Major key tunes – Page 2 – New Ealing Sessions

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

Kate Dalrymple

Our first tune of the term! Kate Dalrymple is a fabulous tune from Scotland, Mary D has found the following information on it: Kate Dalrymple is a traditional Scottish reel dating back to the late 1700s, also known as The Highland Laddie, The New Highland Laddie and Jingling Johnnie. There are accompanying words in Scots written by William Watt telling the tale of the eponymous spinster, with an amazing recording of The Corries to be found at http://scotsongs.blogspot.com/2009/04/kate-dalrymple-words-william-watt-1792.html. This tune is used by the BBC as the theme music for the BBC Radio Scotland dance music programme “Take the Floor”.

The assertion that our Kate was a socialite painted by Gainsborough should be taken with a pinch of salt, as no such person was ever painted by the artist though he did paint a Grace Dalrymple Elliot twice.

Here is the video, with the variations covered in Monday’s session:

Here are dots: the idea is to learn the standard, simple and double versions, and then to mix up the phrases to create variety within the tune. We also played with extending the descending scale in the B part, to mirror the similar shape in the A section. I’ve put the two guitar patterns under the standard and simple versions of the tune for convenience, and a PDF can be found here. If played for dancing then it should be played AAB, but we played it as AABB as the B part is so fantastic!

kate dalrymple_1

Maggie in the Woods

This is Maggie in the Woods, a fabulous polka from Ireland, but again one’s that’s put its boots on and travelled the world! It will go in a set with Battered Hake and then Tralee Gaol.

Here are the videos of the tune

…and the harmony for the B part here:

Here are the dots:

Maggie in the Woods.png

There is a PDF available here.

Mount Hills

This is Mount Hills, from the Playford collection.

Here’s the video of the tune played slowly:

And then the tune played at speed, in the higher and lower registers:

Here are the dots, with the chords from memory so apologies if they aren’t what we had on the day, I will change them if necessary! The PDF is available here.

Mount Hills