TOM 94: 14th October

[nigelgatherer]

TOM 94: 14th October


This tune is old, appearing in several early 18th Century collections, indicating that it’s probably from the 1600s. The significance of the date is unknown, although it could simply be because it’s St Crispin’s Day, or perhaps the birth of King James VIIth.

• Standard Notation with chords
  
• Standard Notation with mandolin tablature
  
• MP3 of me playing the tune on mandolin
  

[Jack Campin]

Possibly a trade guild march for the shoemakers, who had St Crispin as their patron? There is a better known one (in Aird as "The Cordwainers' March", it later became "Gloomy Winter") but guilds could have more than one, or have different ones at different times and places.

[Alcluith]

Added a copy the Cordwainer's March for comparison or maybe a little set?

Alcluith

[Jack Campin]

There's no musical resemblance and doesn't need to be - they were used for the same sort of event, that's all.

[Alcluith]

(23-10-2017, 11:41 PM)Jack Campin Wrote: There's no musical resemblance and doesn't need to be - they were used for the same sort of event, that's all.

I was really interested in the Cordwainer's March, never heard of it before!   My wife's family are from the Cordwainer's of Newcastle and have been freemen/women since mid 18th century and yet never heard this tune.  Guess you learn something new every day especially from accomplished musicians like yourself, always appreciated 

 I was thinking that it could be used as a set.  

Alcluith

[JAJ]

There was a pub down there called "the Cordwainers" which was quite near to the old indoor market.

[Jack Campin]

There would have been a trade guild march for the cordwainers of Newcastle, but it might not have been the same as the Edinburgh or Glasgow one that Aird printed. By the time you get as far as London there were definitely differences in some guild tunes. (The Londoners had a really neat brickmakers' tune - or bricklayers, the same tune is labelled as both).

I once saw an apprentices' passing-out ceremony that might have come from the Middle Ages - it was in Kayseri in Turkey and I came across it by sheer chance. All the guilds participated, at least a dozen. Each apprentice handed his set piece for inspection to the master of his guild and was proclaimed to be a full-fledged member. But there were no specific trade tunes. At the end of the whole ceremony the supreme master of the guilds said a short formula in Arabic ending with a deafening shout of "ALLAH-U AKBAR!!!" and all the guilds leapt on to lorries and roared out of the town square with much gunning of engines and bashing of drums, in some cases (like the sweetie-makers) showering passers-by with free samples.