Who doesn't absolutely love this song? John Jacob Nilescollected Appalachian songs and first heard this song fragment in 1933. In hisunpublished biography he said "A girl had stepped out to the edge ofthe little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clotheswere unbelievably dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blondhair hung down in long skeins.... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and inher untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly,and sang only a single line of a song."

This carol has been arranged for SATB quartet with substantial pianoaccompaniment. Enjoy!

"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional English ballad that hangs in some versions at least upon a possible visit by an unidentified person (the "third party") to the Yorkshire town of Scarborough.
The song implies the tale of a man who instructs the third party to tell his former love, who lives in said fair town, to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making for him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she were to complete these tasks he would take her back into his affections. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her sometime lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

Here is a version for Guitar trio with standard guitar notation and tablature. 9 pages all Gtrs, 3 pages Gtr1, 3 pages Gtr2, 3 pages Gtr3 - total 18 pages in landscape page format for easier interpreting.
With downlaodable mp3 for audio help.
Guitar 3 easy to early intemrediate, Guitar 1 and 2 (which plays the melody) easy.

?The King of Love My Shepherd Is? is a metrical paraphrase of Psalm 23, written by the Anglican cleric and hymn-writer Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821-1877) for the second edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1868), of which he was editor as well as contributor. Baker's hymn has been described as perhaps the most beautiful of the many versions of the beloved psalm, and it has been said that the author's own last words before dying were the third stanza:

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

Originally, the hymn was paired with the tune DOMINUS REGIT ME, written by Baker's friend John Bacchus Dykes (1823-1876) specifically for Baker's text. Later, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) sought to republish the hymn in The English Hymnal (1906), of which he was editor, and was denied the right to use Dykes's tune. He then paired Baker?s text with his own arrangement of an Irish traditional air, ST. COLUMBA.

It is on ST. COLUMBA that this arrangement for brass quintet is based. Following a short introduction, the tune is presented three times: first, by trumpets in a modal melodic/harmonic fashion; next, by low brass trio evoking Vaughan Williams' familiar harmonization; and finally, in a broad, full presentation by the entire ensemble, followed by a quiet, peaceful ending.

©2019 Todd Marchand / ConSpiritoMusic.com