Old Dick’s polka

Dick Wells was a bandmaster on the central New South Wales coast for decades in the middle of last century. He was also my grandfather, though i never knew him.

So this is for Old Dick as he was known to all the locals. It matches another I wrote a while ago for my grandmother.

Another serial composer convinced of their own genius? I guess there is no shortage of such folk. I’ve just seen the first couple of programs of “American Idol” ~ they’re everywhere… 😏

Just so I don’t get too badly shot down, in the last few years Fliúiteadóir has only contributed one tune that wasn’t C: Fliúiteadóir… I guess folks don’t bother reading the FAQs here, or respecting the few requests made by our webmaster Jeremy there ~ or maybe they just think they’re a ‘special case’, the ‘exception’? C’est la vie, eh? As has been said often ~ there are generally better tunes to spend time with elsewhere on site…

Yeah.

I really like this tune though… 🙂

ha ha i like the name ha ha hmm i should grow up

You need to stop losing sleep… Just because he’s another squeezer and from your neck of the woods… I was wondering where you were hiding. Now look what you’ve done, you’ve stroked his ego. Now there will be a whole slew of Fliúiteadóir’s machinations ploppin’ out onto the yeller board… Well, at least he dedicated it to someone else. Maybe if we’re lucky he’ll at least give us more information on Dick Wells the bandmaster and his granddad?

You don’t make life easy you know Dow, now I’ll have to play it a little longer to see what it is that has your liking it… Sheesh! 😏

Nah! 😛 You’re losin’ it Dow, just because he’s and acquaintance. I’m going back to the Maritime Canada stuff…

Ceolachan, i don’t know who the hell you are, but I think it shows incredibly bad grace to criticise me for submitting original music. And without having the guts to say it to me directly, but by adressing your comments in a 3rd person mode.

Mate, I don’t give a toss whether you like it or not. BTW, Dow, thanks for liking it. But I, and most people on this site, would never be so churlish as to criticise someone for offering something new. going by the tune names, a largeslab of the tunes posted here ARE originals.

I don’t think submitting stuff necessarily demonstrates one is sadly deluded about one’s own compositional ability.

Perhaps you’re singularly incapable of producing anything yourself.

As for wanting to know more about Dick Wells, I wouldn’t stoop to offering that to the likes of you.

Fliúiteadóir, it seems you don’t know what this website is about. If you want to popularise your own compositions, why don’t you creat your own website?

“I don’t think submitting stuff necessarily demonstrates one is sadly deluded about one’s own compositional ability.”

~ the nature of delusion and ego… Is that direct enough for you?

it’s certainly true enough ‘c’

It is your discourtesy in not bothering to read the FAQs or respecting the requests made there by the webmaster.

“I, and most people on this site, would never be so churlish as to criticise someone for offering something new.”

~ I see you might have some comedy in you, if not intended… 😀

“Perhaps you’re singularly incapable of producing anything yourself.”

Very funny, does that mean I’m beneath you?…

“As for wanting to know more about Dick Wells, I wouldn’t stoop to offering that to the likes of you.”

~ that was the only saving grace about this, that it was dedicated to someone else, had some connection to history or a ‘tradition’…

“ ~ bad grace to criticise me for submitting original music.”

Hardly, and if you were to have checked my own submissions a good percentage represent composers over a long stretch of time, including recent. I love to see people’s muse at work and the results, and am more than willing to give them a go, quietly. I wouldn’t have said anything if you had struck some reasonable balance, which you haven’t, not even 1-for-1. The cricitcism was that you have contributed little else but your compositions, so obviously hadn’t bothered to read or head the FAQs of this website…

Fliúiteadóir, I initially thought i could use this site JUST to submit my compositions here there and everywhere but I realised it’s almost like sticking two fingers up at the webmaster as it goes against everything that this site is about.

If you read the homepage…

The exchange of tunes is what keeps traditional Irish music alive (that’s from memory but the essence is there)

…then you should be compelled to start submitting tunes that you hear at sessions (if you go to them instead of sitting at home writing tunes) or find elsewhere rather than submitting your own work.

I hope this marks a change in your attitude to others aswell since saying stuff like

“Perhaps you’re singularly incapable of producing anything yourself.”

“As for wanting to know more about Dick Wells, I wouldn’t stoop to offering that to the likes of you.”

to a respected member of this site when you are far from respected is not good i’m afraid!

Some folks have struck a happy medium. They add their own compositions in their ‘Details’. Here’s one of the best examples I’ve come across, with the stories attached to their tunes. I enjoyed playing these so much that after playing one in particular, that grabbed ahold of me for a spell, I added it here on site:

Reverend
https://thesession.org/members/11048

“The Cornerstone” C: Reverend Pete ~ lovely tune
https://thesession.org/tunes/8148

Sorry to butt in, but I just tried this as a reel, and it turned out to be interesting:

X: 1
T: Old Dick’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
FAGE FAAG|(3FGA BG FDDF|GFEF GABd|ecdB cAGE|
FAGE FAAG|(3FGA BG FDDF|GFEF GABd|1 cAGE D2AG:|2 cABc ~d3g||
fded cAAB|=cedc BGGA|FGAB cdef|eBdc A2de|
fddf e=cce|dBed cAAF|(3EFG AB cdef|1 afge dAde:|2 afge d2AG||

I would usually find fault with tunes like this that are lopsided or don’t quite have that agreement between parts, but I think this particular tune’s strength is in its lack of agreement, or at least the fact that it agrees in certain places but not in the ones you’d expect…

I must confess - having now found the paragraph way down in FAQ about submitting one’s own compositions - that I have indeed been unaware of the 5-to-1 rule ( No criticism Jeremy, but it seems others have also not readily spotted this caveat).

So I won’t be posting any more of my own, especially when I’ll get head-kicked. I notice you’ve done this to others blissfully ( and reasonably ) ignorant of the ratio rule, Ceolachan

A gentle reference to the specific rule would have set me straight. So I stand by the gist of what I said about yr attitude. Sneering condescension towards others is pretty tacky.

Me and my tunes are outahere.

He’s gunna take all his tunes and going home… so there! humph!!!