Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?

Subject: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 04:58 PM

Hi folks. I've been trying to learn The Criel Ship's Captain, but the A L Lloyd version I have is so sloooow and a bit too high for me and I'm really struggling to memorise the tune, or to pick it out on an instrument. Can anyone supply the dots, or an ABC file or a link?

Thanks

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Mar 07 - 05:44 PM

This any good? Fits the way I sing it, anyway.

I can't imagine doing it any faster without losing the whole point.

X:1
T:The Cruel Ship's Captain
S:my memory of the way it appeared in RVW's "Norfolk Rhapsody"
M:none
L:1/4
Q:1/4=150
K:B dorian
E|F2F E2F|    D2 B,    A,2 |B,3||
B,|DF   A2F |(3::2BA2    (3FAE |F3||
B,|DF (3ABc |(3::2B2A (5::3FGA3|B3||
F|E2 CB,|A,3 B,|C2 A,2|C2 ED|B,4||

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 02:51 AM

Thanks

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 07:07 AM

Is this for the song ANDRROS3 The Cruel Ship's Captain? That is the only song that came up with that phrase, but I suspect there are other songs with that title/line.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: GUEST, Mikefule
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 04:37 PM

A poor boy was bound to me apprentice
Because his parents they were poor
So I took him from St. James's workhouse
For to sail on the Greenland Shore

One day that poor boy he did annoy me
Nothing to him then did I say
but I rushed him to my frozen yard arm
And there I left him, 'til the very next day...

And so on in a similar gruesome vein. That one. :0)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 05:40 PM

That's the one. thanx. I wouldn't want to attach it to the wrong song.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 07:24 PM

It's the only one of that name here, though it's more usually called 'The Captain's Apprentice'. The DT file already has a link to a midi that I sent in years ago. It was made directly from Vaughan Williams' notation of James Carter's singing (King's Lynn, Norfolk, 1905).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Mar 07 - 07:46 PM

Malcolm's MIDI is at

http://www.mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/Cruel_Ships_Captain1.mid

Either RVW's arrangement or my memory rewrote it a bit, particularly at the start. I am folkie enough to prefer the rewrite.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 10:00 AM

I once borrowed a book with a title such as "Melodies of the Child Ballads" via interlibrary loan. In it were the plots for the old ballads and the melodies that had been collected for them. One ballad might have, I dunno, ten melodies.

My point is that people sang these songs to many melodies. If they didn't like a tune a couldn't remember it, they made up a new one.

I think that if you don't like the tune you're aware of, then you make up a new one that's good for you.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 12:06 PM

Not in this case, the original isn't just any old tune, it's wildly dramatic and fits the words brilliantly.

You are thinking of one of Bronson's collections. One of Bronson's main points is that most of the time the tunes used were closely related variants, not something newly invented.

In recent years there's been a plague of singers writing new tunes for old ballads (Kate Rusby has done a whole album of them). They all suck.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 03:07 PM

Here's the abc for the version collected by RVW.

Mick

---

X:1
T:The Captain's Apprentice
S:R.V.W from Mr. James Carter, King's Lynn
B:Bushes And Briars - Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams
L:1/8
M:3/4
K:BAeo
E2|FF B,2 FF|[M:4/4]"^(a)"EFDB, A,B, z
w:One day this poor boy to me was bound ap-pren-tice
B,|[M:3/4] DF (A>F) BA|F(A/E/) F z
w:Be-cause of his_ be-ing fa-ther_less
|: B,|DF (3:2A2 B2 c2|(3:2:3 (BA)>E AB z
w:I took him out of St. Jame_s' Work-house
F|"^(b)"EF A,2 B,B,|CD B,3 :|
w:His mo-ther be-ing in deep dis-tress.
"^Var.(a)"EB, A,B, z B,||"^(b)"EF A,2 B,B,|CE/D/ B,2||"^or"EF A,2 B,C|DC B,2||

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: GUEST,Ralphie PJD
Date: 19 Mar 07 - 03:24 PM

Yes.. Captains Apprentice indeed.
We stuck it on our first CD...
And are now contemplating doing it's predecessor "Captain James"
Basically the same story but in even more graffic detail....
(Just love the line..."His eyes and teeth did hang towards me" !!)

Sleep well, don't have nightmares

Ralphie

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 02:56 AM

Vaughan Williams included the James Carter tune in his 'Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 in E minor' very beautiful, but very different.
; living proof that (like Kate Rusby's songs) everything that starts out traditional, doesn't necessarily stay traditional (ie the tradition is a little more than words and tunes).
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Cruel Ship's Captain, music?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 20 Mar 07 - 03:25 PM

Here are a couple of other tunes for the song. I'll post the texts when I've a bit more time.

Mick

---

X:1
T:The Captain's Apprentice
S:CJ Sharp from Mr.Joseph Laver, Bridgwater, Somerset, 13 Aug 1906
B:Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs ed Maud Karpeles
L:1/4
M:3/2
K:DMix
D|F A c2 (B A)|G> E D D2
w:O cap-tains all sail_ down the o-cean
D|G G G2 D2|F G A3
w:That has got ser-vants at your call,
D|A d/d/ c2 B2| A/G/(E/D/) ^C2 D
w:O see that you do not ne-ver ill_use them,
D/D/|F A (c> A) (G E)|D D D3||
w:As you plain-ly see_ was_ my down-fall.


X:2
T:The Captain's Apprentice
S:Hammond D593 from Mrs.Sartin, Caracombe, Dorset, Jul 1906
B:Marrow Bones - English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Mss - ed Frank Purslow
L:1/4
M:3/2
K:DDor
D|D A A3 A|G E F D2
w:A boy to me was bound ap-pren-tice
F|G G G (D-D>E)|F G A3
w:Be-cause his pa-rents__ they were poor
A|d d c (A/G/) F/E/ D|C D2 z
w:I took him from St._ James'_s work-house
(F> G)|A d (A G) E> C|D D D3||
w:All_ for to sail_ on the Span-ish shore