Waltz Dilemma

Subject: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 02:18 PM

I can remember quite clearly sitting in a session some years ago and an accordionist played Southwind, probably in the key of G, followed by another waltz. I can remember the pub I was in, who I was with and some other stuff not pertinent to this request. What I can't remember is the tune that came next. It was a waltz. It had two parts. I suspect it was in the key of D. In the second part, first time through, what I expected to be an Em became E major. The second time through it didn't. Can anyone suggest what the title might be?

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 02:52 PM

I am familiar with The Sound Wind as a song. I wouldn't regard the tune as really a waltz, though it can be played as one. If it is played as a waltz it could reasonably be followed by pretty well any other waltz. So we need to focus on the strange key sequence: D major to E major first time then E minor next time. That does seem very odd.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 03:18 PM

I'm not sure that it went from D to E major. In the key of D it got to E major, but I can't remember how. I do remember that the E major was a surprise, I think that the melody note must have been G# and that was what signaled the E major chord.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 03:59 PM

South Wind is a waltz as far as I'm concerned. A common partner-tune is Carolan's Planxty Irwin, also waltzish, which often comes first.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 04:11 PM

I know, and like, Planxty Irwin. In my mind that is linked with Fanny Powers. It's not the tune I remember following Southwind, but thanks for the reply.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Jones
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 08:25 PM

It's not in 3/4, but the Tom Anderson slow tune Da Slockit Light is in D and makes a quick visit to E major the first time near the beginning of the second part.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 08:59 PM

I know. It has an accidental near the end of the A part that forces me to use my hated chromatic harmonica. ;-)

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 13 Jan 19 - 09:09 PM

Thanks for that Steve. I remember that tune and it does exactly the same thing as the tune I'm after but, of course, it's not in 3/4.

Cheers.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 04:53 AM

Sorry for te typo "The Sound Wind" in my previous post.

Also sorry for being slow on the uptake about the change to E major. I was thinking the OP meant a change to the key of E major but I now realise that (as in Da Slockit Light) it's just an E major chord, implying a momentary modulation into A. Quite a few tunes do that (or the equivalent accidental C sharp from the key of G, etc).

Both the Carolan tunes mentioned, Planxty Irwin and Fanny Power, can be played as waltzes but I'm sure they weren't written as waltzes, as (AFAIK) the waltz wasn't invented until a century after Carolan's time.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 05:21 AM

It could be that the term wasn't invented but there's no doubt that 3/4 tunes used for dancing have existed for hundreds of years. Unless you pull the rhythm around all over the place, not impossible I suppose, Fanny Power and Planxty Irwin are always going to sound waltziferous when played at the tempos you usually hear these days, even though Carolan might not have conceived them as such.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 05:28 AM

Hi Richard. It's a good few years ago now, but back then I used to go to tunes sessions two or three times a week. I know both Planxty Irwin and Fanny Powers and quite a few other Carolan tunes. I also remember Da Slockit Light although I didn't remember it's name. That tune does everything I remember regarding the G# except that I don't remember a tempo change from 3/4 to 4/4 and I think I would have remembered that. Thanks anyway.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 05:49 AM

Da Slockit Light is a 4/4 tune. There is no hint of waltziness in the tune.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 01:46 PM

Back in the '80's our session group used to play South Wind and then straight into Give Me Your Hand (Tabhair Dom Do Lamh) which has an accidental, a natural F high note in the second part. We used to do it in the key of G Major.

I think that sometimes it helps to know when or where you heard the tune, because different regions of the world can have different preferences of which tune goes with which other tune in a set, or preferences change over time.

I think somehow we later switched to playing The Munster Cloak instead of Give Me Your Hand.

Now we have a set with South Wind, Fanny Power and Josephine's Waltz.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 02:34 PM

So from D to E major in chords rather than keys, you're talking about what I call "double sharping" or 2 steps up "the rule of fives", which is a very common ruse in many compositions, i.e. D > A > E then probably resolves back to D via an A7.
Sorry if that doesn't help finding the mysterious waltz!

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 03:49 PM

I'm beginning to wonder if Da Slockit Light was the second tune but not to Southwind. Maybe it was the second tune to another in 4/4 time. You, collectively, have come up with a few partner tunes to Southwind, what do you have that goes with, perhaps before, Da Slockit Light? Maybe a tune with 'wind' in the title.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 04:49 PM

What sort of session was this, i.e. how mixed in genre? Swedish tunes often do that dominant-of-the-dominant thing.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 05:05 PM

It was somewhere in the Greater Manchester area, possibly in Cheshire, I forget the name of the pub. It was a tunes session. Back then the tunes sessions around Manchester were predominantly Irish, English sessions were rare.

I'm beginning to think that the tune I was looking for was Da Sockit Light but the tune that went before it was not Southwind. It was probably Irish in origin with a similar feel and tempo.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 05:41 PM

As I said, there are many tunes that have a momentary modulation with the 4th of the main key sharpened. Some of them may very well be in waltz (or other 3/4) time, even if none of us have thought of one yet.

Actually, as I wrote that I thought of one that I play, but it's in G with a momentary modulation to D, and it's Swedish, so not the most likely to have been played on the occasion that the OP is remembering. (And no, I'm afraid I don't know its name.)

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 05:53 PM

Da Slockit Light is a standalone tune in m'humble.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 Jan 19 - 08:38 PM

Totally agreed there Steve: and slow: it is a lament after all.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 12:29 AM

Now that's what I call shifting the goalposts. Not a waltz, not South Wind.

One way to attack it is to do searches on what tunes have been paired with the one you are interested in. Searching on web based videos or on online music stores might be a good place to start.

Good luck!

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 06:57 AM

While they don't change on the repeat, two other non-waltzes with a prominent dominant-of-the-dominant are St Anne's Reel and the B part of the Bluebell Polka (the original and as Shand played it, English players miss this).

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 08:49 AM

Tom Anderson recorded Da Slockit Light himself (on the CD with Aly Bain). Only a bit slower than normal march tempo, nothing like a lament.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 09:56 AM

Helen wrote: Now that's what I call shifting the goalposts. Not a waltz, not South Wind.

I know but Da Slockit Light fits so well. and I think that was the second tune, and, as the tempo and time signature didn't change Southwind must be wrong.

Jack, I know both St Anne's Reel and the Bluebell Polka and it's not either of them. I remember the pace as being a lot slower than a reel or a polka. As you go on to say it was slower than a march and faster than a lament.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 12:23 PM

Da Slockit Light / Sandy River Belle

Tom Anderson: Da Slockit Light, Auld Resting Chair

Twin Fiddles: Jim Eagan and Ken Kolodner: Da Slockit Light and Journey to the Heartland

Anna Armstrong - Da Slockit Light, Stirling Castle Strathspey & Franks Reel

etc etc

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Stanron
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 03:29 PM

Thanks for that Helen. Those are three examples of starting with a slow tune and following with faster stuff. I'm pretty sure that Da Stockit Light was the second of two similarly timed tunes. I've been looking through the Session site at all the tunes with 'Wind' in the title but no luck so far.

Cheers

Stan.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jan 19 - 05:31 PM

Auld Resting Chair is another standalone tune in m'humble. We shouldn't automatically succumb to the obsession with medley.

Subject: RE: Waltz Dilemma
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Jan 19 - 04:42 PM

Have to agree with you there, Steve, and for Da Slockit Light, Shingly Beach, Jacqueline's Waltz and others of Tom Anderson's lovely tunes.
We have some weird polka following Da Auld Resting Chair in one of our band sets: absolutely no need for it, but wasn't my decision to add said polka on!