Si Bheag Si Mohr dulcimer duet

Ken Hulme
Ken Hulme
@ken-hulme
6 years ago
2,055 posts

Kathy -- if you look one post below your post you will see that Paul already listed his address and price of the arrangement package

Kathy Ford
Kathy Ford
@kathy-ford
6 years ago
6 posts

Dear Mr Paul Furnas, is your tablature for the song Si Bheag Si Mohr still available for purchase? If so could you please give me a price and an address where I could order it from? I just saw the video of you and Ron Beardsley and it is a beautiful arrangement of the song.

JM Bolton
JM Bolton
@johanna-m-bolton
8 years ago
2 posts

THANK YOU! The check's in the mail!! I'm so excited. I love a challenge, and Si Bheag Si Mohr is one of my favorites to play.

Paul Furnas said:

Hi, Johanna.

The duet features one dulcimer playing the original melody and a second dulcimer providing a more challenging finger=picking accompaniment.

If you will send a suitable mailing address and $5 to

Paul Furnas

P.O.Box 385

Davis, CA 95617-0385

I will send you six sheets of tablature on card stock:

1 sheet . . . the original melody

1 sheet . . . the finger-picking accompaniment

2 sheets in duet format . . . original melody + simplified chordal accompaniment

2 sheets in duet format . . . original melody + finger-picking accompaniment

The finger-picking accompaniment is rather challenging, but it is extremely satisfying to play (and the conventional chordal arrangement is a good way to prepare your left hand for the more challenging version).

Sincerely Yours,

Paul Furnas

Lexie R Oakley
Lexie R Oakley
@lexie-r-oakley
8 years ago
230 posts

Thank you Dusty for sharing this lovely duet, they both are fabulous players. very soothing and beautiful.

Lexie R Oakley
Lexie R Oakley
@lexie-r-oakley
8 years ago
230 posts

Very beautifully played Ron and Paul. Really enjoyed listening to you.41.gif

Dusty Turtle said:

Thanks for listening. I recorded that at the Redwood Dulcimer Day last summer, and you can hear all the folk in the audience. But Paul and Ron recently recorded a cleaner version of the arrangement:

Paul Furnas
Paul Furnas
@paul-furnas
8 years ago
4 posts

Hi, Johanna.

The duet features one dulcimer playing the original melody and a second dulcimer providing a more challenging finger=picking accompaniment.

If you will send a suitable mailing address and $5 to

Paul Furnas

P.O.Box 385

Davis, CA 95617-0385

I will send you six sheets of tablature on card stock:

1 sheet . . . the original melody

1 sheet . . . the finger-picking accompaniment

2 sheets in duet format . . . original melody + simplified chordal accompaniment

2 sheets in duet format . . . original melody + finger-picking accompaniment

The finger-picking accompaniment is rather challenging, but it is extremely satisfying to play (and the conventional chordal arrangement is a good way to prepare your left hand for the more challenging version).

Sincerely Yours,

Paul Furnas

JM Bolton
JM Bolton
@johanna-m-bolton
8 years ago
2 posts

What a gorgeous arrangement and so beautifully played! Is the music for this duet available to the poor folk who don't live on the west coast? I would love to learn this arrangement.

Dusty Turtle
Dusty Turtle
@dusty
10 years ago
1,662 posts

Thanks for listening. I recorded that at the Redwood Dulcimer Day last summer, and you can hear all the folk in the audience. But Paul and Ron recently recorded a cleaner version of the arrangement:

 




--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

updated by @dusty: 06/21/17 09:16:18PM
Janene Millen
Janene Millen
@janene-millen
10 years ago
28 posts

i thoroughly enjoyed that, thanks for posting it!

Frank Dudgeon
Frank Dudgeon
@frank-dudgeon
10 years ago
14 posts

Just saw this marvelous video - what a gorgeous performance of one of my favorite melodies. I've heard it performed many times on a variety of instruments and settings, and this has to be one of the best. Thanks so much, gentlemen.

Paul Furnas
Paul Furnas
@paul-furnas
10 years ago
4 posts

Hi, Jan. I just got your order and I will try to have the the card stock tablature in tomorrow's (Monday's) mail.

The second dulcimer part is pretty challenging, but it is a lot of fun to play!

Jan Potts said:

Is this duet arrangement available for purchase? I love both parts--and would like to learn both! And, Rob, if you learn them, too, we'll play a duet some day!

Jan Potts
Jan Potts
@jan-potts
10 years ago
411 posts

Thank you so much, Paul! When I get back home again I'll send in my order! This is very appreciated!




--
Jan Potts, Lexington, KY
Site Moderator

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." Henry Van Dyke
Paul Furnas
Paul Furnas
@paul-furnas
10 years ago
4 posts

Hi, Jan.

This offer for FRIENDS of the MOUNTAIN DULCIMER is good until December 31, 2013.

I'd be glad to send you a copy for roughly the cost of copying and mailing.

I have six sheets of tablature all together. You might be happy with the one-page counter-melody, or you might want some other combination.

Here are the six sheets -- all in the key of G so no 6 1/2 fret is required.

1 sheet: counter-melody -- quite challenging, but thorough fingering is provided

1 sheet: melody -- quite easy

2 sheets: melody + counter-melody aligned for DULCIMER I and DULCIMER II

2 sheets: melody + easier chordal arrangement (similarly aligned)

using the counter-melody's underlying chords.

