The Session: Tunes - Gan Ainm (barndance)

I used to hate tunes like this...

I heard this melody in many forms from older musicians as a kid... I put it in the barndance category . Someone else may have more on it...

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by The Merry Highlander

GRRRR!!! ~ YES! But will I be able to shake up my malfunctioning brain enough to come up with the name? I will say this, it is generally played resplendent with accidentals... Also, as 32 measures and played as and for a schottische, so 'barndance' was a wise category to slide it into... ;-)

I wonder if it is already here? :-/

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by ceolachan

I agree "c"

Seems like 32 would be appropriate...Lately I am into doing things as 16... I'm fascinated with melodies that really pack a punch in the short time frame... I get a strange high from it...

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by The Merry Highlander

16 bar tunes are great, but this one sounds like it was never meant to fit into the 16 bar mold. It's like painting an apple orange and calling it an "orange" just because you like oranges. It's still an apple and always will be.

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by Dow

Dow

I agree. 32 is right for this tune.
Maybe that's a title if one isn't found... "An Apple is an Apple" ?

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by The Merry Highlander

What a fruity bunch of people... My preference would be plum cake at this moment, but actually, mmmm, what about Guiness bread? That's the same as making a nice soda bread, wholewheat, with buttermilk, and substituting Guiness or some other porter for water... It is nice... You could soak some dried fruit to throw in the blend if you were so motivated...

MH, and Dow will hopefully back me on this, get into highland flings for 16 measures with a punch, the punch being the usual second ending. Just do a search here using any of the following ~ 'fling', 'highland', or 'highland fling'. Of course, deserving inclusion there is the relative strathspey...

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by ceolachan

The noname taken for a walk ~ yours first then one out of my memory ~

I so hope we end up finding a name and some history for this one. I have a hunch it might be in a certain very large collection but just am not in the right state to go trawlin' for it. I'm enjoying a nice gin right now. Anyway, here goes ~

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by ceolachan

32 bars definitely

Nice tune MH. I've just played it, rolls along nicely on my D/G. Would certainly like a name so get to it 'c' we are all waiting.

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by hetty

Accidentals certainly

Have come back to it after my evening meal, but minus the gin, and it is definitely to be played with accidentals. Another good tune to add to many recently found to be played very steadily for the dance 'The Barndance'.

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by hetty

I must correct my statement regarding D/G, it is my de-clubbed D/G with the additional 4 buttons. what a good buy at £15 even after spending another £100 having it tuned up.

# Posted on September 30th 2007 by hetty

£15 ~ £115 ~ Wow! How lucky can you get...

# Posted on October 2nd 2007 by ceolachan

Hymn

I am pretty sure this tune is used for a hymn... Some of the old hymns have excellent melodies... my Mother would know for sure... she has an encyclopedic knowledge of hymns from the 17 and 1800s--- played by ear since she was 3 in the old tradition... Ive seen the song leader start a hymn out of the blue and a few seconds later, she finds the key and Kerzowie! Shes right there. I wish a blight like that which took out the chestnut trees would do the same to "comtemporary Christian music"... that music drives me to the point of insanity. ... Sorry for the rantin' and ravin'....

# Posted on October 2nd 2007 by The Merry Highlander

Sacred & Profane ~

Actually MH, it usually worked the other way around and the religious community took the secular melodies and made them sacred, their way of 'saving the soul' of the music from the crasser influences of dance and other carry on we sometimes refer to as 'the craic'...

# Posted on October 2nd 2007 by ceolachan

"comtemporary Christian music" ~ in general ~ UGH!!!

Yes, finger in the throat, me too, we have some 'born again' in our family, and some 7th Day Adventists too, and then there's the occassional Barbarian like me, but that's not saying I don't believe, I do, in some sense of the word. But as regards the 'modern' take on religious music, mostly, I can't stand it. It's just so twee and new-agey and pathetic, on the whole. Where's Tammy Faye Bakker when we need her, at least there was a laugh there.

I used to break down and go to church with these family members on a Sunday when we went visiting them. Don't get me wrong, nice folks when they're not judging the world and me. At their church they use an old bath tub up front for baptism. Anyway, back to the singing. They project the words onto the back of the church. During the singing, during the whole service, there'd be hands waving in the air and ~ anyway, enough is enough. I wouldn't take it from them, as if I could, they being 'in the right', 'God's chosen few'. Let them have their bit of escapism, at least it keeps them off the street for a spell. Anyway, I just can't repeat that drivel, the melodrama and the hipocrisy of it all, so I used to make up my own, sometimes rude ones that were in rhyme with the ones being projected on the wall, quietly to myself, out of respect of the folks either side of me smilin' away and nodding and waving their hands in the air...

Also, there's always a throw together band, at least at the few evangelical churches I've been dragged to, made up of any instrument available or willing person, whether or not in tune or capable of carrying a melody or rhythm ~ brass, winds, strings, always guitar, always a drum set, and most always a really awful sounding electric keyboard.

I know, I know, it's not about that, it is about 'praise', but if I were what's-'is-name, that cacophany wouldn't have me checking in on things there. The only good of it is that maybe the big 'G' will attend elsewhere, where the need might be greater and the song more from an honest situation of need? But who can truly measure need, eh? These folks are in serious need of a little music appreciation, on all levels, especially with regards to lyrics. Give me the blues anyday over modern Christian constructs, a plastic jesus on the dashboard and switch surrounds for light switches that proclaim in every room "Turn On To Jesus!"

God bless them and guide them...but find me something else urgent to do the next time I'm in that situation on a Sunday. "Sorry, I"ve got an urgent call to go count sand."

# Posted on October 2nd 2007 by ceolachan

Damn MH, now see what you've done. You got me started... Now I'll have to make restitution... :-(

# Posted on October 2nd 2007 by ceolachan

The 'Contemporary' ~ Heir today, gone tomorrow ~

Is it not the nature of things 'contemporary' ~ song, lyrics, dances, tunes, architecture, food, etc... ~ that while the rush is on loads of dross is produced, and just occassionally maybe a gem gets cut. There are few that will survive beyond their moment in time. However, there are always the creatively anachronistic that will come along and dig out some old bit of dross and give it a blow, or revive toothpicks in cheese and pineapple... Damned, is that us? Worry, worry ~ 8-)

# Posted on October 2nd 2007 by ceolachan

I have been looking, and trying that in at least 5 different keys, and as yet I haven't managed to squeeze a title out of my mind, but I am checking some printed sources and have sent the dots out to a couple of past musical collaborators with the hopes they might have a clue, but ~ nothing yet...

# Posted on October 5th 2007 by ceolachan

Related in 1st part

http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/7018

O Dear Mother My Toes Are Sore

Submitted on March 31st 2007 by ceolachan.

# Posted on December 20th 2007 by The Merry Highlander