What was your first tune?

Subject: What was your first tune?
From: weepiper
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 11:33 AM

What was the first tune you learnt? Or the first song, if you're a singer?

The first traditional (i.e., non-school, purely for my own pleasure) tune I learnt was "Ca' the Ewes", on the recorder, when I was about 8 (I learnt it from my mum). And the first song I learnt properly was "Crazy Man Michael" when I was 12 (I learnt that from my dad).

How many people here have been doing this since they were little? How many only came to it in later life? I'm just interested because I went through an 8 or 9 year period where I completely lost interest in this scene, but came back to it with a vengeance when I hit 20.

Your thoughts (and tunes) please! :-)

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: khandu
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 11:54 AM

I had a Beatles song book which had the diagramed chords above the lyrics. I do not remember which song was the first I learned. However, I switched styles, learned to fingerpick. The first song that I learned to fingerpick was Mississippi John Hurt's Salty Dog Blues.

khandu

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 01:24 PM

The first tunes I learnt for public performance (singing at neighbours' doors in return for a ride on the milkman's horse and cart when was about 4 years old)were:

"What did the poor little moths live on when Adam and Eve were there"
and
"How can a guinea pig show he's pleased if he hasn't got a tail to wag"

I learned these songs at my mother's knee and she, in turn, learnt them from the horn of her uncle's wind up gramphone.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 01:33 PM

Hard to say, since I was singing from the time I was very small, but "Four Strong Winds" was the first "folk" tune that I really learned to play and sing in what I consider to be folk style.

- LH

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 01:48 PM

Possibly Frere Jacques or one of the other French songs taught to me by my French great-grandmother when I was about three or four years old. Or maybe Itsy Bitsy Spider or one of the other childrens' songs taught to me in English by my parents.

First tune I ever played on the piano (my first instrument) was probably Frere Jacques or Mary Had a Little Lamb or something like that when I was about four. And I do consider these folk tunes and songs.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,jonesey
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 02:08 PM

First song I ever performed publicly was 'Here Comes the Sun'. A good friend of mine suggested I come and sit in with his band on a Sunday afternoon, so I did. Sat there and played the song on the guitar player's Les Paul Jr.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Willa
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 02:58 PM

Here's the title of a similar recent thread
BS: The first song or poem you memorized

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,MarkF
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 05:03 PM

"My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains," on mountain dulcimer, at age 46.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 06:34 PM

Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound, 1968, on the Autoharp.

Don

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Helen
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 06:43 PM

First songs I wanted to play at home as well as in our primary school class band (on plastic whistles called Musettes) were When I Grow Too Old to Dream and Whispering Hope - which are probably not classified as folk. WIGTOTD was the first one I could pick out from memory, I think.

On the Celtic harp, it was Si Beag Si Mor, which I later found out was supposed to be the first song that Turlough O'Carolan wrote.

Helen

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: 53
Date: 14 Apr 02 - 10:49 PM

It must of been either Road Runner, or WhatI'd Say both of them were instrumentals on the electric guitar, and before that I was just learning the basics as fast as I could. I started to play in 1964 so that makes me an old man. I do love the guitar and I try to play some every day.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 12:22 AM

Beautiful Beautiful Brown Eyes -- D, D7, G and A painfully memorized.

A

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: C-flat
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 08:32 AM

"The Wreck Of The Antionette" was the first song I remember learning the words and music to. I'm struggling to remember who it was by but I guess it was released in the U.K. in the late 60's. It was certainly the first sheet music I bought, in the days when you could buy the music as easily as the records.(for a few pennies too)

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 08:52 AM

"Baa Baa Black Sheep", I suspect. Or maybe "Won't you Buy my Pretty Flowers."

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Gervase
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 09:20 AM

The first song is so back in the mists of time that I haven't a clue - my mother was always singing stuff to me, so it went in with the milk, as it were.
The first song I sang in front of others (other than in a choir of chorus) was - I think - "Who's the Fool Now". And the first tune I picked out on the box was the "Winster Gallop"

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 09:28 AM

First public performance was at the West Buckland Women's Institute Annual Party c1958, dragged along by my mother. I played Greensleeves and sang Jesse James. Still doing both if the occasion demands.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: MMario
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 09:28 AM

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road" - I know I was less then 5 because my grandfather was still alive.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: SharonA
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 12:39 PM

The first tune I ever learned? Impossible to say (mayhap I even learned tunes from the womb as my mother sang them!). The first tune I ever played on an instrument? Likewise, impossible to say; I took piano lessons as a child but I don't recall the tunes I was taught, and of course I played (or played at playing) the usual childhood instruments such as harmonica.

