David Barnert Posted November 13, 2003 Share Posted November 13, 2003 Favorite reel/march: Banks of Inverness Favorite slow air: Da Slockit Light (Tom Anderson) Favorite Jig: Handsome Young Maids Many more: Barrow Burn, Round the Horn (Jay Ungar), Morpeth Lasses, Evit Gabriel (Daniel Thonon/Ad Vielle Que Pourra), Stonetown (The House Band), Rakes of Mallow... I could just keep on playing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Besser Posted November 13, 2003 Share Posted November 13, 2003 >Favorite slow air: Da Slockit Light (Tom Anderson) >Favorite Jig: Handsome Young Maids Great taste! Wonderful tunes. "Handsome" is tough at contra dance speed, but doable (at least for me). >Many more: Barrow Burn, Round the Horn (Jay Ungar), Morpeth Lasses, Evit >Gabriel (Daniel Thonon/Ad Vielle Que Pourra) There's a lot of overlap on our playlists! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Madge Posted November 13, 2003 Share Posted November 13, 2003 When I first started playing I had a set of tunes in mind that I would one day be able to play. I have since managed to play these and so now I am able to pick and choose from a wider set of potential good material. The original "one day I'll play these" tunes included The Hawk, The Belfast Hornpipe and The Eagle's whistle. The tunes I first learnt were dance tunes, all of which I learnt by ear from recordings of bands. This gives the oppertunity to follow whichever instrument you like! My favourite tunes of the moment are Moving Cloud, Swaggering Boney and Pinl Floyd's Shine on you Crazy Diamond. No-one said anything about traditional! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedro Posted November 14, 2003 Share Posted November 14, 2003 Ashokan Farewell - definately Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha Posted November 14, 2003 Share Posted November 14, 2003 It was a book that hooked me - Last Night's Fun by Ciaran Carson (I think my brother James recommended it to me, and I'd recommend it to anyone). The first tune I picked out on a concertina was The Lincolnshire Poacher. Current favourites include Contentment is Wealth and Longwood (by our very own Jim Lucas!). I got really into chords and stuff around Waltz Montmagny (learned from a recording by Karen Tweed). It's difficult to name favourites because they depend on one's mood at the time. Samantha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottC Posted November 15, 2003 Author Share Posted November 15, 2003 Ashokan Farewell is on my fa vorite list too, as is another Jay Ungar favorite, "Lover's Waltz". I also like to combine "Hector the Hero" with "Neil Gow's Lament for the death of his second Wife", as the two tunes seem to fit particularly well together. I've tried to find ABCs for most of the tunes mentioned by the various posters, but am not having much luck. I suspect it's because I've been focused on Irish music and many of the favorite tunes are proabably not Irish in origin. Here in the Midwest USA, Morris dancing and the associated tunes are extremely obscure. I'd venture to say not 1 person in a thousand has ever heard of Morris dance. Can anybody point me to a tune database that might have some of the referenced tunes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted November 15, 2003 Share Posted November 15, 2003 Yepper Scott, I'm from the Midwest also and had never heard of Morris dancing before joining this forum. What part of the Midwest are you from? I'll leave the databases to the more knowledgeable ones. Helen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimLucas Posted November 15, 2003 Share Posted November 15, 2003 Here in the Midwest USA,... In which state is the town of Midwest? ...Morris dancing and the associated tunes are extremely obscure. Almost as obscure as concertinas? FWIW, I processed the listings on http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/morris/geo.html and came up with 185 state-identified Morris teams in the US (including 2 in Washington DC). This includes: 5 Michigan 1 Wisconsin 13 Minnesota 2 West Virginia 4 Ohio 1 Indiana 1 Illinois 2 Iowa 1 Nebraska 1 Arkansas 2 Kentucky 3 Tennessee 3 Missouri 3 Kansas 2 Colorado 3 Texas I know these aren't all "Midwest"; some are surrounding. But they provide an interesting picture. (But all 13 teams in Minnesota are in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.) And I'm sure the list isn't complete, since nothing is listed for Berea, Kentucky. I wonder how many of these teams have concertina players as musicians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottC Posted November 15, 2003 Author Share Posted November 15, 2003 Ha! There is a town called Midwest City in Oklahoma, which is a bit far west to be considered actually IN the midwest. Helen, I'm about 20 miles north of Ann Arbor. The first reference I ever heard to Morris Dancing was a not too flattering one on a Stan Rogers live CD where he described it as "groups of otherwise normal people dressed all in white with porkpie hats, green sashes and little hankies and jingle bells tied to their wrists and ankles, who rhytmically beat each other with clubs", or words to that effect. Never having seen this kind of spectacle, I can only guess what type of music might be considered appropriate. Should I be alarmed that there are apparently 5 of these groups running loose in my state? