Greensleeves: tune variants
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    How thinketh ye?
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    It's even better with a Klezmer scale....
    Thanked by 1Aristotle Esguerra
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    'Tis my delight.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    I said "thinketh," not "feeleth."
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Here are a few of the variants with which I am familiar. I've used musica ficta notation to indicate accidentals/naturals that are frequently altered. The first two are notated with two sharps (Dorian mode, with some cadential fussiness). The remaining four with one sharp (various types of minor mode, again with cadential fussiness).
    Greensleeves.pdf
    46K
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    I've used CHGiffen's document to show how I insist that the piece be played. Red signals NO (cue grumpy cat image), green signals YES to the accidental.

    Though I can think of a way to sing this tune without having to worry about all of these things...
    greens.jpg
    1215 x 701 - 160K
    Thanked by 2CharlesW Ben
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    I agree with Grumpy Cat and the other, greener Cat.

    Any strong feelings in the opposite direction?

    (Yes, I realize I'm now asking for feelings. I'm a woman and this is my prerogative, so deal.)

    Please send this information right away.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    Bump (sorry, I missed the 6 minute mark)
    Thanked by 4Kathy Gavin Ben Spriggo
  • Andrew Motyka
    Posts: 946
    I think that matthewj's is definitely the easier way to sing it with modern ears. It's simply harmonic minor. The chant geek in me wants to sing it strictly in Dorian mode, though. Keep the C-sharp, drop the D-sharp. It's the second way CHG treats it above, in measure 18.

    How is the tune treated historically?
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    CHG's number two: "dorian" mode except for the cadence, is my preference. I associate the minor-mode version (CHG 6) with What Child Is This, and not Greensleeves at all

    Matthewj are you thinking of the RECTO TONO variant of this melody?
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Andrew Motyka
  • Mad_Dan_EcclesMad_Dan_Eccles
    Posts: 51
    How is the tune treated historically?


    How do you want it? After 450 years which apparently includes a lot of oral transmission I doubt that any version of the tune has a better claim to authenticity than any other.

    It can be found in as many versions as there are notes - the gentle version we have in mind here (and whose origins in a Tudor Musical called Doxies without Smocksies were fully documented by Flanders & Swann), through any number of folk versions via Playford to the oddly swaggering version set by Pepusch in in the Beggars Opera.

    Since laws were made, for every degree,
    To curb vice in others, as well as me,
    I wonder we han’t better company
    Upon Tyburn tree.

    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    I've used CHGiffen's document to show how I insist that the piece be played. Red signals NO (cue grumpy cat image), green signals YES to the accidental.

    In other words, you INSIST that it be played as given at the TOP of page 2 of my PDF (the THIRD version that I gave).

    Gee, and I thought you would want it played and sung RECTO TONO.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Like Andrew, my preference is for version 2 ... Dorian except for cadence.

    Version 3, which is what Matthew and some others prefer is really a mixed more-or-less melodic minor setting ... which seems to me to be not as modal as Version 1 or 2, and hence quite possibly not as close to the (unknown) original.
    Thanked by 2Kathy Andrew Motyka
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 904
    I'd suggest singing each verse differently. That keeps everyone on their toes.
    Thanked by 3Kathy irishtenor CHGiffen
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hvXO59M8Zg
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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