Tune Req: Black Is the Colour of My True Love's...

Subject: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST,Guest Sue
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:32 PM

Can't seem to find the sheet music of the version I sing (for our new fiddle player). Anyone know a source?

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:38 PM

Guest Sue:

Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair is in the Digital Tradition, click here
with a midi file. I can make sheet music from the midi file for you if it is the version you sing.

Let me know.

Lin

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:43 PM

Very nice version with a different tune can be found in Alan Lomax's Folk Songs of North America. Good book to have! Thick. Oodles of songs!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:46 PM

You can order sheet music from this site for it.

There's a MIDI playing on this page he could listen to.

Lyrics here.

The Max Hunter music can be found here along with playable files.

A

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 09:17 PM

Printable sheet music #1 from the Yet Another DT site

Printable #2, same source

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Stewart
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 12:01 PM

Here's the version I sing, taken from Niamh Parson's CD "In My Prime".

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST,Sue
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:46 PM

Thank you all sooo much! but none of those are the version I sing (which I learnt from an Irish singer I know). The version you have mostly given me is the one sung by Joan Baez, which I also know. But I prefer this other one. I don't read music well, but I've just played the first line on my recorder, which goes like this:

b b e g g f(sharp) ga f g
Black is the colour of my true love's hair

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:48 PM

IGNORE THOSE NOTES PLEASE.....whoops, posted that by accident before I'd finished writing it!

b      b e   g g   f(sharp) g   a   f(sharp)   e
Black is the colour of       my true love's    hair

Anyone know it?

Thanks

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Brendy
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:17 PM

What kind of tempo - slow or fast?

B.

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST,Sue
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:23 PM

Well, I sing it pretty slow (as is my wont), though it could go a bit faster. Don't think it's ever a poppy little number though.

Sue

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Brendy
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:28 PM

a href=http://www.brendanmckeever.com/mp3.htm>Try the 4th link down, on the right side of the page.

See if that's any closer... :-)

B.

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Brendy
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 09:35 PM

Clickable Link

B.

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 06:09 PM

Heyyyy thass the one! (pretty much, give or take a note or two!) Cool! Exactly the version. Thanks sooo much. Do you have the dots for it, perhaps in the key I sing it in? I've just worked out that my start note is D, so something like:

d      d   g b sharp   a   b sharp c    a      g
Black is the colour    of my       true love's hair


Cheers
Sue

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST,Sue
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 06:10 PM

Ooops forgot to put my name on that last post! also, I think it may be B flat, not sharp in the above notes.

:)

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Brendy
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 02:53 AM

I'll do the notation for the basic tune of it, over the next few days, if that's alright...

B.

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: Brendy
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 12:59 PM

... or rather the notes.

D D G A#
A C A G
D F D G
F A F D
D F D G
F A F D
D D G A#
A C A G

Hope you can figure it out from that, Sue

B.

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 08 - 05:29 PM

Pretty much it, I think! thanks Brendan, you're a star, thanks for your help.

Sue

Subject: RE: Music wanted: Black is the colour
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 08 - 02:01 AM

There are a lot of versions of "Black Is the Color". I like the Madison County North Carolina version which is pretty well known from old recordings and from Sheila Kay Adams, who is singing and teaching those ballads. You can hear it at Elizabeth LaPrelle's website.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Black Is the Colour of My True Love's...
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 09 - 06:00 PM

thxx a lot guys, î ve been nlooking for these chords for like ages!!
( the judy collins - joan baez melody type )
cheers
sami

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Black Is the Colour of My True Love's...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 May 09 - 06:37 PM

The commonest version you hear in the British Isles these days is due to Hamish Imlach, who was trying to remember the John Jacob Niles tune at the time, got it horribly garbled, and decided to stick with it.

I've more than once heard Irish singers insist that the Imlach version is an Irish tune. As far as I'm concerned it sucks and they're welcome to it. I just wish people here would drop it and do the Niles one instead.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Black Is the Colour of My True Love's...
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 06 May 09 - 06:41 PM

Jack

Which is the version that I sing?