Ashokan Farewell: lyrics and chord structure

Subject: Ashokan Farewell
From: pyewacket
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 02:21 PM

Can anyone supply the lyrics and chord structure for Ashokan Farewell?   Key of C would be handy.

Thanks

pyewacket

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 03:00 PM

PM me with your email address and I'll send you the lead line & chords in C.

Cheers,

Will

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 03:53 PM

It was written as a TUNE - If any one has written a decentlyric to it , I havent heard it yet .

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 03:58 PM

Words by Grian MacGregor
Music by Jay Ungar

"The sun is sinking low in the sky above Ashokan.
The pines and the willows know soon we will part.
There's a whisper in the wind of promises unspoken,
And a love that will always remain in my heart.

My thoughts will return to the sound of your laughter,
The magic of moving as one,
And a time we'll remember long ever after
The moonlight and music and dancing are done.

Will we climb the hills once more?
Will we walk the woods together?
Will I feel you holding me close once again?
Will every song we've sung stay with us forever?
Will you dance in my dreams or my arms until then?

Under the moon the mountains lie sleeping
Over the lake the stars shine.
They wonder if you and I will be keeping
The magic and music, or leave them behind."

From Jay & Molly Ungar's website

Cheers,

Will

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:07 PM

Notation in D. Easily transposable.


Two lots of lyrics (neither "decent")


Somebody recommended to me only the other day to try playing it as a quick march. Getting rid of the 3/4 is surely a vast improvement.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:10 PM

Our ceilidh band plays it as a fairly brisk waltz (in D) as a non-called dance, and people seem to like it at that speed. A quick march, eh? Might have a crack at that... just to see.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:11 PM

This tune is in ¾. Each "/" is a beat (NOT including the chord named). Thus XX0232/// is three beats on a D chord. Of course, if you choose…

1. the voicings are close to giving you a head start toward a fingerstyle arrangement.

2. Of the three beats the first is often sounding the bass string only. Because of this, there are a few places where you will probably NOT play it that was (f'rinstance) in those few places where each of three chords in a row has only one beat.

Barenberg also substitutes a different A7 that is still eluding me. If you are too used to a Bm, the place to substitute it back in is at the X2023X chord.

XX0232///
200232///
3X0233//
3X0033/
02203X///
XX0232///
X2023X///
3X0032///
X02030//
X02020/

XX0232///
X32210///
320003///
XX0232///
X2023X///
X02220
002020
X05450
XX0232

B

XX0232///
X32210///
320033///
XX0232//////
X20230///
X02220///
3X222X///
XX0232///
X32210///
3X0003
3X0023/
3X0033/
XX0232//////
X2023X///
X02220
002020
X05450
XX0232

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: kendall
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:18 PM

It is a pretty tune in 3/4 time. Why mess with it?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:21 PM

Just had a play with it in 4/4 - works if you extend the first note of the bar - but it doesn't improve it, IMHO.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:25 PM

Why mess with it?

To diminish the tweeness quotient.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:48 PM

Pauline Cato and Tom McConville made a cracking job of it. No twee in sight.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 07:33 PM

On their excellent album "By Land and Sea," I should have added.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 08:30 PM

For all this and more, simply type Ashokan Farewell into the onsite search engine; it can be found at the top of every page here and is invoked twice during the 'start a new thread' process.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: RTim
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 09:03 PM

Why can't it be left as a great tune - I don't see any point in doing anything else!

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 09:11 PM

Never ever heard it played in C, always in D: doesn't mean you can't but you'd have that odd chord in B flat then (C if you're playing in D), and usually catches out newcomers to the tune.
If you're thinking of playing it in a session then I think you'll find most folk play it in D. I orignally got notation the hard way, by listening to the CD of Major Perkins playing it, and it is in D.
I got words to it years ago, off this very site, so look a bit harder or Google it: some which Cleo Laine sang, and another set too.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 09:14 PM

Tanya Opland & Mike Freeman dee a very canny version an' aall

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 03:54 AM

Every session I play it in - and in gigs with the ceilidh band - we play it in D.

