Free book of tunes for winter

[harper]

Dear Mandolin Friends,

I put this little book together for my mandolin practice group. I hope you enjoy playing through it.

Best wishes for the holidays,
Evelyn

[Ben Cooper]

Wow, cant wait to try some of these!

[JeffD]

Wonderful stuff. Thank you.

[Martin Jonas]

Great tunes in this one! I got this by email from Evelyn a few days ago, and we have already played several of these great arrangements at our band rehearsal on Thursday. Here is my recording of Captain O'Kane from Evelyn's book:



Martin

[Joseph Baker]

I pulled up Canticle of the Turning on You Tube so I could hear what it sounds like
What a great song !

Thank you very much for posting this sheet music!

Joseph Baker

[Jim Garber]

Thanks, Evelyn!! Nice book.

[violmando]

THANK YOU! My husband and I usually do mandola duets for the holidays, but he hasn't been playing dola lately so we're doing violin and pennywhistle duets...THIS IS FANTASTIC!!!

[harper]

violmando,

Thanks for your note and kind words. I wrote the harmony line to be good for mandola, and I made another version in which that line is transposed up one 5th. That way I can read it in treble clef but play it in the correct key while while pretending the mandola is a mandolin. If you would like that version, I would be happy to send it.

Evelyn

[steve V. johnson]

Thank you very much, Evelyn!

stv

[wundo]

"I wrote the harmony line to be good for mandola, and I made another version in which that line is transposed up one 5th."
I'd like to see a that version.
Thanks!

[John Goodin]

Evelyn,

This is a beautifully put together collection. Thanks very much!

John G.

[harper]

Evelyn,

This is a beautifully put together collection. Thanks very much!

John G.

John, you are most kind. I am very much enjoying your Telemann transcriptions for mandolin and your James Oswald divertimenti. He is a favorite Scottish composer of mine.

Thanks,
Evelyn

[harper]

"I wrote the harmony line to be good for mandola, and I made another version in which that line is transposed up one 5th."
I'd like to see a that version.
Thanks!

Wundo,
It is attached.
Regards,
Evelyn

[woodenfingers]

Hi Evelyn, Thanks very much. Just in time form some Christmas Jigs!!

Bob

[dustyamps]

Thank you for this wonderful winter music.

[Neapolitan Duck]

thank you for sharing this!

[stevenmando]

Thank you so very much , I do so love this music and on this season it is so joyful and the especially the march of the wooden soldiers , one of my favorites ,thank you so much Steven

[harper]

In case anybody needs a little help from TAB, here is a version with the melody lines for each tune in both TAB and standard treble notation.

Best wishes,
Evelyn

[harper]

Now that my friends and I have played through these tunes a couple of times together, I discovered a few errors and things I want to change. I have made 4 changes to my Winter’s Tale book. If anyone has found other errors, please let me know. The four corrected pages are attached. I will post a revised book in a few days with thes corrections.

1. “Apples in Winter,” should have had the harmony for mandolin, but I accidently used mandola harmony (transposed to D Major). The new version has the harmony line in G Major for mandolin.
2. In “Bottom of the Punch Bowl,” I corrected the pick-up notes in the first ending of the B part, melody line (measure 17).
3. I changed the 3rd line of “Duck Us All in Bowls of Barley.” I think this sounds better than the original line I had.
4. I corrected the descant line of “Female Saylor,” measure 16 (deleted one note).

Thanks,
Evelyn

[bigskygirl]

Wow, thank you!

[Andy Boden]

Excellent resource - thanks

Andy

[mrmando]

If anyone has found other errors, please let me know.

Well, a minor nitpick here:

"Canticle of the Turning" a/k/a "Star of the County Down" may not, in fact, be a traditional Irish tune.

Rory Cooney's "Canticle of the Turning" lyric is, I believe, from 1990; Cathal McGarvey's "Star of the County Down" lyric was first published in 1936.

But well before then, the tune was in use in England as the melody to the sacred ballad "Dives and Lazarus," often sung at Christmastime. It was published in England as early as 1829.

And here's a thread claiming that "Gilderoy," a Scots ballad using the same tune, was published in 1726! http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=56384

Anyway, changing the designation from "Irish" to "British Isles" might better reflect the widespread popularity and mysterious origins of the tune.

Thanks for the book, it looks like great fun.

[harper]

Well, a minor nitpick here:

"Canticle of the Turning" a/k/a "Star of the County Down" may not, in fact, be a traditional Irish tune.

Rory Cooney's "Canticle of the Turning" lyric is, I believe, from 1990; Cathal McGarvey's "Star of the County Down" lyric was first published in 1936.

But well before then, the tune was in use in England as the melody to the sacred ballad "Dives and Lazarus," often sung at Christmastime. It was published in England as early as 1829.

And here's a thread claiming that "Gilderoy," a Scots ballad using the same tune, was published in 1726! http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=56384

Anyway, changing the designation from "Irish" to "British Isles" might better reflect the widespread popularity and mysterious origins of the tune.

mrmando,

Thanks for pointing out the Mudcat blog. It identifies an earlier source that I did not find when I first researched the tune. I agree with you that "British Isles" would be a better identifier for this tune than "Irish."

For comparison, here are the three versions mentioned in the blog.

“The Thresher and the Squire” from Broadwood and Maitland (English Country Songs, London: Leadenhall Press, 1883, pp. 68-69).

"We are poor frozen out gardeners" from Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time, London, 1856, Vol. II, pp. 747-748).

“Gilderoy” from Musick for Allan Ramsay's Collection of Scots Songs [Tea Table Miscellany] by Alexander Stuart (c. 1726), #43.

I also further pursued the reference to Ralph Vaughan Williams, who used the tune in his “5 Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus’” in 1939. I could not find a historical source for the tune by this name. Vaughan Williams also co-edited The English Hymnal (1906) with Percy Dearmer. It contains the song “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” which uses the Kingsfold tune. The notation for the hymn says: “From an English Traditional Melody.”

Bottom line: The tune I previously thought was the earliest printed version was the one in Lucy Broadwood's book, but Chappell predates it. I don't see any resemblance to the Scottish tune "Gilderoy" used by Allan Ramsey. Even so, I had designated the tune as Irish because it is popularly considered Irish (usually in 3/4 time), but "British Isles" is the better choice.

Thanks,
Evelyn

[harper]

I found something more regarding the provenance of the tune for “Canticle.” I read more closely the footnotes in Broadwood’s book and happily Thomas D’Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy (1707) is available from the National Library of Scotland (http://digital.nls.uk/special-collec...fm?id=91519824). Gilderoy is in Vol. 5, p. 39, but I do not see much resemblance to the tune in question (Kingsfold or Star of the County Down).

[mrmando]

Francis Child collected it under the title "Dives and Lazarus" in the 19th century. Agreed, that version of Gilderoy looks like a stretch.