"Gumbo Chaff" - T.D. (Daddy) Rice

Gumbo Chaff .wmv giggletoot


Lyrics and MIDI file at http://ingeb.org/songs/ondeohio.html on Frank Petersohn's Volkslieder website

Sheet music at Gumbo Chaff : a Negro song sung with great applause at the theatres Detroit Public Library | The E. Azalia Hackley Collection

Link to my free-lance story in Mel Bay Dulcimer Sessions

Cross-posted from The Mackerel Wrapper, my blog for journalism students at Benedictine University Springfield ...

In addition to teaching, I write free-lance articles. And my new story in the online magazine Mel Bay Dulcimer Sessions came out today. I wrote the story, and Mike Thomas of Springfield arranged the music. It's titled "'Children of the Heavenly Father' – A Swedish-American Hymn Arranged for Mountain Dulcimer," and it's available at http://dulcimersessions.com/?p=297 ...

Nice blurb on the homepage, too, by editor Lois Hornbostel:

A beautifully written article, music, mountain dulcimer tablature, and sound file from Peter Ellertsen and Michael Thomas on a lovely, historic Swedish-American hymn that plays beautifully on the mountain dulcimer – “Children of the Heavenly Father” from Jenny Lind.

In COMM 337, I'll walk you through the story and talk about the strategies I used writing it, the things that worked and some things that didn't.

"Cherry Tree Carol" - Jane Gentry's version, collected by Cecil Sharp, 1916

Lengthy series of notes and several variants, both in England in America, on the Hymns and Carols of Christmas website

... an old carol, dating to the Coventry Plays performed during the Feast of Corpus Christi, ca. 1400,1 and more than 400 years later, [in 1823 William] Hone reports, the carol is "still sung in London, and many parts of England."

* * *

As William Studwell points out, however, there is not a single "Cherry Tree Carol." Rather, this is a combination of three separate folk carols which later merged. The first carol, based on the above quoted exchange, is "Joseph Was An Old Man." The second carol begins with the stanza "As Joseph Was A Walking" (also known as Joseph and the Angel). Finally, there is the Easter carol, "Mary's Question," which begins with the stanza "Then Mary took her young Son."

Cecil Sharp collected the following version Joseph Were A Young Man from Mrs. Jane Gentry at Hot Springs, N.C., Aug. 24, 1916
Hepatonic. Mode 3, a+b (ionian).

----------

Excerpt from Songs of the Carolina Charter Colonists 1663-1763, by Arthur Palmer Hudson. (Raleigh: Carolina Charter Tercentenary Commission, 1962). Out-of-Print Bookshelf, Colonial Records Project, North Carolina Office of Archives & History, Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh http://www.ncpublications.com/colonial/Bookshelf/Monographs/songs/chap1.htm:

THE CHERRY TREE CAROL: CESPB 54 (from 18th c. broadside, based on an old apocryphal legend); SEFSA [Sharp] I.90-91 (2 N. C. te. and tu.); BCNCF [Brown] II.61-63; HCF (tape). The pregnant Mary asks Joseph for cherries. He tells her to let the father of her baby get them for her. From her womb Jesus rebukes Joseph and bids the cherry tree bow down. He then prophesies His death, burial, and resurrection.

The Happy Sailor - variant of Old Ship of Zion in the Sacred Harp

Sacred Harp 388 The Happy Sailor Coker UMC Hour 3 San Antonio Texas 1991 Denison Revision.mp4

=======

Excerpt from introduction to National Sacred Harp Convention CD by John Bealle - ©2003 by the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, http://www.arts.state.al.us/actc/vol3all.pdf http://www.arts.state.al.us/actc/vol3all.pdf

4 - “The Happy Sailor” (388)
Seth Holloway, Nashville TN
C. J. Griggs (1911) | Arr. B. F. White (1859)
Seth Holloway is in the music business in Nashville and was chair of the Young People’s Convention when the singing was hosted in that city. He is descended through his mother Sarah Smith from the singing Beasley family of Marion County, Alabama. His uncle Joe Beasley (1929-1995) made some important recordings of Sacred Harp beginning during the 1950s that were recently released on compact disk. Beasley moved from Alabama to New York City and was a pivotal figure in the Sacred Harp revival there during the years before his death in 1995. In Beasley’s honor, a scholarship fund has been established that is awarded to young Sacred Harp singers to help with college expenses. Benjamin Franklin White (1800-1879) was the chief compiler of The Sacred Harp. In 1842 he moved his family from Spartanburg, South Carolina, to Harris County, Georgia. It was there that White, having contributed in some now-unknown capacity to William Walker’s Southern Harmony, set about to compile his own book. Along with The Sacred Harp, his chief contribution to religious song was the founding of the Southern Musical Convention (1845), thereby setting in motion
the practice of democratically-organized singing conventions that has endured continuously since then. The tune of this song was arranged by B. F. White for the 1859 edition of The Sacred Harp; singer C. J. Griggs of Atlanta contributed the second and third verses. Griggs was a steadfast supporter of old sacred songs through the period when many turned to gospel music, and served J. S. James as assistant president of the United Convention in its early years. According to James,
the author of the original verse of the text is unknown. Both text and tune have circulated widely in variants under the title “The Old Ship of Zion,” notably as an African-American spiritual. As a spiritual, the most famous printed setting is surely the transcription by Lucy McKim in the book Slave Songs of the United States (1867), pp. 102-3. See: Jackson, Spiritual Folksongs, song #210. Information on C. J. Griggs is from the 1911 James footnote to “The Happy Sailor.”

