Jack Campin's Nine-Note Tune Book version 55

Preface

HTML adaption by Robert Hickman. Minor reformat of introductory text, add table of contents and convert ABC notation into sheet music and playable audio.

After navigating to a section using the table of contents, your browser's 'back' button can be used to return to the table of contents.

The original tune book can be found at http://​www.​campin.​me.​uk/​Music/​Chalumeau.abc.

Introduction

A collection of tunes with the range CDEFGABcd, with a few sharps or flats. The tunes vary a lot in difficulty. Just because a tune uses a limited range, that doesn't make it easy. I've tried to include music with the widest possible variety of mode, rhythm and idiom.

This tune book was originally meant for the simple non-overblowing clarinet in C sold for the educational market by several European makers under different names:

The tunes also work on the Italian-type 10-hole ocarina in C, crumhorns, simple melodeons, psalteries, tuned-bar percussion, mediaeval bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies. The Armenian duduk, Turkish mey and Azeri balaban will also work but may need a few notes adjusted by embouchure changes.

With appropriate transposition, they will also work on any two adjacent strings of the violin in first position. If anybody teaches the violin two strings at a time, they might have a use for this.

The tunes use a variety of keys and modes, but rarely need half-holing. I'm serious about the tempo indications, which are usually the practical dancing or singing speed for the tune.

Adaptions to the music

Many of these tunes are transposed from the keys they are most commonly played in. In some traditions, where tunes are usually played solo or by unpredictable combinations of instruments, that doesn't matter, but it matters for instrumental music from the British Isles.

Within that tradition, if tunes don't fit the fiddle, flute or melodeon, you won't get other players joining in. So for these traditions, I've indicated when I've given the tune in the "right" key; otherwise I'll have transposed it, and you'll need to warn other players that you're doing something different.

I haven't transposed any Highland pipe tunes, which all have a nine-note range. These are easy to find in many sources and in Scottish practice they're always played in the original key (either at concert A or B flat pitch).

In a few places I've shifted notes of the tune up into the 9-note range. If you see a 2-note "chord", the lower note is the original and the upper one is mine.

As in many songbooks and hymnbooks, I've tried to avoid breaking phrases across lines. This means a lot of lines begin with an upbeat and end with an incomplete bar, which instrumentalists may find unusual.

Table of contents

Scottish Gaelic songs

Scottish Highland instrumental tunes

Lowland Scots songs and slow airs

Scottish dance tunes

English songs

English dance tunes

last edit 03-02-2013

Manx tunes

Welsh tunes

Northumbrian songs and dance tunes

Irish songs

Irish dance tunes

Anglo-American songs

Anglo-American dance tunes

Canadian songs and dance tunes

African-American songs

last edit 03-02-2013

Jazz tunes

Latin American music

New Zealand songs

Australian music

Dutch and Flemish songs and dances

German songs and dance tunes

Turkish tunes and songs

Iranian songs

Armenian songs and duduk tunes

Greek songs

Latvian dance tunes

Sephardic songs

Klezmer tunes

Israeli dances

Indian songs

Caucasian songs

Russian songs

Bosnian songs and dances

Balkan dances

Italian songs and dances

French songs

French dance tunes

Breton songs and dance tunes

Spanish songs and dances

Basque songs

Catalan songs and dance tunes

Arabic songs and dance tunes

African songs and tunes

Japanese songs and tunes

Scandinavian songs and dance tunes

Slovakian songs and dance tunes

Hungarian songs and dance tunes

Hungarian Csango songs and dance tunes from Moldavia

Hungarian and Balkan Gypsy songs

Early music

Later classical music

Rounds, canons and other multi-part pieces

Scottish singalongs and farewell songs

last edit 03-02-2013

Copyright

(c) Jack Campin http://www.campin.me.uk/ 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland