A sermon is coming up in my church on the subject of Ben Franklin. (We are Unitarian Universalists, so I imagine the talk will be about him as a good fellow heretic!) They were looking for a fife player, but the closest thing they could find was me, a whistle player. Does anyone have suggestions as to tunes from that period and where I could find the appropriate free sheet music on line? Keep in mind I don’t know how to read ABC sheet music, just standard notation.
Rod Sprague
Have a look at Ralph Sweet’s tune book:
“The Fifer’s Delight” by Ralph Sweet:
Fingering, graded instruction for fife, flute, whistle, or flageolette, plus over 330 tunes, complete with guitar/piano chord symbols for accompaniment. Excellent for any concert pitch instrument; used by many fiddlers, dance bands, and drum corps, 8½ x 11", 81 pages
A good collection and also the companion volume:
“The Fifer’s Delightful Companion” by Carol Greenfield:
A collection of harmony parts written to complement “The Fifer’s Delight,” plus a few additional tunes and Christmas carols in two or three parts. Great for adding harmony to a corps, or playing duets with friends; can be adapted to many different instrumental combinations!
Chuck
Cool. Those guys are where I live. Now . . . where do I get a cheap fife?
Barry Phillips recorded a CD “The World Turned Upside Down” which is music of colonial America. There’s a songbook, I have it somewhere (though no longer have the CD). . PM me and I can send it to you. It includes hymns, songs and dance tunes, most of which would sound good on the whistle. “Rights of Man” is a good one and might be appropriate for your theme.
You can get the CD through www.gourd.com
Doug
Doug,
Thanks!
I got the book in the mail. Donna, the sermon presenter, and Greg, the pianist and I find the book a great resource. Your willingness to send it in the first place says volumes about you and the generosity of the whole whistle community in general! I will post an update when we are done with the service. Right now, we are planning to have me play a medley of “The Girl I Left Behind Me” and “Rights of Man”.
Thank you, Rod
Donna Bradberry gave a very informative sermon “Ben Franklin and the Virtuous Life” (being good Unitarian Universalists, we see little contradiction between his reputation with the women and his goals for a virtuous life). The fellow in charge of the music for the service couldn’t follow my idiosyncratic playing of “The Rights of Man” with guitar accompaniment, so I ended up playing “The Rights of Man” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me”, unaccompanied. “The Girl I Left Behind Me” I tongued to give it the sort of sound one would expect from a fife, but “The Rights of Man” I played in the more traditional Irish pennywhistle sound. The congregation loved it. I know I flubbed it repeatedly, but they didn’t seem to know or care.
And thank you for the song book, CelloDog,
Rod
Rod, glad to hear it went well. “Rights of Man” is a nice tune, I also find it sort of classical sounding for a whistle tune. Trying to learn it myself now.
Doug