Listing on the CD in list of recent SH recordings on Warren Steel's website at http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/resource/chap05.html http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/resource/chap05.html "Traditional Musics of Alabama, Vol. 3: 2002 National Sacred Harp Singing Convention." This professionally produced CD recording contains 32 songs sung by the very large class at the 23rd National Sacred Harp Convention on June 14, 2002 in Birmingham, AL. It was recorded, produced, and digitally mastered by Steve Grauberger of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture. Perhaps the most outstanding aspect of this recording is the 30-page liner booklet written by historian and Sacred Harp authority John Bealle, who attended some of the early National Conventions, along with numerous photos taken by Steve Grauberger. The notes feature an authoritative essay on the history of the National Convention and a track list which provides impressively detailed information about the author of each text and the composer and history of each tune, as well as some information about the song leaders. The liner notes can be downloaded from the Internet as a pdf file. The price of the CD is $12.50 per CD plus $2.50 shipping per order. Order online or by phone at 334-242-3601.

Link to Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary Handbook

http://www.blc.edu/comm/gargy/gargy1/ELHHB.html

Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary Handbook
(Online Draft edition)
Copyright © Worship Committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod

Copyright and other information:

Most of the articles are from Library of Christian Hymns by John Dahle, a resource book on the Lutheran Hymnary (1913) and from Handbook to The Lutheran Hymnal (1942) which accompanied The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). We have placed the articles one after the other, without any editing or consolidation.

Our information tells us that these books are both in the public domain. However, the arrangement of the material in these pages is copyright by the ELS worship committee. Please feel free to copy and distribute public domain material from these pages for non-profit, non-commercial use.

"Et barn er født i Betlehem" (a Danish version of a Reformation-era Christmas carol)

Performances of a Danish variant of a very old northern European carol, words in Latin from the 14th century set to different chorale melodies from the 16th century. (At least two, with more variants collected especially in Norway during the 1800s.) Translated into Danish by Nikolai F.S. Grundtvig.

In the Danish Psalm Book (Den Danske Salmebog Online), No. 104, there are two melodies. One is a minor-key 15th-century chorale attributed to Lossius, 1553, and picked up by Praetorius among others. The other is described as a German folk melody (Tysk visemelodi) from around 1600 harmonized by A.P. Berggreen in 1849. This setting is the Danish carol. To hear the MIDI file, click on the button labeled "Tysk visemelodi omkring 1600" under "Vælg melodi" (which means to choose a melody). There are several 78rpm recordings on YouTube.

And an interesting piano arrangement by Erling Jan Sørensen, with improvisation before and after the basic chorale melody by Sørensen himself ... and the Danish text scrolling past in time with the music.



Members of the Danish Radio Choir (Radiokoret) were recorded in 1941 at Matthæuskirken i Copenhagen. Martellius Lundqvist directed, and Palle Alsfelt played the organ.



And in 2010 "elves" from local music classes in Favreskov, near Aarhus, performed it at the Hadsten Centeret there.



Other links are embedded below, and still others are available on YouTube. Last year I linked to a haunting Norwegian version of the song, with Arve Moen Bergset singing backed by Bukkene Bruse. It has a different melody, although it may be in the same tune family as the Danish one.

Some Danish versions follow, including one at http://youtu.be/0tZ-1KFF6lM that shows a choir, Koren Glomma [choir from Glomma, a river in eastern Norway] in the city of Cluj-Napoca in Romania singing the Danish song, "with a Norwegian accent," in 2007.

Et barn er født i Bethlehem - Statsradiofoniens Pigekor 1944
Statsradiofoniens Pigekor (Girls' Choir). Dirigent: Lis Jacobsen 1944



Et Barn er født i Bethlehem - Aage Thygesen 1931
Operasanger Aage Thygesen, 1931

John Stenson's No. 2 / for Prairieland Dulcimer Strings

Our song for the "first Thursday" session of the Prairieland Dulcimer Strings on Oct. 6 is "John Stenson's No. 2." It's an Irish reel adapted for American dulcimer. It was originally played in A major, and string bands still play it in that key, but there are lots of "D for dulcimer" versions out there. DAD tab and a MIDI file are available on the Mountain Dulcimer Association website of Huntsville, Ala.

I'll link to performances of the tune in both its Irish and American versions so you can hear how it's evolved ... and if you get bored with the DAD chords, it has a really nice melody.

A favorite jam tune in the mountain and hammered dulcimer worlds, "John Stenson's No. 2" has come a long way from County Sligo, where Irish fiddler Kevin Burke's relatives played it on a button box accordion. From a melodic, highly ornamented Irish fiddle tune, it's changed into a high-octane, flat-out tour de force for dulcimers. It's also changed its spelling, for reasons that aren't quite clear to me, and Americans often know it as John Stinson's with a "i." However you spell it and whatever key you play it in, it's a fine jam tune.

I first heard it in jam sessions at Western Carolina University's dulcimer week (now Lois Hornbostel's Dulcimerville workshop), with more than a hundred players joyously strumming away. It's always played fast (it's a reel), but I think it sounds best when it retains some of the bounce and lilt of good Irish session music.

As with all fiddle tunes, the tablature is only a rough outline. Most mountain dulcimer tab, at least in DAD, has some interesting chord changes in the B Part, but it tends to flatten out the melody.

My inroductory notes are in italics, and I'll copy the information from YouTube below with the embedded videos.

Irish (well, Australian)
and American string bands

First, two members of an Irish band in Hobart, Australia (called the "Craic-pots" if you like puns!) play it very much as Irish fiddle player Kevin Burke learned the tune from his relatives in County Sligo:

Reels by the River - Anna & Ryan: John Stenson's no.2 / Otter's Holt
Uploaded by AnnaAndRyan07 on Dec 6, 2009. Tasmanian Irish folk duo Anna & Ryan. Band Members:Anna Elliston & Ryan Garth. "Anna and Ryan playing some exciting reels down by the Richmond Bridge, Tasmania, oldest bridge in Australia." John Stenson's to 2:00 and a little reprise at the end.



