Italian Dance-Tune Book

Subject: Italian Dance-Tune Book
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 06 Dec 05 - 09:19 AM

I'm becoming increasingly attracted to Traditional Italian dance tunes (such as for salterellos etc.). Do any Mudcatters out there know of any books of traditional Italian dance tunes that are currently available? Alternatively, are there any websites with these tunes on (I've searched using google without much success). I'd prefer staff notation to midi or ABC etc.

Cheers

Subject: RE: Italian Dance-Tune Book
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 Dec 05 - 01:45 PM

Every Italian region has it's own kind of traditional dance music--as you know, the regions used to be independent states, so physically ,politically, and culturally, they were very different from one another, and the traditional music is, too--To get a sense of what there is and what it sounds like, the best place to start, oddly enough, is with Alan Lomax Italian Treasury Lomax spent a year doing field recordings there, back in the 50's--

Subject: RE: Italian Dance-Tune Book
From: M.Ted
Date: 06 Dec 05 - 02:16 PM

Also check out these guys The Hot Frittatas , who are a Northern California Band dedicated to the music that you want to play--they play the cafe style music that the Italians brought San Francisco-- tarentellas from the South, and Ballo Liscio, from the North(polkas, waltzes, and Mazurkas)

Subject: RE: Italian Dance-Tune Book
From: GUEST,Dazbo
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 08:26 AM

M.Ted - thanks for your input I'll look into them. I know some of the Lomax recordings have been released recently on CD so I'm looking for them at the moment. Unfortunately I'm crap at learning by ear so would prefer the dots. I like the norhtern style, which to my ear sounds similar to English but what I'd like to have a go at are the southern styles (Calabria etc.) played on their one and a bit row diatonic accordians.

Right, I'm off to investigate The Hot Frittatas!

Dazbo

Subject: RE: Italian Dance-Tune Book
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Dec 05 - 11:28 AM

They mention, on the website, that a lot of the music that they learned from is out of print, but--in addition to playing the music, they are interested in preserving and continuing it, so my bet is that they would be really happy to hear from you, and, might possibly be induced to share some stuff from those old books.

There are still accordian players in the Northeast, such as Philly and Hoboken, who play the old stuff--I particularly remember Giuseppe and Raffaela DeFranco and their family, who played Calabrian music and dance on what I think of as the "ethnomusic circuit", and won an NEA Lifetime Fellowship, ten or fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, I can't find anything current about them on the web--