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I have been searching for the music for two of Jim reid's songs The Wild Geese/Noran Wind" and "Up the Noran Water" I can get the words and chords but cannot find anywhere the music either as sheet music or in a book Any Ideas?
cheers
Alcluith
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"Noran Water" (which may be more original) is a bit fuzzy in my head right now. "Norland Wind" is a lot like "Tramps and Hawkers". The distinctive thing about it is that each phrase heads towards a specific final note. You need to work what that is; then figure out what the first accented note of each phrase is; then fill in the space in between. Plunk away to a recording until these reference points get clear. Don't try to get every note in the tune at first - latch onto the important ones.
I am in the middle of rewriting my modes tutorial to include some material about the way tunes thread a path through identifiable landmark notes like this: it's still a recognized concept in Middle Eastern music theory ("seyir" in Turkish, which means "path") which Western music theory has forgotten about as a result of losing its folk roots.
This kind of issue is something SMG has never dealt with properly, and Nigel hasn't managed to deal with it either. If somebody is still looking at a book after playing the same tune every week for ten years, and can't pick up any new tune on the fly however simple it is, something has gone very badly wrong. There are strategies for getting past this block, they aren't deep and difficult, but they do require willingness to try. You might be surprised how fast your ability to play by ear develops once the process has started.
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Jack
thank you for that advise, I do find it difficult to translate a tune into notes, a friend of mine, who only plays by ear always said you cannot play properly until you can achieve this, which I do believe. Unfortunately he said it will come to you eventually but I just don't seam to be able to do that. Barron Collin of MandoLessons also suggest that you should only learn by ear although he does provided the dots and I usually end up looking at them. His video's also lets you see his finger positions so although you do not have the music you can still cheat.
Your advise is very helpful and I will work on that, Nigel has given us some guidance on the construction of a tune and the phrasing but maybe he should take the approach of not handing out tabs and and encourage us to use our ears. I think you are correct on the willingness to try but again been eager to play something tends to make me take the easy route of getting the music and using that. I will need to take you advice and try harder.
cheers
Alcluith
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Tabs are a particular problem - they make it much more difficult to think of the intervals in the tune.
On the recorder, it is usually possible to transpose by a tone, with only a small change in difficulty. I have to practice a couple of times, but something like The Flowers of Edinburgh in F is perfectly doable. It would be on the mandolin too - but not if your mental model of the tune is as a sequence of finger movements.
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Thank you both for for your replies although it veered of the subject I found it both informative and helpful. I do not have a singing voice, some would say I'm tone deaf so will need to just keep plodding away at it.
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Alcluith
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Not a tune I know, A, but you've made a fine job of getting the standard notation, TAB and lyrics all co-ordinated. What software did you use for this?
If you are having a go at Norland Wind (The Wild Geese) I would be happy to check it out for you as I know this one quite well. The thing with any song is that the notation will not always reflect the way the individual singer interprets the song and decides on phrasing - true too of course with tunes!
John