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30 Aug 00 - 02:46 PM (#288033) Subject: Tune Add: BACHGEN BACH O DINCAR From: Joe Offer Sian in West Wales sent me this tune. The lyrics are here. He says it's his first effort at an ABC tune, but I'm not sure I believe that, because it seems perfect. My problem is, I KNOW this tune, and it's really bugging me. Can anybody tell me what English-language song is sung to this tune? I think I know (but I'm not telling). I can't be sure, because our MIDI for the song isn't working. So, name that tune. -Joe Offer- X:1 T:Bachgen bach o dincar M:2/4 K:C A2A2A2A2|A4A2A2|G2AGG2E2|C8|G2G2G2G2|G4G4|D2E2F2G2|A8|A2A2A2A2|A2A2d4| c2B2A2B2|c4F2E2|F2E2F2G2|A4A4|G2F2E2E2|D8|A4A2A2|A4A2A2|G2A2G2E2|C6C2| G2G2G2G2|G2G2G2G2|D2E2F2G2|A8|A2A2A2A2|A4d4|c2B2A2B2|c6c2|F2E2F2G2|A2A2A2A2|G2F2E2E2|D8|] from Canu'r Cymru - Detholiad o Ganeuon Gwerin (Welsh Folk Songs), eds: Phyllis Kinney a Meredydd Evans, pub. Cymdeithas Alawon Gwerin Cymru 1984, ISBN 0 900426 58 6 Click here for a related thread. |
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30 Aug 00 - 02:50 PM (#288035) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: GUEST,BlindLemon I,ll name that tune in one. |
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30 Aug 00 - 03:57 PM (#288070) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Joe Offer Well, I thought it was "Old Dun Cow," but it's not. So, what English-language song uses this tune? C'mon Jeri, I'm sure you know. And now that I know that I don't know, it's really bugging me... -Joe- |
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30 Aug 00 - 04:29 PM (#288077) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin It's a version of the tune used for 'Jenny is all the go'. There's a lovely version of it by Sam Larner. The chorus of this Welsh version (there's a recorded version by a group, Yr Hwntws) finishes off with something half Welsh/half English, along the lines of - 'Y butcher ar y biper ar y Knickerbocker liner'. Sam's Jenny 'can do a double shuffle on the Knickerbocker line'. A version of the tune also was collected in the Isle of Man by Dr John Clague in about 1893-94. Shoh slaynt, Bobby Bob |
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30 Aug 00 - 04:34 PM (#288082) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin Suddenly realised it was a blue clicky thing too late. I've taken a copy of the words now, diolch yn fawr! Pob hwyl, Bobby Bob |
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30 Aug 00 - 05:02 PM (#288115) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Jeri The first thing I thought of was: "Whoa back, duck your nut, forget it I never shall If you've ever navigated on the Er-I-EE Canal." But I can't find that song in the DT, and I don't know the whole thing. I can just hear Lou Killen singing a song with this tune, but I'm not sure what the song is. (I keep thinking it's a version of Cuckoo's Nest.) |
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30 Aug 00 - 05:09 PM (#288124) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Jeri Ha - The Herring Gutter's Song! (More or less.) |
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30 Aug 00 - 05:14 PM (#288130) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Joe Offer Well, Jeri, a search for [Low Bridge] will find the Erie Canal song you're thinking of. But not, nothing named so far is the song that keeps bugging me. I think I'll go to the REAL expert. Time to send a message to Blessings Barbara. -Joe- |
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31 Aug 00 - 02:45 AM (#288359) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Marcus Campus Bellorum Just to reiterate... "Lachlan Tigers" uses a version of the tune. I am not sure whether that tune and the one in ABC format above are the same because I am still learning ABC. Can anyone convert ABC to Midi and post the midi file??
