Trying Tunes At Different Speeds

[Alan Day]

Leo has just kindly posted "The Manor Royal Reel "this you will find is identical (apart from a few missed notes ) to the original "Manor Royal March".

When I sent this version to Dave Prebble he was already playing it as a reel and he like me likes to experiment with tune speeds and styles.

John Dewdney of The Broadwood Morris Men used to do the same with "Star of County Down Waltz" first playing it in session as a waltz then switching to a jig.

If you are looking for a minor tune reel or jig I strongly recommend this one.Now some purists may hold up their hands in horror that a famous Irish tune should be speeded up but even some famous composers of classical music have done the very same.

Al

[JimLucas]

John Dewdney of The Broadwood Morris Men used to do the same with "Star of County Down Waltz" first playing it in session as a waltz then switching to a jig.

 

Now some purists may hold up their hands in horror that a famous Irish tune should be speeded up but even some famous composers of classical music have done the very same.

As well as an awful lot of contemporary ITM session players, though they more often do it with reels, hornpipes, and jigs.

[Mark Evans]

Changing the meter of a tune is a lark. Perhaps my backer mates at Stones Session do it more frequently than others in the late night incarnation, but it is all in good fun and some interesting things happen. Soldiers Joy and Fishers Hornpipe as a jigs are a lot of fun. No tune is safe from these cats after most of the lead players have packed up for the evening. A song I sing (Jack Haggerty) beautifully recorded by Touchstone back in the late 70ès had the melody in triple meter, then changed to a jig for the breaks between verses. In our version we play the breaks in the same triple meter and at the end of the last verse go into Touchstones jig version. We came up with a B part to make it a proper A-B jig. The patrons of Stones alway react positively and when we have played out the audience always give us a verbal response when it kicks into a jig.

 

All just good fun. There is a clawhammer banjo player in North Carolina who does a very snappy version of Colored Aristocracy as a jig, funky but very good.

[Chris Timson]

The late, lamented Charlie Bate of North Cornwall used to have a party trick of telling a long shaggy dog story, illustrated with snatches of Little Brown Jug played in different rhythms and speeds. It works surprisingly well as a waltz.

 

Chris

[Boney]

There is a clawhammer banjo player in North Carolina who does a very snappy version of Colored Aristocracy as a jig, funky but very good.

Funky clawhammer banjo cakewalks? Sounds right up my alley! Who would that be? I'll be at the Button Box Concertina Workshop, and I was thinking of dropping by North Carolina afterwards...and probably New York City. And a quick stop in Washington DC. And...

[Leo]

Leo has just kindly posted "The Manor Royal Reel "this you will find is identical (apart from a few missed notes ) to the original "Manor Royal March".

When I sent this version to Dave Prebble he was already playing it as a reel and he like me likes to experiment with tune speeds and styles.

.....................

Al

Here are the direct links to the tunes:

 

Manor Royal March

 

Manor Royal Reel

 

Thanks

Leo

[Mark Evans]

Funky clawhammer banjo cakewalks? Sounds right up my alley! Who would that be? I'll be at the Button Box Concertina Workshop, and I was thinking of dropping by North Carolina afterwards...and probably New York City. And a quick stop in Washington DC. And...

 

http://zeppmusic.com/frameset.htm That's the webpage for Zepps Country Music. Zepp is the banjo wizzard. Under Zepps music files, scroll down to Green-colored Aristocracy. He's got some amazing clips. I think it's a very clever way to sell instruments, but then he's a clever guy.

 

By the by, his version of Road to Lisdoonvarna is very nice indeed.

Edited March 21, 2008 by Mark Evans

[chiton1]

Changing the meter of a tune is a lark. Perhaps my backer mates at Stones Session do it more frequently than others in the late night incarnation, but it is all in good fun and some interesting things happen. Soldiers Joy and Fishers Hornpipe as a jigs are a lot of fun. No tune is safe from these cats after most of the lead players have packed up for the evening. A song I sing (Jack Haggerty) beautifully recorded by Touchstone back in the late 70ès had the melody in triple meter, then changed to a jig for the breaks between verses. In our version we play the breaks in the same triple meter and at the end of the last verse go into Touchstones jig version. We came up with a B part to make it a proper A-B jig. The patrons of Stones alway react positively and when we have played out the audience always give us a verbal response when it kicks into a jig.

