Folk dance music with improvisations

Dona Bleska (Doudlebska Polka)

Niels Mejlhede Jensen, Bøgeløvsvej 4, 2830 Virum, Denmark. e-mail (web master)

Old tune used for folk dancing in Denmark 1999 arranged with improvisations

CONTENTS: (remember: you can use Ctrl Home in usual browsers to get to the top of this page, to the links here)

Dance of the week 1999 April 26: Dona Bleska (Doudlebska Polka), mixer dance
Dance descriptions will open on a new page, in a new window, so that this window with music is kept behind
Dance description 1, ordinary dance for couples
Dance description 2, simple all family dance
Music description (you stay on this page)
Performing proposals (new page, in a new window, with this window behind)
Music scores for C, A , Bb, Eb, F, and bass instruments (to text on this page)
(c1, c2), (a1, a2), (b1, b2), (e1, e2), (f1, f2), (bass1, bass2); (note sheet will open on a new page, help here)

Photo 1 of this week: Dancing Doudlebska Polka at the Open Air Museum (in a northern Copenhagen suburb) with Fiddlers' Dance. Everybody is invited to join in dancing. A short explanation of the dance is given, and our dancers assist. This here is from a summer day in the month of August. Next time we will be there is the monday of Pentecost: 24th of May 1999 at 2 - 4 a clock afternoon, hopefully also a summer day. It is a splendid museum with a lot of old farm houses.

Photo of garden party
Photo 2: Hygge (= cosiness)
Garden party after dancing 2 hours at the Open Air Museum. We visited the folk dancers here at this house many times, in their big nice garden down to a little romantic lake. First we relax here, with a cup of coffee or tea and home baking - from the hosts or brought by the guests. Then we play music and dance on the lawn. The house here is special for a family town house in Denmark: wooden house with grass on the roof. This style is occasional used for summer houses, also modern, to make them fit into nature. The area here is a northern suburb of Copenhagen, that some years ago had some summer houses for Copenhageners.

A little story:

My parents live in north Jutland and are farmers, and to the sharp eyed Copenhagener my parents appear provincial or even as farmers. And this is not necessarily always considered a positive qualification. When I am together with my parents, whether it be in Copenhagen or out in the country, we speak our local language, the dialect Wendelbomål. (I visit them several times a year. They are much of my culture). This language deviates from Copenhagen Danish like Swedish and Norwegian. In a recent broadcast on Swedish television in connection with the coming bridge between Copenhagen and Sweden it was told, how Swedes from the other side of the narrow water were treated in Copenhagen with not only teasing but also some not just isolated cases of wickedness. I know the jokes from the Danish side and cannot decline this accusation. Can the same attitude in between be felt towards the provincial Danish people? The whole of Denmark is one country, and does that to some of Copenhagen seem to mean, that it is the Copenhagen behaviour that is valid, whether we from the country are humble guests in Copenhagen or the Copenhageners are out dominating in our countryside? So that the farmers with their primitive dialect are everywhere only second class people?
Some years ago my parents took the 8 hour train trip to visit me here in Copenhagen. I remember the small train trips in my childhood with the local slow railroads to the beach in the summer or to visit relatives. Before the trip was over we knew all the unknown passengers around us, after an enliven chat. A train trip was an adventure in itself. Here by Copenhagen you can travel for years every day with the same people without ever exchanging a word. Here a train trip is a boring time consuming trouble you want to keep for yourself.
Well, my parents wanted to come and visit me and my family. My sister then bought them train tickets for 1' class (first time first class in their life), because then they would sit more comfortable on this long journey to the capital over there across the waters. The trip to Copenhagen went all right. But on their way back home to Jutland I went along with my parents to Copenhagen Main Station and found their 1' class compartment. In this compartment with 6 seats there were already 3 men, maybe expecting that on 1' class there would usually not be more passengers in the compartment. And then we came there, speaking this awful farmer language. I helped my parents place their luggage, and they worked on taking their coats off and so. "This is 1' class" one of the three men then spoke out distinct loud in Copenhagen Danish, clearly annoyed with the new company in his compartment. "So this is 1' class" my father answered just as firm repeating in about the same town language the best he could, after an astonishment of a few seconds had passed. This was to be the only conversation on that train trip (until my father and mother became alone in the compartment the last hour of their journey). What would you do if you were one of the three and maybe not agreeing with the snob? Nobody said anything, but one of the 3 men shortly after gave my father his newspaper.
I was so very proud of my father for this: finally a peasant showing some justified rebellion against the upper class disdain for the ordinary people. I left the train with the clear feeling that my father had won this battle in everybody's mind and in his own self-respect. But no. My parents have never since repeated taking the train to visit me here in Copenhagen.

