The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 2 of 2) / With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes, and Methods of Playing etc.

by Alice Bertha Gomme

Notes on the music transcriptions:

• Page 26 (Oranges and Lemons, London): Final refrain, measures 25 and 26—there is something wrong with the beat count in these measures—they are ¹⁄₁₆th note short. Either the terminal 16^th notes should be 8^th notes or there is a missing rest; the latter has been added.
• Page 68 (Pretty Little Girl of Mine, Hanbury): In the sixth bar, there is a quaver printed as if it were a grace note but after the minim on beats 3 and 4. That and the fact that it has a downwards stem suggests that this is not a grace note but a quaver at the end of the bar for an alternative version of the bar (perhaps to fit the words in one of the verses). This is recorded in the second version, where instead of a minim D as the last two beats of bar 6, a crotchet D followed by a quaver rest and then the quaver on D have been inserted.
• Page 102 (Queen Mary): Verses 3, 4 and 5 are quite different to verses 1 and 2. The midi file plays all five verses in sequence.
• Page 122 (Round and Round the Village, Barnes): Bar two has a quaver rest at the end. This leaves the bar half a beat short. The quaver rest has been replaced with a crotchet rest, also in the fourth bar. (Round and Round the Village, Hanbury): At the end of the first, third and fifth bars, there is an alternative version of the last note. For example in the first bar it is either a quaver or two semiquavers (possibly to fit the words of different verses). In the midi file, the tune is played first with the longer note and then repeated with the shorter notes.
• Page 150 (Sally Water, Beddgelert): The note in bars 4, 8, 16 and the last bar looks as if it were a breve. They have been transcribed as semi-breves. The ninth bar is short of two beats, containing just one minim. The piece contains 28 bars broken into phrases of 4 or 8 bars with this ninth bar so it appears to be required. The transcription given is a minim G which seems to fit well.
• Page 185 (See-Saw): Bar 2 is short of an eighth of a beat. The last quaver has been dotted to make this up, mirroring the last dotted quaver in the final bar.
• Page 280 (Three Little Ships, Rimbault): The second note in the third and fourth bars appears to be a semi-quaver. This would leave a semi-quaver short in each of these bars. This has been made up by dotting the first quaver.
• Page 315 (Twelve Days of Christmas): In the second full bar, the first quaver needs to be dotted to make up the correct number of beats in the bar. Similarly in the bar before the change of time signature to ³⁄₄, the quavers have been transcribed as dotted. The music as written is for the first and second verses only with an indication of which bar to repeat for each extra day. To illustrate how this works, the midi file continues to the third verse.
• Page 323 (Up the Streets): The fourth and seventh bars are missing two beats. The missing beats have been transcribed as rests.
• Page 330 (Wallflowers, Connell Ferry): In the fifth bar, a half beat is missing. An extra quaver B before the last two notes of the bar has been inserted.
• Page 362/363 (When I was a Young Girl, Market Drayton): In the fourth full bar, the second note is written as a crotchet but must be a quaver to make the correct number of beats in the bar.
• Page 384 (Wind up the Bush Faggot): The instructions are to repeat the section in ³⁄₈ time as often as required and then follow with the ²⁄₄ section. In the midi file, the first section in ³⁄₈ is repeated just once to indicate the pattern, followed by the ²⁄₄ section.