If you want to try it as a solo guitar piece, it falls slightly more easily under the fingers (IMHO) in G. Here's a simple version in G. The "awkward" chord, in this case, is F!

You'll note a comment just below the video from someone saying "WRONG KEY". I wonder why people don't (a) read the "more info" link on YT pages, in which info about the tune can be gleaned, and (b) accept that any tune can be arranged in a different key - just down to taste and playability.

If anyone wants a lead line and chords for this tune in any key, PM me.

Regards,

Will

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Deskjet
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 04:42 AM

I started playing the mandolin last year and it was the first tune I learned - in fact even before I got a mandolin I had decided that I wanted to play the Ashokan Farewell on the mandolin.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 06:54 AM

Saw Jay Ungar and Aly Bain do a decent fist of it recently (Transatlantic Sessions)...but then it would have been something wrong if they hadn't!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Beer
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 07:50 AM

Not saying this is the case with Jay Unger but here is another reason that a fine tune should be left as is unless permission is granted from the author.
In a thread "Miss Rowden Davies" the following is mentioned by Jack Campin:
"My understanding is that Phil Cunningham does NOT take kindly to having his tunes reproduced without permission, and this one in particular. It's in his book.".
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: kendall
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 07:58 AM

I don't think there is any "wrong" key. It sounds fine to me in D, especially with the low E string on a guitar dropped to D.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: van lingle
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 08:03 AM

Nice arrangement there, Will. I also play it fingerstyle in G but I use Malagasy tuning (CGDGAE low to high).

I saw that, guest. That was a hell of a string section they had there.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: van lingle
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 08:14 AM

Whoops! That should be GCDGBE,standard but for the bottom 2.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 09:21 AM

Thanks for the info, VL - I've never tried that tuning, or many other open tunings other than DADGAD and DADF#AD. I really must take some time to experiment!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Tootler
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 09:45 AM

By all means transpose a tune into another key if you are going to play it solo or with others who are going to make the same transposition.

However it is also a good idea to learn a tune in its original key if you can, especially if you are likely to come across it in a session or similar circumstances.

Two main reasons I can think of for transposing a tune are first, because it's not playable on your instrument without transposing and secondly because you believe it sounds better on your instrument in a different key.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Nick
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 10:34 AM

Your only small problem in playing it in C is that neither a fiddle nor mandolin player can get down to (what would be) an F in bar 23 without dropping the tuning on the bottom string. Perhaps if Jay Unger had played a different instrument it might have been written in a different key.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: michaelr
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 05:09 PM

GCDGBE??? I would not submit my guitar to such punishment as tuning both the low strings UP by three half steps. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 07:53 PM

Hmmm, GBDGBE taro patch? Maybe a candidate for slack key treatment.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 08:06 PM

I am a great believer in NOT putting Lyrics to 'Good' tunes - it so seldom really works , and I M H O , neither of the Lyrics posted does justice to the tune .
And IF you want to play it on a Whistle , it works on a G whistle (In D) if you play it in One Sharp (On a G whistle) - the F# is flattened to F in the B music .

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: van lingle
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 08:48 PM

Man that was twice. How embarassing for me but if your tempted to try ,michael, better drop the gauges down a bit.

It is of, course, CGDGBE low to high.

Thanks for pointing that out.vl

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 06:44 AM

I am a great believer in NOT putting Lyrics to 'Good' tunes - it so seldom really works

Good thing you weren't around to tell Burns that.

You can play it as written in the usual fiddle key if you use an A whistle (or better, a G alto recorder).

Though I think it would be improved by adding a Monty-Python-style raspberry over that C natural.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Tootler
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 03:59 PM

I play it in D on a D flute by going up the octave in the places where it goes too low. I prefer that to using an A whistle as the top G is a bit shreiky on the A whistle.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: GUEST,Cup of Tea at work with no cookies
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 04:35 PM

Jack's "Good thing you weren't around to tell Burns that." got me chuckling, as I heard Jean Redpath state on Prairie Home Companion this last week (for perhaps the zillionth time) that Burns wasn't known as a singer, and many of his songs set to fiddle or pipe tunes were essentially unsingable by a human. In years past she amplified it by "unless you had a third lung under your elbow." Many tunes, good and otherwise, span a range few vocalists can navigate.

