TOW#63 The Dower House

[nigelgatherer]

TOW 63: The Dower House



The Dower House is in the Corstorphine area of Edinburgh, where I recently played a concert. The house and grounds date to the late 16th century, although the building has been altered over the years. I had great difficulty putting chords to this tune, so any alternative suggestions would be gratefully received.

• Standard Notation with chords
• Standard Notation with mandolin tablature
• MP3 Soundfile of me playing The Dower House on mandolin
  

[JAJ]

A good tune.
Is this your own composition or does it have a history?

It has a very Irish feel to it and I feel that one or two modal chords would fit in very well at parts.

I'd need to have a further go at this but I'd suggest that it is more D..ish than G...ish and that it could also be written as having two sharps but with the sharp notes in the tune itself changed to naturals and the natural notes flattened.

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I should add that I'm not suggesting that you've notated the tune wrong but in terms of harmony and chords etc, it does have more of a "D" feel.
I'll try to work out a few more chords once I become a little more familiar with it.

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Further,

Just been playing this tune again. It's actually very good indeed and I see that it IS your own.
Well done.

[Jack Campin]

I get this by totally ignoring Nigel's harmonization:

Code:

X:1
T:The Dower House
M:C
L:1/8
K:DMix
"D"d2cA "C"G2FG |"D"AG`GF "C"GAGF|"D"d2      cA "C"G2FG|"D" Ad``````de     fde^c|
"D"d2cA "C"G2FG |"D"AG`GF "C"GAGF|"D"D3       E    F3 G|"Am"AB "C"(3cBA "D"d2z2:|
"D"Adde    fde^c|"D"d2=cA "G"BGG2|"D"Ad``````de    fdef|"G" g2   "C"ag  "D"edd2 |
"D"faaf "C"g3  e|"D"fe`df "C"efge|"D"af "C"(3gfe   dcAF|"G" G2   "C"AG  "D"FDD2:|

Like JAJ, I hear it as centred on D - typical mostly mixolydian double-tonic tune. Reminds me of an Irish reel called "Take her out and air her".

[nigelgatherer]

Thanks, JAJ. It's Irish-sounding because I guess I was playing some Irish tunes beforehand, and most notably "The Leitrim Jig" of which there is an echo in the first couple of bars.

Jack - ignoring my chords is exactly the right way to approach it. Thanks for taking the time - most appreciated.