Next, an American old-time string band's version. It's a little more laid-back and easy-going than I usually hear it, but the melody comes through.

John Stinsons Number Two - Rachel Eddy, Krisitan Herner, and Bill Fahy Uploaded by polishbill on Jul 8, 2010. Fahy's 2010 Yard Concert Featuring Rachel Eddy, Kristian Herner and Bill Fahy perfoming Rachels new favorite tune, Stinsons #2, followed by Rachel and Kristian perfoming Dance all Nite with a Bottle in your Hand



In the dulcimer world
(hammered and mountain)

Midwestern hammered dulcimer maven Rick Thum, of High Ridge, Mo., followed by Bing Fulch and J.T. Taylor letting it all hang out on mountain dulcimer. Listen for Bing's chords in the B Part.

John Stenson's #2 and Hangman's Reel. In concert in Rockford, Mich., November 2009. Ken Kaiser backed Thum on guitar.



Bing Futch & JT Taylor - John Stinson's #2 (Part 1). Portage Dulcimer Day Concert 2010, Portage Pa, 7/3/2010



Bing Futch & JT Taylor - John Stinson's #2 (Part 2)



Outtakes. Here are some other versions. Give them a listen: You may hear something you want to incorporate into your own playing.

Kevin Burke ~ The Star Of Munster ❖ John Stenson's No. 1 ❖ John Stenson's No. 2
Uploaded by user eireann0 in 2011, from the CD If the Cap Fits. Third in a set of three reels by the Irish master fiddler. John Stenson's No. 1 begins at 1:24 and John Stenson's No. 2 at 2:03. The Stenson family is related to Burke. Of Co. Sligo.



Evart2010 John Stinson's #2
Posted by GingerJaneM. 6:06. "Around midnight Saturday, July 17." Jamming w/ four hammered dulcimers.



John Stinson's #2
FlatMountainDulcimer "[M]ountain dulcimer performing group out of eastern North Carolina, playing mountain music in the flatlands of the southeast. the group players are Nancy, Dave and Margit."


Kiowa Special + John Stenson's #2
From: dfusselman Feb 23, 2008. Progressive version on mandolin and mountain dulcimer. John Stenson's starts at 2:14.



Mountain Dulcimer - Dulcimerica Video Podcast #63
Part seven of a series from the 2008 Suwannee Dulcimer Retreat at Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida. This episode features a couple of pairs: Mary Z. Cox and Bing Futch play a rousing rendition of "John Stinson's #2"; David Beede and Aaron O'Rourke play David's original "meta-protest song", "Shadow of Dylan."



See also http://hogfiddle.blogspot.com/2011/06/john-stensons-no-2-in-and-d-for.html

There really was a Per Spelmann ...

... but I don't know if he had only one cow!

[Click on embedded video below for trad and heavy metal versions of the favorite children's song by Norwegian metal band Glittertind, with lyrics and translation.]



Olav Sæta says in history of North Gudbrandsdalen [search under "Blomstringstid på 1800-tallet"] in his Feletradisjoner i Oppland (1992), that he was named Per Kringelhaugen, and he played with Fel-Jakup (Fiddling Jacob) [see Jakup Lom in Norsk Lexikon] and Else-Lars [Lars Kjørren 1824-1894], celebrated traditional fiddlers. Sæta has this:

... Per Kringelhaugen (1830-1907) fra Bøverdalen, også kalt Per Spelmann. Han lærte først av Per Bergom og Jo Lilleødegard, og etter hvert også av Else-Lars. Per Spelmann var den som f6r mest i lag med Fel-Jakup de var bl.a. 13 ganger i følge til Romsdalsmarten. Det må bety at Jakup verdsatte Per Spelmann høyt, og det var Per som i første rekke førte hans spill videre da Fel-Jakup gikk bort i 1876.

Ola Gjerdet (f. 187 1) hørte Per Spelmann og Gamel-Sjugur spille i lag i 1880-åra (Erling Kjøk etter Hans Wiker). Han sa at de to og Else-Lars spelte likt, men la til at Per Spelmann kunne spelle på mange måter.

Da Jakup var borte, ble Per den ruvende spelemannsskikkelsen i distriktet. Det ser ut til at han på sommerstid stort sett dro bygdimellom med fela, men at han nå for det meste holdt seg i Ottadalen (Flå 1963)..

Google translates:

... Per Kringelhaugen (1830-1907) from Bøverdalen, also called Peter Fiddler. He taught first by Per Bergom and Jo Lilleødegard, and eventually by Else-Lars. Per the Fiddler was the most f6r together with Fel-Jakup, they were such 13 times, according to Romsdalsmarten. This must mean that Jakup valued Per Fiddler high, and it was Peter who primarily brought his game on when Fel-Jakup passed away in 1876.

Ola fence (b. 187 1) heard Per the Fiddler and the Gamel-Sjugur play together in the 1880s (Erling Kjøk after his Wiker). He said that the two and Else-Lars played the same, but added that Peter Fiddler could concertina in many ways.

When Jakup were away, As the fiddler towering figure in the district.It appears that he was in the summer pretty much went built between the fiddle, but he mostly remained in Ottadalen (Flå 1963).

As with so many master fiddlers of the 1800s, there was a body of legend about Peter Fiddler. This from the message board VGDebatt on the Olso newspaper Verdens Gang website, on a thread asking people to name their favorite fiddle player [search Favorittfelespelar - Musik- VG Nett Debatt].

On Aug. 13, 2010 [at 8:51], New_Romatic wrote:

Min favorittfelespiller er helt klart Veslefrikk. Han hadde en helt unik evne til å trollbinde sitt publikum. Jeg har også sansen for Per Spelmann, som var så glad i felen sin at han byttet bort en ku for å få den tilbake. Da snakker vi keep it real.