PRICE OPTIONS:

$1 up to three sheets on 20 lb. printer-paper, folded in a business sized envelope.

$3 all six sheets on 20 lb. printer-paper (unfolded) in a 9x12 envelope.

$5 all six sheets (including any three on 110 lb. card stock paper)in a 9x12 envelope.

Send your own make shift "order form" and payment to:

Paul Furnas

P.O. Box 385

Davis, CA 95617-0385


Jan Potts said:

Is this duet arrangement available for purchase? I love both parts--and would like to learn both! And, Rob, if you learn them, too, we'll play a duet some day!

Dusty Turtle
Dusty Turtle
@dusty
10 years ago
1,662 posts

Jan, I'll make sure Paul sees your request. It is indeed abeautiful arrangement, and I can understand why you'd wantto play it.

Jan Potts said:

Is this duet arrangement available for purchase? I love both parts--and would like to learn both! And, Rob, if you learn them, too, we'll play a duet some day!




--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie
Jan Potts
Jan Potts
@jan-potts
10 years ago
411 posts

Is this duet arrangement available for purchase? I love both parts--and would like to learn both! And, Rob, if you learn them, too, we'll play a duet some day!




--
Jan Potts, Lexington, KY
Site Moderator

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best." Henry Van Dyke
Brian G.
Brian G.
@brian-g
10 years ago
94 posts

Very very pretty. Thanks for sharing this Dusty.

Paul Furnas
Paul Furnas
@paul-furnas
10 years ago
4 posts


Wayne Anderson said:

. . . I do have to take note that there is Tab in use and the world is still turning.

Just made me wonder what all the fuss is about over use or non use of tab.

Hi Wayne,

I'm pretty naive about social media so I haven't been about to find the comments about the superiority of staff notation over tablature (or perhaps you hear them at dulcimer gatherings). Tablature has a very long and honorable history. It was invented in the Renaissance because staff notation (which was invented around the year 1000 to help church singers to learn the hundreds of Gregorian chants that they were required to sing through the church year) was entirely inadequate for fretted string instruments . . . particular instruments that use variant tunings.

"French Tablature" (which uses letters for the frets: a=0, b=1, c=2, d=3, etc) was used in France and England, and "Italian Tablature" (which uses digits as does American Folk Tablature) was used in Italy and Spain. The Germans had an earlier style of tablature, but it didn't use horizontal lines to represent the strings so it became obsolete when lutes and viols started using more than the five strings that German tablature was intended to accommodate. Lute and guitar music was notated virtually exclusively in tablature for nearly three centuries. It disappeared in the 19th century, but American folk musicians brought is back to life in the mid twentieth century.

So when you play from tablature, hold you head up high (that is, unless you are looking down at you tablature or your fretboard) because you carrying on a time honored tradition of keeping this wonderfully designed centuries-old notation alive.

Dusty Turtle
Dusty Turtle
@dusty
10 years ago
1,662 posts

Thanks, Wayne and John. I'm glad to get one of Paul's arrangements some exposure.

Wayne, what makes you think it is tab and not standard music notation? (Actually, I think it is tab that Ron is reading, but I just wanted to give you a hard time. Devil dancing banana smiley (Banana Emoticons) ) Paul arranged the piece for two dulcimers and not surprisingly he knows it better than Ron does. The arrangement is so precise that if Ron were to play a note that might sound great when playing solo but is not exactly what Paul had written, he would ruin the harmonies and counter-melodies that Paul intended.




--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie
John Keane
John Keane
@john-keane
10 years ago
182 posts

That was really nice. Thanks for posting this!

Rob N Lackey
Rob N Lackey
@rob-n-lackey
10 years ago
419 posts

Dusty,

That was one of the most beautiful duet arrangements I've ever heard! (Just for the record, I had typed beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful and amazing before settling on beautiful.) I'd love to have someone with which to try something like that. I can't say thank you enough. Yep, Carrie, you're not an original on that 3 finger, no thumb style. :( I had thought you were.

Dusty Turtle
Dusty Turtle
@dusty
10 years ago
1,662 posts

I wish I could say thanks, Carrie and Cheryl. All I did was hold a camera. We're going to try to make another recording with a better mic on Paul's dulcimer. And hopefully my dulcimer group will record one or more of Paul's arrangements. He's got a couple with three or four parts of increasing difficulty, so everyone from the beginners to the more advanced can play a part.




--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie
Cheryl Johnson
Cheryl Johnson
@cheryl-johnson
10 years ago
43 posts

Really beautifully done!! Bravo!

Dusty Turtle
Dusty Turtle
@dusty
10 years ago
1,662 posts

Since I am not playing in this video, I can't upload it to our video library, but I wanted to share with everyone this carefully arranged duet of Turlough O'Carolan's "Si Bheag Si Mohr" which Paul Furnas and Ron Beardslee played at the Redwood Dulcimer Day this past weekend.

Both are founding members ofmy dulcimer group, River City Dulcimers. Paul has been playing and teaching the dulcimer for decades. He has a doctorate in early music and is a font of knowledge about music history and music theory. He has many arrangements of songs, all very carefully thought out. It is a bit hard to hear his fingerpicking here, but hopefully you can all see how pretty the arrangement is. And Paul's smile at the end is precious!

Listening to this soft and carefularrangement of the song makes me feel like that proverbial bull in a china shop when I play my awkward strumming version of the tune.




--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator

As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie

updated by @dusty: 04/15/18 04:45:55AM