Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Ron Davies
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 10:49 PM

Grishka--


Thanks for posting the Dvorak.   Some of his chamber music is indeed haunting. And I was not familiar with this one.

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 06:12 AM

Forgot to sign, sorry.

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jul 13 - 06:12 AM

See also the beginning of Dvořák's violin sonatina op. 100, composed 1893 in New York City.

"Marches" in 3/4 time do not seem to be too popular outside Scotland, since soldiers of less musical training may find it difficult to decide which measures to start with which foot. The same problem arises at gay waltzing balls.

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 01:18 PM

"nothing like any waltz"




As I said, you can easily waltz to "Clementine".   You should try it sometime.   Might help to loosen up.

Perhaps it's never been done in the UK. But I doubt it.

To coin a phrase, "Facts are stubborn things".

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 12:26 PM

The rhythm of "Clementine" is nothing like any waltz and very close to 3/4 marches like "Lochanside" or "When the Battle's O'er". The dotted-pair downbeat is what gives it the military feel.

(All the ABC for "Clementine" I can find on the web puts the downbeat on what I would think of as beat 2 - is it always notated that way?)

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 12:17 PM

Come to think of it, this may be one of the first folk songs I ever learned, although I didn't know it was a folk song back then. It was just a song.

I learned it from my older sister when I was a kid. Where she learned it, I don't know. Probably in school?

I was maybe eight years old.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 12:06 PM

"Oh My Darling, Clementine" is an American western folk ballad in trochaic metre usually credited to Percy Montrose (1884), although it is sometimes credited to Barker Bradford. The song is believed to have been based on another song called "Down by the River Liv'd a Maiden" by H. S. Thompson (1863)."

More information HERE.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 11:50 AM

"march rhythm"?   You can easily waltz to "Clementine".    Seems clear it's in 3.

It's not, in fact , " Cwm Rhondda", though that tune has been appropriated for "Clementine" --and works perfectly, as you know.

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 04:44 AM

I wonder if the common origin could be a military march? The march rhythm in "Clementine" isn't otherwise common in folk songs, and the hymn tune mutes it.

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Haruo
Date: 27 Jul 13 - 02:28 AM

I am sort of wondering if the reason Ovio is so little used in the hymnal tradition that used a lot of now-passé Mason tunes is simply that people couldn't quite bring themselves to sing something that sounded so much like "Clementine" with a serious, "sacred" text. Sort of the way for a generation or two people were put off "Austria" because it made them think of Hitler and Kaiser Wilhelm ("Deutschland über alles").

I've also been pondering the similarity between the St. Olaf fight song ("Um Yah Yah") and the Esperanto waltz "Ĉe Kongresa Balo" (MIDI)... (I also hear "My name is Yon Yonson" in there...)

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 04:05 PM

Far too close to be just coincidence IMHO. The melody of Clementine is not the same as Ovio's, but is right there lurking in the harmony. The dates are right too, I haven't got them to hand but |I'm sure the Mason hymn was known before Clementine appeared. The similarity has often been noted. Of course, Mason may have got his tune from a source that also led to Clementine; just because he got in first with publication doesn't prove he composed the tune from scratch.

Subject: RE: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 11:31 AM

I think it's just coincidence, Haruo. There's a similarity in the first few measures, but Ovio starts on mi and Clementine starts on do. After that, the two tunes are different.

Subject: Ovio / Clementine (tune origins)
From: Haruo
Date: 25 Jul 13 - 01:10 AM

There's a hymn tune called OVIO by Lowell Mason that starts out so similar to the traditional tune of "Clementine" that it makes me wonder if one is derivative of the other, and if so which of which.

OVIO (page scan)

CLEMENTINE (DT GIF)