Birdfeeder Waltz (an original composition)

I was intrigued by the activities of the garden birds during this cold spell of weather and began to see a rhythm in their visits to the feeders in our garden. The tune is a result of my bird-watching. Played on mandolin, octave and guitar.

Lovely stuff there John, and thoroughly enjoyed watching the wee birds as well!

A John Kelly original tune! It's great to see other members make their own tunes. This one is absolutely beautiful and one of a kind. I would love to record this tune myself when I find the time...
Is this your first John?

John, the music and graphics were fabulous.

Thanks, Jill, Sherry and Hendrik. Not a first, H. I have a few more, mainly very Scottish, and indeed Michael Pastucha of this group recorded one of my earlier ones, Glen Massan, in a collaboration with me six years ago after I posted it on the SAW group. Here is a link to the version we made, sending each other the files, overdubbing, then Michael mixed it and added the visual material.

https://youtu.be/1dx7QNSmLNc

Michael Culliton, another SAW member I have not heard for a while, also recorded a solo mandolin version about the same time, and his link is here:

https://youtu.be/QvEjmMJj56E

My original is here, with my late Old Bores accordion colleague Derek MacDonald playing on it along with me.

https://youtu.be/wToGBlnPE2g

What a great tune! I need to ask, is that a half coconut they are pecking at?

That was a good tune, and flocks of birds do flutter at their own rhythm. Good observation.

Pleasant tune, John, the B part having a certain American feel to it - just like the birds/feeder ratio resembling a BG band member/microphone ratio and the neccessary moves to match.

Thanks for latest responses, folks.

Kay, the feeder in question is indeed a half coconut shell, with suet or lard holding a mix of seeds, peanuts or other delights. We get them in the local pet shop but people fill their own too.

Brian and Bertram, the rhythms are so interesting, and the hierarchies the birds set up can be fascinating. We have robins in the garden (and our garden is small) which frequent either the front or the back garden and guard their territory fiercely. Pigeons visit and get the seeds and nuts the other birds drop, as the pigeons do not really take too well to trying to perch as the wee birds can. Jackdaws and starlings will do both, feeding from the perch or from the ground.

I like your allusion to the BG band, Bertram, and each performer taking a turn "up front" - this is very like the birds' behaviour.

The scene described resembles what we see in our garden, if you replace some of the species: magpies (clumsy but smart) instead of jackdaws, blackbirds instead of starlings. And we have a few more exotic guests, too, like woodpeckers and jays.

Thanks John! Two of my favorite things, a mandolin waltz and my favorite creatures.

Very pleasant tune, John! Also, thank you for linking to Glen Massan, it is a great one as well, and I particularly enjoyed your original version with you accordion buddy and footage of the river. Well done!

Congratulations on your composition and recording John. Happy Holidays

Good stuff!

I was so excited when I first heard this new tune. Thanks for this beautiful tune and the sheetmusic John. Here's my version on guitar and mandolin and..... ?? (you'll hear it at the end )

Hendrik, you have certainly done the tune justice with your very fine version. It is so great to hear others playing something that we have written. Many thanks for taking the time to do this, and to add in your bird-song effects at the end.

Both very nice! I'm going to have to learn this one.

Nice recordings by John and luurtie. I need to work on my mandolin version a few more days so here is a quick run through on my 4 string mandolin scale banjo. I encourage all you beginners to give this a try. It's a easy tune to learn.

I like this stripped-back version, Dusty, and the instrument sounds really good as a 4-stringer. I had a request for the music with TAB, so here is a version with TAB added. MuseScore is so great for things like this. I just added in a new instrument as mandolin TAB, copied the original notation, then pasted this into the TAB stave and the program does all the work of converting from standard notation to TAB.

Thanks for playing the tune.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/a...2&d=1515147307

Thanks John ! I was trying to convert it with TablEdit, but it wasn't working out so well. I am also working on getting better at playing from standard notation. Luurtie and dusty have excellent versions. I do like the sound of the Mando-Banjo.

dustyamps, sounds good!

John Kelly wrote: "... here is a version with TAB added. ..."

Thank you!

John Kelly wrote: "... MuseScore is so great for things like this. ..."

Yup, I agree about MuseScore.

I do still keep TablEdit around because some people still use that format, but anytime I try to write something in TablEdit my mind ends up in a state of confusion (more so than usual eh).

I much prefer MuseScore for writing tunes, just seems a lot easier.

I've only found one minor flaw in MuseScore: if during audio playback of a score, you have a tune set to repeat at the end of the tune (or other section - not the repeat dots, but the other repeat function in the toolbar which repeats only the selected measures), there is a slight but perceptible out-of-sync with the timing at the end of each repeat, upon each repetition the tune loses a fraction of a second - noticeable if you have MuseScore doing melody audio-playback along with some other app's backing track (I do that a lot when trying to decide which chords to use in a tune). My solution has been to just copy/paste the whole darn score however many times I think I might want to play the tune while practicing, so that MuseScore can just play it straight through without having to do any repeats. That way, it doesn't lose time and it stays in sync with whatever else is playing. But, other than that, I've been quite happy with how MuseScore performs.

(NFI. Not sure that a 'FI' would be possible anyway as MuseScore is a free open-source project, or at least it was last time I checked.)

Brian560 wrote: "I was trying to convert it with TablEdit, but it wasn't working out so well. ..."

Probably the triplets. I can never remember how to write triplets in TablEdit. Every time, I have to go rummage around online to look it up again. Then I'm like, "oh yeah that's not so bad", then a month later I've already forgotten it again.

Any chance of posting the MuseScore file so I can add a few decorative elements in the notation, and save me entering it in again? Thanks....
I've managed to do this myself whilst the café was down :-)

Cannot access the Manage Attachments part of the advanced reply at present, so unable to load the file. Will try again later, unless you have managed to get somewhere yourself on the pdf, as you might be suggesting in your post?

Yes John, I’ve made a copy thanks. Didn’t take too long - And I’ve learnt how to do triplets and dotted notes pretty quickly now just using shortcuts :-)
Much harder to record myself performing it though - the best version has Mrs Jones coming in and asking if risotto is ok for dinner!

Double post :-(

Was risotta OK for dinner? Curious minds want to know!