I was playing (and playing around with) “I Dream Of Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair”, by Stephen Foster. I think it’s pretty enough to qualify as a simple slow air, a simple American slow air. I know that we all aspire to play Irish slow airs, and Scottish slow airs, and for all I know, slow airs of any country you choose, which can be fitted to the simple system flute. I can think of some others, for instance, old gospel hymns with “traditional American melody” as the musical part.
What are some other tunes from the U.S. that would work on the flute?
Willie Clancy was quite enamored of “Black is the Color of my true love’s hair” and tried to ascertain if it had a celtic origin. I have heard a tarted up, and Irishized ersatz version, but I think the Appalachian version, very probably originating there and collected by Lomax, is by far superior. . .if starkly more simple.
Kevin Rietmann had a thread about this on Mud-Cat a few years ago.
Philadelphia irish fiddler Eugene O’Donnell plays Forster’s Gentle Annie as an air, doing it no harm at all. And I suppose by now, Jay Unger’s Ashokan Farewell is America’s best known air.
There is the track called Man of Constant Sorrow on the Oh Brother Where art thou O Soundtrack that is a fiddle air by John Hartford.
I had been playing it for ages and thought it was really nice and very unique to do it on the flute and then someone bought me a copy of Chris Norman’s Man with the Wooden flute and he did it as well. I was a bit gutted. As I thought it was “mine.”
If you’re talking about ‘traditional’ American music, I would point you to the Appalachian ballad tradition. Most of them, as well as the vast majority of American old-time fiddle tunes, work great on whistle and flute. Waltzes also work well. Try ‘Shepherd’s Wife’, ‘Tennessee Waltz’, ‘Rosin the Beau’, ‘Midnight on the Water’, etc… All very easy, and fun to play.
It should be pointed out that the term “slow air” is one that is fairly specifically used to mean the air of a song from the Sean Nos or English language traditional singing tradition from Ireland, or an instrumental tune played in that same style… So technically, no there are no “American” slow airs, since the singing traditions are different.
Yep, exactly. And the “slow” in Slow Air (Fionn Mall) doesn’t really mean slow per se, but distinguishes goltraí and suantraí from geantraí in the 3-part traditional division of Irish music types.
Is there a Scottish slow air tradition? I think so, but that’s a different question.
Actually, I think there might be a few American traditional vocal styles - Native American, Appalachian, blues - that could lend themselves to what might be called an American Slow Air style. But that’s not what the OP is asking for. Phreddee is looking for American folk song melodies that can be played on the flute. Nothing wrong with that. They’re not Slow Airs, though they may be airs that are slow.
might be interestin’