Trying tunes out in other time signatures can be amusing, but to suggest for a contemporary classic like Ashokan Farewell that it's an improvement? I just can't see it. I still have a bit of a difficult time switching gears on "Star of the County Down" as a waltz or the same tune in 4/4 as "Kingsfold" in hymns.

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 06:37 PM

I very much doubt that Jean Redpath was saying that all of Burns's reworkings of instrumental tunes were failures. Or that most of them were. Or even that a significant number of them were.

H e missed a few times - trying Niel Gow's Lament for Abercairney was definitely not a good idea - but would you rather have been without his words for Wilkes's Wrigle/The Hempdresser, Rory Dall's Port, or The Caledonian Hunt's Delight?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 08:08 PM

Jack - Ashokan in D has G as the lowest note - Pray tell how you play that on an A Whistle without an Octave jump ?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: TheSnail
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 08:26 PM

Jack Campin

You can play it as written in the usual fiddle key if you use an A whistle (or better, a G alto recorder).

Even better, a fiddle.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 08:31 PM

Snail = SOME of us are NOT Fiddlers !!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 08:35 PM

Oops. By gum you're right. I play it - when I have to - on G alto recorder or alto flute, and I'd forgotten it needed the bottom note on either.

In fact you could cheat without an octave jump by just repeating the previous low B or going to the D above it (assuming a B minor chord at that point), but that wouldn't be so hot if you were carrying the melody solo and the audience knew the tune really well.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: TheSnail
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 08:18 AM

Leadfingers

SOME of us are NOT Fiddlers !!

Ah well, I suppose you'll just have to make do with what you've got then.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: GUEST,CupOfTea with no cookies but really fast acc
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 05:33 PM

(thread creep)
Jack, yer right about Jean Redpath - many being the key word- it sounded like frustration of the "i'd LIKE to sing it, if I only could!" variety.

(thread branching creep)
All the whistlething players - how on EARTH do you keep the "play it on an X whistle so it will sound in Y' on top of remembering which key a tune is most likely to show up in for a session?

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Leadfingers
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 06:26 PM

Joanne - Any whistle is easy to play in a number of keys . D whistle is DEAD easy for D and G , along with Bmin and Emin , A is simple as is F#min , E is not too bad but easy for blues - Flatted Seventh makes the D# a D natural . So which ever whistle you are playing , you can work out which keys will fit !
If you want any advice , join Mudcat and PM me !

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 06:38 PM

If you learn the recorder, it isn't long before you find yourself playing different sizes, like F alto, sopraninos or basses, and the recorder isn't a transposing instrument. You soon get the hang of multiple mappings between fingerings and pitches. It's not so hard playing by ear.

What I do for most instruments is to use two notes as anchors: (1) the pitch you get with three left hand fingerholes covered, and (2) the one you get with those and three right-hand fingerholes covered. The rest is interpolation. So for instruments I play

                   (1)    (2)
  "D" instrument    G      D
  "A" instrument    D      A
  "G" instrument    C      G
  "F" instrument    Bb     F

This scheme doesn't correspond to the usual pitch names for wind instruments.

"D" instruments include: D whistle, C descant recorder, C concert flute, C melody sax, C Italian ocarina, G clarinet in the low register, C clarinet in the high register.

"A" instruments include: A whistle, Highland pipes at notated pitch, G alto recorder, G sopranino recorder, G alto flute, G Italian ocarina, and G clarinet in its high register.

"G" instruments are the G whistle, F alto recorder, F sopranino recorder, and C clarinet in its low register.

"F" instruments include the Bb clarinet in its low register (in its high register it's a "C" instrument).

I have a few other pitches, like a C# clarinet and a C# Italian ocarina - exercise left to the reader. Highland pipes at sounding pitch are a "Bb" instrument, which is the way Breton pipe music is notated.

Keep that scheme in your head and you can sight-read pretty near anything for any instrument in any key and any transposition.