Margaret Polka

  1. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    This is a lively Italian/American polka written by Onofrio Di Bella in 1936, and published by his own NYC publishing house. This arrangement for mandolin and guitar is from Sheri Mignano's fabulous book "Mandolin Melodies". I've added a simple bass line on mandocello.

    The piece was originally published with a second mandolin part, which is missing. If anybody has a copy, please let me know!

    Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin
    Ozark tenor guitar
    Suzuki MC-815 mandocello

    [MP3=1]http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=118087&d=1397596072[/MP3]



    Martin
  2. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    I came across this nice Italian polka today by pure chance -- it's the piece directly before "Tommy Peoples Mazurka" in our repertoire folder. So, once I'd finished Tommy Peoples' I went straight on for a run-through of Margaret Polka.

    This is rather livelier than my old 2014 take. Fun tune to play!

    1898 Giuseppe Vinaccia mandolin
    Vintage Viaten tenor guitar


    https://youtu.be/0JBEgunjJUI

    Martin
  3. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    Here is the original Di Bella sheet music from Sheri Mignano's Dropbox folders. Composer is Onofrio Di Bella, arranged Luigi Canoro. The original second mandolin part is missing, but Sheri's folder has a mandola part written in 1999 by Antonina Nigrella in 1999, which we use when we play this polka with our group. I've not included that part in my recording, though.

    Margaret Polka Mandolin 1 (with chords)
    Margaret Polka Guitar
    Margaret Polka Mandola (optional)

    Martin
  4. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    What a great tune - from a playing perspective, I think I'd be happy with these rather easy-going continental polkas compared with the ton-up Irish ones.
  5. Martin Jonas
    Martin Jonas
    Thanks, Richard! Tempo as always is quite variable, and some of these Italian polkas can be pretty frantic as well. On this one, my tempo is quite close to the tempo marking in Sheri Mignano's book: she says 116 bpm and I'm playing at around 110bpm. Of course, the difficulty doesn't just depend on tempo but also on how many semi-quavers there are in the tune compared to quavers. This one has a nice balance, but some polkas have a lot more notes to fit in.

    Martin
  6. Richard Carver
    Richard Carver
    Indeed! I've been playing Irish polkas at 110 or 120 bpm, which gets a bit stumbly when there are lots of groups of four semi-quavers.
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