Grape Juice Reel

The first track on Frank Ferrell's CD Boston Fiddle: The Dudley Street Tradition (Rounder Records, 1995) is a medley of "Mrs. Hogan's Birthday," "Grape Juice," "Mrs. Hamilton's [Reel]," and "The Wind-up." As of this posting, the CD is still available for purchase in major venues, and the medley can be heard in a youtube audio/video file: link.

It's the second tune that is the topic today. In the liner notes, Ferrell reproduces what I take to be the version he says he "found in one of Tommy [Doucet's] old hand-written dance folios." Two contrasting (that is, motivically largely unrelated) strains of 8 bars each close with PACs in the main key, F major. The first strain is entirely diatonic, whereas the second indulges in some slightly unusual chromaticism: cadence to vi (D minor) in bars 11-12, a fully diminished seventh chord in bar 14, and a chromatic ascent in the cadence.

At (a), the violinistic frame of the fifth is established, at (b) it is expanded in both directions: from C5 to F5 upward and F4 to C4 downwards (arrows). At (c), the common one-too-far gesture reaches A5. At (d), the three unfolded thirds that follow from this. At (e), the consequent phrase begins; at (f), the closing figure: ^8-^7-^9-^8, as F5-E5-G5-F5; at (g) the "boundary play" of the upper thirds.

In the second strain, a "mirror Urlinie" where ^8 descends to ^5 -- line from (a) -- then ascends again to close -- line at (b). In both instances, the chromatic figures sit between ^5 and ^6.

New publication: a second supplement to British Dance & Song essay

English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song: Supplement 2 was just published on Texas Scholar Works. Here is the link: supplement 2. And here is the abstract:

Another supplement to the essay English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song, which is primarily a documentation of rising cadence figures in dances, fiddle tunes, and songs from late eighteenth and early nineteenth century published sources. Gathered here are an additional 70 examples taken from files downloaded in May and June 2017.

Essay on British Isles Dance and Song

I have published an essay titled English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song: On Cadence Gestures and Figures. It can be found on Texas Scholar Works: link.

Here is the abstract:

This is a documentation of ascending cadence gestures in some 260 songs and dances from the British Isles, taken from eighteenth and nineteenth century sources, with some emphasis on collections for practical use published between about 1770 and 1820 and on the later ethnographic collections of P. W. Joyce and the anthology of Francis O’Neill.

Celtic series, part 4

This is the final entry in the Celtic series, which offers a preview of a documentation essay I am preparing now and hope to publish by the end of April.    [17 May 2017: see this entry--link--for an abstract and a link to the published essay.]

Of the four categories, the third is represented here with one more tune: "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence. The others are in category 4: modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.

"The Ruins of Killmallock" differs from the tunes discussed yesterday in that its B-section is concerned throughout with scaling the octave, down and up, rather than keeping the upper and lower registers separate until the run to the cadence. The result is a clear unfolding of the 6-8 clausula vera figure (see the final two bars).

Modal tunes are difficult to assess on a number of counts, not least being reliability of the transcriptions. If the tunes are as old as their modal turns suggest, then there is also the likelihood of multiple regional or individual variants, only one of which would have been captured in the particular published version. In the two dozen sources I am using for the documentary essay, only a small number of modal tunes appear, almost all of them in two volumes of Irish melodies.

The "Kerry Jig"--in two versions from different sources--is the easiest to read. Beginning in A minor, it closes in C major with a simple rising line, C: ^5-^6-^7-^8.

"The Oyster Wives Rant" is a reel, a Dorian melody (on A) assuming the i-VII-i harmony one associates with Celtic music nowadays. The boxes block out the fifths frame: A4-E5, G4-D5, E5-A4. I haven't marked the possible lines involved, but A4-G4-(A4)-B4-A4 is possible in the lower voices, and a modal primitive line E5-(D5)-E5-G5-(A5) in the upper.

"Thou fair pulse of my heart" is a slow ballad, not a dance tune. Although it is a song, it makes interesting use of lower and upper registers in a manner similar to the fiddle tunes. At the beginning G4-D5 is unfolded, then D5 is extended with a neighbor note Eb5. In the continuation phrase a scale (boxed) moves directly up to F4 and the close is on ^8. In section B, the registral order is reversed—as we've seen several times already in the fiddle tunes—with the upper one first (see directional arrows beginning in bar 9). The slow-moving cadence in the lowest register (boxed at the end) is a surprise.