But I do remember the first song I learned to play on guitar, when I first picked up a guitar at age 19 and asked a friend to teach me some chords and songs: "Eddystone Light".

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,Fiddlergirl, cookieless
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 01:14 PM

Well, I suppose that would be "twinkle twinkle" on the violin when I was three... when I made the switch from classical at age nine, the first tune I learned was "the swallowtail jig".

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: weepiper
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 02:35 PM

Good stuff guys.

As a clarification I meant the first song or tune you made a conscious decision "I'm going to LEARN that! And then do it in public!" as opposed to the sorts of things everybody learns by osmosis (likes of eensy weensy spider etc) or has forced upon them at school (recorder group all playing Kum Ba Yah slightly out of tune/time with each other). :-)

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,Hilary, not logged in
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 03:04 PM

The first song I ever sang in public was Lonely/Lonesome Traveller. I picked that song to learn because - I like it, & I wanted a song could get through despite the total panic I knew I would be in, as it wouldn't matter too much if I did the verses in the wrong order or missed one out.

Now I have a go with a guitar as well I must put some chords to it. I have a tendency to pick mostly totally-bloody-miserable songs, so an up-beat song could come in handy.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: allanwill
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 03:08 PM

When I were a lad, and where I came from, the first song any budding guitar player learned was House of the Rising Sun (Animals version).

Allan

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Crane Driver
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 03:19 PM

First folk song I learned (before I even knew there was something called folksong, whatever it is (now, now, Andrew, don't go down THAT road again)) was a version of The Barley Mow that I heard on the bus during a school holiday field course, Easter 1964. I still sing it, and occasionally get it right.

First tune I learned on the box was probably Sheperd's Hey (morris tune).

Andrew

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: JeZeBeL
Date: 15 Apr 02 - 06:16 PM

The first tune I learnt was Saint Louis Blues on the trumpet at the age of 9 when I was in a scout and guide marching band.........woah....did I just admit to that?

the first folk tune I learnt was on whistle at the age of 4 "Seven Drunken Nights" by the Dubliners......my god did i just admit to that too?

Well, the first proper folk tune I learnt was Rose in the Heather 2 years ago when I started playing again after rebelling against the whole folk music scene for 17 years!! that's what the Dubliners and sea shantys do to you......enough to drive anyone away from folk music lol!! I love it now though......my all time favourite tune has to be Hommage or tanteeka though.

Emma xxx

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 11:13 PM

in a folk club, the first song i ever sang unaccompanied, solo, on my own before an audience was 'the wager' from an old 'johnstons' lp, circa 1968.

then about 1970, my 1st proper guitar- with 6 strings! i'd also fiddled around with a 'c' mouth organ & could play along to 'temperance 7' 'jazz' records.

some of the 1st songs i did with guitar was 'toms dooley'& 'shoals of herring'

in between fiddled about with tin whistles- not enough puff- no sucking!

but i got to play 'the lincolnshire poacher' + ''greensleeves'+ more.

then a big gap- college- more college- child rearing- more college.

then morris dancing- then learning melodeon- 'skip to ma loo' + 'in & out the windows'

so i've been singing songs, playing tunes, ever since.

tonight, [monday 8 july 02] i was at wiggy's house with my other pal jim. we were having a gay old time[ like the flintstones] playing songs together.

wiggy's recently acquired a concertina[ his other instruments are 5 string banjo- broken skin at the moment - some pliers fell on it- mandolin,& bogdrain]

anyway, i had a go on his concertina- anglo g/c - & found i can pick out tunes reasonably easily- even with accompaniment!

strangely it was like 'deja vue'- i found myself playing 'skip to ma loo' + 'in 'n out the windows' again; but was also able to provide some meaningful additions to franks mandolin 'n jims banjo 'n guitar.

most satisfactory!

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 11:28 PM

First tune I learnt was Clair de lune, (on piano), this was a long, long time ago, and no I can't play the piano!

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Bert
Date: 08 Jul 02 - 11:56 PM

The first song which I consciously learned when I was around 3 or maybe 4 was, Horsey, horsey don't you stop.

First sang in public on stage at age 9 was The Old Dun Cow.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 01:02 AM

I remember learning House of the Rising Sun at 13 or so. If I hadn't taken a ten year break between that one and the next (Long Black Veil, I think) I'd probably be a Hell of a lot better guitarist today. :) Bruce

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Jeanie
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 01:32 AM

The first "tune" in my piano book consisted of one note, middle C, played over and over. It had words to it "Bang,bang,bang on the big bass drum". Song No. 2 was Middle C and D, "Froggies croaking in the pool". From then on in, I continued to drive my parents crazy.

