tell me what this tune from Sharp is

Subject: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 11:59 AM

  X:0
  T:English tune
  S:Lajos Vargyas, Folk Music of the Hungarians, 2005
  M:3/4
  L:1/8
  Q:1/4=120 % guesswork
  K:C
  % major phrygian scale on G
   cc |(cB) G2  cc  |(cB) G2
   Bc | d2  g2 (f_e)| d4
  (gf)|(dc) B2  dc  |(BA) G2
   BB | c2  AG  F2  | G4  |]

Vargyas says it comes from Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs from Somerset, 1905-1909, p.92, but it's in a list of unnamed comparative examples. Could somebody look that up and tell me the title in Sharp?

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Bernard
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:10 PM

Sounds to me like the Saucy Sailor...

I'll go and check!

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Bernard
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:12 PM

Yep... it's in the DT:

Here

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:24 PM

Thanks!

The Wild Rover in bellbottoms, who'd ha thunk it.

Very unusual tune (for the British Isles, anyway).

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:33 PM

In Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs ed Karpeles, it looks like version F of the song, (given on D rather than G) and that BB starting your last line above was a single note, B2 in your transcription. (I haven't got Folk Songs From Somerset, so it's possible it was printed differently there). It was collected from Abraham Laurance at Ilminster, 8th April 1906.

Mick

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Anglo
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 12:54 PM

What on earth is "major phrygian scale in G" supposed to mean? I've always thought this tune was somewhat ambiguous: it could certainly be on a tonal center of G, but to my ear it could also be considered to be on C, ending on the 5th. Either way, it escapes the standard mode categories, with a major 3rd and flat 6th (on G). A salient characteristic of phrygian is a flat 2nd, and this tune doesn't have that.

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 01:24 PM

The terminology is Vargyas's. Logical enough - major tetrachord at the bottom, phrygian tetrachord at the top. It's one of the modes of the overtone scale - G A B c# d e f g. Fairly common in Hungarian and Romanian music but I've only found one other example from the British Isles.

Vargyas calls your mode on C "melodious minor", but this tune sounds centred on G to me.

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Anglo
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 03:01 PM

Thank you, Jack. I can certainly go along with G. I'm afraid what little theory I have doesn't extend to this kind of analysis. But I can certainly see its usefulness for some of these "modes" that don't fit into the simple "white note" modal system used as a descriptor by Sharp, Bronson, etc.

Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Aug 09 - 03:47 PM

The scale on C (Vargyas' melodious minor) is of course what we would recognise as the ascending part of the melodic minor scale.

Jazz musicians use the scale as minor-major, for playing over a minor chord with a major 7th (C Eb G B). The scale using the same notes but starting on G, the 5th mode of the ascending melodic minor, is (according to Levine's Jazz Theory) mainly used over that same CmMaj7 chord with G in the bass. Not relevant here, but interesting.

Mick