And Google translates:

My favorite fiddle player is clearly Veslefrikk. He had a unique ability to enchant his audience. I also sense for Peter Fiddler, who was so fond of his fiddle that he traded away a cow to get it back. When we talk keep it real.

Veslefrikk is a fairy tale about a boy who played the fiddle in Asbjørnsen & Moe. To New_Romantic's post, Zinklar replied [at 10:10]:

Eg er òg svak for Per Spelmann, eller Per Kringelhaugen som han eigentleg heitte, i frå Lom. Det var ikkje alle forunt å vera sveinnen hass Fel-Jakup, men det sette sine spor, og Per Spelmann enda som mange andre spelmenn på den tida som ein fordrukken mann. Det er dei som ikkje likar Fel-Jakup som hevder at Per Spelmann var ein mykje gjevare spelmann enn han, og at mykje av Fel-Jakup-tradisjonen eigentleg er Per Spelmann-tradisjon.

Han enda sitt liv då ei avlaus øyk råkte han i hugu med bakføtene sine.

Obviously having a little trouble with the nynorsk, Google translates:

I am also weak for At Fiddler, or Per Kringelhaugen that he actually named, the Lom. It was not all people ever to be Sveinn hass Fel-Jakup, but it put its mark, and Per Fiddler even as many other musicians at the time that a drunken man. There are those who do not like Fel-Jakup claiming that Peter Fiddler was a much gjevare fiddler than he, and that much of the Fel-Jakup tradition actually is Per Fiddler tradition.

He even their lives when a avlaus smoke will be generated råkte he Hugues with his back leg.

There's another legend about Per Spelmann in Aslak 0. Brimi's "Kva skal barnet heite?" posted to Brimi's Blog at Folkemusikk.no:

Per var ein dyktig spelemann og damesjarmør. For dei som ikkje veit det heitte han Per Kringelhaugen, og var frå Bøverdalen i Lom. Han var ein mykje brukt dansespelemann, og ein gong han sat og spelte på ein ball, var det ein gut som vart ståande å sjå på han. I ei pause gjekk guten bort til Per og ville skjenke han ein dram (Merk det i desse kappleikstider: Det var skikk og bruk å skjenke spelemannen). ”Sjå her nå bestefar ska’ du få ein dram hjå me’”, sa guten. Per snudde seg mot han, såg han djupt i augo, og sa: ”Neimen, æ du ein ette’ me du au?”

Google has:

Peter was an accomplished fiddler and lady charmer. For those who do not know it was called Peter Kringelhaugen, and was from Bøverdalen in Lom. He was a very common dance fiddler, and once he sat and played on a ball, it was a boy who stood looking at him. In a break went the boy over to Peter and he would pour a dram (Note that in these times of Major competition: It was the custom to bestow fiddler). "See here now grandfather ska 'you get a nip among me,'" said the boy. Peter turned to him, he looked deep into his eyes and said, "Oh, I'm to continue a 'we can au?"

I'm not sure exactly how to translate his dialect, but it sounds like he was mooching an extra drink from the boy.

Citations in passage from Olav Sæta are in bibliography for Feleverkene in Institut for Musikvitenskap website at University of Oslo [search under "Litteraturliste for feleverkene"].

Flå, L. (1963). "Per Kringelhaugen fra Lom".I: Årbok for Gudbrandsdalen.

Kjøk, J. (1995). A Spelman Saga. Otta.

San Francisco blogger on Natkirken på Strøget

Posted April 10, 2007, on a blog Find and You Shall Seek by "Mystic Seeker" of San Francisco -

"Night Church in Copenhagen" ...

* * *

The first Friday, I attended the 8 PM International Evensong, which was conducted in English. The service consisted of songs, readings, and prayers, with participation by both the clergy and the congregation. There was no Communion. There was a creedal recitation included in the order of service, which I wasn't crazy about, but my reaction to that was simply that I did not participate in that part of it. The reason this service was conducted in English was to accommodate the many tourists who visit Night Church. Of course, late March is not exactly high tourist season in Scandinavia, but to my surprise a steady stream of what I presume to be tourists did come in, watch for a while, and then leave. I was actually rather amazed by all the coming and going--I wouldn't have had enough nerve to just drop in on the middle of a church service and then leave like that. I was sorry to say that the pews were virtually empty of people. Other than the clergy, staff, and choir, and the parade of visitors who came and went, there were only three people who sat through the entire service--myself, my girlfriend, and one other person.

The following Friday, I attended the 10 PM candlelit service. It was conducted in Danish, so I didn't understand much of what was said, but in some ways that might have been a blessing, since I was able to just sit back and enjoy the beauty of the service and the music in the candlelight. The priest, a very tall and slender man with a deep, resonant voice, is the same one who had conducted the International Evensong a week earlier. He may have recognized me from the week before, because after service he asked me where I was from. When I said "San Francisco", he asked me if I lived in Copenhagen now. I said no, and told him I just wanted to check out the service while vacationing. I added that I didn't understand what was said. He laughed and said, "Of course". Danes don't expect foreigners to speak their language.

I really enjoyed the candlelit service a lot. As I left the church walked out into the cold nighttime air, I felt a pleasant glow; I really was glad that I had attended it. If I ever go to Copenhagen again, I will definitely go to the candlelit service at Night Church.

Follows a lengthy post April 9 on the "intellectual failure of orthodox Christianity" and Danish theologians

Vachel Lindsay's meeting with Civil War veteran, old-time fiddle player in west central Illinois

Excerpted from the first of his vignettes in Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty (1912). Copied and pasted from Archive.com

[p. 21]

* * * These selections from letters home tell
how I came into Kansas and how I adven-
tured there. The letters were written avow-
edly as a sort of diary of the trip, but their
contents turned out to be something less than
that, something more than that, and some-
thing rather different.

