Mick Hoy’s Recipe For Boiled Cabbage mazurka

This one and ‘The Preston City Mazurka’ or any other 3 parter lend themselves well as accompaniment for a ‘Mazurka-Waltz’, waltzing the third part, which can apply to the treatment the musician gives it, including accompaniment, as well as what the dancers do on the floor. A change in key or feel is common crossing over to that third part.

Yeah, I confess, my first contribution of such, but I really can’t say ‘composed’, as I don’t put any effort into these things, they just seem to happen, often when I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere and it’s pissin’ rain, not condusive to writing something down, but occassionally I do, as with this one. It was also one of the worst lightning storms I’ve ever been caught in, “Tain” stuff.

This is in honour of a great and generous fiddler for whom I will always hold fondness for, and who along with great conversation and mythologizing, tunes and tales made me the best boiled cabbage I have ever enjoyed. A wonderful man and poacher, we need more such unpretentious and rollicking folk in the world.

Too often in the business of learning music and tunes, we forget those elements of the tradition that aren’t measurable in black dots and ABC, bow acrobatics and session politics. Amongst those fine musicians and dancers I’ve had the pleasure of calling friends and spending time with, across a wide swath of this planet, they all shared something in common, a quality of spirit, a sense of humour, a generosity and an openness of spirit. Also for all of them, the music and the instrument they expressed it on were but one aspect of who they were and what they cared about. It didn’t seem to be the main motivation in their lives, but another way of walking, of being social, part of the spice in their life, but not the whole seasoning.

ALSO - THEY ALL LOVED DANCING AS WELL AS PLAYING FOR IT…

This is a lovely tune! It sounds somewhat Breton at the start but then I am no authority on Breton music. The last part is in C major, I think so shouldn’t it end on a C?
P.S. I am intrigued how, having grown up in Guam, you manage to know Mick Hoy. I grew up in N.I. and never was fortunate enough to meet him. Just curious.

Hey, on Guam I was a kid, and that’s where I graduated from High School - and other things. I’ve also lived in the Canadian Maritimes, Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and I’ve lived in Eire a couple of times, as well as here in England and Wales, and Brittany and France, and Georgia, not the East European one. I recently saw a digital acquaintance who was shocked, expecting me to be in my 90s and in a suit and tie, but they don’t know about Guam…

The “RECIPE”, to keep this relevant, boiled ham and cabbage as usual except Mick’s trick was to put in a small amount, say a teaspoon, of soda before adding the cabbage. It kept it rich green and the flavour was out of this world, mind you, the pig was what you’d call free range too. I find that that is where you really know the difference, mass produced pork has a kind of stink to it…

It seems to resolve on the ‘A’, and if you give it ‘C’, which is OK, except it doesn’t seem resolved and wants, for me, to lead on into:

|G2 g>a g>f|f2 e>^d e2|G>B d>B G>B|c2 A2 ^G2 -

whereas |G>B d>B G>B|A4|| just seemed right. I’m not sure what the G# makes of it all. I don’t think about these things until long after the tune happens and someone asks. I know it hints at being ‘Major’, but somehow it isn’t, thus at least to my ears that it ends on ‘A’…and bridges from there back to the first part. Hmmmmm…

Sorry, my mis-firing brain again. Missed above - “RECIPE” - along with the teaspoon of soda add ‘onion tops’. We had potatoes too, ‘comfort food’!

This could just as easily have been called ‘The Fairy Ring’ or the ‘Ring of Wraiths’.

We were walking back to Mick’s one very late night after playing music in a pub barely big enough for the two or three tables in it, probably around 3. It was a still night, a full moon. There wasn’t a breath of wind, no leaves stirred. Then we came to this large open field in which there was a ring or oaks in the middle. They seemed in turmoil, as if they were trying to tear each other apart, swaying this way and that, the leaves somehow holding on in what seemed a terrible storm of wind. You’d almost swear there was something trying to tear free from their enclosing grasp. And yet, nowhere else was there a stir, and around us it was all becalmed, just that ring of oaks shook as if under their own will. Mick made a comment as to how these rings were made in order to hold back evil forces, devils.

I think I remember our pace quickening, despite the long haul and our tired feet. Oddly we didn’t speak another word until we somehow were at the door of the house and through. We were glad for home and a hot cup of tea, and even gladder for the next morning and the light of sunrise.

I also don’t doubt that there might be Breton influence in this tune, having enjoyed dancing to that music and playing it too, including of this species…