Maenpaan Heikin Valssi waltz

This is a traditional Finnish waltz as played on Frigg’s album ‘Oasis’.

Actually the second time through the B part is slightly different…

Bars A1 and A5 should be repeated Gs, not As, surely, as per the original recording: https://youtu.be/lP8DjJ7nNgQ?

play video

Here’s what I’m hearing, particularly from the fiddles from about 1’25" in the video, though admittedly there’s some bagpipey stuff going on with the pipes at the beginning - I think ornaments between G and Bb (or possibly A), emphasising the upper note:

T:Mäenpään Heikin Valssi
T:(Heikki Mäenpää’s Waltz)
C:Traditional
O:Finland
D: Frigg: Keidas/Oasis/Oase ‎(CD Album) FRIGG00002 (2005) (arr. Antti Järvelä, Tuomas Logrén.)
S:Tiila Ilkka (1875-1963), a folk singer from Alavus - according to Frigg’s album notes, cf https://etno.net/node/519
R:Waltz
M: /4
L:1/8
K:Gm
P:A 1&2
G2 GG GG|B2 A2 G2|A2 F2 D2|G2 F2 D2|G2 GG GG |B2 A2 GF|
D2 DF AF|G6:|][P:B1]A3G FA|d2 c2 d2|A3G FA|d2 c2 d2|
G2 F2 D2|B2 A2 GF|D2 DF AF|G6||[P:B2]A3G FA|d2 c2 d2|
A3G FA|c2 A2 c2|A2 F2 D2|B2 A2 GF|D2 DF AF|G6|]

There is also a live performance video (https://youtu.be/Yb5ZbJXpRn4) and I’ve found and added some background info.

play video

Doesn’t sound like a waltz but what in Swedish is called a “slaeng-polska”. In a fast and even 3/4 tempo. Fun to dance to.

In one of those fortuitous, serendipitous connections which sometimes crop up online, after I posted my own rendition of this tune for the Tunesday Tuesdays Group on Facebook a recently acquired Irish friend drew it to the attention of one of his connections, Antti Järvelä, a former member of the band Frigg who was a member at the time they made the Oasis album the track appears on and who is jointly credited for the arrangement. I therefore had an opportunity to enquire about the controversial bars 1 and 5 in the A music.

This was my question:
“(In the Tunesday Tuesdays Group) we had something of a disagreement over the first notes of the tune (the repeated notes in bars 1 and 5 of the A music) - should it be A or G? My observations of your recordings are that it is really a G but that at the beginning of your arrangement the bagpipes do an ornament which emphasises the A, but later the piper plays the G, and that the fiddles consistently play Gs. Others maintained that it is always an A. I don’t mind whether I am correct or not, but I’d love to know whether it is ”officially“ an A or a G in the source traditional version?”

This was the response:
"…. I understand it can be very confusing to find the root but here comes the surprise; the root for the 1st and 5th bar notes is actually D. The fiddles play the two lowest strings G&D ringing simultaneously and the bagpipes do - as you said - something around here and there 🙂

If I remember correctly this tune was originally lilted by Tiila Ilkka and the source version is very likely included in Alavuden laulukirja (Alavus region’s song book). We ended up jamming it with open mind and found slightly different version of the song. Actually Frigg also had a choir project where we made people also sing this one with us.

The lyrics are somewhat:
Tilitalituli rintun tin
Talitalituli rintun tan
Tilitalituli rintun tin
Talitalituli rantaa

Etc…"

Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be a digital version of the Alavus Songbook, so unless someone with access to hard copy turns up to help, I don’t think we can get any further with confirming the ultimate source setting.

The upshot, though, would seem to be: you can play those repeated notes in bars A1 & A5 as Ds or as Gs (or double-stop both) or you can mess around with something A-ish over them like the Frigg piper does, but that isn’t really the core melody.

So, after all that, one could argue a one-note-at-a-time melody instrument should just play Ds in bars A1 & A5 and that would be entirely satisfactory, but a better (combined) representation of what’s going on in the A music as Frigg play it might be: fiddles etc. double-stopping D&G open strings, pipes sometimes playing Gs cut with A or even As with taps to G, perhaps with more emphasis on the A than the G, especially at the beginning (there’s less A and more G in the album recording than in the live video):
X:4
T:Mäenpään Heikin Valssi
T:A music as per Frigg rendition
R:Waltz
L:1/8
M:3/4
K:Gm
({G/A/}[D2G2] {A/}[DG]{A/}[DG] {A/}[DG]{A/}[DG])|B2 A2 G2|A2 F2 D2|G2 F2 D2|
({G/A/}[D2G2] {A/}[DG]{A/}[DG] {A/}[DG]{A/}[DG])|B2 A2 GF|D2 DF AF|G6:|]

Antti Järvelä has now kindly provided me with a photo of the relevant page from Alavuden Laulukirja (The Alavus Songbook - p334) showing the definitive transcription of what Tiiki Ilkka originally sang/lilted in 1955. It is a tone higher than Frigg’s setting, in A minor and there’s no A music repeat. I’ve added the image and this notation to my document for the tune (which can be downloaded from: https://app.box.com/s/85x66odkgf0fhjv1bridu2a16n3e93rh).

X:5
T:Mäenpään Heikin Valssi
T:(Heikki Mäenpää’s Waltz)
T:Original song/mouth-music version
C:Traditional
O:Finland
B:Alavuden Laulukirja (The Alavus Songbook - p334) Volume 5 of Tampereen yliopiston Kansanperinteen laitoksen julkaisu Contributors: Erkki Ala-Könni, Alavuden seura; Publisher: Alavuden seura, 1978; ISBN 9514407555, 9789514407550
S:Tiila Ilkka (1875-1963), a folk singer from Alavus - according to Frigg’s album notes, cf https://etno.net/node/519, notated in 1955
S:see also https://thesession.org/tunes/10751
Z:Jem Hammond 28:1:2021
R:Waltz
Q:3/4=63
M:3/4
L:1/8
K:Am
E E E E E E|c2 B2 A2|B B G G E E|A2 G2 E2|
w:Ta-li ta-li ta-li, rin- tun- tin, ti-li tu-li lu-li, rin- tun- tin,
E E C C E E|c2 B2 G2|E E E G B G|A4 A2||
w:ta-li tu-li tu-li, rin tun tin, ta-li tu-li tu-li, raa- tan.
B B G G G B|e2 d2 e2|B B B A G B|e2 d2 e z|
w:Ta-li tu-li tu-li, rin- tun- tin, ta-li tu-li tu-li, rin- tun- tin.
A A G G E E|c2 B2 A2|E E E G B G|A4 A2||
w:Ra-li tu-li tu-li, rin- tun- tin, ta-li tu-li tu-li raa- ta.
B B G G G B|e2 d2 e2|B B B A G B|d2 B2 d2|
w:Ta-li tu-li tu-li, rin- tun- tin, ta-li tu-li tu-li, rin- tun- tin.
B B G G E E|c2 B2 A2|E E E G B G|A4 z2|]
w:Ta-li tu-li tu-li, rin- tun- tin, ta-li tu-li tu-li raa.