Dr Merryweather's Song-Booke

On a sunny afternoon in the Summer of 2001 The York Waits played on the steps of City Hall for the Mayor and people of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. We were guests of our Dutch equivalents, the Stadspijpers (city pipers), who whisked us away to a café for beer and rest, a little low-key afternoon carousing. The inhabitants of this particular region, Brabant, feel culturally akin to the Flemish folk of Belgium rather than their somewhat starchy compatriots in Northern Holland. They are proud of their love of food, beer and good company. At the café our friends soon began singing jolly Dutch traditional songs.

Not to be out-done, we seized an appropriate moment and launched into our party piece, the drinking catch by William Byrd, Come drinke to me (p. 5). The Dutch replied with further lusty singing, so we plumbed our collective memory and discovered another old favourite which we had not sung for many years - A Round of Three Country Dances in One (p. 53).

It was a bit rusty. We might have done Tomorrow the Fox (p. 97) or All Voll (p. 3), but our corporate memory failed us and we had to let our hosts continue unchallenged as they sang their way through an extensive repertoire, which amazingly included It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.

I, for one, felt a little inferior to the uninhibited Dutch to whom the activity seemed so natural. It would have been advantageous, I thought, for each wait to carry a song-book from which we could be reminded of the jolly songs we know, extend our sung repertoire and choose what suits any occasion. Certainly, when we do sing, it goes down really well and, like the original waits, we ought to have our own song collection so that we can sing more of our songs more often.

I made that song book, for The York Waits and anybody else. It's even OK if you can't read music. You can make your choices by chuckling over the words and then listen to the music on the CD-ROM that comes with the book to see if you like it. Just put it in your computer (PC or MAC) and listen to music MIDI files of the whole song or the individual voices. Anybody can easily choose a favourite song and learn their singing part.

Dr Merryweather's Song-Booke (2005) Ruxbury Press. ISBN1-904846-11-4. £19.99 (£22.50 incl. p&p)

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