Category: Variation ideas

Hunt the Squirrel

Hunt the Squirrel is a fantastic and widespread tune, with many different versions (I know three different versions of the B part!) and it dates back to at least the mid 1700s.

We will use this tune in our forthcoming appearance at Ealing Country Dance Club, pairing it with Dory Boat.

The alternative arrangement for Hunt the Squirrel was drone G/D for whole A part and drone G/E for 1st half of B then return to G/D, some melody players play an octave lower. The alternative arrangement for Dory Boat was using a simplified B part (removing notes) and some melody players playing the root notes of the chords. Please make your own notes/references for this!

hunt-the-squirrelDownload

Constant Billy arrangement ideas

Here is an update of the Constant Billy sheet, with the two new riffs at the bottom. The second PDF below contains the chord sequences and the arrangement that we started on the 12th. The video is of the unrehearsed arrangement that we tried out – it’s not exactly what’s written on the arrangement sheet now, but should give you a feel for the whole piece.

constant-billy-all-1Download

constant-billy-all-with-chords-and-arrangementDownload

Coronation Day: more arrangement ideas

Here is the recording of Coronation Day tune with the phased rhythmic ostinato that we used in the warm up, inspired in part by Steve Reich’s Clapping Music which was in turn partially inspired by flamenco music.

Here is a video of Clapping Music with a useful graphic to help you see what’s going on. The pattern is repeated eight times before the lower part phases by one quaver.

Constant Billy

This week’s tune is English Morris dance tune Constant Billy. There are versions in most of the different Cotswold Morris tradition in various keys, though often transposed into G major to suit the commonly used melodeon. We made two different versions of the chords, the first being a conservative version that harmonises every half bar and the second a more contemporary version that harmonises every full bar. To refer back to our inspiration arrangement, Coronation Day, we have used/tried:

  1. long notes that can also be used as in a shuffle rhythm
  2. Playing the tune with a pedal G (tonic) underneath throughout, and also trying a pedal D (dominant) throughout
  3. Using a chord sequence that doesn’t resolve to the tonic of G at the end of each phrase (from the long notes pattern)

We will look at long and short ostinati next week and use these to make an intro/outro for the whole piece, also extending the tune by developing certain phrases.

Here is the video, with the second version of the chords:

Here are the dots:

constant-billyDownload

The Valiant

Here is the tune from March 6th, The Valiant by East Anglian musician Simon Ritchie. We experimented with adding linking notes between sections – an A between the last C section and the first A section, an F# or a D between the C sections, and a BC run between the Bs. I’ve included some of these on the music, but have an experiment and see what else you can find.

Here is the PDF:

the-valiant-correctedDownload