself as a natural born muso but I am working at it a lot and will post more eventually.

 

I do enjoy very much what I've heard of yours, snippets here and there. And I've always intended to purchase a CD or two but haven't gotten round to it. But I will, soon.

 

If you respond to this be careful what you say, don't want to be accused of blowing trumpets. Cheers now.

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I've always intended to purchase a CD or two but haven't gotten round to it. But I will, soon.

 

Hi Steve,

 

the most recent one ("Sing to me, concertina boy") is particularly versatile and great fun to listen to. I personally love the predecessor, "Paul and Jody", which Jody recommended to me some time ago to buy next, even more. Charming interplay between fiddle, Anglo and singing. If there are any "must-haves" among contemporary folk CDs, these two surely rank among them.

 

Best wishes - Wolf

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