 

It's done quite often by several groups. I remember Cathal McConnel playing a tune he called Three out of one, in which he starts a hornpipe, which becomes a jig, which becomes a reel. De Dannan did similar things as well, now comes to mind the Beatles song Hey Jude which turns into a great hornpipe (and more perhaps, should look it up at home). Sure more groups will have done similar things.

But of course you could play a reel in two different speeds, both can sound fantastic. Start slowly and speed up. Or start slowly and speed up quite suddenly. But sometimes a specific speed is most appropriate for certain tunes.

Hermann

[ragtimer]

John Dewdney of The Broadwood Morris Men used to do the same with "Star of County Down Waltz" first playing it in session as a waltz then switching to a jig.

The Celtic and Old-TImey band I play in has its own version of "Star of the County Down." We play it thru twice as an instrumental, very slow and mournful Then we double/triple the tempo and sing the verses to it, about the young lad who's going to dress up and impress the maid with the nut-brown hair.

 

FWIW, Ralph Vaughn Williams arranged this tune very slow and mysterious, as "Dido (sp?) and Lazarus."

 

Another example: FOr the NCW workshop, there is a session on the tune "Farewell to WHiskey." The sheet msuic for it was posted on this forum -- jsut the tune, no chords. I don't know this stune, but worked it out with chords (maybe too many chords for some tastes ).

 

I play it pretty fast, with boom-chick marching style LH accompaniment (on Duet tina). But I found that playing it very slow and pensive, with lots of bellows expression and vibrato and long sustained chordds, really sums up one's feelings if tomrrow he really would have to give up whiskey forever

 

Finally, some of Jody Kruskal's tunes have dual personalitites and can be played slow or fast to equally fine effect.

 

As for changing the meter of a tune, from 2/4 to 3/4 or 6/8, that's a whole 'nother thing, but I love to tinker with that too. --Mike K.

[geoffwright]

Hi Ragtimer,

You have two different pieces here - "Dido and Aeneas" was Henry Purcell - "Dives and Lazarus" was RVW - a fine folktune arrangement!

 

I like to encourage beginners by playing reels slowly as a hornpipe e.g. Merry Blacksmith fits hornpipe and reel.

Hughie Travers is a favorite jig / reel.

[allan atlas]

FOLKS: Geoff is right. . . . .the piece by RVW is "Five Variations of Dives and Lazarus," a setting of a folk tune that also came to be used in church. . . . .in fact, it was one of the pieces played at the RVW funeral in Westminster Abbey. . . . .it is a gorgeous piece. . . . .

 

actually, the original question is an interesting one: what are the parameters of time (real time) within which given piece can sound good. . . . .in other words: can a piece that sounds perfectly good when performed in five minutes sound equally convincing if performed in ten minutes or 2 and a half minutes. . . . . .or will one or both of those versions sound downright silly. . . . . .like playing a 33 rpm recording at 78 rpm (though that's a good deal more than simply doubling up). . . . . .i can tell you that the Beethoven Ninth sounds absolutely silly -- indeed, one can't really recognize it -- when performed so slowly that it lasts TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. . . . .in fact, it was so played (on tape) as part of an exhibition in which the symphony accompanied a film that was slowed down to the extent that the blink of an eye took about one minute. . . . . .the melody notes were so far separated from one another as to become more or less unrecognizable............

 

and as long as RVW is in the air. . . . .i can tell you that the recordings of the famous Fantasy on a theme by Thomas Tallis range from about twelve minutes + by Dimitri Mitropoulous to eighteen minutes + in the recording by Leonard Bernstein. . . . . .the Boyd Neel recording of 1934 (done with RVW in the studio and, one thus presumes, with his approval) runs about 14 minutes and thirty seconds. . . . .so there's a spread of approximately six minutes between the quick-paced Mitropoulos (which works well on the main theme, but makes the middle section sound terribly choppy) and the almost falling-apart recording by Bernstein. . . . . .

 

to be sure, there are pieces that sound perfectly plausible played at either quick or slow tempos. . . . .i will often take a lively jig and arrange it so that one time through i play it slowly, with lots of rubato in a fantasy-like fashion and filling it in with chords and little contrapuntal statements in order to fill up the time. . . . .so it all depends on context. . . . . . .and our sense of time, which is very difficult to define. . . . . .also something that's not well understood. . . . . .Allan

Edited March 23, 2008 by allan atlas