I’ve been looking all over for the sheet music to this song… on the internet and everything, I haven’t been real succesful, and I’m not good enough at learning by ear to just learn it from the recording I have, but I really like this piece and would love to get ahold of the music for it so I can learn it… so anyone have any ideas where I might be able to get the music for this song?
Thanks a lot 
-Angela
Oops, and I forgot a really good version of it from ThorntonRose: Here
Andrea ~*~
Music is that which sustains you, expressed as sound. – Peter De Baets
[ This Message was edited by: aderyn on 2003-01-09 16:36 ]
Just adding my two cents here. With Star of the County Down, and others like it, you can find versions that are vastly different from each other. Both versions given so far compliment the lyrics to the song. But I know of at least one other version done in 3/4 that you can’t really sing with. I don’t have a copy of the 3/4 version anymore, but this might explain any trouble you may be having fitting the sheet music to the recording.
Seth
I have a version of this tune in a publicaton called the Waltz Book I.
It’s in 3/4 time, naturally enough, and no lyrics are included. But I don’t have a web-based version of that one handy to share.
Here’s more information about that book: http://www.bfv.com/waltz/waltz1.html
Its tunes are quite often used in our area by the contra dance bands.
M
Thank you all so much- yes each version is different but i think I can now tinker with what you al gave me to make it sound like how I have it in my head…
speaking of- have any of you all ever heard Yo Yo Ma’s version of it? it is so gorgeous and layered, and just one of my favorites..
-Angela
Thanks again! I love your website by the way Wandering…
I must say that trying out all these versions and practicing the song on my low D is much preferable to the final paper i am supposed to be currently writing on Cotton Mather’s 1692 “end of the world” sermons… sometimes ol’ Cotton had no sense of humor…
-Angela
A funny thing happened to me
on the way to the Apocalypse…
you didn’t know that old Cotton
had a stand-up routine, did you?
It’s been suppressed, I’m afraid.
How many mafiosa does it take
to end the world?
None! ‘Fuhgedaboudit!’
How many Jewish mothers does it
take to end the world?
None. ‘So let it go on a couple
more eons…maybe by then my
children will call!’
You’ve heard of the Cotton Club,
haven’t you?
Sorry–like yourself, I’ve been
working too hard.
Where does Yo Yo play this?
I think that Star
is maybe the most beautiful
Celtic aire, but it has dumb
words–at least the words I
know are dumb–just as Greensleeves
is the most beautiful English
melody and has dumb words.
Vaughan Williams uses a tune
close to Star in Variations on
a Theme by Thomas Tallis…
which is worth a listen, I think. Best
[ This Message was edited by: jim stone on 2003-01-09 19:58 ]
Jim,
oh my goodness that was funny… made me laugh..
I do a lot of work on millenialism, American in particular, and its always interesting to me- (Cotton of course is one of the earliest American millenialists) but slogging through the Cotton sermons can be a bit much- the manuscripts and microfilms are so hard to read by themselves, never mind actually figuring out what is metaphorically being said…
Thanks for the little poem though- its inspiring and hopefully enough so that I can chunk out another 5 pages tonight before I get sleepy..
Yo-yo’s version of star of the county down is on the Appalachian Waltz cd- its beautiful, very dramatic, layered harmonys and melodies- he played it acoompanied by a violinist and a viola(ist)… if you don’t have the CD I recommend it… its my paper-writing CD- but all the same the whole CD is gorgeous.
-Angela
On 2003-01-09 19:54, jim stone wrote:
I think that Star
is maybe the most beautiful
Celtic aire, but it has dumb
words–at least the words I
know are dumb–just as Greensleeves
is the most beautiful English
melody and has dumb words.
I disagree vehemently on both counts. I love the words to both songs.
Now here’s an admission…I’ve never heard the words to The Star of the County Down, and I didn’t even know it had words! Anybody have a link I can check out?
Redwolf
Never mind…found 'em!
[ This Message was edited by: Redwolf on 2003-01-09 23:46 ]
The first time I heard Star of the County Down was on Irish Heartbeat by Van Morrison singing and the Chieftains doin’ their thing so that is the one I’m kind of partial to. But maybe that’s because that’s the only one I’ve heard though.
Anxious to check at YoYo’s version now.
bob
I like to play Star as a medely with itself! I first play it through a couple of times nice and slow, like an air, then kick it up to a reel pace ( not TOO fast). Try it.
Bela Fleck has a really interesting version of the tune, too. It’s on “Flight Of The Cosmic Hippo.” That was my introduction to the tune years ago. When we did the song with my band, it was with a 2/4 reel sort of sound.
TW
Maybe we know different words?
Thanks for the Yo Yo Ma reference!
I find always new versions of
Star and new arrangements, which
speaks to its beauty, I think,
and I keep looking for better
ones. All these references
are appreciated. Best
On 2003-01-10 07:07, brewerpaul wrote:
I like to play Star as a medely with itself! I first play it through a couple of times nice and slow, like an air, then kick it up to a reel pace ( not TOO fast). Try it.
Wow! I tried something similar today. A couple of people here had mentioned 3/4 versions, and I’d always played it in 4/4, so I tried it in waltz time…sounded good! Then I got creative with the ornamentation and ended up with a little jig version that was really quite fun.
Redwolf
From memory, and undoubtedly mixing up lines from a few variations (I only half-know the song, so I can’t call this ‘my variation’ yet… 
). I think I’m the first half of
the first line of the second verse (it doesn’t sound right otherwise…) but I can’t think what it is offhand.(Edit:
I made something to fit the rhythm and the
story.)
Star of the County Down (trad)
Near Branbridge Town in the County Down one morning last July /
Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen, and she smiled as she passed me by /
She looked so sweet from her two bare feet to the sheen of her nut brown hair /
Such a coaxing elf that I shook myself to be sure I was standing there.
Chorus:
From Bantry Bay down to Derry Quay and from Galway to Dublin Town, no maid I’ve seen like the sweet colleen that I met in the County Down.
(She passed me by and after her) I gazed with a feeling rare,/
and I said says I, to a passer-by, “Who’s the maid with the nut-brown hair?” /
He smiled at me, and with pride says he, “That’s the gem of Ireland’s crown, /
young Rosie McGann from the banks of the Bann, she’s the Star of the County Down!”
(chorus)
At the Harvest fair she’ll be surely there, so I’ll dress in my Sunday Clothes, /
with my shoes shined bright and my hat just right, win the heart of the nut-brown rose. /
No pipe I’ll smoke, no horse I’ll yoke, though my plow should rust and brown, /
'till a smiling bride by my own fireside, sits the Star of the County Down!
(chorus)
[ This Message was edited by: ChrisA on 2003-01-11 03:50 ]
On 2003-01-09 16:32, aderyn wrote:
Oops, and I forgot a really good version of it from ThorntonRose: > HereAndrea ~*~
This is the version our band plays, but we play it slower and in Em. Simply take the tune in G and lower each note one step - i.e. Cnat instead of D, G instead of A, etc. It gives a different feel to the tune.
[quote]
On 2003-01-11 03:44, ChrisA wrote:
(She passed me by and after her) I gazed with a feeling rare,/
I believe it’s “she winked her eye as she passed me by, and I looked with a feeling rare.” That’s how I always sing it, anyway.
TW