Folk workshops in West London
Tunbridge Beauties is a tune from ‘The New Country Dancing Master’ collection by Walsh and Randall from 1711. It’s been recorded by Boldwood on their fantastic ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ album.
Here are the dots (PDF here), with a basic version and an ornamented, phrased copy.
Below are the basic dots for the groove (PDF here) that we created to accompany the tune.
This is a jaunty polka by Devonshire fiddler Fred Pidgeon (yes, I know I’ve spelled his name differently in the title, but this is now the tune and his surname are normally written respectively). I’ve kept the chords simple to bring out the cheerful, bouncy character, though you could substitute a few Em or maybe some C chords in instead of some of the G majors – have an experiment! Stephen suggested using a G maj7 in place of the D chords in the first two bars – I like this, but try also replacing the D chords in the fourth and seventh bars with a D6 chords to fit with the slightly dreamy feel that this creates. We found that the harmony in the B part also fits the tune of the A part, so there are lots of possibilities!
Here are the dots (tune with chords, tune with suggested phrasing and ornaments, and harmony) with a PDF available here..
Wednesday Night is a fabulous 16 bar tune recorded as a ‘Country Dance’, and it exists in both the English and Welsh traditions (as Nôs Fercher in Welsh). The earliest record of it I can find is in a collection by William Clark of Lincoln published in 1770, though it seems to turn up in a few different collections at around that time. Here’s the tune, harmony, bass line and chords – I’ve not written out a separate chord chart due to the way the chords fit with the rhythm of the tune. I’ve also added a version with suggested phrasing and ornaments.
This version of ‘Dear Tobacco’ is from the Anne Geddes Gilchrist collection, collected from William Docker in Westmorland, England. I can’t find a date for it, but John Offord (always a good source of knowledge) says it is “not a polka. Polkas came later in the 1840’s. It is a type of reel which is found in books from the 1700’s. These tunes, with patterns of 4 semi-quavers [written out here as quavers] were only played in Scotland or Northern England”. This version is also in Dave Townsend’s English Dance Music book, Volume 2.
Here are the dots for the tune:
I’ve written out a seperate chord chart below (with an extra Bm chord, apologies!) with an alternative, slightly crunchier version that doesn’t resolve at all.
I suggest we start with this tune and then go into the Duke of Perth’s reel . I’ve created a page called Tune Sets where I’ll add PDFs of sets, to make it easier to put everything together.
