Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl

Subject: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 05:33 AM

Is the flattened note in the C part of Horses Brawl - which sounds good - what is actually written, or does the note get changed for effect?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 05:55 AM

Branle des chevaux started doing the rounds in folk circles after its inclusion in Mart Heijmans' 'Pijpersboek', published in 1985. I suppose it must have been around before that but most versions played today would go back to that, one way or another.

The answer to your question 'what's written' lies there I think unless a known composer can be found for it.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 06:06 AM

It's in the original. You can download a copy of Arbeau's Orchesographie from IMSLP: Orchesographie (click the arrow next to Complete Book to download it; You can also get the notation for all the tunes from the other download options).

The B. des Chevaulx (Branle des Chevaux - Horse's Brawl) is on pp177-179 of the pdf (No. 88 at top of page). The music for the 3rd part is the bit on it's side on the 2nd and 3rd of those pages - turn the book anticlockwise 90 degrees. The flat is marked, as is the f# later.

Mick

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 06:27 AM

Nice to know I have been getting it right all these years!

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 07:56 AM

is this the tune which always makes me think of Wilson, Keppel & Betty?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 08:13 AM

It's a beautiful piece of music.

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

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 08:36 AM

On the 1977 Albion Dance Band album, The Prospect Before, The Horse's Brawl is played with B naturals not B flats in the third part, and it sounds just as good. But yes, in Orchesographie they are B flats - I play it both ways, for variation.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 11 Sep 19 - 03:22 PM

yes, that's the one- where's my nightie?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,Evadne
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 02:06 AM

The problem comes when not everyone in the session agrees on the various sharps and flats.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: BobL
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 03:19 AM

The problem comes when not everyone has the accidental in question or the corresponding chord.
This particularly affects melodeonists.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 03:40 AM

In sessions the tune that usually gets played (Melodeon excepted) is what I ask for as "Horses Brawl in the key of GG" amid groans (correct response - thanyou) but hidden in there is the real joke, it should be in GG or to be more accurate but still phonetic Gg.

The follow-on tune is often la Morresque - is that - "Hobby Horses Brawl"?

I'll get my pig's bladder..............

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 05:41 AM

Bobl - one method and that takes a bit of practice is to miss out the note - which could also be problematic if playing the tune solo or if nobody in the session has a chromatic instrument. - the problem I have as a whistle player is running out of notes in a tune and having to pause, jump up/down an octave or find another note in the related chord (sessions), or commit heresy by changing the tune slightly (solo).

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: leeneia
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 09:30 AM

Thanks for the link, Starship.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 01:25 PM

No problem with the B flats on my B/C melodeon!

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 03:20 PM

To me, (usually tenor banjo or mandolin), it's one you play whichever way the session goes.

The 3rd part of the Flogging Reel seems to me to be another that can go either way.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 05:25 PM

A deeper discussion is in Wikipedia under "musica ficta", where it is explained in lots of words that basically a good musician either knows the appropriate "inflection" or makes it up as s/he goes along.
Remember as well the notes played "in the olden days" were in modal "scales" probably using just intervals pitched from whatever "A" they were using, and so cannot be reproduced easily using instruments set up in equal temperament.
It is possible, though, that this wouldn't be noticed after a few pints of ale.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 05:33 PM

A simpler idea is the "tierce de picardie", where in a piece in a minor key, the final repeat ends on a major chord, often at the whim of the performer.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Sep 19 - 06:34 PM

Those B flats are not ficta. It's a straightforward change of mode. No ambiguity at all.

Arbeau gives two branles that have horse-stepping movements. Anybody these days do the other one, the Clog Branle?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 02:38 AM

I’ve always assumed it was the preponderance of diatonic melodeon players in sessions that has commonly sharpened that flattened third note. All others players typically start glancing around the room just before that part to gauge which we are going for, whilst they just brazenly steam on.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: John P
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 12:35 PM

I didn't know that the flatted third at the start of the C part is ever in question. Is this just diatonic players not making the appropriate modifications?

A change I've heard is the penultimate note played as a flatted seventh rather than a major seventh. I'd put it down to more diatonic disability, but the people I've heard doing it were playing chromatic hurdy-gurdies.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 19 - 02:57 PM

When I started going t sessions in the early seventies,the notes were never flattened (Is that the version in Playford?). It seemed to change after Malicorne recorded their version with the flattened notes.
Now it goes all mushy in sessions when we reach that bit.

Splott Man

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 14 Sep 19 - 07:06 PM

Oh Jack don't take on so! I only meant to suggest that it wasn't always necessary (or indeed possible, as some have pointed out) to play the notes as written, That's a very victorian concept.

Anyway-

Arbeau's dots may be the earliest version of this tune we have; but surely only represent how it was played in the ale-house where the tune was collected, or perhaps the interpretation of copyists? Which rather takes us back to the original question.

