Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Willafjord

reel

Key signature: Dmajor

Submitted on September 24th 2001 by Redbird.

This tune has been added to 85 tunebooks.

Also known as Happy One Step, The Happy One-Step, Villafjord, Willa Fjord, Willafiord, Willow Fjord, Wullafjord.

Recordings of a tune by this name:

Harthope Burn by Joe Hutton, Willy Taylor & Will Atkinson
Junction Pool by Junction Pool
Le Soleil Est Vert by Tri Yann
Our Favourites by Lewis And Harris Accordion And Fiddle Club
Portrait Of A Scottish Jew's Harp Player by Lindsay Porteous
Racket In The Rectory by Liz Doherty And Fiddlesticks
Rags, Reels And Airs by Dave Swarbrick
Sharon Shannon by Sharon Shannon
Shetland Fiddle Music by School Of Scottish Studies, University Of Edinburgh
Spellbound by Sharon Shannon
The Ceilidh Album by Dave Swarbrick

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Details ABC Sheetmusic Comments

Title misspelled

The first time I came across this tune was in 80s. It was published in a tunebook called "Haand me doon da fiddle" under the title of "Willafjord". The book was written by Shetland Fiddler Tom Anderson with one of his fiddle students, Pam Swing, an American from Chicago, and published by the Department of Continuing Education, the University of Stirling, Scotland. Don�t know if it�s still print.
Since all tunes in this book, where composers are known for, are clearly marked so, often with the authors� comments on them, this is a trad.
It became quite popular in German session circles, mainly because of its unusual rhythm, I would think, and wherever I have played in sessions all over Scotland and Northumberland, everybody knew it.
Mr. Anderson�s comments in the book on this one look like this: "If du imagines some een gaen wi wan fit ida stank an de idder een on a broo an gaein a lunk as dey go alang, dat�s da kind o� syncopated rhythm du haes to get whin du plays dis een." (The spelling has been checked thoroughly, that�s how it�s printed there! I only understand the most obvious parts...
One minor difference to the version printed here: B-part, bar 4 (ignoring the pick up-bar!) is: e2c e2A ce. Normally something I would ignore, but in this case the syncopation seems to be pretty important, so...
I like to pair this one with "Spootiskerry", another Shetland Reel with a somewhat syncopated feel to it...

# Posted on September 24th 2001 by Joerg Froese

Spootiskerry" ~ Ian Burns, Shetland fiddler

Submitted on July 25th 2002 by MichaelBolton.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/857

# Posted on June 18th 2006 by ceolachan

Liberty / Ti-Jean ~ reel - - - Dow's pairing for this one

Submitted on December 29th 2003 by lazyhound.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/2317

# Posted on June 18th 2006 by ceolachan

"The Kilfenora" ~ connecting the dots

Submitted on August 24th 2001 by Kerri Brown.
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/252

These two are obviously related...

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

Willafjord

Here is the version I used to play at school:

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by Dow

I'll have to listen more closely to my Lindsay Porteous recording of this... I like both the transcripts here, but your's is more familiar with me, but maybe it's just that similarity to "The Kilfenora"... I think I might have it on another recording. If I do and it's here and I find it I'll add it to 'Recordings'...

Thanks Mark...

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

You played it at school? Was that last year?

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

Can you still remember "school"?

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by Dow

"Wllafjord"

Aside from your notation, which was more familiar to me, for example | A2 FA- ADFA | rather than | A2 F A2 D FA | ~ the B-part is the only real difference, and then only in the 4th measures:

| e2 ce Aece | & | e2 ce- eAce |

and the 6th measures:

| gdaf gfed | & | geaf gfed |

I originally learned this one from Pam Swing... I'll have to see if I've any notes for it or can call it up from deep down in the memory banks, though the latter will undoubtedly be 'polluted'... ;-)

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

"School" like "Student" is a state of mind... I much prefer the latter... :-P

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

Damn Dow, my chair just slipped and I gave myself an espresso shower... Have you got one of those dolls there you're sticking pins into?

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

"Willafjord" ~ Pam Swing's transcription

Hey, this is pretty amazing, Pam Swing's notation is note for note the same as yours Mark, with just one exception, in the B-part, that 6th measure again and just one note:

| geaf gfec |

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

Strange but true.................

3 years ago I had a student from Co. Clare at a music school here in Aberdeen. She was here to study whistle, but her main instrument was the concertina. I took her and her friends down to the Tuesday night session, and she started playing “The Kilfenora” reel. [ see link above ]. About 3 bars into it, everyone else started playing “Willafjord”.
The following year I was in a session at the Willie Clancy week. Two well-known box players, 2 well-known fiddle players, RonP , myself and a few others. One of the fiddlers knew a fair number of Shetland tunes, and started “Willafjord”. The other fiddler, and one of the box-players went into “The Kilfenora Reel”.
So, “ceolachan” – do you know Lindsay Porteous ?

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by Kenny

"Willafjord" / "Willa Fjord" ~ sans syncopation

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

No Kenny, I never had the pleasure, but I have a recording of him I very much enjoy... I like your tale. It has happened to me a few times all on my lonesome... ;-)

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

"Willafjord" ~ Nigel Gatherer's site ~ with tab and chords and notes:

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/
http://www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes/tab/tab4/willa.html

"The great Shetland collector Tom Anderson said that Willafjord was brought back from the Greenland whaling expeditions by Shetland fiddlers and as long since become a standard of the genre. ~ ~ ~ He also said that Willafjord is played in Newfoundland and Cape Breton using the same bowing strokes as in Shetland."

& from that site here's a loose translation of Tom Anderson's words given above in dialect:

"In other words, think of walking along with one foot in the ditch, bopping along, and you'll get the rhythm!"

Here it has a second violin part. It is my understanding that this is something that wasn't unknown in the Shetlands. Pam Swing and Tom Anderson used to play parts on many of his compositions and with other Shetland standards. I know in Eire that playing in octaves was not unknown:

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=34859

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

Note: The link to the Sibelius score, which you can print out and hear the midi for, does not in any way constitute a recommendation of the second part... ;-)

# Posted on June 22nd 2006 by ceolachan

Willafjord/Villafjord

I heard this one at Majors Creek festival - in the session bar people referred to it as Villafjord. It was quite a while before Davydd from Brisbane pointed me to this tune :-)

Cheers
Jerry

# Posted on November 28th 2006 by ijerry

# Posted on September 3rd 2007 by DonaldK

In the late 70's or early 80's a Faroese band called (something like) Spaelmenninir i Hoydolum toured New England, and played several afternoon concerts paired with evening contra-dances, using local callers. At one of these evening contras (my memory says it was at the YWCA in Central Sq., Cambridge), they pulled out this tune, whose name I have misremembered all these years as "Wullafjord". The dancers went nuts, as the tune was completely unfamiliar to most of us, but it was so perfectly contra-ish.

Somewhere around the same time, somebody I trusted (perhaps it was Pam Swing) assured me that the unsyncopated tune was the older version, and that the syncopation was a recent innovation.

# Posted on January 1st 2008 by ACW