Key signature: Gmajor
Submitted on July 1st 2010 by Mix O'Lydian.
This tune has been added to 22 tunebooks.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: High Clouds
M: 3/4
L: 1/8
R: waltz
K: Gmaj
D2|G3F GA|Bd3 D2|E4 ED|EG3 FE|
D2 G2 A2|Bd3 c2|B3 A G2|A4 D2|
G3F GA|Bd3 D2|E4 ED|EG3 FE|
D2 G2 A2|Bd3 c2|B3 G A2|G4 Bc|
d3B GD|EG3 E2|D3E DC|B,4 Bc|
d2 B3A|G2 F2 G2|A4-AB|A4 Bc|
d3B GD|EG3 E2|D3E DC|B,2 C2 D2|
E3F GB|A4 G2|G6-|G4|]
High Clouds
I'm afraid that I don't have any information to offer concerning this tune, suffice to say that (should you be into waltzes!) it sets well with "The Cabri Waltz" (a tune that I posted yesterday).
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/10564
I quite like the tune, albeit ever-so-slightly put off by a phrase at the end of the first part which recalls the melody of that hackneyed song: "Cockles and Mussels".
# Posted on July 1st 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
High Clouds
As far as I know this waltz is part of the New England Contradance Music tradition. The Greenfield Dance Band has it in their repertoire - see the recording mentioned in `details´- and I´m told this waltz can be heard a lot at dances from New England over into Nova Scotia.
# Posted on July 1st 2010 by alexweger
High Clouds
Hi Alex - thanks for the info. My knowlege of North American geography is rather weak I'm afraid, but can I take it the tune is equally common both sides of the USA/Canadian border?
Did the tune originate in the USA, or in Canada, do you happen to know?
# Posted on July 1st 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
High Clouds
This waltz was written by David Kaynor of Montague, Massachusetts. It is widely played among contra dance musicians and is printed in Waltz Book I by Bill Matthiesen.
# Posted on July 2nd 2010 by songer
Thanks for the info, songer.
In case anyone's interested, here's a link to David Kaynor's website:
http://www.davidkaynor.com/home.html
# Posted on July 3rd 2010 by Mix O'Lydian
High Clouds
"Cockles and Mussels" is only the beginning. "The Old Oaken Bucket" and "My Grandfather's Clock" are in there as well.
When I was a kid in the early 1950s, these songs and others like them weren't thought as "hackneyed" as they are now. In fact, my extended family's harmony singing made them beautiful. I was lucky to be able to hear the elders' wonderful singing nearly every weekend back then.
I remember longing for that experience as High Clouds, fully conceived all at once, flowed out of my calligraphy pen onto manuscript paper. I was sitting in the back of a high school science classroom full of disengaged adolescents, far from my fiddle, profoundly unhappy and longing desperately for music. Composing, or whatever you want to call it, brought me comfort 30 years ago and the tune still brings me comfort today.
David Kaynor
# Posted on July 19th 2010 by Kaynor