Celtic series, part 3

This post continues the small sampling of items from a documentary essay I am now preparing and hope to publish by end of the month.

I've established four categories to discuss here. They are: (1) simple examples of rising lines, with appropriate focal tones; (2) play of registers common in—and congenial to—the violin; (3) "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence; (4) modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.

Today's topic is category (3), or "long cadences," though topic (2) also plays an important role in each of the tunes below.

Two versions of "Lady Binning" differ in a number of details. At (a) the Scotch snap rhythm puts equal emphasis on C#5 and E5, but the first phrase (that is, bars 1-2; the strathspey, recall, is played in a slow tempo) clearly focuses on C# (as ^3). In the consequent, however, the same gesture at (b) gives an opportunity to change focus to ^5 and engenders the rising cadence figure.
The registral pairing of lower, then upper, is reversed in the B-section--see (c) and (d)--and this time a simple third-line C#5-B4-A4 concludes the theme (see the fourth box in the third system). But the real point of interest for this post is the variant at (e), which charts either a rising octave scale (starting at A4) or, if you wish to begin with C#, a sixth.

In this version from another source, C#4 as focal note in the first section is even more obvious (box in bar 1 shows the variant that's responsible), but note the two endings: the first in the lower octave, where one might even imagine an implied B4 (as ^2), the second being the same in the first version above. The B-section is essentially the same.

From a mid-19th century source, two versions of the same tune, cast in a slow-fast pair (strathspey-reel). Here again, a strong emphasis on the two registers--upper, then lower--in the B-section ends with a charting through the entire octave. Note also the "one-too-far" stretch to B5, corrected with the Scotch snap, at the very end.

text

Celtic series, part 1

I am preparing a new essay to be published on the Texas Scholar Works platform (link to my page there). The title is English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song: On Cadence Gestures and Figures, and it will be primarily a documentation of some 270 ascending-cadence examples from eighteenth and nineteenth century sources. With luck, I will have graphics and commentary finished before the end of April.     [17 May 2017: see this entry--link--for an abstract and a link to the published essay.]

Two large caveats are in order (both are discussed at length in the introduction to the essay): (1) my usual warning about music for social uses (the published version is not "the piece," which would certainly involve multiple iterations, but also variations, improvisation, interludes (or "trios"), and sequences ("sets" or "medleys"); (2) a warning that the sources are of all sorts, from published commercial products to ethnographic transcriptions. The sequence, here as in the essay, must be topical; a chronological sequence by publication date would be nonsensical (to give a taste of the problem: in the large collections of Joyce and O'Neill, one repeatedly finds notes to the effect "I remember this from childhood" or "from the singing of _____ in County _____"). Related to (2): the bass-clef accompaniments are additions to commercial publications. This is historically a repertoire of song, fiddle, and flute; the most likely more complex accompaniment (before the piano in a mid-nineteenth upper-middle class household) would be a harp.

The four categories are: (1) simple examples of rising lines, with appropriate focal tones; (2) play of registers common in—and congenial to—the violin; (3) "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence; (4) modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.

To begin, then: "The Duchess of Gordon," my one example of a simple rising line. The strathspey is a slow, often highly ornamented fiddle tune making frequent use of dotted notes, including the "Scotch snap" (see beat three in bar 1). This version, where the two phrases are identical, is most likely a fragment.

The next example is "David Grady's Reel," from P. W. Joyce, Ancient Irish Music: comprising one hundred airs hitherto unpublished, many of the old popular songs, and several new songs (1873). The reel is a lively dance in common time. I can't speak to the dances, but the music for the reel and the jig are often "cousins," the one in duple, the other in triple time.

As this already demonstrates, categories (1) & (2) overlap more often than not. By far the most common registral distinctions map onto the violin's fifths layout as lower fifth and upper fourth of the octave, or G4-D5 and D5-G5, indicated with directional arrows in the first system below. In this instance, the lower register dips down still further to the open D string. The upper register easily accommodates a stepwise ascending cadence gesture, repeated in every phrase here (boxed). Two points of interest: (1) phrases 2-4 open with a gesture to a successively higher note (circled and connected); (2) the high note B5, sforzando, articulates the division between repetitions of the tune (arrow in the final bar).