Thursday, May 30, 1912. In the blue
grass by the side of the road. Somewhere
west of Jacksonville, Illinois. Hot sun.



22 THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY

Cool wind. Rabbits in the distance. Bum-
blebees near.

At five last evening I sighted my lodging
for the night. It was the other side of a
high worm fence. It was down in the hol-
low of a grove. It was the box of an old
box-car, brought there somehow, without its
wheels. It was far from a railroad. I said
in my heart "Here is the appointed shelter."
I was not mistaken.

As was subsequently revealed, it belonged
to the old gentleman I spied through the
window stemming gooseberries and singing :
"John Brown's body." He puts the car top
on wagon wheels and hauls it from grove to
grove between Jacksonville and the east
bank of the Mississippi. He carries a saw
mill equipment along. He is clearing this
wood for the owner, of all but its walnut
trees. He lives in the box with his son and
two assistants. He is cook, washerwoman
and saw-mill boss. His wife died many
years ago.



I START ON MY WALK 23

The old gentleman let me in with alac-
rity. He allowed me to stem gooseberries
while he made a great supper for the boys.
They soon came in. I was meanwhile as-
sured that my name was going into the pot.
My host looked like his old general, McClel-
lan. He was eloquent on the sins of
preachers, dry voters and pension reformers.
He was full of reminiscences of the string
band at Sherman's headquarters, in which
he learned to perfect himself on his wonder-
ful fiddle. He said, "I can't play slow mu-
sic. I've got to play dance tunes or die."
He did not die. His son took a banjo from
an old trunk and the two of them gave us
every worth while tune on earth: Money
Mush, Hell's Broke Loose in Georgia, The
Year of Jubilee, Sailor's Hornpipe, Baby
on the Block, Lady on the Lake, and The
Irish Washerwoman, while I stemmed goose-
berries, which they protested I did not need
to do. Then I read my own unworthy
verses to the romantic and violin-stirred



24 THE GOSPEL OF BEAUTY

company. And there was room for all of
us to sleep in that one repentant and con-
verted box-car.

Friday, May 31, 1912. Half an hour
after a dinner of crackers, cheese and raisins,
provided at my solicitation by the grocer in
the general store and post-office. Valley
City, Illinois. * * *

From Vachel Lindsay. 1914. Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/details/adventureswhilepOOinlind. Italics supplied.

Carolan's Draught - w/links to Pierre Bensusan playing "Shi Bhig Shi Mhor" and a very good tin whistle website

"Carolan's Draught" arranged and played Celtic finger-picking style by Jean Banwarth ... Tablature Trad Magazine n° 120 Tabs book (+ scores) avalaible on line from MusTraDem website.



"Shi Bhig Shi Mhor" played by Pierre Bensusan in a free-form, improvisational style



Wandering Whistler Music Archives has tin whistle lead sheets for both, Carolan's Draught in G and Shi Bhig Shi Mhor in D. This is a great website for sheet music!

"Dagsens auga sloknar ut" - Elias Blix

Find more artists like Torhild Ostad at Myspace Music

Lots of background at Salmebloggen til Leif Haugen - in Norwegian, but w/ a really nice picture of the harbor in Bergen

"Pride of the Springfield Road" - sheet music w/ note on drones and modal harmony

Catchy song from Belfast that I learned from Jim Rainey of the Irish traditional band Craobh Rua (pron. "crave roo-uh") at Common Ground on the Hill. Rainey said Springfield Road is a working-class Catholic neighborhood once dominated by the textile mills, now gone overseas of course; Protestants had a lock on the shipbuilding industry, and Catholics were relegated to working in the mills. This background is reflected in "The Pride of the Springfield Road," but it's a lovely little song about a young couple who hope to get married and work in the mills. Very nice YouTube clip here of Rainey fronting Craobh Rua.

Apparently "The Pride of the Springfield Road" is performed in B dorian in Ireland. At least the sheet music and chord sheet have it so (written as B minor with the 6th - a G - sharped). Music at:

• Sheet music - PDF file of a lead sheet in B dorian on a German website (so H = B natural in the chords above the notes)!
  
• Lyrics and chords - chord progression over the lyrics with a little background below (in English notation so B = B this time) on an Andy Irvine fan site.

The fansite has a link to a very brief, tinny sounding clip of Irvine singing it. It may be the quality of the recording, but I like Craobh Rua's better.

Although the song is sometimes given as traditional, and it's apparently been around Belfast for quite a while, it's usually credited to Andy Irvine of Planxty and the Patrick Street trad supergroup.

Tangent on modes, drones and Irish trad music: Irvine's website has a detailed first-person bio. A couple of extracts follow. One from the early to mid-60s, when he was mostly busking in Dublin and learning traditional music:

But at that time I loved the really old "classic" ballads. Songs like Sir Patrick Spens, The Douglas Tragedy and Edward. Other publications that made a deep impression were Bert Lloyd’s "Penguin Book of English Folk Songs" with lovely modal tunes.

I used to sing them in O’Donoghue’s [pub] in the very early morning in the Men’s toilet, smelling of disinfectant. There was something wrong with the cistern and a drone emanated from somewhere all the years I frequented the place. Singing against a drone is something I love to this day.

I had begun to try to accompany myself on the mandolin some years before and my style was simple. I more or less played along with the tune adding the odd harmony note and half chord as I had learned from records of Old Timey American musicians accompanying themselves on the fiddle. Johnny Moynihan had taught me to tune down the top string of the mandolin—GDAD instead of GDAE which gave echoes of 5-string banjo playing with the top D usually a constant note.

