Major key tunes – New Ealing Sessions

Kit White’s Camel!

Monday 6th January was our first week back and we covered a range of tunes, starting with the Plane Tree jig and its possibly original 4/4 counterpart Schottishe a Bethanie (video link to the fabulous Mel Biggs of Morai and ‘Pick Up and Play’ fame). We used this tune as inspiration and the second half of the night was taken up with Kit White’s no.2, which we recapped and then collectively turned from a polka into a jig.

I’ve roughly notated the various stage we went through to reach the end product; at stage one we played even quavers in 6/8 to fill out the bars, at stage two we simplified the rhythm and at stage three we replaced key patterns with ‘hill’, ‘ditch’, ‘zig zag’ or scale shapes. Each replacement was selected from two or three options presented by me and voted on by the group – the title refers to the idea that a camel is a horse designed by committee!

Dots in PDF form can be found here.

Kit White's Camel_0001 Kit White's Camel_0002.png

Lancashire Hornpipe

Here is the tune from Monday 4th November, Lancashire. This tune is from the 1838 William Irwin manuscript, a collection from Cumbria. I learend it from fiddler and clog dancer extraodinaire Toby Bennett. Here is the video:

And here are the dots, with a PDF version here.

Lancashire Hornpipe ere:

The Grand Hornpipe

Here is the post for Monday 21st October tune, The Grand Hornpipe, also known as Henry Stables’ Grand Hornpipe, The Devonshire Lads and known in Wales as Mympwy Portheinon. It seems to have been revived from a Cumbrian collection of tunes from the late nineteenth century, and is popular in England and Wales. Here’s the video:

And here are the dotes (PDF available here), with some of the rhythmic variations we tried out on the night. The quavers are swung, and the bowings/slurs are a slighly simplified version of what I tend to do in hornpipes to avoid running out of bow!

The Grand Hornpipe

Lemmie Brazil’s no.2

Lemmie Brazil (short for Lementina which seems to be spelled variously as Lemmy or Lemmie, and Brazil is pronounced Brazzle) was a melodeon player and singer from a large Gypsy family who travelled throughout England and Ireland. You can read more about her here and she can be heard playing melodeon here:

Here is the video from Monday 14th October:

And here are the dots, also available as a PDF here:

Lemmy Brazil's no 2

The Doctor

Here is the tune from 7th October’s class: The Doctor. It’s a tune from Aird’s Airs and Melodies Book of tunes from England, Scotland and Ireland but I’ve also found it in the 1823 Jackson manuscript from Wyresdale, Lancashire.

Here are the dots, with a PDF available here.

The Doctor

Fair Jenny’s

Here is the tune from Monday 30th’s session, with apologies for the late posting. This is a tune by Peter Barnes, it can be found in the book “The Portland Collection: Contra Dance Music in the Pacific Northwest”. Peter says of this tune: “I actually wrote this tune on the fiddle when I was trying to teach myself that instrument in the mid ‘70’s. I made it easy to play on the violin, which may account for its totally unexpected popularity. Since then it’s been recorded eleven times (usually without my permission!) and has had two dances choreographed to go with it.”

Fair Jenny

Here is the PDF file.

The Buffoon

Here’s the tune from Monday 23rd’s session; The Buffoon, a Morris tune from Adderbury. We’re playing it as a session tune because that’s how I know it, rather than at dance speed! It’s a great tune to play around with as there’s lots of scope for variation.

Here are the dots, with two lots of suggested variations – the idea, as with Kate Dalyrmple, is to have simpler and more complex versions and then to mix them up in different ways.

The Buffoon_0001 The Buffoon_0002