Gan Aimn

UPDATED 19/03/20

After a last minute decision to cancel Monday’s class in line with government advice, I’ve had a go at putting the planned session online!  I’ve created a Paypal donation button below for those of you who aren’t yearly subscribers; I want to keep these posts free to access, but if you enjoy this site and can afford to make a small donation I’d really appreciate it as, being self-employed, I’ve lost a huge amount of work due to Corona virus precautions.   

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I’m sure I’ll get better at these videos the more I do – the format, the sound quality (which is a little ropey in places), the camera angle and lighting etc can and will be improved! I’m planning on doing another video next week, which takes us to the end of term – we’ll see what happens after that, depending on how useful people find this format and how the current situation unfolds.

Here are three videos; the first breaks down the tune into short phrases and describes the scales and shapes of the melody, the second is a slow version and fast version of the tune like the ones I normally post.  The third video talks about bowing and ornamentation.

 

Video One – Tune breakdown 

Click here for a PDF of the warm up scales.

Scale warm up 0:00 – 2:55, A section 2:58 – 7:43, B section 7:45 – end.

Video Two – Slower Version and Faster Version

 

Gan Ainm

 

Video Three: Bowing and Ornamentation

 

Click here for a PDF of the tune with the suggested bowing and ornamentation.

Polca Cefn-Coed

Here is another Welsh tune, Polca Cefn-Coed, which we played after last week’s tune Ffidl Ffadl to turn it into a set – click here for a PDF of the tunes together.  I got this version from the Calan tune book, it’s quite different from other versions of the tune available through resources such as The Session or Folk Tune Finder websites.

 

Here are the dots with a PDF here for download:

Polca Cefn-Coed

Ffidl Ffadl

Belated happy St David’s day!  Here is a Welsh tune, Ffidl Ffadl to celebrate the occasion, with huge thanks to Geraint for tracking down the title.  I knew this tune partly through a student violin book I use frequently, and partly from the Solomon album by Calan, where it’s in a set called Ryan Jigs.  Ffidl Ffadl (pronounced Fiddle Faddle in English) means nonsense (noun), or to mess around (verb).

 

Here are the dots, with a PDF available here:

Ffidl Ffadl:

 

West Kerry Polka

Here is a fantastic polka from West Kerry in Ireland – I’ve only heard it called ‘West Kerry polka’, and though it’s similar to John Cronin’s No.1 the B parts are quite different.  We tried pushing the chords in the B part, anticipating the changes and making them early by one quaver.  This tune went well with Tralee Gaol from July 7th 2019.

 

Here are the dots with a PDF available here:

West Kerry Polka

Trip to Marrowbones, or Four Bare Legs Together

This is one of my favourite slipjigs, the fabulously named Trip to Marrowbones, also known as Four Bare Legs Together and as The Raking Quality.  It comes from the 1770 Northumbrian manuscript from William Vickers.  This is the F major version, there is another where most of the Fs become F sharps, taking the tune into G minor.  We recorded this G minor version for the Stepling album as part of our ‘Saucy Set’, this can be found here at 1:35.  For clarity I’ll not post the dots for that version just yet, I think we need to let the major version settle first!  I had thought that I had learned this from an Eliza Carthy and Nancy Kerr album, but this doesn’t seem to be the case – goodness knows where it came from!

 

Here are the dots, with filled-out chords, PDF can be found here:

Trip to Marrowbones

Newtondale Hornpipe

Here is the Newtondale Hornpipe, a fantastic tune with trad roots which was adapted and reworked by fiddler extraordinaire Dave Shepherd.  There’s a fantastic recording of the tune on the album Dave made with Becky Price, Ashburnham, which can be found here.  I learned this tune recently from fiddler Nick Goode.

 

Here are the dots, with a PDF here:

Newtondale Hornpipe