English Folk Music for classical guitar

Subject: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 08:52 AM

Can I have suggestions for English Folk tunes/songs for arranging on classical guitar. The idea would be to get a group of pieces which would demonstrate the breadth of English Folk Music.i.e. lovely slow melodies, tunes with unusual rhythms, strange modal melodies, etc.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 09:14 AM

The rising cadence of the Robbers' Retreat could be one.
The curious rhythms of Famous Flower of Serving Men might be another.
It's Scottish, but the falling cadence in Henry Martin deserves consideration.
The tune may be Victorian, but the Lykewake Dirge ought to be in there.
A well known modal (I think it's Mixolydian)is Reynardine - but IMHO the origins of the song are French.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 09:32 AM

They would hardly demonstrate the breadth of the music, given that all folk music on classical guitar sounds exactly the same, would it?

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 10:15 AM

There are several tunes already available in well-known arrangements. John Duarte's English Suite No.1 has a very nice version of Low Down In The Broom in the middle of 1st movement; the 2nd movement is a theme and variations on The Cuckoo and the 3rd movement has a Robin Hood tune (from Chappell's PMOT) in the middle. His English Suite No.2 (for duo) has versions of The Brisk Young Widow, The Lost Lady Found and Hey Ho Sing Ivy/Gently Johnny My Jingalo.

Benjamin Britten's Folksong Arrangements Vol 6 for High Voice and guitar has arrangements of I Will Give My Love An Apple, Sailor-Boy, Master Kilby, The Soldier And The Sailor, Bonny At Morn and The Shooting of His Dear with accompaniments varying from simple chords or counter-melodies to the startling accompaniment to Bonny At Morn (Jack take note!).

If you widen it to British rather than just English there's other stuff easily available:

Sor's Op.40 Fantaisie sur un air favori ecossais uses Ye Banks And Braes (I think!).

David Russell did an album Message of the Sea with arrangements of Irish and Scottish tunes (the currently published volume has: Bucks of Oranmore, Cherish The Ladies, Niel Gow's Lament for the Death of His Second Wife, Spatter The Dew, Kildare Fancy, Skye Boat Song, Loch Leven Castle, The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, Whiskey You're The Devil, The Fair Haired Boy/Three Little Drummers, The De'il Amang The Tailors).

Scott Tennant from the Los Angeles' Guitar Quartet has published a (fairly straightforward) version of Will Ye Go Lassie Go.

And Gerald Garcia has published some folk-song arrangements too IIRC.

(There are also no end of Carolan arrangements)

Even if you're not interested in these particular arrangements it might give you some ideas for songs/tunes.

Mick

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 11:58 AM

Mick - Does Folksong Arrangements Vol 6 include "We go walking on the green grass" (of which latter I remember you playing the Benjamin Britten version, which I thought a bit startling ) or is that somewhere else?

Kitty

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,Hybridpicker
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 12:08 PM

Jack Campin: It's also true that all Flamenco guitar music sounds the same, and that all Irish folk tunes sound the same!

p.s. Or does that only apply to people who have never learned to LISTEN!

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 12:34 PM

HK

"We go walking on the green grass" is actually the first line of the song Sailor-Boy in the collection. It's from Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (this is the antepenultimate song No.272 version B, the general title being Soldier Boy For Me), so not strictly English (or British even), (Roud 1302 seems, at a quick look, to have been collected only in the US).

The accompaniment for this is mostly single line dotted rhythm, except for a chorus section added by Britten, where a few chords appear. It is one of my favourite accompaniments though, and not the most startling (that would be Bonny At Morn, IMHO).

Mick

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Amos
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 01:44 PM

You might enjoy reviewing a discography of Richard Dyer-Bennett, lutist and singer, who covered a broad swath of English folk music.

A

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 01:59 PM

We seem to have moved away from my original request. I didn't ask for a list of arrangements for classical guitar!

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 03:04 PM

I did say at the end of my post that they provided suggestions for songs - the fact that the songs used interested composers might indicate that the they are interesting songs to make your own arrangements of.

Mick

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,harryrages
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 03:32 PM

Well you could check out the stuff of Michael Raven.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: The Badger
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 07:38 PM

Michael Raven is the one you want. Check him out on Google. He has a wealth of English folk music and song which should give you a base to work from. He's also a great bloke to talk to.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Gurney
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 10:04 PM

The vocal and pipe-tune versions of Byker Hill, and Calico Printers Clerk?

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 11:03 AM

If I were going to do this, I would take two approaches.

1. Go to a good public library and look for songs in their books of folksongs.

2. Get hold of a copy of Playford's English country dances. There is much variety in these dances.

Then I would combine songs and dances in a fashion that pleased me.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,Ian Pittaway
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 11:19 AM

I never thought traditional English songs worked well on classical guitar ... then I heard the awesome album from 1961 with Wilfred Brown singing to John Williams' guitar. Both the singing and guitar work are truly inspiring. The album is called 'Folk-Songs' (predictably) and Belart, a division of Decca, reissued it in 1998 on CD. Tunesmith, I think that's a good a place to start as any for ideas.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 12:41 PM

Mick is being too modest here. He has done some fantastic arrangements of folk songs for classical guitar.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 01:18 PM

I have a small collection of Scottish tunes for the 18th century English guitar on my site:

http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/Music/ScotsGuitar.abc

I guess tuning a conventional guitar DF#Adf#a would sort of work for that, though the lower pitch would lose the incisiveness of the original.

Rob McKillop has more tunes of that sort on his site, mostly for DADGAD tuning.

The conventionally tuned guitar is not much use as a melodic instrument for any kind of British Isles folk music. Any strong accents get ironed out into a stream of soporific torpor. There isn't any way to fit in the sort of stuff that flamenco uses to really exploit what the instrument can do.

The absolute clueless pits has to be some of the stuff John Renbourn used to do (I haven't listened to him in years, this would have been the 1980s) where he tried playing dance tunes with fingering patterns that put the open strings on unaccented notes. It sounded quite bizarre and totally buggered up the dance rhythms.

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 01:27 PM

Dave Swarbricks "Once I Loved A Maiden Fair" is a great guitar/mandolin combo piece of folk music (and great to dance to)

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 08:06 AM

u suck

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 08:12 AM

?????

Subject: RE: English Folk Music for classical guitar
From: fogie
Date: 31 Oct 06 - 04:23 AM

Look up Maid of the mill-I play it in different positions with counterbass and harmony(in G in standard tuning) heard it first from a concertina player whos name I have forgotten.