Tunes From The Mel Stevens Massif Central Books

[Stephen Mills]

Several years ago I bought the wonderful Massif Central books directly from Mel Stevens, who as many of you know, was Alan Day’s bandmate in Rosbif. These books seem to go in and out of print. I don’t know the current situation.

 

I discovered yesterday that all these tunes have been recorded (on piano) and are available at: http://www.hurdy-gurdy.org.uk/ . I didn’t see that the scores were available in any form on the site, but the contents match the books, including the tune number from each book. The mp3s are downloadable, hence usable with a slow-downer so that learning by ear should be easy.

 

I have periodically trolled through these books looking for good tunes. How nice to be able to cull them more rapidly than sight-reading them and having to develop my own feel. Many are by talented recent composers such as Frédéric Paris and Gilles Chabenat.

[Alan Day]

Hallo Stephen, I shall see Mel shortly at a local session.The last time I spoke to him he had a few left for sale direct from him.The books are currently out of print. I shall see if he has any more in stock.

Out of interest I think Graham (Roots Records) still has a few Rosbif records left if anyone still has a deck to play them on.

Al

[marshall]

Dave Mallinson has published "Bal Folk" which contains many of the tunes from the Massif Central books.

For some editorial background information have a look at http://accordeonaire.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/update-bal-folk-tune-book.html

 

Chas

[Steve Mansfield]

Hallo Stephen, I shall see Mel shortly at a local session.

 

Well when you do please thank him from me; two wonderful books, which have given me, and many people I know and play music with, a great deal of pleasure and many cracking tunes down the years.

 

Indeed one of my influences in taking up English concertina was the fine playing of a chap called Dave Collinge who was, like me, a habitue of the Preston Eurojams in the late 90s and early 00s, and in the Eurojams we shared many a tune which had initially come to us through the two Massif Central books.

[Stephen Mills]

Well when you do please thank him from me; two wonderful books, which have given me, and many people I know and play music with, a great deal of pleasure and many cracking tunes down the years.

 

Steve Mansfield is doubtless too modest to mention it, but that same site provides 132 tunes in abc format provided by him, just below the Massif Central mp3s.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Stephen Mills

[Steve Mansfield]

Ooh, having read the bit on Gary Chapin's site about the genesis of the Dave Mallinson 'Bal Folk' book, maybe Mel Stevens won't appreciate being thanked for the two Massif Central books after all - he sounds (unjustly) unhappy with them!

 

Shame, as they did a lot to popularise the music, but if that's how he now views them that is absolutely his prerogative ...

Edited June 3, 2014 by Steve Mansfield

[Gary Chapin]

I absolutely love the Pink and Blue books. I have many other tune books of tradFrench, but when I'm hungry and want to go hunting for a new one, I still open up the Pink and the Blue. But I can see where Mel is coming from. If I had compiled it, I would be wishing for a second shot. He's bothered, he says, by mistakes in the transcriptions. I don't think there are any substantive mistakes to be found. He's also bothered because he included some tunes that were written by contemporary folks, thinking they were traditional. I think he was pleased to hand it off to Dave Mallinson. He participated in the corrections that followed.

 

And yet ... I will still play from the Pink and Blue books.

[Steve Mansfield]

Well this thread prompted me to finally get around to buying a copy of Bal Folk, and it arrived from Amazon today. Looks good, fine tune playing ahoy!

Edited June 5, 2014 by Steve Mansfield