And without the discord (whether between instruments, or posters on mudcat). would it be folk music?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 04:51 AM

Add a D part and you has Jazz

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: John P
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 11:04 AM

I don't have a problem with tunes mutating over time, or with diatonic instruments having a slightly different version. What I don't like about this particular one is that staying major in the C part of the Bransle de Chevaux sucks. I mean, really, it takes away a big part of the point of the tune for me.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 11:10 AM

Have you heard the Albion Dance Band's version? I think it's superb. That's why I play it both ways!

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 11:39 AM

The C part goes along with an unusual bit of footwork, imitating horses stamping. Makes sense for the tune to be of different character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt40grKHkro

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 09:22 AM

did somebody ACTUALLY say
'it isn't really necessary to play the notes as written'
(post on 14 Sept)

can this enlightened view now be applied to all traditional music as well as this rather strange tune, please?
The result would be that we are ALL correct!!    QED

ps a New Year resolution beckons, maybe?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Stanron
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 09:41 AM

If you are referring to the flattened note in the third part then I would say that that note is not to be changed. There may be instruments that don't have that note. It is a flattened third and playing a natural third at that point would be wrong. It would clash if other people were playing and loose much of the point of the tune if playing solo.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 10:49 AM

B flats rule, OK? Love 'em!

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 01:24 PM

To B or not to B flat?

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Helen
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 02:07 PM

If there is one accidental in a session tune which I can't play without flipping a lever on my celtic harp, I will play a note one third up or down just to not clash with the accidental.

If it's one chord which doesn't work in the key I have set the harp in, I play the other notes in the chord and leave out the note which is a problem i.e. a problem if I don't want to flip the "flipping" lever up and then down again (or vice versa) in quick succession.

Horses Branle/Branle des chevaux is in our session tunes list.

On the subject of Branles or Bransles, I watched an interesting TV show just before Christmas: Lucy Worsley's Christmas Carol Odyssey - the interesting history of some of our best known Christmas carols.

I learned an interesting fact.

Branle de l'officiel (aka Ding Dong Merrily on High)

Here is the dance

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Mo the caller
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 02:55 PM

Two thoughts.
The dance in Arbeau (imitating horses) is not the dance Ceilidh dancers in the UK think of as Horses Brawl. Someone matched the next dance (horseman's brawl?) with HB tune.
It's not only the B flat that causes clashes and dissention in part C, it's also the F sharp. The copy I learnt from had F natural except the last which was played sharp, but some play B flat & F sharp for the whole of the C (Blowsabella?)

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 04:17 PM

There is another take on Bransle L'Official which you are not likely to see in a ceilidh or a carol service. It mutated into "The Celebrated Trumpet Tune", which was played on a pair of trumpets at Scottish criminal trials when the judge passed the sentence of death. The weird thing is that Scottish courts very rarely passed death sentences, in comparison to others of the time - and most of them were done on circuit, with the judge and his entourage travelling from town to town to deal with whatever cases had come up. But these two travelling trumpeters were always on the payroll just in case.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Dec 19 - 09:07 PM

@ Helen: yes I saw that programme: it was excellent,as was another one she did on the Tudor Christmas, which had quite in it about Mummers. Having been in a female Mummers' group myself, it was of interest. I also used to go to an international folk dance group some years back, where we used to dance to "Ding Dong" and other carols at our annual Christmas party.
And @ Mo: someone else mentioned using F nats (John P in Sept this year) tho
perhaps not where you were suggesting it. Jack could probably tell us what mode that is!

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 07:37 AM

The Bb is no problem on a melodeon if you have the right accidentals on the top buttons. Not all melodeons do.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 08:05 AM

It's probably the most boring tune in the world IMHO.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Gordon Jackson
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 11:31 AM

I think that, given the level of debate about it, not everyone finds it boring. Of course, how you play a tune can be just as important as the tune itself.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 02:12 PM

You are probably right Gordon, I got turned off it by a guitarist in McCrory's Bar in Bradford, he was an excellent instrumentalist but he made ' The Hoses Brawl ' last 12 minutes, by which time I had lost the will to live.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 08:17 PM

Well too much of a good thing can kill you too. LOL

Here is our very own Will Fly on guitar performing
Horse's Branle

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 08:20 PM

Oops. Sorry. I'll have to adjust my eyes - will Fly on mandolin.

My IOL's (Intraocular lenses) must have slipped briefly out of place.

Subject: RE: Enquiry: Re: Horses Brawl
From: Helen
Date: 30 Dec 19 - 08:21 PM

No, retract all of that. Tricksy Will the musical magician! That's what you get when you listen to - but don't watch - videos while typing Mudcat responses.