Dance of the week, 1999, April 26:

Dona Bleska (Doudlebska Polka).

(English: "Doudlebska Polka").
Dance of many couples, the whole ballroom.
Music and dance from Czechoslovakia, (with modification).

The melody can be heard in midi on computer piano in my tempo (if you have a sound card). (The melody will loop here until you stop it. In the table below it will play once). (I have not played the tunes here with the "drive" I want for dance music).

Music description:

The music notes are written as a score of 12 staves on one A3 page = two A4 pages side by side (= an open A4 book).
Place the two note sheets side by side. Then staff 1 (= melody) on the left page continues as staff 1 on the right page.
The 12 staves:

1	melody		the traditional good dancing melody, polished through generations of use on the fiddle
.	chord text	Midi metronome = 110	simple (folk music) chords, natural for playing the accordion; these chords are used to make the other parts or voices in triad harmony; there should be no tension from dissonance anywhere including in octave
2	A		(Above), parallel part nearest above in third or little more above
3	B		(Below), parallel part nearest below in third or little more below
4	ns		simple n part; often with the tonic feeling and often with the basic dance rhythm ("motor part"), but for the dance here the dynamic motor is better revealed in e.g. C1 and n1.
5	C1		C parts are made from A and B parts, and so they are two parts to the melody
6	C2		C2 is less simple than C1
7	mod = contra part		voice up and down (mostly) contra to the melody; it is also made from A and B
8	n1		n is a less constricted part, and tones from the melody are freely included
9	n2		.
10	C1		octave down
11	mod		.
12	blank	.	blank staff for making your own part according to the principles here

(The midi music is not repeated, except for 1' and 2' voltas).
Use also octave, up and down.
Where wanted, notes can be changed according to the principles (use a colour pencil), e.g. to improve the B part with some notes from A.
The music is aimed at dancing, so part of the orchestra can be the underlying "motor" when another instrument group is playing its "solo" part (improvisation) as one of the many repetitions.
The double bass may play its usual notes, because of its low pitch.

It is better to choose a more simple part and play it well.

Accordion: beats per bar: 2+2 (In phrase 3 the clapping is aided for less experienced dancers by giving 3 beats of single bass + chord per bar: beat 1, 2, 3, like given in the C1 part).

Music scores:

Each score consists of 2 pages: page left and page right. They are given on separate pages with links on the top of this page (use Ctrl Home to go to the top). The links are repeated here:
(c1, c2), (a1, a2), (b1, b2), (e1, e2), (f1, f2), (bass1, bass2)
When you click a link the music note sheet will (should) open as a new page on top of this main page, so that you can easily return to this main page. And you can easily open 2 windows of note pages to have both the left and right page in smaller windows, the right below the left.

(Help coming back from that note sheet: CLICK the note sheet to come back to this page, or just close the note window.
Remember: the note sheet opens in a new separate window, and that may cover the whole screen. The back button in the tools bar does probably not work because the window is new, with no history. All you see on the page are notes because I have placed no link back here for not disturbing easy submitting to the printer. Close the note window with a click at the top or with Alt F4, or minimize or reduce the window, or ..., and you are back to the main page that was there behind all the time).