I have the whistle sheet music for Scarborough Fair, but where it has me loop back to the beginning I feel it is incomplete. I hear other whistlers on youtube doing a second and third verses. I would prefer an actual purchase where I give someone my cash money and they provide me quality sheet music.
Thank you for any help!
Couple questions: we can’t see the actual music you’re playing from, nor hear the specific Youtube examples you’re listening to. For me it would be helpful to know what your complaint is based on, since you seem to be equating whatever it is you’re hearing on Youtube with “quality”, and that “quality” seems to be lacking in the music you’re reading from.
Scarborough Fair is a very simple folk tune:
For example, I chose this random version from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYTvcD4yBxs
and this random sheetmusic from Guitarnick: http://www.guitarnick.com/scarborough-fair-guitar-tab-sheet.html
The player runs through the tune at least six times, plays around with the second half of the tune a few times – leaping up an octave, altering some notes & rhythms – and at the very end does a coda by repeating the second half of the tune. All in all, I think it’s pretty nicely done. YMMV. Are you saying that just because the sheet music doesn’t reflect the playing 100% that it is of low quality?
I think one of the great aspects of music in general, and folk music in particular, is the variability brought to it by the performer. If this player had just played the written series of notes over and over, I think almost anyone would reach through the screen and yank the whistle out of his mouth. Rather than spending money on a different version of the music, while ultimately will probably not be any different from the one you’ve got now, just try playing it through several times and begin to introduce some variation – introduce some dynamics and emotion, add some ornamentation, try bumping that second section up an octave then bring it back down, alter the rhythm a little, change the time sig, change the key sig, turn it into a jig then a reel, turn it into a whistle concerto or make some variations, then at the end just bring it back to the simple tune again.
For what it’s worth, just search for “Scarborough Fair music” (no quote marks) on the interweb and look under images and you’ll be immediately presented with thirty or forty different images of S.F. sheet music. When you’re listening to the versions you like on Youtube, try to follow along with the tune on the paper and work out what changes they make. Chances are very good you will never find a commercial collection of folk music that agrees in all particulars with the way different folks on Youtube play the tunes – this is because none of them are playing directly and exactly from the sheet! They’re all putting their own little spin on the basic tune.
Hope that helps even a little!
Dalberon, I’m not sure exactly what you’re describing or asking for. Scarborough Fair is a simple single verse melody, no chorus or bridge. There are multiple verses, and the melody loops back to the beginning for each verse. So if that’s what you already have, then you have it; it’s complete. If you need to words to additional verses, they’re readily available online. If you’re hearing improvised melody or instrumental breaks on the versions you’re listening to, you probably won’t find those in sheet music. You’d need to learn those directly by listening to the recordings.
Or have I misunderstood your post?
Thank you guys for the responses and what your saying about decoration may be true, I am self taught and my decoration skills are improving but not great yet.
I like many of the versions on youtube, but am especially fond of this one by Daniel Edwards. http://youtu.be/UIGPVy8q5Tw. His first 34 seconds match my music, and then he does seem to start back at the beginning, but after a few seconds into that second rendition it deviates more than what I would think is just decoration. Again …self taught so correct me if I am wrong. I am getting pretty decent at playing that first 34 seconds of this version, but would really like to figure out the rest of it.
This is the sheet music I am playing from. http://csmaccath.com/system/files/images/scarboroughFair.jpeg I don’t need the fingering chart, but still like having it.
Thanks!
In other words, players cum “celebrities”. Basically, in all the years I’ve been listening to Irish and Scottish music whether on radio or on cds (less or more “traditional” in nature), or anymore watching on Youtube, I think I could probably actually name one and a half performers, and maybe half a dozen groups. Now, you can rest assured that I am also familiar with Mary Bergin and now this Andrea Corr, having paid attention in class for some time now! I tend to listen to music more by tune or genre than by performer. Though if there is a specific performance I prefer of a particular piece of music, I will then sort by performer name when known or Youtube thumbnail when not.
To answer your conjunctional confusion above: it doesn’t matter whether the performer of a tune is a “multi-platinum” seller or some bloke who just figured how to post to Youtube; the performer of music brings his own sound, his own vision, his own way of playing the tune. For me, the music itself is the thing, not the one who’s got an instrument stuck in her mouth.
Thanks for the clarification!
Yep – the sheet music is all there. That’s the basic framework of the tune. You could walk into any music shop in the land and get the same thing in one of their folk tune or whistle tune books. Others here can, I know, more clearly address the good and judicious use of embellishment and variation than I, but what it sounds like he’s doing the second time round is wherever you see a really long note in the music, he’s inserting a little snippet – like three or four notes – from elsewhere in the tune in order to replace the long note, like a repetition or variation on the few notes just preceding the long note. Third time round he’s adding a note here and there, again to break up the long notes into shorter segments. Oh, and then he does the little “end on a high note” thing at the very last note. Not my favorite version, all things considered, but what’s important is that you like it, like to play it and find his playing easy enough to learn it from.
It looks like his video is really clear, though, and the audio and video are actually in synch – one thing you might consider is watching his fingers and emulating what he does. Eventually you’ll pick up how he’s altering what you see on the page. If worse comes to worst, you can always use your sheet music as a basis, and then simply pencil in all his “extra” notes. And then practice from there.
One last one, which I found pretty neat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yu-9FXPinU
Again, thank you all for the responses. While searching for sheet music for The Sounds of Silence I found another online sheet music store which is a bit pricy, but seems pretty high quality and I felt it belonged in this thread for future reference.
Here is the direct link to The Sounds of Silence which seems to play well on my d whistle.
http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdFPE.asp?ppn=MN0077042&ref=google
As a rule, I strongly oppose complete quotes as time and space wasters. I’m making an exception for the following because I think its the finest explanation of this process that I’ve ever seen, one that many of us might have learned by time and trial, but couldn’t have enunciated anywhere near as clearly.
Sheet music is a good learning tool, no doubt, and great for jogging the memory once its become crammed with way too many tunes. But you’ll never really feel free until you learn to depart from the printed page, especially when playing a solo. In a band, maybe not. In an orchestra, HORRORS! But by yourself or with a friend, the printed page is best when it’s the framework but not the entire structure.
It’s not a question of finding bought sheet music which will give you what Daniel is doing there. It won’t give you anything different from what you already have. I think what Daniel is doing is trying to incorporate melodic figures from the second voice part of Simon and Garfunkel’s version, but in one single melodic line. Frankly, it doesn’t work for me, but each to his own. But it’s not going to be in any bought sheet music - not like that, anyway.
