Poland (was Raised sixths... again)

[invisibl...@gmail.com]

Interesting; thanks a lot for the Select Harmony page!  So it appears that the Sacred Harp uses a sharped version of Swan's original ending.  I suppose one could argue that the ending he printed later in his own book might be more authoritative, but using the first version also makes sense.  The insertion of the sharp remains a mystery, though.

Matt Bell

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 6:00 PM, Fynnian Titford-Mock <fin...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Interesting about Swan's lack of accidentals. - I attach a rather grainy scan of the page from Brownson's Select Harmony, and the page from Swan's New England Harmony with its alternate ending, for those interested

I spoke too soon: here's Poland with raised 6ths, courtesy of the lovely Bremen bunch (Germany). http://www.sacredharpbremen.org/hall-hoehle 

This has evidently been learnt from their website http://www.sacredharpbremen.org/lieder/026-bis-099/086-poland, which in turn takes its sound examples from shapenote.net - the "traditional" raised 6th versions.   

(Sorry Harald for dropping you into this!)

Although I'm quite certain we didn't sing it like that when I was over there between September and January! 

Ah, evolving tradition and the folk process...

Fynn

---

From: invisibl...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 17:05:48 -0500
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Raised sixths... again
To: fin...@hotmail.com
CC: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

Yeah, good luck with that fa to fi jump in the tenor if you insist on raising the sixth.  

It's worth noting that Timothy Swan never wrote an accidental in his life.  In fact, the last three tenor notes of this song in his New England Harmony are a descending fa-mi-la, not la-sol-la or la-si-la.  It would be interesting to know where the ending in the Sacred Harp came from.  Poland was actually first published by Oliver Brownson in Select Harmony years before Swan's own book, and I wish I had a way to see that version.

Matt Bell

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 4:17 PM, Fynn <fin...@hotmail.com> wrote:

OK, it's not a subject I'm willingly resurrecting here -  I always
think of Judy Caudle's brilliant response to a question about raised
sixths: "why don't you ask someone who really cares?"
But seriously, there are surely minor key songs that DON'T lend
themselves easily to a raised sixth (In the same way that it's
difficult NOT to sing a raised sixth in 159 Wondrous Love).
I'm thinking of 86 Poland here. I've never heard this with a raised
sixth - it's just awkward to sing it raised, especially the beginning
of the last line of each verse. Does anyone sing it raised? I ask this
because the example sound files at shapenote.net have two different
sound samples for each minor-key tune, one "traditional" (Dorian mode,
with raised sixths, and also ignoring any accidentals such as sharp
sevenths) and one "as written" .     Does this distort the reality of
what is actually sung? Of course, what is actually sung will vary
anyway, as some people might sing the sharpened 7th "leading note",
whereas others will ignore it.  But I doubt that those who say 'sixths
are always raised' really sing Poland that way.

In 260 Farewell Anthem, there are also several points where singing a
raised 6th FA throughout would create a horrible dominant 7th chord,
spoiling the grand effect of the (written) F major chord
(incidentally, the "traditional" example of this on shapenote.net has
a fairly random mix of raised and flat 6ths)

OK, obviously people should just learn from real people singing, not
from computer-generated sounds.

I actually love the fact that a large part of the SH tradition is not
notated.

or something...


Fynn

--
Google Groups "Fasola Discussions" Email List
FAQ: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8623821/Fasola-Discussions-FAQ.html

[Nikos Pappas]

It could also be a misprint.  It's only two notes difference and printed on the space and line above the original.  Without shapes, it's impossible to know whether this is intentional or an error in typesetting.

Nikos Pappas