Elizabeth Clare's Waltz

This great tune is hidden at the end of 'Hares on the Mountain' by Chris Wood on the album Lusingac. I'm guessing it is an Andy Cutting tune as it has his hallmark sound to it. There are lots of variations which occur during the tune, and I have tried to capture the framework and the commonly occurring trills/slurs.

The Tune

The album version is in the key of F major, played on a C/F melodeon. I have transposed it into G to be D/G melodeon friendly.

Some Notes on the Tune

The guitar chords indicated are harmonies implied by the guitar, which to me stands out as the main harmonic instrument on the album recording. The melodeon does play chords the second time through, and these mostly follow the guitar. The chords given will work as a starting point to build your own harmonic structure and arrangements. 

It is also worth noting that the third time through on the album, the melodeon switches in the 3rd voice and octave lower (a good trick on an instrument with the stop options - Andy Cutting tends to play a Castagnari Mory which has the stops on the back of the keyboard, operated by a thumb switch). This leads to the tuning sounding an octave lower, but of course keeps the same fingering pattern. 

The Video

I have indicated on the video the various sections and also played the different ornaments and trills slowly and obviously to make them easier to learn by ear. The same ornaments are also indicated on the sheet music.

Schottische a Bethanie

 

A brilliant French tune - I'm just uploading the music for now, more to follow.

Speed the Plough - Embellishments and Variation

Speed the Plough is probably the most widely known English session tune, but unfortunately gets played in a very basic style. There are lots of really good versions in different manuscripts and on recordings, and this tries to pull together some of them to give some possible variations on the tune.

The Music

The most important point for playing this tune is keeping your 4 right hand fingers in position on buttons G3, G4, G5, & G6. This allows the slightly tricky descending patterns such as bar 7 to be played fairly easily, without your fingers falling over themselves. The E played on D3' should use finger 1, allowing finger 2 to play the two A notes on G3' in bar 4. The lowest notes G2' in the turnaround bars should be played with finger 1.

The Video

La Marianne

This is the video lesson for the French tune 'La Marianne'.

The Music

The first score shows the notes in standard notation with the button numbers above. Pay careful attention to the phrases where you are crossing rows whist keeping the bellows direction constant. There are no mid-bar bellows direction changes which means it is possible to keep the tune sounding very smooth.

 The chords for the tune are shown here, above the stave. Notice that it requires both an Am and Bm chord. These are not available from the 'normal' button combinations and must be formed by playing 'cross chords'

Am is formed from playing the A pull bass note and the C pull chord simultaneously.

Bm is formed from playing the B push bass note and the D push chord simultaneously.

These are both indicated in the video below.

Valse Olive

So, here is the first lesson! Valse Olive by Oliver Gautier. The video shows the parts broken down into the A and B sections and the respective bass parts for each one. I have prepared this for a specific pupil and as such it is not a 'from scratch' tutorial (but some of those to come!)

This is a French tune, and because of this, it is played across the rows of the Melodeon. This leads to smoother basses and a more interesting harmony.

Now, I'm not a 'French' player, but I do like the French style tunes. I have played this on a DG Melodeon in the key of G, but the original is played in C on a GC, as many French tunes are.

Playing on a DG compared to a GC means that it is better to play in the lower octave as opposed to the higher octave on a  GC where Mr Gautier plays it. Here is the original.