First folk song I learned for public consumption, aged 16 or so, was "Queen Eleanor's Confession" (mercifully unaccompanied - my guitar playing has never got much further than page 6 of Bert Weedon's Play-A-Tune-A-Day).

- jeanie

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 01:39 AM

I started on the 5-String banjo using The Murphy Method. Therefore (and other Murphy students will understand this) the first tune I learned was "Banjo in The Holler" (and there you have it).

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 01:44 AM

Three Blind Mice, School Recorder book 1.

Barely sang at all until I was 9, was inaudible almost. I got encouraged by a teacher with the words 'I've heard you being louder in the playground, I want to hear you be as loud now'.... and so I sang out and deafened her... the rest, as they say, is history.

LTS

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 01:46 AM

Johnny - If you "learned" Clair de Lune on the piano - but now you can't play it - HOW could have "learned" it?

You learned the English alphabet - have you forgotten it? You learned to speak - have you frogotten how to use your tongue for utterances. You learned to type on a keyboard - have you ...well... never mind

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 02:02 AM

Gargoyle, you dear, in my l o n g life I have discovered that the qualities of others that bother one are those one is afraid one has oneself. Comprende?

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Genie
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 02:54 AM

My mom tells me I tried to sing along with "Amapola" when I was about 18 mo. old. The first song I ever learned all the way through was probably some nursery rhyme or "Jesus Loves Me."

First folk song I ever played on guitar was probably "Tom Dooley" or "Billy Barlow."

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:46 PM

The first song - Who Killed Cock Robin? really scary when its sung as a lullaby! (with actions!!) First performance - I'm a blue toothbrush (my sister was the pink toothbrush) sung as our 'party piece' at household singarounds which encompassed folk song, music hall, world war songs (1 & 11) and popular/parody, out of tune piano, comb and paper, spoons and lots of booze!!

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 04:46 PM

The first song - Who Killed Cock Robin? really scary when its sung as a lullaby! (with actions!!) First performance - I'm a blue toothbrush (my sister was the pink toothbrush) sung as our 'party piece' at household singarounds which encompassed folk song, music hall, world war songs (1 & 11) and popular/parody, out of tune piano, comb and paper, spoons and lots of booze!!

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: bet
Date: 09 Jul 02 - 07:05 PM

When I was in the 3rd grade my father decieded I should learn the uke. So guess what I got for Christmas. As I remember it I was thrilled with it and it fit much better than the guitar. I've since graduated to a baritone uke, guitar, dulcimere, violin and with effort a fiddle. My first performing song was Little Brown Jug. I've yet to figure out why that's the 1st song my dad taught me unless it was the ease of chords, how knows.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Jul 02 - 11:46 AM

No idea what the first song I learned was, but the first tune I made up was for the AAMilne poem about Timothy Tim, which I used to sing to, oddly enough, Timothy.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 10 Jul 02 - 11:53 AM

"The Keeper Did aHunting Go". True, it was in the second grade at school but I must have liked it a lot if I still remember the words.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: X
Date: 10 Jul 02 - 08:45 PM

"Wild Wood Flower"

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,CBJames
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 09:09 PM

Conscious Effort?

Well it varied with the instrument I was learning at the time.

1960 - Ukelele - Tom Dooley 1964 - Guitar - Greenback Dollar, Where Have All the Flowers Gone & House Carpenter 1975 - Banjo - Shady Grove, Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia 1980 - Clarinet - Tuxedo Junction, Flat Foot Floogy and da Floy Floy 1982 - Tin Whistle - Begin the Beguine, Pachobel's Canon 1992 - Piano - all the other stuff left behind or half picked up. especially Rock & Roll - Chuck Berry, Beatles, Stones.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 12:19 AM

THE DEATH OF QUEEN JANE"

(only kidding)--no pun intended... ;-)

Really, it was "Darlin' Corey" --- and we (2 other guys and me picking my $10.00 Stella) at the U. of Illinois -- 1959. Harmonized it ala The Weavers.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: TeriLu
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 01:31 AM

Scarlet Ribbons a capella first,(later with guitar) on guitar - Gypsy Rover, Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound, Greensleeves, Someday Soon

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,Keith Hudson
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 05:40 AM

The first song I ever sang in a club was the "Toe-a-tapper" song, closely followed by "Navvy Boots"

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,John Hernandez
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 11:48 AM

I can't remember when I started chording along, but I do remember the first tunes I learned to pick on each instrument. Flat picking guitar: Wildwood Flower. Finger picking guitar: Railroad Bill. Five-string banjo (bum-titty Seeger style): Hard Ain't It Hard. Five-string banjo (three finger Scruggs style): Jesse James. Mandolin: Hard Ain't It Hard.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 01:29 AM

