Breaking Up Christmas

Whistle
1

Here is the abc for Breaking Up Christmas. It was requested by HDSarah on the vacation thread. I converted it at the concertina conversion site and it worked. I’m not an expert at abc. The tune is an American old time tune from the Round Peak region of NC and would have been heavily played at the breaking up Christmas dances. It will fail miserably if you play it exactly as written. The fiddle bowing for these tunes is syncopated. For instance in the second part the notes in the 2nd and 6th measures contain repeats of the same notes. This is the way it is in the music that I copied (Fiddler’s Fake Book) but it would never be played exactly like that.

X:1
T:Breaking Up Christmas
M:4/4
L:1/8
C:Trad
R:Reel
K:A
efed cAcd|efec A2cd|efed c2cA|BABc A2cd|efed c2cd|e2ec A2g2|abaf edcd|ecBd A4:||
||:FEFG A2cA|BAAA FEEE|FEFG A2cA|BAGE A2E2|FEFG A2cA|BAAA FEEE|FEFG A2cB|cAGE A4:||

The concertina conversion site is:

http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html

Steve

2

Steve – Thanks! You’re invited to my Breaking Up Christmas party. :slight_smile: I’m not sure what day it’ll be.

I’m a novice at abc, but I have noticed that, at least with the Concertina site, it breaks lines where you put carriage returns. So, putting carriage returns after every 4 measures gives a more readable page:

X:1
T:Breaking Up Christmas
M:4/4
L:1/8
C:Trad
R:Reel
K:A
efed cAcd|efec A2cd|efed c2cA|BABc A2cd|
efed c2cd|e2ec A2g2|abaf edcd|ecBd A4:||
||:FEFG A2cA|BAAA FEEE|FEFG A2cA|BAGE A2E2|
FEFG A2cA|BAAA FEEE|FEFG A2cB|cAGE A4:||

I think I’ll play it in G instead of A, too, since I’m not a fiddle player and G# is a challenge for me. So learn it in G to play at my party. :slight_smile:

Sarah

3

I ran it through Concertina and it looks nicer the way you have it laid out. I think Alsaka is a little far for me for the party. I’d like to be there.

Steve

4

Yeah, you do have a point – Canada is a pretty big country and Ontario is way on the other side of it. If you lived in the Yukon you’d have no excuse not to come.

I know there are some local (Fairbanks Alaska) folks on this board. I’ve met one at our local Celtic session. (ErikT, are you in town over the holidays? I’ll let you know when we decide the details.)

Sarah

5

Hi, HDSarah! Just thought I’d chip in my welcome! :smiley:

Take care,
Jim

6

That is a great tune. If you buy the Best Fiddle and Banjo Duets of Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham you will get to listen to a great version. However, I wouldn’t try to play this on whistle when I have my trusty banjo.

[ This Message was edited by: bdatki on 2002-12-23 20:37 ]

7

bdatki,

Did you see this link. It was originally posted on another thread.

http://www.classbrain.com/artholiday/publish/article_253.shtml

Steve

8

Thanks SteveK, I didn’t see that link before. Interesting reading. It’s always good to see some Old-Time stuff on the board. It does go decently with whistle in some cases; I let a college suitemate borrow my whistle and we had a whistle and banjo duet on Soldier’s Joy. Good fun.

9

Sarah,

Thank you for the invite! My wife and I are planning on coming and are looking forward to it :slight_smile:

Erik

10

Did you all have a good time?
Lucky people!