Peterborough Morris
Peterborough Morris Music
(Comments by Mark Swingler)
Repertoire indications C, P, F? as at 17/08/2022.
Repertoires expand and contract according to circumstance. This page lists tunes in current (C), past (P), and maybe future(F?) use. Links go to videos or sound files by Peterborough Morris (PM) unless stated otherwise. If a video is too fast to follow, you may be able to slow it down, as described here.
Most traditional morris tunes are on the Morris Ring website in ABC, sheet music, and mp3 formats are not repeated here. Others are given below if we have it.
But there is more to playing for dancing than simply knowing the tune. Please download and study this excellent article:- Playing Music for Morris Dancing by Jeff Bigler
Dances are listed according to the styles of the villages where they were collected.
Tunes are listed under the name of the dance, which may differ from the common name of the tune. Alternative tune titles are given when known.
Adderbury
Beaux of London City / Shooting, G YouTube
The Bell, G. (C) We perform this with eight dancers arranged like ninepins around the musician. This tune is more usually known as The Minstrel Boy.
Black Joke, (C) G YouTube
Bluebells of Scotland, (C) G YouTube
The Buffoon, (P) G YouTube
Lads-a-Buncham (aka "Oh Dear Mother") (C) in G video,
Badby
Balance the Straw, G (F) The Fieldtown tune is used as noted on this page.
Beaux of London City, G (C) YouTube
Broad Cupid, G (C) YouTube. The tune is also known as "From Night Til Morn"
Flowers of Edinburgh, G (F)
(Notation courtesy of Pete Shaw who learned it while dancing with Northampton Morris in the 1970s).
This version has only minor differences from that in "100 English Folk Dance Airs" by Karpeles and Schofield, EFDSS, 1934.
Banbury Bill, D. (C) Same dance as the Rose Tree. Glorishears, G or D (C) mp3 audio Highland Mary, G (C) YouTube Same dance as the
Quaker. Maid of the Mill, G (C) The Rose Tree, D (C) The Quaker, G and D (C) YouTube Princess Royal, Bampton jig, Bm. (C) YouTube
from 20 seconds in.
A very well-know tune, but the Bampton version is in a minor key. The usual key for a D/G melodeon would be Em,
but the wide range of this version doesn't fit on the keyboard. So it ended up in Bm, played mostly on the "D" row. Lollipop Man, G. We imagined how the Ducklington dance would be if it had been adopted in Bampton. The tune is shared with the Burns song Lea Rig.
Over the Hills and Far Away, D. YouTube PM put Bampton figures to the well-known tune. Riggs of Doom, G. Devised by Utrecht Morris in Bampton style, tune by Frans Tromp.
Notation
here
(search for Frans, and maybe log on to melnet.) Not easy to get
Tromp's chords on the melodeon.
I like this version on YouTube of John Golightly on melodeon and friend
and here is
Utrecht Morris. Trunkles, G. A newish dance in Bampton style using
the Bledington tune but with sequence A/B/C. See also Trunkles Bledington below.
Abraham Brown the Sailor, D mp3
with dance instructions!
Old Woman Tossed up in a Blanket, G YouTube
Princess Royal, as played by Phillip Taylor of Shakespeare Morris mp3
Morris Off, as played by Phillip Taylor of Shakespeare Morris mp3
Skirmish
YouTube video of Nick Barber playing for White Rose Morris using Nick's own tune. Music notation can be found on
Nick's website.
Black Joker
PDF mid file.
We practiced this in the 1980s with just the one odd half-bar at the beginning of the
"B" music, but our current version has a second half-bar!
Jockey to the Fair, G YouTube Maid of the Mill, G
Nutting Girl jig
mp3 Old Mother Oxford Bonney Green Garters.
The finale dance used by many Morris
sides.
Getting Upstairs, G or D Lads-a-Buncham, G YouTube
Bold Nelson's Praise, G This tune is missing from the Morris Ring website so we give it here in
PDF and mid formats. It is a version of the well-known Princess Royal.
Small but significant differences occur in the C-music at the end of the "slows". The first time the C-music lead-in notes occur, they are quick, but not quick when they re-appear a moment later. And there is a
half-bar with a quick note as the speed returns to normal. (This
paragraph and dowloads corrected 2202-03-25) Vandals of Hammerwich, G Shepherd's Hey. (No Ravensthorpe music notation could be found on
line, but there are Youtube videos of both East Suffolk Morris Men and Moulton Morris Men.
They differ slightly and perhaps vary from verse to verse. Here is
the ESMM version on YouTube
with notation as heard by the webmaster as
mid
and
PDF files.)
Soldier's Joy PDF and Stephen Baldwin on fiddle 1954
Greensleeves PDF and Stephen Baldwin on fiddle 1954.
The dance figure music is AA and the chorus BABA, hence the sequence AA BABA, then repeated as necessary.
The Steeple Claydon Morris Dance, there is only one,
to the tune of Old Mother Oxford, YouTube
video of John Weaver playing for Brackley Morris.
Stick Dance, G. YouTube.
Maud Karpeles noted this down under the name
Twin Sisters as a traditional tune while in Vermont in 1929. In an
article in the EFDS journal in 1933 she suggested this as a tune
suitable for the Upton Stick Dance. - And it stuck!
Processional. Used for coming on.
Trunkles, A or G ("A Handbook of Morris Dances" by Lionel Bacon
gives the key signature as two sharps, but I reckon it's in "A") Trunkles, G YouTube William and Nancy, G YouTube Young Collins, G YouTube Bonnets so Blue, G, jig YouTube
I'll Go and 'List for a Sailor, Em YouTube
(Please avoid confusing the morris dance tune with the song tune "The Unfortunate Tailor".)
Not even tunes used by Peterborough Morris. In 1982 PM travelled to Bourges, Peterborough's French twin. There we met local folk dance group
Notre Berry. We loved their tunes
and one of their musicians recorded these for us.
(To follow - 1982 tape being digitised) Bampton (traditional)
Bampton (modern)
Bidford-on-Avon
Bledington
Brackley
Fieldtown
Headington
Headington and Bampton
Hinton-in-the Hedges
Illmington (Jig)
Many morris tunes are from popular songs, although in this case the tune appears to precede the lyrics.
Info here and
here.
Lichfield
Ravensthorpe
Ruardean
Steeple Claydon
Upton-on-Severn
Wheatley
Beyond the usual repertoire...
Bledington
Bucknell
Sherborne
And further beyond the usual repertoire. - Not Morris, but Notre Berry