American Folk Tunes?

[stevel]

[quote="JimmyJOL"][quote="stevel"]

Originally Posted by JimmyJOL

My only point was regarding what seemed to me to be a bit of a denigration of the Folk Music itself. Perhaps I'm perceiving that incorrectly.

Jimmy

No, I think you're right. There always seems to be this "looking down one's nose" at anything labelled "folk" music. It seems the word in America conjures up images of backwoods hillbillies with an IQ that matches the number of teeth they have, playing "invented" instruments like the Banjolin (a mandolin with a resonator head like a banjo) - straight out of Deliverance. Even without those connotations, I think people tend to view folk music as "simple". Well, maybe it is, but sometimes I like a plain old cheese pizza instead of a supreme!

Steve

[Thorolf]

For American Folk Music meeting the symphony orchestra, ther is no avoiding Aaron Copland. I recommend “Hoedown”
http://www.musikschule-leipzig.de/ps...045df25575.mp3 ,
http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/au...eo_hoedown.mp3 (excerpts), which in turn has been re-interpreted in an excellent symphonic rock version by Emerson Lake and Palmer on the album “Trilogy” from 1972:
http://www.progarchives.com/Progress...cd_id=1871#mp3 (full version, click on “Hoedown”)

Regards

[Ballaw de Quincewold]

Originally Posted by Bassoonery

But using pentatonic can also sound Chinese or Scottish! Blues scale might be another option.

Good point! In order to avoid it sounding "chinese" you only have to do two things. First avoid using the pentonic scale that starts on D as this the scale that was used by the chinese. Also, if you want to make an American tune you harmonize it with thirds and sixths. with Chinese music you harmonize it with fourths, tritones, and fifths.

I dont know a thing about Irish music though...

[stevel]

Originally Posted by Ballaw de Quincewold

Good point! In order to avoid it sounding "chinese" you only have to do two things. First avoid using the pentonic scale that starts on D as this the scale that was used by the chinese. Also, if you want to make an American tune you harmonize it with thirds and sixths. with Chinese music you harmonize it with fourths, tritones, and fifths.

I dont know a thing about Irish music though...

Or pentatonic scales it seems!!!! There is no pentatonic scale that starts on D so to speak. Pentatonic scales are 5 note scales. There are some "standard" ones though. Most people refer to Pentatonic as the quasi-western Pentatonic Major, which, starting on C would be C D E G A. So I gather you probably mean the "second mode" of this set of notes: D E G A C as sounding "Chinese". Obviuosly though if you start a major Pentatonic on D you get D E F# A B. If you start it on Gb you get Gb Ab Bb Db Eb which happen to the be black keys on a piano, and as a result you'll hear people say "black note" or "black key" pentatonic.

Americans, especially in pop music usually refer to "the" Pentatonic scale, and qualify it with Major and minor, and also apply "modal" rotations to it, thus we usually consider 5 pentatonic scales:
C D E G A
D E G A C
E G A C D
G A C D E
A C D E G

Hey look, you can read that across or down! Anyway, the one on C is usually called Pentatonic major, and the one on A Pentatonic minor (since they ar like Major and minor scales with two notes missing). Obviously you can transpose the intervallic pattern to any key and produce 5 "modes" of the Pentatonic scale in any key (though people usually don't call the one on D above the "dorian pentatonic" to my knowledge).

Other cultures have other Pentatonic scales, some of which closely match these western versions, but there are other versions as well: The Hirajoshi (sp?) from Japan is equivalent to C D Eb G Ab (though there are a lot of tuning differences in various cultures and we usually approximate them in western tunings).

So not trying to trump your post here Ballaw, but just trying to be a little mor accurate and detailed.

Best,
Steve

[ttw]

Much "American" folk music is derived from British folk music (and some other continental.) There is a nice collection at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/. Others are at the Library of Congress.

Much is based on the Passamezzo Moderna
I, I, IV, IV, I, IV, V, V, I, I, IV, IV, I, I, V, I


AKA Gregory Walker and exemplified in "The Ballad of Jesse James"