Two three new tunes for Clayville-Prairieland jam sessions -- ** UPDATED ** w/ lead sheet for "Ode to Joy" in G

Blast email sent to my Clayville and Peace Lutheran jam session lists at 7:14 p.m. today --

Hi everybody -- October is sneaking up on us, and it's about to pounce. Saturday is Oct. 1, and that means it's our regular monthly session of the Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music at Clayville, from 10 till noon Saturday morning in the barn at Clayville Historic Site, Ill. 125, Pleasant Plains.

On the, ahem, syllabus this month are two lovely ballads out of the Anglo-Celtic and American tradition of balladry. No, OK, we'll have *one* lovely ballad -- "Wild Mountain Thyme" -- and one raucous bluegrassy novelty song called "Five Pounds of Possum (in my Headlights Tonight"). Lead sheets are available on the Dogwood Dulcimer Association website in Pensacola, Fla.

-- "Five Pounds" http://www.gulfweb.net/rlwalker/dogwood/alltunes/Five%20Pounds%20Of%20Possum%20(D).pdf.

-- Wild Mountain Thyme" http://www.gulfweb.net/rlwalker/dogwood/alltunes/Wild%20Mountain%20Thyme%20(D).pdf.

There are video clips and more on Hogfiddle at http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2016/09/five-pounds-wild-mountain-thyme.html.

We'll also finalize our Christmas play list and hand around a book of Irish slow airs. Hope to see you there!

** UPDATE ** Excerpts from blast email Monday, Oct. 4, at 5:05 p.m.:

Hi everybody -- Our next session is tomorrow, from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, at Peace Lutheran Church. Saturday morning at Clayville we had a great time switching back and forth from D to G, so let's try it some more.

Which means, if you play the mountain dulcimer, you have two excellent choices: (1) bring and capo; or (2) come tuned in DAD and be ready to retune the middle string to G. It takes about as much time to do it either way.

One song we've done in D that works a little better in G (for most people's voices) is the "Ode to Joy" theme from Beethoven's 9th, aka "Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee." Let's try it in G.

Here's a link to a lead sheet in G, on Michael Kravchuk's website:

-- "http://michaelkravchuk.com/free-lead-sheet-joyful-joyful-adore-thee/

I can't find dulcimer tab for DGD, but the "Strumbly Songbook" has the fret numbers in DGD at:

-- https://www.harpkit.com/mm5/pdf/Strumbly_Songbook1.pdf

It's on page 8 ... the entire songbook, for a kind of portable dulcimer called a "Strumbly" is available online, and it has fret numbers (no chords and no notation, though) for a bunch of songs in G. ...

We never got around to "Five Pounds of Possum (in my headlights tonight ...)" Saturday, which broke my heart because it's such a tender, lyrical ballad. But I've posted links to Hogfiddle at:

-- http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2016/09/two-new-tunes-for-clayville-prairieland.html

The other tune is "Wild Mountain Thyme." Don't believe my web address -- they're not new, they're both tunes we've played before that we haven't done lately, but they're worth bringing back. We had a lot of fun Saturday with "WMT." Let's try them both Tuesday.

Hope to see you there.