Also Irvine's reason for naming his first duo Sweeney's Men (formed w/ Joe Dolan in Galway in 60s): "... we decided to name ourselves after the pagan king, Suibhne, who was cursed for throwing a pushy cleric’s bell in the lake. We found it quite easy to identify with Sweeney against the power of the clergy in 1960’s Ireland."<

Sinikka Langeland on Bach, drones and 'my mother's Mixmaster'

Min første organist var mammas miksmaster. - Sinikka Langeland

A new way of thinking about Bach in in Norwegian folk-jazz artist Sinikka Langeland's liner notes to her CD Kyriekoral: Norwegian Folk Hymns And Bach Chorales, with Langeland on vocals and Kåre Nordstoga on the organ in Trondheim's Nidaros cathedral. (Click on links to discography and "Kyriekoral," a word that Langeland coined from the Kyrie Eleison [Lord have mercy upon us] and the Norwegian word for a type of Lutheran hymn called a chorale.)

I've been playing a melody-and-drone instrument for 25 years, and I've been listening to organ music since I was a little boy growing up with my father's E. Power Biggs LPs playing in the background, but I never thought of the organ as a dronal instrument.

But that was before I read this from Langeland:

My first organist was my mother’s Mixmaster. At the age of four I discovered how a sustained drone made me hum and sing almost involuntarily. Something similar happened when I started listening to Bach’s chorales: I was inspired to create my own melodic lines. This was my point of departure. I have never made any attempt to “compose my way into” the masterpieces; I have only wanted to play with, and improvise on, the old hymn melodies that are part of Bach’s complex structures. They sometimes emerge distinctly in the melodic lines, and sometimes so slowly that they are barely perceptible…in the pedal, high, low,
inverted, canons – in short, in every method Bach used to create his masterpieces. When I improvise within Bach’s music itself, I feel very close to him, while at the same time I gain a heightened awareness of my own folk song tradition, especially the religious folk songs of Andris Vang, Ragnar Vigdal, Ingebjørg Liestøl and Sondre Bratland, to name my most important sources of inspiration.

And - you know what? - she's right.

Gud Helligånd! o, kom - bios of Johannes Johansen, August Winding and Thomas Laub

At Heligeaandkirken. Hymn for noon service when we were in Copenhagen was Danske Salmebog 523 Min nåde er dig nok, a paraphrase of 2 Cor. 12:9 by Johannes Johansen (1983 and 1995). Mel.: Gud Helligånd! o kom

http://www.dendanskesalmebogonline.dk/salme/302
Gud Helligånd! o, kom
Mel.: August Winding 1861
Thomas Laub 1917

Johannes Johansen
Den Store Danske, Glydendal's open encyclopedia, has this: "Johannes Johansen, f. 1925, dansk præst og salmedigter; biskop over Helsingør Stift 1980-95. Han udgav sin første digtsamling, Thurø-Rim, i 1974 og sine første salmer i 1975; en omfattende samling foreligger i Min egen Salmebog (1996). Det har været Johansens bestræbelse at videreføre det bedste i dansk salmetradition, og han var 1900-t.s betydeligste danske salmedigter efter K.L. Aastrup." The Danske Salmebog bio counts 13 psalms and 2 translations.

August Winding
Not much on him ... what there is comes from liner notes of his recordings ... The Bach Cantatas website has this:

The Danish composer, August Winding, was the son of a clergyman who had a passion for collecting and arranging Danish folk songs. Naturally, August studied with his father. Soon, however, he was to move to greater things; he studied piano with Anton Ree who had known Chopin. This was followed by composition lessons with Carl Reinecke and theory with no less a person than Niels W. Gade, the father of Danish music.

In the first instance August Winding was a pianist. He made quite an impression both in Denmark and in concert halls and recital rooms throughout Europe. His specialities were the concerti of Mozart and Beethoven. He enjoyed playing in chamber ensembles as well as performing as a recitalist. From 1867 he taught at the conservatoire in Copenhagen.

As a composer, August Winding is unfairly remembered only for a few hymn tunes. However, he wrote much other music - including a symphony, Concerto for Piano & Orchestra in A minor, Op.16 (1869); Concert allegro for Piano & Orchestra in C minor, Op.29 (c1875); chamber works; songs; piano pieces.

Source: MusicWeb, from liner notes to the album Piano Concertos by August Winding and Emil Hartmann (Danacord)
Contributed [to the Bach site by its administrator] Aryeh Oron (August 2007)

This review, by blogger John Kersey of a recording of solo piano compositions, adds a couple of details:

August Winding was the son of a pastor, and received his first piano lessons from his parents. In 1847 he studied with Carl Reinecke and from 1848-51 with Anton Rée, also studying composition with Niels Gade. In 1856 he completed his studies in Leipzig and Prague, where he studied with Dreyschock. Returning to Denmark, he became well-known for appearances as a soloist, particularly in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. In 1864, he married Clara, daughter of J.P.E. Hartmann. From 1867 he taught at the Royal Conservatory, as well as privately. In 1872 he developed a nervous injury to his arm as a result of overwork which forced him to stop concertizing and devote his attention to composition. He resumed teaching at the Conservatory in 1881 and became a member of its board after the death of Gade in 1890. In 1888 he reappeared in public as a soloist and gave a limited number of concerts between then and his death, receiving the accolade of a state professorship and annuity in 1892.

Thomas Laub
Wikipedia's article "Music of Denmark" has this: "Thomas Laub (1852–1927), an organist, was devoted to reintroducing the old Protestant hymn tunes which had been forgotten or altered over the years. He published a number of important works including Kirkemelodier (Church Melodies) (1890), Udvalg af Salme-Melodier i Kirkestil (Selected Hymn Tunes in the Church Style) (1896 and 1902), Dansk Kirkesang (Danish Church Song) (1918) and Musik og Kirke (Music and Church) (1920). Laub also wrote folk song music and together with Carl Nielsen published En Snes danske Viser (A Set of Danish Folk Songs) (1917)." Pix (left) available on Creative Commons license via Wikipedia. But the main bio is a Wikipedia stub.

