The prime requirement of any dance band is that the music should be very danceable. Different kinds of dances require different kinds of rhythms, but all must have the effect of helping the dancers to dance. Ceilidh dancing is no exception.
Tumbling Tom play mainly English traditional tunes, with some self penned and continental tunes to add diversity. These tunes have their natural rhythms underpinned by a driving rhythm section.
For the annual Christmas ceilidh we usually augment the band with a brass frontline, and they can be heard playing live on the links below.
- our arrangement of Little Town of Bethlehem that we play for a schottische dance
- our arrangement of the song Mary's Boy Child for a stephop dance called Tumbling Tom's Tonic, a dance specially written for the band
Examples of our playing without the brass frontline can be heard below.
Two hopsteps, the first from the south of England, and the second written by Hamilton who was a pupil of William Irwin the Langdale fiddler -
Dorsetshire Hornpipe/Stybarrow CragTwo Polkas, an English one and a French-canadian one -
Double Lead Through/La BastrangueTwo jigs, one from Dartmoor, and the second from the Winder collection near Lancaster -
Woodland Flowers/Moon and Seven Stars
The sources of our tunes are many and varied, but there is a strong focus on local manuscript collections, and these include the Browne manuscripts from Troutbeck currently held in the Armitt library in Ambleside, and consisting of the tune books of James Lishman of Troutbeck Bridge, and of Thomas Browne who lived at Townend Troutbeck. Other collection include the tunes of William Irwin who lived in Elterwater in Langdale, the collection of tunes from Wyresdale outside Lancaster, collectively known as the Winder Collection, and the Rooke Manuscript from Wigton in north Cumbria.