Here’s Monday’s tune, Vidar Valsen by Norwegian musician Vidar Skrede.
As a break from my face, here’s Blazin Fiddles‘ rendition of the tune:
Vidar Valsen
Category: Major key tunes
Rhythms for the Bath Hornpipe
We discussed two possible rhythms/grooves for hornpipes, swung and straight – the video below shows both and the dots show the swung rhythm. The idea is that you can pick any note from the arpeggio and play the rhythms on that note.
The Bath Hornpipe
Welcome back! We started the term with a jolly, bouncy tune called The Bath Hornpipe, from a manuscript of collector Frank Kidson. This tune turns up in various Yorkshire collections from around the 1840s and 1850s, sometimes under this title and sometimes as Newton’s Hornpipe. We are playing it as a dotted hornpipe… for now!
Here are the dots and video:
Duke of Kent’s Waltz
Here is the tune that we will be looking at Nov 4th, Duke of Kent’s Waltz. It’s an English Country Dance Tune from the early 1800s. Updated to include the PDF 12/11/24.
Queen’s Jig
It’s a Playford tune! We need it for the ECDC visit! I will update the info at a later date! Here it is:
More Fete de Village
Here is the arrangement of Fete de Village that we put together on 30th September.
Here are the videos I took during the sessions (edited into one video), with all three parts:
Here are some of the other videos that people have found:
Fete de Village
Fete de Village is a country dance tune that’s been in the English tradition for well over 200 years, but it started life as music from a stage production of the same name by French composer Gossec. This production came to England in the 1780s, after which time this tune can be found in various English tune collections such as those of William Mittel and Thomas Hammersley as well as in the infamous 1785 ‘A Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs’ by Aird (vol. II). Source: Trad Tune Archive
I’ve included a version of the tune by Bellowhead below, partially because it’s brilliant but also because it’s too late in the evening for me to record a video, I will remedy this tomorrow! *EDIT – there is now a video of the tune played at a medium speed below the Bellowhead video*
Here are the dots and downloads:
We played with the arpeggio patterns in the B section, building these up gradually and trying different inversions to create an automatic harmony. Brush up on your D and G major arpeggios, there will be more on this next week!
Spootiskerry & Willafjord
These tunes have been rattling around for a while, with about half the class attendees knowing them and the other half not. Time to even the playing field!
Spootikerry is a tune by Ian Burns from Shetland, Willafjord is also a Shetland tune and the two are often played together in a set.
Tobin’s Jig
A tune to potentially go with Hardiman’s Fancy, Irish jig Tobin’s Fancy. This has similar double-jig rhythms to Hardiman’s, with a similarly wide range of notes. At the time of choosing, I didn’t know what key Hardiman’s had been learned in, so D major was a good option for the various keys that this tune tends to be played in – we’ll find out later if that works!
24/6/24 edit: I have updated the tune with some slurs across the bar lines, to give the tune a sense of flow and lilt – these are purely examples of where these can go and should not be considered definitive or concrete! Three or four slurs per 8-bar section is plenty.
Playing with the tunes
Monday saw us adding a riff to Old Meddon (dots and PDF are updated) and trying Jigolo in A major (A major version in PDF under dots). We looked at the patterns of scales, arpeggios and sequences in Jigolo and used this to go from G major to A major. Useful questions included: which degree of the scale does the tune start on (A part and B part)? In bar 7-8, which degree of the scale does the descending scale start on?
Some tunes have set keys that they are typically played but others can vary. I’ve played Jigolo in both G and A major at various sessions, for instance. It’s therefore a useful skill to be able to play tunes in different keys – it also helps to fully internalise each tune, to cement the tune in one’s memory, to make sure you know the tune inside out. Certain ornaments, variations and bowings will be easier on different notes in particular keys, and certain keys are more or less resonant on different instruments. Exploring a tune like this helps to get it in your memory long term – which of the tunes in your repertoire can you play in different keys?