tell me what this tune from Sharp is

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tell me what this tune from Sharp is

24 Aug 09 - 11:59 AM (#2707338)
Subject: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Jack Campin


  X:0
  T:English tune
  S:Lajos Vargyas, Folk Music of the Hungarians, 2005
  M:3/4
  L:1/8
  Q:1/4=120 % guesswork
  K:C
  % major phrygian scale on G
   cc |(cB) G2  cc  |(cB) G2
   Bc | d2  g2 (f_e)| d4
  (gf)|(dc) B2  dc  |(BA) G2
   BB | c2  AG  F2  | G4  |]

Vargyas says it comes from Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs from Somerset, 1905-1909, p.92, but it's in a list of unnamed comparative examples. Could somebody look that up and tell me the title in Sharp?

24 Aug 09 - 12:10 PM (#2707342)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Bernard

Sounds to me like the Saucy Sailor...

I'll go and check!

24 Aug 09 - 12:12 PM (#2707345)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Bernard

Yep... it's in the DT:

Here

24 Aug 09 - 12:24 PM (#2707353)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Jack Campin

Thanks!

The Wild Rover in bellbottoms, who'd ha thunk it.

Very unusual tune (for the British Isles, anyway).

24 Aug 09 - 12:33 PM (#2707362)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)

In Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs ed Karpeles, it looks like version F of the song, (given on D rather than G) and that BB starting your last line above was a single note, B2 in your transcription. (I haven't got Folk Songs From Somerset, so it's possible it was printed differently there). It was collected from Abraham Laurance at Ilminster, 8th April 1906.

Mick

24 Aug 09 - 12:54 PM (#2707384)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Anglo

What on earth is "major phrygian scale in G" supposed to mean? I've always thought this tune was somewhat ambiguous: it could certainly be on a tonal center of G, but to my ear it could also be considered to be on C, ending on the 5th. Either way, it escapes the standard mode categories, with a major 3rd and flat 6th (on G). A salient characteristic of phrygian is a flat 2nd, and this tune doesn't have that.

24 Aug 09 - 01:24 PM (#2707400)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Jack Campin

The terminology is Vargyas's. Logical enough - major tetrachord at the bottom, phrygian tetrachord at the top. It's one of the modes of the overtone scale - G A B c# d e f g. Fairly common in Hungarian and Romanian music but I've only found one other example from the British Isles.

Vargyas calls your mode on C "melodious minor", but this tune sounds centred on G to me.

24 Aug 09 - 03:01 PM (#2707476)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Anglo

Thank you, Jack. I can certainly go along with G. I'm afraid what little theory I have doesn't extend to this kind of analysis. But I can certainly see its usefulness for some of these "modes" that don't fit into the simple "white note" modal system used as a descriptor by Sharp, Bronson, etc.

24 Aug 09 - 03:47 PM (#2707509)
Subject: RE: tell me what this tune from Sharp is
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)

The scale on C (Vargyas' melodious minor) is of course what we would recognise as the ascending part of the melodic minor scale.

Jazz musicians use the scale as minor-major, for playing over a minor chord with a major 7th (C Eb G B). The scale using the same notes but starting on G, the 5th mode of the ascending melodic minor, is (according to Levine's Jazz Theory) mainly used over that same CmMaj7 chord with G in the bass. Not relevant here, but interesting.

Mick