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31 Aug 00 - 04:59 AM (#288384) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales Ah, Joe, c'mon ... I'm a GIRL. I thought we went through all that with Mudguard? And it *was* my first go at abc but, be fair, there were no twiddly bits in the tune. One or two dotted quarter notes and that's about it. Maybe it's actually the original - The Knickerbocker Line - that you know. As I mentioned before, I'm SURE I've heard a Canadian lumbering song to the tune. Also, I was persuaded to buy a tape in Newfoundland by ...mmm ... something like Buddy Wassisname an' de ot'er Fellas (honest!) and they use a version of the tune - which they note as "traditional" - to a song "Sarah". Bobby Bob ... thanks for remembering Yr Hwntws. I've been desperately trying to remember their name. Meredydd was the one who talked them into recording Bachgen Bach o Dincar way back when. Be interesting to see what this thread comes up with. Hope Praise is in on this ... 'cause this is part of the jigsaw of "How is it done?" sian |
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31 Aug 00 - 05:10 AM (#288386) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Joe Offer BLUSH!! Well, when I don't know the gender of the person I'm talking about, I try to be really nonspecific. Guess I slipped, huh? Sorry, sian... -Joe Offer- |
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31 Aug 00 - 06:22 AM (#288401) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Marcus Campus Bellorum I have just managed to find some software (shareware) that will play ABC and Sian, the tune you posted and the tune my partner sings are almost the same. I am a percussionist didge player (keyboard dabbler)so my ears are not as finely tuned as my partner's but it sound very close. Now all I have to do is find some simple software to print the notes for free or send money via snailmail and work out exchange rates and "ah no way"!. What happened to the music?? I know this will not be approved of by the software designers but until internet security is bulletproof I will have to look around for the free stuff. Any hints?
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31 Aug 00 - 07:44 AM (#288415) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin Meredydd Evans is someone else I used to see at the Pan Celtic Festival when it was based in Killarney many years ago. I remember him sitting in the lounge of Scott's Hotel and singing some of his vast repertoire of songs. I think I have only recording of him singing - that's on a compilation issued by Recordiau Sain. Trying to think of it off hand, I think it was a (short) version, and not the usual one, of 'Oes gafr eto' etc. If you have any information about recordings made by him, I'd be interested to find out. Gyda cyfarchion, Bobby Bob |
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31 Aug 00 - 08:27 AM (#288435) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales Joe, you're seriously cute when you go all pink like that. You may make Snog of the Week yet! Marcus, I can't figure our how to send attachments via the Mudcat system. I *have* scanned the page for you ... but getting it to you is another thing! Bobby Bob, Mered hasn't made a huge number of recordings as far as I know ... and none in the past ... 15? years. I suspect that you might have Caneuon y Siroedd (Songs of the Counties) put out by Cymdeithas Alawon Gwerin, perhaps about 20 years ago. All the stalwarts of the Society grouped together to each sing a typical traditional song from their county. Mered also did a Folkways (?) EP (?) double album which probably dates back to the 60s. He's quite embarassed by it (he says) 'cause it's got all that naff 60s-style orchestration, common at the time. I think the set is extremely rare now. I remember Dafydd Iwan, prop. of Sain Records staying with us in 1979 and touring southern Ontario, finding it in a bin at Sam the Record Man in Toronto. Bought it straight away and carried it on his lap the rest of the tour. Anyway, Mered and Phyl. spend their days researching now ... and making sure the benefits are passed on to as wide a circle as possible. Great people! sian |
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31 Aug 00 - 09:01 AM (#288453) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Jeri Sian's comment got me looking. Joe, go to Barry Taylor's "The Great Canadian Tunebook" and click on The Lumber Camp Song. You'll get the tune and the lyrics. |
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31 Aug 00 - 11:49 AM (#288605) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales Well done, Jeri ! (Just remembered ... Phyllis knows a bit of song that an old trader used to sing driving through Ceredigion collecting socks - long story - with the lines punctuated by him calling out "Gee up, Jeri" to his mule.) Anyway, that logger song kinda sounds like the one I had in mind. Can't hear the tune til I get home and on a better computer than here at work! thanks, sian |
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31 Aug 00 - 11:51 AM (#288608) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Jeri Sian - A MULE?!?!?! Was it a particularly attractive, intelligent mule, at least? |
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31 Aug 00 - 11:52 AM (#288609) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Barbara Well, Joe, I gave it a listen and it sounds like a sea song I almost know. The chorus goes "All hands for the Western Ocean, It's plain to see we are We've done our part on many a barque We stink of fish and tar - --- ----- -- --- --- --- When up aloft we (fly?) The devil take the laggards, Jack It's do your best or die!
