This month I’ve mostly been teaching ‘tunes from the British Isles’ and live blues harmonica classes. When I was at school, a Welsh cell-mate would torture us by singing Sosban Fach at the top of his tenor voice - he looked like the ‘Go Compare’ man, but without the moustache. One of my American students - let’s call him Scott - asked me to put together a course of songs from the British Isles so he could engage with the natives when he next visits. So, the idea of a song from Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England was born.
BEN TALKS HARMONICA Ben Hewlett Vice-President
The first two tunes I chose were Sosban Fach and The Kesh. The Kesh is an attractive and addictive Irish Jig.
The three letters in the word ‘Jig’ remind us it is in ‘three time’ and multiples of three, such as 6/8 and 9/8, whereas a Reel is a long slippery fish from the Sargasso Sea. Okay, it has four letters and four beats to the bar.
A Jig has 6 or 12 beats in a bar. Some describe the rhythm as like saying ‘Diddley Diddley’, or 123 123 or even ‘rashers and sausages’. So a bar with one long note followed by a bar with three shorter notes could be sung as ‘Dum, Diddley’. I hope I’m not dumbing this down too much, but as I sing through a jig with no lyrics, to get the feel for it - and prior to trying it on the harmonica - I can’t help myself singing it like this! A bar with two notes followed by a bar with three notes could be sung as Dum Dee, Diddley. The only other combination here would be a bar of three notes followed by a bar of just one long note at the end of a piece, so I can sing it as ‘Diddley Dum’.
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