Down by the Salley Gardens on the ocarina

What are the notes for Down by the Salley Gardens?

On a 12-hole. Read left to right, a line at a time.

1. 1
   CD ·EDCDEG

   AGhigh CG

   AGEDC

   CCD
2. 2
   EDCDEG

   AGhigh CG

   AGEDC

   CG
3. 3
   high CBGAhigh C

   BGEG

   AGEGAhigh Chigh D

   Tricky spot:high CCD
4. 4
   EDCDEG

   AGhigh CG

   AGEDC

   C

Down by the Salley Gardens is a slow Irish air that sets off with two quick notes, C and D, and rises to E. Here is one verse in C major, from C up to high D, with no sharps or flats. It has four phrases, and each one comes to rest on a long C, low or high; the third climbs highest, to a run of G, A, high C, high D.

What is the tricky spot in Down by the Salley Gardens?

The end of the third phrase, where the long high C drops a whole octave to the C that leads into the last phrase. On a 12-hole, Down by the Salley Gardens goes from high C to C: you cover the left ring, left middle, left index, right index, right middle, right ring and right pinky. On a 6-hole, you cover the left middle, right middle, left index and right index.

Hold the high C for its full two beats with steady air, then let the breath fall away as the fingers close every hole for the low C: the low note needs far less air, and blowing as hard as for high C makes it crack upward. That low C is a long note followed by a short D, so give it a beat and a half before the D moves you on into E. The quick run that climbs to the top just before, G, A, high C, high D, is four even half beats; practise it on its own, slowly, and tongue each note lightly so the high D does not arrive early. The tune is marked Andante con moto, walking but moving on, so keep it flowing rather than dragging.

Where do you breathe in Down by the Salley Gardens?

On the long C that ends each phrase: the C in the fourth bar, the held C in the eighth, the high C in the twelfth. Take the breath at the end of that note, just before the lead-in to the next phrase; in the eighth bar breathe before the single G that starts the third phrase.

Which ocarina can play Down by the Salley Gardens?

A 4-hole ocarina cannot reach high D, so play Down by the Salley Gardens in this key on a 12-hole or 6-hole ocarina in C. On an ocarina in G or F, use the same fingerings: the tune sounds in a different key, which is fine when you play alone. Each linked chart has every fingering for its ocarina, and you can check your notes with a tuner such as our free ocarina tuner.

Did Yeats write the tune of Down by the Salley Gardens?

No, only the words. His poem was published in 1889, and he described it as an attempt to rebuild an old song from three lines that an old woman in Ballisodare, County Sligo, half remembered. The salley of the title is a sallow, a willow tree. The tune came twenty years later, when Herbert Hughes set the verse to the traditional air "The Maids of Mourne Shore" in 1909. Hughes grew up in Belfast and collected and arranged Irish folk songs, and our tabs follow the first volume of his Irish Country Songs (Boosey & Co., 1909), where the song is spelt "Down by the Sally Gardens" and the air is named beside the title. We take the voice line of the first verse only, not Hughes's piano part, and move it from D flat major to C major, a semitone down and then an octave up. Where the second and fourth phrases begin, the page leads in with a longer C and a short D not the two quick notes that open the song, and the tabs keep that. A later Boosey & Hawkes printing from the same plates has the same notes. We show the melody only. Music: traditional Irish air ("The Maids of Mourne Shore"), set by Herbert Hughes (1882-1937) in 1909 to words by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939).

What to play next

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