And I bet those aren't quite right either. I didn't see it in DT. |
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31 Aug 00 - 11:58 AM (#288614) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Barbara Yes, that's it -- the lumberjack song Jeri posted has the same tune as the sea song I am remembering, but it's KINGS! "We're KINGS of the Western Ocean, it's plain to see we are, we've left our mark on many a barque... And it doesn't seem to be in DT. Blessings, Barbara |
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31 Aug 00 - 02:31 PM (#288661) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales Yep, I've given it a listen and that's gotta be the one I was thinking of! Oh, and I believe Phyllis did mention that there was a footnote to the item on the sock-salesman that his mule was a particularly intelligent one. sian |
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31 Aug 00 - 07:32 PM (#288854) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Marcus Campus Bellorum The "kings of the western ocean its plain to see we are, these lyrics scan with. . "A mob of Lachlan Tigers, its plain to see we are. So how did a song about kings of the ocean become one about shearing sheep in central west NSW Australia? Sian, if you contact me on my personal message section, I will give you my email address. This has been a very interesting thread (and I hope there is more to come).
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31 Aug 00 - 08:21 PM (#288887) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Barbara It is, isn't it, Marcus? And if you followed Jeri's link, you heard a Canadian lumbering song. I'll bet the tune has been thru Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. However, it changed a bit. The version in Jeri's link is the same as I have heard, and the last line is a straight descending [minor] scale, from 5 down to 1 the tonic. (I can't recall offhand how one identifies a minor melody with scale note names -- would it be from so to doh or me to la?) Blessings, Barbara |
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01 Sep 00 - 05:23 AM (#289099) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales I looked up the Newfoundland song, Sarah, mentioned above and the notes suggest that it goes back at least three generations of singers so ... you're right there, Barbara. Your comment about the *minor* brings to mind a point often raised in the Cymdeithas ... today we hear a minor key in what was once the Dorian mode - which is the scale for Bachgen Bach o Dincar. People often complain that a lot of Welsh music is in the *minor* key when it isn't. I even read, recently, an article written around 1910 about a key which wasn't quite Dorian, and popular in Wales - but it's dissappeared because it couldn't be noted down accurately by the collectors of the time using the standard Western European style of notation. Is this thread creep? sian |
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01 Sep 00 - 06:03 AM (#289110) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Bob Bolton G'day Joe, I've just skimmed through the thread and I seem to remember that another name for this tune (mentioned by A.L. Lloyd?) was The Voyage of the Bigler (or something quite like that. I don't know it, but it could be one off the sea or canal songs that have been mentioned in passing. Whatever the parent song in Australian, it must have been popular at one point as there are at least 4 separate songs using variants of the tune. Sally Sloane's Knickerbocker Line came from her father-in-law and sounds very London music Hall. Duke Tritton's Great Northern Line would be a late 19th century bullockdriver's parody of Knickerbocker Line. The Dr. Percy Jones collected version of Lachlan Tigers would be a shearing song of the same period and Lloyd claims to have heard it (but not "collected" it ... he was just a young Pommy bloke on an Empire employment scheme then ... sort of a latter-day, junior "remittance man", really) and this is the tune he uses (in 4/4, instead of Knickerbocker Line's 6/8). The Station Cook (or Towlers Bay) is another, unrelated parody from the shearing area - not boasting about shearing ... whingeing about the food! The inexplicable appearance of the words Knickerbocker Line(r?) in the Welsh song might suggest that it comes from the music hall song as well. Regards, Bob Bolton |
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01 Sep 00 - 06:30 AM (#289118) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales Not sure about the music hall connection with the Welsh, although far from impossible. As mentioned earlier, those from whom it was collected claimed to have learned it in school - and garbled it because they were Welsh speaking (monoglot) kids thrown into an English-only environment. If it was being taught in schools, I hestitate to think that it came *directly* from the music halls ... although there are quite a few tunes used in Welsh folk music that do trace back to music hall (and even American minstrel shows - another thread someday, perhaps). I *must* get Phyllis in on this. I shall e-mail her! It's as good an introduction to mudcat as she's gonna get! sian |
