Chiff and Fipple Forums

david_h wrote:P.S. The last verse as given by s1m0n, which may not be in the Feadog book, is chanted.

Yes. And, at least the way it was in playgrounds of my youth, it's considerably faster, with a crescendo and accelerando in the last line and a shouted last word. Mind you, mostly we didn't do those lines. And if we did, it was only after a lot of repetitions of the other verses. As a sort of coda, I suppose.

benhall.1 wrote:

david_h wrote:P.S. The last verse as given by s1m0n, which may not be in the Feadog book, is chanted.

Yes. And, at least the way it was in playgrounds of my youth, it's considerably faster, with a crescendo and accelerando in the last line and a shouted last word. Mind you, mostly we didn't do those lines. And if we did, it was only after a lot of repetitions of the other verses. As a sort of coda, I suppose.

I vaguely remembered that the end was something to do with being 'out' so I went looking for more information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oranges_and_Lemons That would explain the end being faster. We certainly did something that involved being caught in the arms of an arch. However, the rhyme beforehand may have been something different - the last verse is much more familiar than the London centric words.

s1m0n wrote:I suspect the OP - and pardon me if I'm wrong - is learning to play whistle by taking the pitch from tab and the duration from the words printed below the tab.

You are correct. The books that came with both my Walton's and my Feadóg cover some basics of reading music. I suspect they contain nothing that isn't true, yet I can tell they have left out much that is. What information that is there largely confuses the hell out of me, though I have managed to figure out what a staff and a tie are. Learning how to read music would probably be easier if I had someone teach me in person, which is not possible at present time. The only other alternative is finding a source online that will not confuse me, which I have thus far not been able to do.

Edit: another possible alternative is finding the tunes on YouTube and trying to get the basics down with a few listens.

s1m0n wrote:In the arrangement we're discussing, I suspect that the arranger decided that settling on the average of 5 syllables for this line was the simplest solution, and fudged the hyphenatin' to make it work out.

But I'm questioning why such a simple tune had to be homogenised at all. It's just pointless destruction of what little it had when the logical outcome is a series of six identical phrases (albeit two of them at a different pitch) and barely a tune at all when the things that gave it structure were the odd varied rhythm or skipped note. So it was really simple enough in the first place and, if the arranger/book compiler didn't think so, they'd have been better with a different tune.

Assuming the key of G, I'd have something like:
X:1
T:Oranges and Lemons
M:3/4
L:1/4
K:G
d/d/ B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G d |
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G2 |
A F A | F D E/F/ | G E A | F D2 |
A F A | D2 E/F/ | G E A | D3 |
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G2 |
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | G3 |

Do we really need to homogenise this to:
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G2 |
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G2 |
A F A | F D E/F/ | G E A | F D2 |
A F A | F D E/F/ | G E A | F D2 |
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G2 |
d B d | B G A/B/ | c A d | B G2 |
?

Or are you suggesting it's just the first line that's (perhaps even more unnecessarily) been 'simplified'?

Incidentally, I do know a tune for the 'candle' lines:
B G D | B G A/B/ | A c F | G2 A |
B G D | B G A/B/ | c B A | G3 |
(Followed by chanting of the word 'chop')

As well as a second six lines (what I'd call Verse 2) starting with 'Pancakes and Fritters, say the bells of St Peter's', and have long understood the rhyme (I'm assuming in this full form) to mention all the bell towers in the square mile of the City of London. (My source is the Puffin Song Book I've had since I was a kid.)

I know it slightly different. Will have a go tommorow. Had been putting off doing it but Peter has given me something to cannibalise.

What we sung seems odd. Definitely an eleven beat first line then straight on to "You owe..."

Your fifth and sixth lines don't seem right, Peter ...

They're dead right (apart from changing the key from F to G) according to The Puffin Songbook, though I'd probably do the sixth ('great bell of Bow') as:
d B d | G2 A/B/ | c A d | G3 |

And the Puffin book has a quaver anacrusis for 'You owe me five farthings' where I have a crotchet.

(Or are you suggesting the whole fifth and sixth lines should be done like my 'new' sixth?)

Coming back temporarily. Have more or less sorted it out. I suspect what I remember from 60 years ago, apparently not what is in The Puffin Songbook, came from a BBC singing for schools program as much as the playground. Except for the chanted last verse. For that I do remember a 'dropping arch' in the playground.

I am carefully not seeking the dots out until I have down what I remember.

Peter Duggan wrote:And the Puffin book has a quaver anacrusis for 'You owe me five farthings' where I have a crotchet.

Toto? I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

Quaver = eighth note.
Crotchet = quarter note.
Anacrusis = upbeat.

If you were in my Music class, you'd know this!

(Ben's not, but he'll know anyway.)

Oh, I pretty much knew what those meant (except for "anacrusis", but I do now); it's just that the whole sentence is one that you're so unlikely to hear in Minneapolis, or in the rest of the US, that I'm, like, "Wait. What? Where am I, again?" The Puffin and the farthings only compound the effect.

In this context, Puffin is the children's version of Penguin (a major British publisher). A farthing was quarter of an old penny.

Of course, being in The Puffin Song Book since 1956 doesn't make it 'right'... it's just my only source without Googling!

Peter Duggan wrote:In this context, Puffin is the children's version of Penguin (a major British publisher). A farthing was quarter of an old penny.

And, this Yank also knows what a farthing is! "Puffin" I already got from context in this thread (although I didn't make these facts directly apparent: Please see my all-too-late edit above).

Nanohedron wrote:And, this Yank also knows what a farthing is!

I'd have been surprised if you hadn't! (Crotchets and quavers too.)

"Puffin" I already got from context in this thread (although I didn't make these facts directly apparent: Please see my all-too-late edit above).

Yep, I've been had by my pathologically literal interpretation again!

Nanohedron wrote:it's just that the whole sentence is one that you're so unlikely to hear in Minneapolis, or in the rest of the US, that I'm, like, "Wait. What? Where am I, again?" The Puffin and the farthings only compound the effect.

It's so obvious when you explain (wait, who's supposed to be explaining here?), but wasn't (to me) at the time!

Peter Duggan wrote:

Nanohedron wrote:And, this Yank also knows what a farthing is!

I'd have been surprised if you hadn't! (Crotchets and quavers too.)

Well, I'm a dork. I have to know these things.

Peter Duggan wrote:Yep, I've been had by my pathologically literal interpretation again!

One takes pains as one must. Better to know than guess.

Peter Duggan wrote:It's so obvious when you explain (wait, who's supposed to be explaining here?), but wasn't (to me) at the time!

Two nations separated by a common language.