Great New Tune Book, has "Harmonium"
chollin...@umext.umass.edu
"Music for a Found Harmonium" is also available in:
"THE PORTLAND COLLECTION," a new tune book by Susan Songer and
Clyde Curley, that emphasizes the fiddle tunes tunes played at sessions and
dances in the Portland, Oregon area. Some features:
It has over 200 interesting tunes. Most of them are not "chestnuts,"
tunes that you hear everywhere. Primarily American old-time,
and Irish, with some Scottish, Quebecois, etc. Both Trad. and
recently composed tunes. My current favorite is in it: Reel de
Beatrice.
Clyde Curley (multi-instrumentalist, member of Jigsaw - a Portland
Contra dance band that includes hot accordionist Dennis Rothrock)
wrote a short background piece on every tune, where it's from, where
and how its played. It's fun reading.
It's a nice size: about 6" X 9" (308pp, plus an index)
It has a real heavy spiral binding: the book stays open.
The book costs $25. We got our copy from the Button Box (my wife,
Becky, works there (lucky me!), but it's available elsewhere.
Recommended.
Craig Hollingsworth
L'accordioneste
Gypsy Wranglers http://www.crocker.com/~tandav
Leverett, Massachusetts chollin...@umext.umass.edu
Garry W
chollin...@umext.umass.edu wrote:
>"Music for a Found Harmonium" is also available in:
>"THE PORTLAND COLLECTION," a new tune book by Susan Songer and
>Clyde Curley, that emphasizes the fiddle tunes tunes played at sessions and
>dances in the Portland, Oregon area.
It's a very good book. It should be mentioned though that many/most of the
tunes are played in an odd (to me) "squared-off" style that may be unique to
the source musicians of the book.
garry
Michael Reid
Garry,
Could you explain 'squared off'? If you mean 'without embellishments
or ornamentation,' that to me is preferable for a book of tunes that
are traditionally molded and reshaped in the hands of the players.
Me, I think the arrangements are just fine. In the case of modern
tunes, the editors went to great lengths to have their renditions
approved by the composers. And there are extensive notes in the back
that discuss variations.
Here in the Denver/Boulder area, the book is quite popular: there were
at least four copies in evidence at the session I went to on Sunday
... and several more players copied down the information to order
their own copies.
Michael Reid
English Concertina
Boulder, Colorado
Garry W
mwr...@concentric.net (Michael Reid) wrote:
>Garry,
>
>Could you explain 'squared off'? If you mean 'without embellishments
>or ornamentation,' that to me is preferable for a book of tunes that
>are traditionally molded and reshaped in the hands of the players.
Michael -
I'm sorry, I just haven't been able to find the time this week to write you a
proper answer to your question, with some specific examples. I'm sort of in
charge of the official sheet music for our large jammin' group/almost-a-band,
and in the Portland book I've just never found any tune that I felt pleased
to use for us exactly as written in there.
"Without embellishments or ornamentation" is a part of what I meant by
"squared off", but it's almost true describe it as "without any way of
telling whether a tune was Northern or Southern or syncopated or French or
Zulu or ... before it got written down".
I don't want to say anything more negative about the book; they did a great
job, especially the textual notes on each tune! I would just be aware as you
play that the tunes as written are the "bare bones" of the Portland-regional
versions of the tunes in real life. And as you play you need to round out the
melodies/flesh out the stylings, informed by what you hear in the air in your
own home town.
(Other books like the Fiddler's Fakebook go too far to the opposite extreme
-- *too much* of other people's stylings are included, for my taste!)
garry