Rochdale Coconut Dance reel

Its from my town rochdale,i think originally perforned my moris dancers, although their all gone now. Bellowhead play this on their cd although in some books i have found that the second section that i wrote is played first, but this version of the rochdale cocnut dance is writen how bellowhead perform it

Hi Nicky, I think your CAPS Lock got stuck in the ABC as well as your comment 🙂 The highest note ought to be c so you should find the tune is all upper case except for those c’s. Give me some time and I’ll dig out my version.
We sometimes follow it with Speed the Plough (this one - https://thesession.org/tunes/1191 ) though not in A

OK Here’s my take on it … working from your ABC as a start point…. and yes some people play the A & B parts the otherway round, which can lead to the tune going on forever as noone knows where to finish it … it can get quite mesmerising after half a dozen or so repeats.

X: 1
T: Rochdale Coconut Dance
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
|: EFGF E2 B2 | EFGF E2 B2 | c2 Ac B2 G2 | AG F2 E2 D2 |\
EFGF E2 B2 | EFGF E2 B2 | c2 Ac B2 G2 | AG F2 G4:|
|: G2 BB G2 B2 | AGFG ABcA | G2 BB G2 B2| AGFE D2 D2 | \
G2 BB G2 B2 | AGFG ABcA | BdcB AcBA |G2 B2 G4 :|

Thanks for posting this tune - I absolutely LOVE it!

This is a tune from the Britannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup (coconutters.co.uk). Often played with the Tip Top Polka in Englsih sessions as that is also one of their tunes.

Sweet, And you’re right, spindizzy: it’s hard to stop, once you’ve gone through it a couple of times. Spinning in small circles…

http://www.coconutters.co.uk/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNbGYRSsV8g

play video

More of their coconut bashing and garland waving courtesy of U-Tube ~

Britannia Coconutters Bacup outside Marios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bvMIIxCcFc

play video

Easter Saturday in Bacup 2007 ~ and a bit of camera-obscura 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F7gv3nvJ98

play video

Britannia Coco-Nutters Bacup Market
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XATuRfHWK7c

play video

Bacup Coconutters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxRc_TuV6gg

play video

The Famous Brittannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUCnjuSgwcc

play video

Britannia Coconutters at Ellenroad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35GNZF9WB9Y

play video

..and if you listen to the grand oompah silver band players in all these clips, you’ll find that they DON’T play this tune - these are the Bacup or Britannia Coconutters, the only surviving team and their tune is on JC’s tune finder as the Bacup Coconut Dance.
(I don’t play that one - so I’d just be doing a cut ‘n paste to enter it here - I suspect my boss, a morris melodeon player will know it, so I may put in a version later)
I assume the Rochdale tune belonged to a now extinct group of dancers.
Those (few) still reading 🙂 may want to check out pulling the Saddleworth Rush Cart, another local fest.

Key signature: G Major
Submitted on December 2nd 2006 by nicholas.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6450

Yeah, I know Spin. I did a long search and listened to a load of things and didn’t find this tune amongst them, but I so enjoyed the vids I had to share them somewhere,so ‘coconut dancers’. 😏

Be sure to link back here when you submit the Bacup tune. Having played brass in the past, and low brass too, if never Oompah, I enjoyed those clips, good fun, and just had to put those links somewhere… I did an initial transcription but didn’t find the tune here. I suppose I could have added it as they gave it but didn’t have a name for it…

Looks like the "Bacup" tune is here as the tip-top polka.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6450
- Ooops cross post, I see you’ve already got that one.
ps I’m enjoying all the Miuneiras and An Dro’s

Yeah there are definately no morris or coconut dancers in Rochdale anymore, I have looked. And in some recordings of the tune seem to go for ever but it doesn’t really seem to get boring!!!!!!! Does anyone know the actual dance to this tune cos I’d be really interested to know what it goes like though its kind of hard to dance and play the fiddle at the same time but I’ll have a go. Please could someone get back to me on that???
Oh yeah and sorry about the CAPS,spindizzy 🙂 !!!!!

Duh! 😏 Yes, I did say I was ‘sick’ this week didn’t I. Well, I’m recovering. I’ll add two more transcriptions to the Tip-Top Polka for the entertainment of yourselves and others, D & G… At least I got some sleep last night… 😉

This piece sounds like a schottische to me, definitely. Just try to dance to it.

Reminds me of that tune I posted recently Hill’s Fancy for the Circassian Circle dance.

Yes, Mario, I once danced a Scottische to it! It really works as a Scottische.

But it’s a morris tune so there must be a morris dance to go with it…

I have only heard this in sessions and for dancing with the parts the other way round so that the change to minor happens within the tune. Pete Cooper has it that way.

From: http://folkopedia.efdss.org/Rochdale_Coconut_Dance
"This tune entered the repertoire of The New Victory Band some time in the 1980s and has a rather unclear provenance. Although there is a coconut dance in nearby Bacup, there is no evidence to suggest that a coconut dance ever existed in Rochdale. If not, where did the tune come from? It is likely that it came from the pen of some northern musician and found its way by stealth into the greater repertoire via NVB. The band Bellowhead popularised the tune in 2004 but their version reverses the order of the A and B parts."

More like this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeB4NozKd00

play video

(which raises some doubts about the provenance of that quote above 😏)

Most clips of this on youtube are people who say they learn’t it from Bellowhead and I find it hard to work out what is ‘the tune’ and which are bits of Bellowhead flamboyance that they have picked up on. The New Victory Band recording is fairly zaney as well. The tune asks for it I suppose.

I just found this clip of Bellowhead in session mode which I find much more accessible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4mKff1mBi0

play video

I could hardly believe this was not a genuine traditional tune. Now it looks like it was. I found the following on mudcat.org, page was here: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=127374. Comment was by Ruth Archer on 16 Feb 2010:

"Subject: RE: Tune Add: Bacup Coconut Dance
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 16 Feb 10 - 05:05 PM
Johnny: I think I may be able to help. There is great advantage to living with a folkie scholar, and his library! When I asked if he could shed some light, he went to the shelf and immediately pulled down the Journal of the English Folk Dance Society from 1927 (how does he DO that?!). It contains an article written by Anne Gilchrist entitled "The Lancashire Rush-Cart and Morris-Dance". This is a transcript of the relevant bit:
"Dr Henry Brierly, a native of Rochdale, sends me the tune of a ‘Coco-nut Dance’ which accompanied the Rochdale rush-cart in the ‘fifties [she is referring to the 1850s]. The dancers held half a coco-nut shell in each hand, a half-shell also being strapped to each knee, and clapped the shells rhythmically to this unvarying tune, played by the band. The dance was stationary, but according to his recollection the coco-nut dancers preceded the drawing-team of young men, ‘prancing’ in the procession. The tune has a general resemblance to Mr Cecil Sharp’s traditional versions of ‘Country Gardens’ and ‘Hunt the Squirrel’. I have seen no other record of this dance."
It goes on to transcribe the music and it does indeed start with the major part."

So there. I’d love to see a transcript to abc notation of the tune she found in the 1927 Journal of the English Folk Dance Society, if anyone can do it.