I am re-opening this old thread as it relates to another posting that I made tonight.
When I was a baby my mother would sing to me.............nothing strange about that. However instead of lullabies she found that I would shut my yap much quicker if she sang the old train disaster ballads.
Therefore, my lullabies were songs like the Wreck Of The Old 97, Number 9, and Jim Blake.
Today, after attending a funeral , I sang "The Wreck of The Old '97" at a concert and afterwards I was thinking about having never learned this song, as in my memory it was always there. When I pass away, perhaps someone will sing it once again for me.
               Sandy

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Johnny in OKC
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 03:14 AM

At my first piano recital, age 8, I graced those present
with the following selections from my vast repertoire:

   Edvard Grieg ... The Sailors' Song

   Ludwig van Beethoven ... Für Elise

   Robert Schumann ... The Wild Horseman

Note the exquisite balance between the virile and the
more sensitive, combined with a thrilling dénouement.

I was received (as I recall) with a thundering Standing
Ovation, and three curtain calls.

At the same recital, my sister, age 6, played
Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, all three movements.
She doesn't play any more.

Love, Johnny

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 12:11 PM

Vocal: Good Night Irene
Strumming: Sloop John B (E, A, B7)
Finger Picking: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Allan C.
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 12:32 PM

When I was an infant there was a music box (former container for a powder puff) at cribside that played "Brahms' Lullabye". That had to be the first tune I learned. As a toddler, I am sure I sang along with whatever was on the radio, including "Shrimp Boats Are A'Comin'" and "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?". The first song I learned to play on the guitar was "Jingle Bells" followed quickly by "End of the Rainbow". My first public performance, in duet with my good friend, Keith Behner, featured "Red River Valley" and "South Wind".

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 01:51 PM

When the organ started up - the first time I went to church - I belted forth with " Open the Door, Richard" ( a popular hit of the day). I remember singing "The Ash Grove" with my school choir at some formal event, and the first song I sang in a folk club(1965)was " The Deportees" learnt from the album "Cisco Houston sings the songs of Woody Guthrie".

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 02:29 PM

Can't remember the first song I ever learnt, but the first song I ever learned to accompany on guitar (at the age of 11) was "Old Folks at Home".

And I have been singing politically incorrect songs ever since ...

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Kaleea
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 01:54 AM

First song I remember singing was "Hound Dog" at age 2. I was gyrating in an Elvis-like manner & singing in the hallway of our little house in a smalltown in the mid-west. First song I performed was "Fairest Lord Jesus" at age 3 1/2 as my mother had me stand on a chair & sing for church.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Flash Company
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 11:35 AM

First tune, Miners Dream of Home, which my gran taught me to play on a button key accordion.
First tune played in public, probably Blaydon Races, aged about 12 yrs on a coach trip to Blackpool, on a mouthorgan.
First song sung in public, The Rocks of Bawn, Linotype Folk Club in Altrincham Cheshire, about 1972.

FC

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 09:24 PM

My baby book does not pick out any one song as first, but it says (in my mother's hand, ca. 1940),

By 2 1/2 years, knew about 25 nursery rhymes, same most of them, carrying tunes perfectly.

_Hymns_
Lead Kindly Light
Jesus Bids Us Shine
Blessed Jesus
Silent Night

Frere Jacques
Au Claire de la Lune
Aupres de ma Blonde

Kommt a Vogel
Muss i denn
Ah wie ist's moeglich
Von meinem Bergli
Guten Abend Gute Nacht

Oifn Pripitchok
Rozhenkes mit Mandeln

Come, Let's Play We're Indians
Here Comes the Sandman
Lovely May

The first song I ever *heard* was almost surely Rozhenkes mit Mandeln, mentioned above. I have the text, in my mother's hand, that she learned it from while in the hospital to have me.

On my own, I remember that my favorite tune on the jukebox, when I was about 3, was St Louis Blues. It was No. 4 and cost a nickel.

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: GUEST,Anne Croucher
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 10:01 PM

If my song book is to be believed, 'the nightingales sing' was my first folk song - written down in 1969 when I was a student in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England along with guitar chords.

Of course there were lots of other people's songs, some of which I have added to my book, there are over 200 songs in my book now. They are mine in that they are songs which I wanted to sing, so I wrote them down and practised them.

Anne Croucher

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: Damon
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 10:56 PM

Gimme All your Lovin' - ZZ TOP

on drum kit...YEEEEHAA!

Subject: RE: What was your first tune?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 11:46 PM

The first tune that I learnt to play on the piano was the first one in my piano tutor book - I can't remember the name, but will always remember the words. It was played with both thumbs.

"I am C,
Middle C.
Left hand,
Right Hand,
Middle C".

Robin
(You think I'm making this up, don't you?)