This is a slow air in mazurka time from Shetland, written by the late Michael Ferrie and mostly associated with the playing of Catriona MacDonald. It's also a popular session tune. I'm playing this as a mandolin duet with tenor guitar backing, based on a second fiddle part by The Kings Band: http://www.thekingsband.co.uk/resour...emazurka01.pdf 1921 Gibson Ajr mandolin Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin Ozark tenor guitar Martin
Fine tune, Martin, and thanks for the score. Your arrangements and performances are always welcome.
Lovely! This is the nearly same view as 30s in, but taken a couple of days ago!! It's meant to drop down to only Gale Force tomorrow....... Jim
Jim -- Thanks for the kind comment -- great to hear from an actual Shetlander, and I trust you will emerge from winter not any more wind-battered than normal! I hope my interpretation of this grand tune isn't too badly at odds with how it's played at Shetland sessions these days. Martin
I haven't heard it played here for a while.... But since I play the TB; when slow tunes start, then it's time to head to the bar or to the toilet......
I was playing this tune recently accompanying my fiddle-playing duo member Alison, and thought it would be a good mandolin tune as well, and a wee foray into different territory for me - a mazurka, indeed! I did a quick search and found that Martin had posted it back in 2015 so am adding this update to the original thread. The notation can be found on The Session website and elsewhere. Does this make it a Revisited Tune, Barbara? Michael Ferrie, the composer, was a founding member of the wonderful Shetland group Fiddlers Bid and I believe he wrote this tune in 1996 in the last week or so of his life before dying tragically from cancer at a young age. I have played about a bit with the rhythm in the tune, retaining a basic 3/4 timing but alternating the chordal structures throughout, so not strict mazurka dance rhythm.
Lovely playing and stunning sound quality, John. Thank you.
This is very pretty - and a bit outside the box for you, John. Way to go !! Lovely video to accompany this tune.
A beautiful tune and you played it very well. Very clean, with a sound quality that I envy you ....bravo.
Great sound of the melody, John. And you show a manifold of opportunities to accompany three-four time.
That's really nice, John. Mazurkas are taking over, and that's a good thing!
Thanks for so many positive comments, folks. The recent surge of activity in the group has been really encouraging, and it brings home strongly the power of music to lift our spirits in trying times. Mazurkas are indeed a great form, Don, and it is good to move away from our usual comfort zones.
Well played John, inspiring.
Maggie West's Waltz (Mairearad Green) - 0:00 Sonny's Mazurka (trad. Irish) - 0:54 Michael's Mazurka (Michael Ferrie) - 1:41 This is a set of three tunes, all of which I have already recorded individually (and posted on SAW) but played rather differently. In this form, the set is from the repertoire of Bearsden Fiddlers (who call the second tune by its alternative title "Sonny Brogan's"): https://www.bearsdenfiddlers.co.uk/s...urkas-fgsx.pdf 1915 Luigi Embergher mandolin Vintage Viaten tenor guitar Suzuki MC-815 mandocello https://youtu.be/FMtSTZ7txNo I'm posting this to the thread for Michael's Mazurka as that tune accounts for more than half the total running time. I'll post a link in the threads for the other two tunes: Maggie West's Sonny's Mazurka Martin
A nice set, Martin. The Bearsden sets offer great ideas for so many tunes. I think you are letting the waltz rhythm slip in places - I notice it in the B part of Maggie West where it seems to slow and break the rhythm, and again in Michael's Mazurka. The Embergher mandolin sounds really good throughout
Thanks, John. Yes, I agree there are a couple of rhythmic slips -- both of those tunes have some tricky phrasing which I think is rather easier to bow than to pick, and I didn't keep quite steady. I noticed that when I overdubbed the rhythm track, but I persisted with the take as I liked the sound and the set. Not a perfect performance, but I prefer to my 2015 take. Martin
