The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9466 Message #1170336
Posted By: GUEST,Jon Loomes
25-Apr-04 - 07:41 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Is Green Sleeves really Irish?
Subject: RE: Is Green Sleeves really Irish?
Yes! it is! it's terrible - you're welcome to it! take it away! it's only suitable for playing to American tourists anyway.
The bacca pipes jig on the other hand is as English as Fortnum and Masons.
On a slightly more scholarly note, I'm interested in the gradual shift between modes that exists in the various versions of Greensleeves - I imagine that it started out life as a Dorian melody, but you very often hear it with a flattened 6th - Possibly due 16th century harmonic theory, this could be an example of "musica ficta" - But anyway, Greensleeves seems to be a good example of a tune that has spanned the gap between melodic and harmonically based composition.