Laub collaborated with Carl Nielsen on the songbook used for Folk High Schools. See the discussion of Danish songs and hymns" on the Carl Nielsen Society website ... lots of information, summarized in this cutline: "Thomas Laub was one of Nielsen's collaborators on the Folk High School Melody Book and composed two volumes of Danish Songs together with Nielsen." And this:

Carl Nielsen was not religious in the conventional sense of the word. This did not prevent him from writing music for a number of hymns (Salmer og aandelige Sange, composed 1913-1915, published 1919). His friend the organist, composer and reformer of church music, Thomas Laub, had reproached him:

"A composer of hymns must be A Child of the House, by which I do not mean that he has a patent on faith - his faith can be weak, it can be wrong - but he must feel at home, that is to say he must have lived with congregational singing preferably from childhood, he must know it from its uses ...", he wrote to Nielsen.

But there's quite a bit more, including some pretty good atmospherics on Danish folk music.

Buskers - in the free city of Bremen and a story in today's Irish Times - mashed together with a really weak transition

Marktplatz in Bremen
A very informative, well written story on busking in The Irish Times today ... which gives me an opportunity to get some pix up from our trip to Europe ... especially Bremen, a lovely Hanseatic city we visited in northern Germany. Busking is thought of as a typically Irish thing, but it's international. And it was in evidence in Bremen.

In fact, musicians are part of what makes Bremen special.

Statue at left isn't a busker - it's the Town Musicians of Bremen (Stadtmusikanten) on the Market Square downtown. It's shiny in places because people like to rub the statue for good luck. (Sort of like Abraham Lincoln's nose!) It comes from a folktale collected by the Brothers Grimm. Says the summary in Wikipedia, "In the story a donkey, a dog, a cat, and a rooster, all past their prime years in life and usefulness on their respective farms, were soon to be discarded or mistreated by their masters. One by one they leave their homes and set out together. They decide to go to Bremen, known for its freedom, to live without owners and become musicians there." In a word or two, they live by their wits. And the story is delightful. I won't spoil it for you - the rest of their story is in Wikipedia. The city has sort of adopted the animals as mascots, and the statue by Bremen sculptor Gerhard Marcks shows the animals.

Bremen and its port city of Bremerhaven have long enjoyed their common status as a "free city" - i.e. a chartered city pretty much ruled by its burghers, or middle class, rather than the feudal nobility - and even today its formal name is the Freie Hansestadt Bremen (the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen). And the Grimm Brothers folk tale symbolizes that spirit of freedom ... and living by your wits.

---

At right are some real musicians of Bremen, busking on the other side of the Market Square from the statue.

---

Here's how Una Mullally begins her story in the Irish Times:

Some are good, some are bad, some are insufferable: you know it’s summertime when the buskers take over the streets. But what separates the talented from the talentless and how does a busker earn €7,000 in one day? ...

A bare-chested dreadlocked man attempting to limbo underneath a blazing stick, an elderly harpist, two men in full native American garb playing panpipes to a backing CD, teenage boys mangling Damien Rice songs on a duo of barely tuned guitars, an artist rolling out a canvas of a remarkably detailed stained glass painting, a bored looking man constructing the likeness of a dog out of sand, a deft spray-painter making surrealist space-scapes with moons and pyramids, a lone opera singer, a trad group, a tightly honed raucous band, a drumming circle, a tuneless accordion-player, a classical trio. Summertime is when the buskers take over our streets, becoming moveable street furniture that annoy, amuse, distract and pleasure in equal measure.

So what makes a good busker, and what makes a rubbish one? Roger Quail is the label manager of Model Citizen and Rubyworks, founded by Niall Muckian who was promoting the primarily singer-songwriter night The Ruby Sessions in the early 2000s. The weekly gigs in Doyle’s pub in Dublin saw several former buskers such as Glen Hansard and Paddy Casey take the stage.

“A good busker is someone who can hold an audience and make them forget where they are, even if it’s only for five minutes,” Quail says. Rubyworks know all about good buskers.

And this vignette that reminds me of the buskers I heard on Grafton Street last year in Dublin:

SUCH IS IRELAND’S bustling busker scene that some people even temporarily move here to get a slice of the action. Kamila and Magda from Katowice in Poland will stay here for three weeks, playing their viola duets every morning on Henry Street in Dublin and every evening on Grafton Street, before returning to their studies in a music academy back home. “We started at 8am and we’ll play until 10pm,” Magda explains, midweek on Grafton Street.

They were here two years ago, “and it was better, definitely” in terms of earnings. These days, they can make anything from €40 to €100 each. They play a mixture of classical music and the occasional pop curveball, concentrating mainly on Bach and Mozart. While they like being their own bosses and choosing when to play, there are downfalls – “the weather” exclaims Kamilla.

And no transition at all for this one. On the motorways in Sweden, they have fast food resaurants called "Rasta."

So I decided it was the best chance I'll ever have to be a Rasta man.

Here's the picture.

Bellman - Fredmans sånger n:o 5C - MIDI

Cool! Up tempo, and sounds like a harpsichord. Instrumental only, tho'.

Bellman - Fredmans sånger n:o 5C - MIDI file rendered by Kapten Kaos -

• Text
  
• Notes (modern - 4 sharps - E). Click on "Noter."
  
• Notes (original - 2 flats - B flat). Click on "Originalnoter."

