Tune Add: Rockin' My Babies to Sleep / Rock All...

Subject: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 05:05 PM

Somebody asked for some good news, so here it is.

Two weeks ago, three friends and I took a vacation from Missouri to far-off Arkansas (the next state south.) How nice it was! Beautiful ridges, forests, clear streams. A fine cave (Blanchard Springs), diamond-hunting (we didn't find any), the Crystal Bridges Museum, nice people. We even found a gear nobody knew we had: Sport, for those heart-stopping downslopes.

One evening we attended a show at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View and were part of the radio audience. I asked in the gift shop for a CD of music that was sweet-sounding and played in tune, and the clerk looked at me wildly as if I were talking in Greek. But she recovered and suggested a CD by a young group called Possum Juice.

Possum Juice played a lovely waltz called "Rocking the Babies to Sleep", and I vowed to learn it. The ABC and the sheet music can be found on thesession.org   (click on Tunes, enter title)

Here's the ABC:

X: 1
T: Rock All Our Babies To Sleep
R: waltz
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
z2 z2 FG | A2 B3 A | |G2 A2 G2 | (F2A,3 D) | F4 FG|
F2 E2 F2 |1,3 G2 F2 G2 | B4A2 | F4 :|2,4 G3F E2 | D6- | D4 :|
FG | A2f3 A| B2 g4 | Af- fg fd | A4 cd |
c2 E3 F | G3 F G2 |1,3 B4 A2 | F4 :|2,4 G3F E2 | D6- | D4 :|

The z2's signify two rests. The tune then starts with two pick-up notes, each one an eighth.

It is a surprisingly sophisticated tune. I'll be back with another link.

Subject: RE: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 05:08 PM

Here's a YouTube of it. This player gets the unusual measure 19 right, but how he could hope to put babies to sleep at that tempo and with that raucous tone, I do not know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Nj_Usw3OY

Subject: RE: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 06:01 PM

Sounds familiar, maybe I've heard a variant under another name.

Not many ABC implementations can deal with quadruple repeats like that - most of the code you'll see on the web that does it was uploaded by John Chambers, who has his own private software. Using the part notation avoids the need to do it, and makes it clearer what's going on. And I think you've added an extra bar in the second part by moving the start of the variant repeat - the fidder in the video you linked to does it as I have it below.

X:3
T:Rock All Our Babies To Sleep
R:waltz
M:3/4
L:1/8
P:AABB
K:D
P:A
FG|A2 B3  A|   G2 A2 G2|(F2  A,3 D)|F4
FG|F2 E2 F2|[1 G2 F2 G2| B4     A2 |F4:|\
            [2 G3  F E2| D6-       |D4||
P:B
FG|A2 f3  A|   B2 g4   | Af- fg fd |A4
cd|c2 E3  F|[1 G3  F G2| B4     A2 |F4:|\
            [2 G3  F E2| D6-       |D4|]

This is presumably from the Henry Reed collection in the American Memory archive at the Library of Congress. If it's like the other Reed stuff I've looked at there, there will be ten recordings of it, all different.

Subject: RE: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 08:31 PM

I'm nearsighted, and my glasses correct that, but the area that I see clearly is small. Therefore, it's hard for me to see where repeats start and end. Fortunately God gave us MIDI, and I simply prepare songs that go right down the page, with no leaping here and there.

If any members want such easy-to-read sheet music for this piece, send me a PM.

Subject: RE: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 08:49 PM

You'll find mine is easy to read if you run it through a staff notation converter. One of the main reasons I do ABC transcriptions is to get something I can play from without having to read it from six inches away - klezmer in particular is rife with crap typesetting.

Anyway, thanks for the pointer to this one. Nice, though like you I am not fond of that performance.

Subject: RE: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Oct 17 - 10:13 PM

I'm glad you like it.

Subject: RE: good news + tune add: Rockin the babies
From: leeneia
Date: 14 Oct 17 - 03:13 PM

Language note: a woman was quoted in today's newspaper, and she referred to her 41-year-old son as her baby. Admittedly, it was in a quite emotional moment.