Category: Tunes in 6/8

The Beggar Boy

Here’s the video for Playford tune The Beggar Boy, from the 1651 manuscript – it was included in subsequent editions right through to the 7th in 1686, and Chappell (1859) notes that there are several ballads written to the tune, as tended to happen with popular tunes.

 

 

And here are the dots:

The Beggar Boy.png

Here are the dots in PDF form, for those who want to print them out.

We created contrast between sections with drone-like minor chords in the A section and swifter changing major chords in the B section.  I’ve tagged the tune as both major and minor as it can be harmonised as either, giving a different character.

We created a groove for the A section by picking out notes from the D minor and C major triads.  Since Dm and C are neighbours, it’s possible to move between the chords in a scale pattern.  Here’s a link to a chart explaining this: for each of the main beats listed at the top, pick a note from the coloumn beneath. There is an example of how you could do this at the bottom, with notes highlighted in red.  You might want to print this sheet out and circle one note in each column to create your own part.

 

Picking Up Sticks

Picking Up Sticks, or The Picking of Sticks, is a Playford tune and is in the earliest editions of the manucript from 1651, though only the A part is listed.  It’s not clear when the B part came along, though it’s in a rough and undated manuscript by Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924).

Here is the video for Picking Ups Sticks, with thanks as always to Mary D.

 

Here are the dots – we learned the tune, and named the melodic figures ‘runs’, ‘hills’ and ‘skips’ before paring the tune back to the bare bones and reordering the figures to create variations.

pickingupsticks

 

There is a PDF of the tune and chords here, for those who can’t print the graphics file.

The New Rigged Ship no. 1

Welcome back!  Here’s the New Rigged Ship no. 1 in D major.  I have found this tune in several sources, the earliest of which is an 1800 edition of Thomas Hardy’s manuscript (from Dorset), it also pops up in an 1853 Scottish book ‘Hamilton’s Universal Tune Book no.2’ and there’s an 1908 version collected in Derbyshire titled ‘The Man Who Couldn’t Get Warm’.  There are both reels and jigs from the Shetland Isles called ‘Da New Rigged Ship’ or the ‘Da Full Rigged Ship’, however these do not seem to be related!

 

the new rigged ship in d

 

The warm ups and drills we started with are on a new page that you can find on the top menu – the main thing to note is that this tune contains lots of 3rds (that is to say a small jump of three notes), for instance in the D to F#s in the first two bars of the A section, and in bars 9 and 11 of the B section.  This is a really handy interval to listen out for – think ‘cuckoo!’ – and it gives us lots of scope for variation!

We started by filling some of these 3rds in with the ‘missing’ notes (see HERE for a written variation).

We then took a load of notes out to create more space, before adding some slightly different patterns back in (see HERE for the written variation).

Please note that these variations are designed as a starting point, recapping some of the ideas we covered in class, and are not supposed to be a perfect examples although I have tried to make them at least reasonably musical! Other possibilities for melodic variation could include playing down the octave, or varying the order of the notes in repetitive sections, for instance in bars 3 and 4 of the A section.

 

Epping Forest

Here are the videos from guest tutor Beth’s class, where she taught Epping Forest, a tune from the 4th edition of Playford’s ‘Dancing Master’ manuscript (1670).  Huge thanks to Beth for covering the session!  Here’s the tune:

 

And here’s the riff:

And here’s the riff for Lord Frog, the tune for which can be found on the old Ealing Session website here:

 

Here are the PDFs for the tune, the tune with bowing, the the tune with bowing and riff and the Riff, with the regular dots below.

epping-forest-with-bowing-and-riff-score-1.png

epping-forest-with-bowing-and-riff-score-2.png

The New Rigged Ship no 2

Not to be confused with any of the Shetland tunes of the same name!  I know this tune from playing in sessions and in trying track down it’s origins I’ve found it listed as ‘The New Rigged Ship no 2’ or ‘The Rigged Ship’ in England where its played as a jig, as ‘The Hills of Glenorchy’ in Scotland where it’s played as a march or quickstep, and as ‘The Wild Hills of Wannie’ in Northumberland where it’s played slowly as an air.  There are numerous other titles for it, and variations of it, and it seems well travelled!  Often a sign of a good tune….

The PDF of the tune, chords and bowing/ornaments variations is here, and the dots are below.  We improvised in the B section by making up our own rhythms for alternating between Es and Bs in bars 9-10 and then between Ds and As in bars 11-12, and then back to to Es and Bs for bars 13-14 before picking up the tune again in the last two bars (aka at the ‘tail’).   ‘Stab’ chords played every two bars helped punctuate the changes here.

The New Rigged Ship no 2