Tips for Longer-Lasting Laptop Batteries - link to Yahoo! feature

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/113310/longer-lasting-laptop-battery-bnet

Excerpt:

* * *

Recondition your battery regularly. Most laptop manufacturers (except Apple) don't generally tell you about this, but a simple process known as reconditioning (or occasionally, recalibrating) can breathe new life into your laptop battery and add capacity back. To do that, turn off your screen saver and any other power management tools which put your PC to sleep. Fully charge the laptop, and then let it run all the way down — right until it powers down due to lack of juice. Then charge it back up again and restore your power management stuff. Do this every few months (such as three times a year).

Remove it when you're not using it. When you leave your laptop plugged in at your desk all day every day, the battery never gets a chance to discharge and recharge — which is critical to its long-term health. Thankfully, there's a simple solution: Remove the battery. As long as your laptop is connected to AC power, the battery isn't necessary; it'll run without it. Just remember to pop it back in before you take your laptop on the go.

* * *

"Samson af hendelse Gasa besøgte"

Catchy tune on Kingoløg CD by jazz artist Kristian Blak of the Faroe Islands called "Samson af Hændelse Gasa Besøgte." The CD is a suite "based on traditional Kingo-hymns afrom the Faroe Islands," but this one doesn't sound like Kingo.

Maybe that's because it isn't.

I haven't tracked it down yet, and it may turn out to be by Kingo. When I Googled it, I found the title by a contemporary of Kingo's named Petter Dass, a parish priest in Nordland, in the north of Norway, who would have attended university in Copenhagen at the same time as Kingo and who wrote songs on the bible and Luther's catechism. This one is pretty racy ... the title means something like "Samson visited the fleshpots of Gaza." Was sung to the tune of another song, "Kommer I cimbriske helte." It's listed in a Swedish data base, the Song and Tune Catalogue of Svenskt visarkiv – The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research as "Kommer I cimbriske helte med ære" ... the Google translation calls it a "16. og 17. århundredes verldslige danske visesang ... 16th og 17th århundredes worldly wise Danish song" ... no other info

Dagbladet has the text and bio with links in its Kultur diktbasen (culture - poetry) data base. It goes on for quite some length. The first stanza is:

Petter Dass
SAMSONS ANDEN HISTORIE


Mel.: Kommer I Cimbriske Helte etc.


Samson af hendelse Gasa besøgte,
Fandt der en Hore til hvilken hand gaar,
Da de Gesiter fik høre det Rygte
Komme de sammen som Ulven om Faar,
Lader med Krigsfolcket Staden omringe,
Meente de hannem ret visselig finge.

* * *

It's also available on the University of Oslo website at http://www.dokpro.uio.no/litteratur/dass/pd2.txt
[several further pages. Click here for info on the documentation Project of the University of Oslo.

Luther, sermon on the Passion [excerpt]

The following sermon is taken from volume II of, The Sermons of Martin Luther, published by Baker Book House (Grand Rapids, MI). It was originally published in 1906 in english by Lutherans In All Lands (Minneapolis, MN), in a series titled The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther, vol. 11. The original title of this sermon appears below (preached by Luther approx. 1519-1521). This e-text was scanned and edited by Shane Rosenthal; it is in the public domain and it may be copied and distributed without restriction. Original pagination from the Baker edition has been kept intact for purposes of reference.

THE TRUE AND THE FALSE VIEWS OF CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS


http://www.reformationhappens.com/works/sermons-luther/

* * *

[excerpt from SECTION III. THE COMFORT OF CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS].

* * *

16. Sixteenthly. When your heart is thus established in Christ, and you are an enemy of sin, out of love and not out of fear of punishment, Christ's sufferings should also be an example for your whole life, and you should meditate on the same in a different way. For hitherto we have considered Christ's Passion as a sacrament that works in us and we suffer; now we consider it, that we also work, namely thus: if a day of sorrow or sickness weighs you down, think, how trifling that is, compared with the thorns and nails of Christ. If you must do or leave undone what is distasteful to you: think, how Christ was led hither and thither, bound and a captive. Does pride attack you: behold, how your Lord was mocked and disgraced with murderers. Do unchastity and lust thrust themselves against you: think, how bitter it was for Christ to have his tender flesh torn, pierced and beaten again and again. Do hatred and envy war against you, or do you seek vengeance: remember how Christ with many tears and cries prayed for you and all his enemies, who indeed had more reason to seek revenge. If trouble or whatever adversity of body or soul afflict you, strengthen your heart and say: Ah, why then should I not also suffer a little since my Lord sweat blood in the garden because of anxiety and grief? That would be a lazy, disgraceful servant who would wish to lie in his bed while his lord was compelled to battle with the pangs of death.

Another translation, with notes, at the LutheranMissiology.org website ... with this intro:

On Invocavit Sunday, March 13, 1519, Luther wrote his friend George Spalatin, “I am planning
a treatise dealing with the meditation of Christ’s passion. I do not know, however, whether I
shall have enough leisure to write it out. Yet I shall try hard.”1 In the same letter he cites the
reasons for this lack of leisure: activities directed toward the renewal of the university
curriculum, his work on the Lord’s Prayer,2 a commentary on Galatians, and particularly
pressing and irksome, his intense study of canon law in preparation for the upcoming Leipzig
Debate with John Eck, July 4 to 14. Nevertheless, it was a mere three weeks later, on April 5,
that Luther was able to send a printed copy of his work on the passion to Spalatin.3
By 1524, a total of twenty-four editions had been printed in Wittenberg, Basel, Augsburg,
Zurich, Erfurt, Munich, Nürnberg, and Strassburg. The number of editions testifies to the
widespread response aroused by this writing. A Latin edition, whose translator is unknown,
appeared at Wittenberg in 1521. As the sermon for Good Friday, this treatise was included in the
Church Postil of 1525, which Luther termed his “very best book.”