Re: [scots-l] Few Notes
Bluebells of Scotland springs immediately to mind. Bruce Campbell From: Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Scots-L Posting [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [scots-l] Few Notes Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 14:52:15 +0100 I came across the Irish polka below, and what drew me to it was how few notes are used in the tune (five in all). I'm trying to find Scottish tunes which use as few notes, for use in teaching complete beginners. Any suggestions? X:1 T:no name R:polka H:Also in A, #111 D:Martin O'Connor: The Connachtman's Rambles Z:id:hn-polka-113 M:2/4 L:1/8 K:G B2 BA|GE ED|EA AB/A/|GE ED|B2 BA|GE ED|EG AB/A/|G2 GA:| BA AG|BA AG|A2 AB/A/|GE ED|BA AG|BA AG|A2 AB/A/|G2 GA:| -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Bruce Campbell (Editor, CELTIC WORLD - now printed in Scotland and Australia) Duntroon Publishing 81 Marine Parade Kirn Dunoon Argyll PA23 8HF TEL: 01369 702 287 MOBILE: 077 5984 5201 _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Bruce Campbell wrote: Bluebells of Scotland springs immediately to mind. [Humming it in my head.] Um, unless I have the wrong tune, Bluebells uses nine different notes, counting low doh and high doh as two different notes: ABC notation: A|d2 cB A2 Bc/d/|FFGE D3 A|FDFA d2 Bc/d/|cAB^G A2 z| Tonic Sol-Fa: .s |d' :t .l | s :l .t,d' |m .m :f .r |d :- .s |m .d :m .s | d' :l .t,d' |t .s :l .fe |s :- || -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Few Notes
What about the Blackberry Bush reel? It would take longer to learn because it has 4 parts but it's also a pentatonic tune and sounds similar to this Irish polka. Another option would be Harris Dance though, in all cases, these are tunes which jump the octave, if you want tunes with just five notes in the same octave, well, I cannot think of any, sorry!(apart from the first part of the Blackberry Bush). If I find any, I'll let you know. Manuel Waldesco Edinburgh - Original Message - From: Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Scots-L Posting [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2002 2:52 PM Subject: [scots-l] Few Notes I came across the Irish polka below, and what drew me to it was how few notes are used in the tune (five in all). I'm trying to find Scottish tunes which use as few notes, for use in teaching complete beginners. Any suggestions? X:1 T:no name R:polka H:Also in A, #111 D:Martin O'Connor: The Connachtman's Rambles Z:id:hn-polka-113 M:2/4 L:1/8 K:G B2 BA|GE ED|EA AB/A/|GE ED|B2 BA|GE ED|EG AB/A/|G2 GA:| BA AG|BA AG|A2 AB/A/|GE ED|BA AG|BA AG|A2 AB/A/|G2 GA:| -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Few Notes
I came across the Irish polka below, and what drew me to it was how few notes are used in the tune (five in all). I'm trying to find Scottish tunes which use as few notes, for use in teaching complete beginners. Any suggestions? I always use Mairi's Wedding in A. Works out well on the fiddle starting on the E on the D string. It's hexatonic and repetitive and most people have heard it. It has do re mi in it. Everybody always gets it, even little kids, which I haven't found with many other tunes. - Kate -- http://www.DunGreenMusic.com Halifax, Nova Scotia Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Few Notes
In a message dated 4/14/02 9:55:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'm trying to find Scottish tunes which use as few notes, for use in teaching complete beginners. We've been discussing "Come Give Me Your Hand" on the wire harp list. It's ALMOST pentatonic, but I think it goes outside the range of one "octave". Do you know "Blow the Man Down" on your side of the pond? (I'm in America...) Six notes, but lots of pettern repeats make it a good teaching tune. Skye Boat Song, of coursefamiliar as the day is long, and only 5 notes though again it's not limited to the range of one octave. Almost. May I put on my Pedagogy Hat? Now, I don't play the fiddle, and maybe it's different from my experience. But I look more for tunes that have lots of repetition in pattern, rather than focus solely on tunes that have just a few notes. The Steve Foster tune "Oh! Susanna" for example, works real well with my American students, because it is very familiar (they already know the tune, so I don't have to teach that) and the first, second and fourth phrases are identical. Au Clair de la Lune is the same way. Besides looking for tunes with absolute, dead-on repeated passages, I also look for repeating *patterns* (sequences and/or repeating rhythmic patterns). Skye Boat comes back to mind...the same rhythm over and over again. You learn the rhythm once, you got it. They Stole My Wife Last Night has a great repeated melodic pattern (if you ignore the gaps. I tell my harp students to pretend the gapped strings are not even there.) BTW, anyone know what "Stole My Wife" is about? Is it reflective of some old wedding tradition, like the American tradition of decorating the newlyweds' car so they can't get away quietly for the honeymoon? --Cynthia Cathcart http://www.cynthiacathcart.net/
[scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Cynthia Cathcart wrote: May I put on my Pedagogy Hat? Now, I don't play the fiddle... Neither do I... :-) However, the situation I'm considering is the very first lesson for a Beginners Whistle class. I would like to start off by getting them to learn, say, three notes: G, A and B. We'll noodle around on that for a while and then I'd introduce two more notes, say E and D. From that it would be a short way to introducing a tune which used all these notes and only these notes. The high D is a problem because it takes a particular skill to play it, and I'd like to wait a while before learning that skill. ...I look more for tunes that have lots of repetition in pattern, rather than focus solely on tunes that have just a few notes. The Steve Foster tune Oh! Susanna for example, works real well with my American students, because it is very familiar (they already know the tune, so I don't have to teach that) and the first, second and fourth phrases are identical... This is the ideal: a well-kent tune with few notes so that, very quickly, the students would achieve the playing of a tune on a new instrument to them. The polka I posted is a good example in some ways, but it's not well-known. I'll be looking for suitable tune, but I thought I'd ask y'all for help. ...Au Clair de la Lune is the same way... Yes, and the first part uses only three notes (e.g. G, A, B)! BTW, anyone know what Stole My Wife is about? Is it reflective of some old wedding tradition, like the American tradition of decorating the newlyweds' car so they can't get away quietly for the honeymoon? I can't say I know that tune. Where does it come from? -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Bluebells - eight actually, at least in pipe music where it is unusual because it is not pentatonic in structure. I always found it very easy to teach because it is mostly crotchet or tied crotchet single note beats. I used it for teaching learner pipers who could even pick it up and play it quite well within day or so. Anyway. Bruce Campbell From: Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 16:21:21 +0100 Bruce Campbell wrote: Bluebells of Scotland springs immediately to mind. [Humming it in my head.] Um, unless I have the wrong tune, Bluebells uses nine different notes, counting low doh and high doh as two different notes: ABC notation: A|d2 cB A2 Bc/d/|FFGE D3 A|FDFA d2 Bc/d/|cAB^G A2 z| Tonic Sol-Fa: .s |d' :t .l | s :l .t,d' |m .m :f .r |d :- .s |m .d :m .s | d' :l .t,d' |t .s :l .fe |s :- || -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes
In a message dated 4/14/02 4:16:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Neither do I... :-) Fancy that! All this time I imagined you with the fiddle, but goodness, I know better than that, don't I? Dear me, wake up, Cynthia. I will start scouting tunes for you! Anything to launch new musicians! Besides, there might be something that would work for me and my students, too. Re: They Stole My Wife Last Night. It is in the Patrick McDonald collection (1784). My Gaelic is very shaky (read that V-E-R-Y shaky) and so I ran it past a friend who has pretty solid Gaelic for a translation, and he came up with the same thing. Ghoid iad mo bhean uam an reir. It's a very cool tune, pentatonic. I should try my hand at ABC notation so y'all can see it...it's also in my second book, where I have arranged it so one can play it on a clarsach tuned with either one sharp (F), one flat (B) or no sharps or flats. It's my perenial "workshop tune". Great for teaching fixed finger, gapped scale theory, and wire-strung clarsach ornaments. Do you have the McDonald collection? It's in the middle of page 3. I'm putting it on my CD with some really rhythmic damping. Verycool. --Cynthia Cathcart http://www.cynthiacathcart.net/