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01 Sep 00 - 07:19 AM (#289127) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Barbara Sian, how do you know this is in Dorian, not Aolean? I would be glad to describe a song as modal rather than minor, especially if I was sure which mode it was in. Blessings, Barbara |
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01 Sep 00 - 08:43 AM (#289157) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: sian, west wales Umm. Simple answer: because the notes in the book say so? If memory serves, Dorian is like playing all the piano white keys from D to (shining) D. I have a Jean Ritchie (?) dulcimer book at home with all the modes explained like that ... but it isn't here at the office. I think there are quite a few Welsh tunes in the Dorian and a few mixolodian. I'm sure I've got an article on it somewhere ... probably one of the Welsh Folk Song Socs. journals... sian |
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02 Sep 00 - 08:39 PM (#290107) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Bob Bolton G'day Sian and Barbabra, Interesting point: Dorian or Aeolian? When I picked up a whistle and worked out the tune (The Great Northern Line version) from my head, I played it as a Dorian mode. When I looked up the notation, it appears as Aeolian. The only distinction being a single occurrence (in F) of a Bb - a single quaver in a 6/8 bar - in the basic tune. I found that I could play the tune either way, so the note, B or Bb, is only a passing note and, without it, the tune would be hexatonic and could be described as either Dorian or Aeolian. When I played another version of the tune (the 2/4, not 4/4 as I incorrectly described it, Lachlan Tigers) on my button accordion I played it as Aeolian - from old habit, but probably suggested by the way I hear the chording. I must admit that, when I came to playing it either way on the whistle, I found that I prefered the b 'flatted', so I guess I opt for Aeolian, but it is not a big difference and I think Barbara's description of 'modal' is the safest. It would depend on local or personal preference and habit. Regards, Bob Bolton |
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02 Sep 00 - 09:02 PM (#290116) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Joe Offer This has turned into a fascinating discussion, but I still haven't been able to link this tune with the song I'm familiar with. Sure has brought a lot of good songs out of the woodwork, thugh. -Joe Offer, still looking- |
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03 Sep 00 - 10:33 PM (#290554) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Marcus Campus Bellorum A medley of versions of "this tune" would last for a whole night's performance. And, just to round things off. . . Any Oz catters from "Jack the Lad" out there. It was there version of Bachgen Bach that started my partner thinking about the association with Lachlan Tigers (way back in December 1996 in Woodford Queensland Australia). I began asking catters about it, and associated tunes around 8 months ago. Keep looking all. This is fascinating.
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03 Sep 00 - 10:54 PM (#290564) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Bob Bolton G'day all, Joe: Straight ABC conversion is something I have not tried - I presume there is some app to do this? What is best? If I can hear the tune Sian posted (or see the notation), I can see how well it fits with those I know. (Although Mark says it it pretty well what Tursacan do in their medley ... and that resembles Knickerbocker Line ... but I can't be sure about fine points and the English version published in Sing (1960s) has a different ending from Sally Sloane's tune. BTW: I can't see Duke Tritton's Great Northern Line in the DigiTrad and on Supersearch, so I will post words and MIDIText tune shortly. Regards, Bob Bolton |
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13 Sep 00 - 01:32 PM (#296522) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Joe Offer Thanks to Radriano, I've finally found the song I was thinking of. It's The Bigler's Crew. I heard it on a CD from Lee Murdock, Great Lakes folksinger extraordinaire. I don't suppose there are many of you who are familiar with Great Lakes sea chanteys, huh? Thanks, Richard. I feel much better now. -Joe Offer- |
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25 Sep 09 - 01:55 PM (#2731238) Subject: RE: Name This Tune - Bachgen bach o dincar From: Joe Offer Another song that uses this tune is listed in the Digital Tradition as The Lumber Camp Song. It's also known as "Hurling Down the Pine" and it has a nice chorus in a version called Double Sledder Lads. -Joe- |