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Alawon Cymreig / Welsh Tunes


Gorwel

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I've tried doing an archive search of the forum but haven't come up with much. I was just wondering if any of you had been playing Welsh tunes and which ones you found worked well on an Anglo? 

 

Ones I've made some headway with are:

 

Môn in C (rather than the usual session D as I only have a C/G concertina at present).

Meillionen in C

Y Dydd in G

 

Diolch yn fawr! Thanks!

Edited by Gorwel
typo!
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Yep, I appreciate that Peter, and I have a couple of mixolydian ones, but, if you are leading a session, and the tune needs lots of C#s...

 

I'm not just asking about C/G tunes anyway as I'm saving up for a C#. ?

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14 hours ago, Gorwel said:

I've tried doing an archive search of the forum but haven't come up with much. I was just wondering if any of you had been playing Welsh tunes...

 

The tune library at The Rude Mechanicals web site contains some Welsh tunes in the form of dots and ABC (easy to transpose).

You'll need to search through the list, and my experience is that some of the ABC scripts might need a little tweaking to get them

to play properly.

 

Downloadable book: Edward Jones’ Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, 1794 - mostly text but contains some scores.

Also in the archives of the National Library of Scotland - one of my favourite locations for looking for 'old music'.

 

There's supposed to be a collection of Welsh tunes on The Session, but I couldn't find it...

 

My sister and family are on their annual 6-week pilgrimage at the moment, just outside Holyhead - they love it!

 

Edited by lachenal74693
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Thank you! Hope the weather holds out for your family - I'm up here on Ynys Môn too.

 

Maybe I should have worded the question with emphasis on which ones you found worked well on an Anglo. Obviously, I know that a good player can make any tune work on any instrument but I'm a beginner and was just looking for suggestions about ones which translate well to the instrument. There isn't  - as far as I know, and I've been here 60 years - a great tradition of concertina tune-playing in Wales.

 

 

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Three Welsh tunes that I've found work extremely well on the 30-b Anglo, and which I play as a medley in C, Am and C are The Ash Grove, David of the White Rock and All Through the Night (I'm afraid I only have the English titles, but on the other hand I don't sing them, just play them). The tunes in C are heavily harmonised, that in Am is melodic, with a lot of expression.

A couple of other tunes that harmonise well on the Anglo (in C on the C/G) are Men of Harlech and Cwm Rhondda (including the obligatory tenor flourish over the held note  in the penultimate line of the verse).

 

Hope this helops,

Cheers,

John

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  • 2 months later...

Try these...............I found them and included them in my book for the  Toronto trad English session..............remembering that English sessions often contain music from all parts.............

      Ashgrove, already mentioned but it's a lovely set combined with the sweet Caerdoea.

          You will love Polca Cefn Coed paired with Ymdaith Gwyr Dyfnaint. We have two genuine Welsh musicians,Swansea and Cardiff, in our session and they can't pronounce this one so we just call it by the English name, March of the Men of Devon.

  Cheers

Robin

13_Polca Cefn Coed set.pdf 22_Ashgrove _ Caerdoea.pdf

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There us an excellent book of Welsh tunes called Blodau'r Grug. I'm never sure of how to pronounce it.

It has single line melodies with suggested chords.

 

https://cerddystwyth.co.uk/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=8910

 

Regarding Robin's post, I can't help wondering what the men of Devon would be doing marching through Wales. ?

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Here's a well known tune from "The Bardic Museum" transposed to C from the original in Eb. PDF is Attached

 