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Caffrey Posted November 15, 2003 Share Posted November 15, 2003 I would have to say 'The Blackbird', I think this what they call a set dance in Ireland. Jacqueline McCarthy plays it on her 'Hidden Note' CD; also Bothy Band have covered this tune. Alan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Barnert Posted November 15, 2003 Share Posted November 15, 2003 I've tried to find ABCs for most of the tunes mentioned by the various posters, but am not having much luck... Can anybody point me to a tune database that might have some of the referenced tunes? I posted this yesterday on another thread. Worth repeating here. Does everyone here know about John Chambers' tune finder? http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/FindTune.html You type in the name of a tune and it searches all the collections on the web of tunes that are stored in the abc format (and that's a LOT of tunes). You don't need to know anything about abc to use it. You can have the tune returned to you as a jpg, midi, ps, pdf or a few other formats, depending on whether you want to see it on screen, print it in high resolution, or hear it. Go nuts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Timson Posted November 15, 2003 Share Posted November 15, 2003 Should I be alarmed that there are apparently 5 of these groups running loose in my state? Don't be alarmed. Be very, very afraid. Chris (Morris musician) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Stephenson Posted November 15, 2003 Share Posted November 15, 2003 Samantha and all I agree, Ciaran Carson's book 'Last night's fun' is a fluid account of how Irish musicians live and breathe. Every chapter is a different tune and the way he describes food makes your tummy rumble. But the tune from Nortumberland they call Bonny at morn will always raise the hairs on my neck. I first heared it in the Cutty Sark in Whitby maybe Thirty years ago sung un-accompanied, but there is a recorded version with harp on one of Cathrin Tickell's records. Works well on concertina. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimLucas Posted November 16, 2003 Share Posted November 16, 2003 I would have to say 'The Blackbird', I think this what they call a set dance in Ireland. Jacqueline McCarthy plays it on her 'Hidden Note' CD; also Bothy Band have covered this tune. Alan. The Blackbird is, in addition to a fine set dance tune, a wonderful slow air, with about as many great but different versions as there are people playing it on fiddle, whistle, pipes, or whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellowbelle Posted November 17, 2003 Share Posted November 17, 2003 I assume that this is 'The Blackbird' tune that you're referring to? http://www.replink.com/ancestors/midi/blakbird.htm I was just curious about it so I found that through a search...maybe it's not the one, dunno, but, probably. (Or, one version, anyway.) It is a pretty one, for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellowbelle Posted November 17, 2003 Share Posted November 17, 2003 But the tune from Nortumberland they call Bonny at morn will always raise the hairs on my neck. I first heared it in the Cutty Sark in Whitby maybe Thirty years ago sung un-accompanied, but there is a recorded version with harp on one of Cathrin Tickell's records. Works well on concertina. Assuming that's the one, 'The Sheep's in the meadow, the kye's in the corn...' etc. (http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/v/volkslieder/bonny.html), that's one of the first songs I had to work on singing, when I was in college for a short time and took some singing lessons and sang in the chorus, etc... The version as arranged by Benjamin Britten. At the time, I did really like the tune, but, I just couldn't seem to connect...I think it was about 2 weeks into practicing the song before I realized a 'kye' was a COW (and, that's sad, considering that I lived with cows, in a pasture in Iowa...) Even sadder (maybe), that I myself am part Scottish and yet the brogue was so foreign to me. Saddest of all, my singing, these days...heheh, boo hoo... Anyway, it IS a beautiful tune...since being around here at Concertina.net, it came back to memory by surprise and I found the music for it online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 17, 2003 Share Posted November 17, 2003 No single tune inspired me to take up the concertina (it was pure impulse actually). The first tune I ever learnt to play was "Watching the Wheat" - a simple tune, but I was so happy to be able to play it at the time My two favorite tunes (that I am learning) at the moment are "Church Street" and Bach's "Ave Maria" (which sounds surprising good on concertina Cheers Morgana Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betty Book Posted November 17, 2003 Share Posted November 17, 2003 (edited) Should I be alarmed that there are apparently 5 of these groups running loose in my state? I was amazed to see my home state of Minnesota listing 13! Morris teams. It didn't take long to scroll down the list and locate the first one. The Asworded Nuts Imagine my surprise. Betty Book Edited November 17, 2003 by Betty Book Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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