X:1
T:Gwr a'i Farch, Y
T:Horse and Jockey
T:Go To Berwick Johnny
O:(This tune is usually danced in North Wales, by five persons)
M:3/4
L:1/8
%%titlefont Helvetica, 22
%%subtitlefont Helvetica,16
%%composerfont Helvetica
%%partsfont Arial, 20
%%partsbox
%%gchordfont Arial, 16
%%barnumbers 1
V:1
V:2 clef=bass
Q:1/4=130
K:Cmaj
V:1
%%MIDI program 73 % flute
"  Old Welsh Jig"
|:(GC) CG A/2G/2F/2E/2|(GC) CEGA|(GC) CG A/2G/2F/2E/2|(FD) DEFA:|
|:(Cc)cG E/2F/2G/2E/2|Cc cCEG|c/2B/2c/2d/2 e/2d/2c/2B/2 c/2B/2A/2G/2|Ad dDFA:|
|:(G2 A/2)G/2F/2E/2 A/2G/2F/2E/2|(G2 A/2)G/2F/2E/2 Gc|(G2 A/2)G/2F/2E/2 A/2G/2F/2E/2|(FD) DEFA:|
V:2
%%MIDI program 1 % piano
|:C,2 C,,2 C,2|C,2 C,,2 C,2|C,2 C,,2 C,2|G,,2 G,,2 G,,2:|
|:[C,E,G,]4 [C,E,G,]2|[C,E,G,]2 [C,E,G,]2 [C,E,G,]2|[C,E,G,]2 z2 E,2|F,2D,2 B,,2:|
|:[C,C,,]2 C,,2 C,,2|C,,2 C,,2 C,,2|C,,2 C,,2 C,,2|D,,2 D,2 z2:|

Y Gwr a'i Farch.pdf

Edited by Pete Dunk
  • Thanks 1
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  • 1 year later...

Apologies, better late than never. I missed these later replies and stumbled across them now. Many thanks everyone!

 

A few more I've been discovering along the way which seem to work OK at the stage that I'm at:

 

Ffidl Ffadl (Polka) G

Tŷ a Gardd (Jig) G

Y Dydd Cyntaf o Awst (Hornpipe) D or G

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6 hours ago, Gorwel said:

[1] ...I missed these later replies and stumbled across them now...

  .

[2] Tŷ a Gardd (Jig) G

[2] Y Dydd Cyntaf o Awst (Hornpipe) D or G

[1] Me too, so I missed the post about the Blodau'r Grug book. I can see it for sale in a couple of places. Ta!

 

[2] Inspired by your original 2019 post I went looking, and have amassed a small collection of Welsh

tunes in ABC format. I was further encouraged to do this by the fact that the session band I'm involved

with are planning a new edition of their tune book. We were specifically asked to look for Welsh tunes

as they are disastrously under-represented in the current edition. I have attached the ABC for the

~50 tunes I collected so far.

The two titles flagged [2] in the quoted panel above aren't in my collection. Do you have ABC or dots

for them?

wales.abc

Edited by lachenal74693
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4 hours ago, lachenal74693 said:

 

The two titles flagged [2] in the quoted panel above aren't in my collection. Do you have ABC or dots

for them?

 

 

Thanks Roger, 

 

Both tunes are here but I don't know anything about copyright issues! http://www.alawoncymru.com/alawon/Tunes/Tuneset.htm

 

You need to search for the tunes as it's the titles of the sets that are in alphabetical order.

 

I'm trying to learn by ear so that I can get something of the feel of good players (or attempt to!) and learnt the second of the tunes from here (from around 4 mins in). The arrangement is different and you'll hear that he moves from D to G. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2480292725565349/permalink/2592929214301699/

 

What format is the file you shared? I can't seem to open it.

 

Cheers,

Gorwel

Edited by Gorwel
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11 hours ago, Gorwel said:

[1] Both tunes are here but I don't know anything about copyright issues! http://www.alawoncymru.com/alawon/Tunes/Tuneset.htm

 

[2] What format is the file you shared? I can't seem to open it.

[1] Thanks for that - it looks like a fantastic resource with lots of stuff to go at, in addition to the tunes

I asked about! Lovely! I hadn't seen that one before. Thank you!

 

Of course, it may well be that many of the tunes in my small accumulation are already in that larger

collection, so the ABC file I attached may not be much use to you, but see below...

 

[2] Hm! That's odd. It's an ABC file. It should download OK as it's straight text, despite the extension.

I've attached a second copy, in case anything went wrong first time around. If you have any problems

this time, let me know and we can investigate further. I had assumed that you were an ABC user. If not,

let me know and I'll generate a PDF file and try sending that.

 

You could try opening the file with a bog-standard text editor like Notepad or Notepad-2 and simply

re-saving it. I have occasionally found that this helped with a recalcitrant text file...

 

 

wales.abc

Edited by lachenal74693
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2 hours ago, lachenal74693 said:

You could try opening the file with a bog-standard text editor like Notepad or Notepad-2 and simply

re-saving it.  

That worked using a text editor. Diolch yn fawr!

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