The name 'Buffalo' for the New York town derives from the name of a Native American. It was first called Buffalo Creek, becoming simply Buffalo as the town grew. It has been speculated, however, that the name of the tune/song derives from Erie Canal workers who frequented the prostitutes located on Goose Island, in Buffalo.
Buffalo Gals
Played by: The Pine Tree String Band Source: Soundcloud Image: Downtown Buffalo in 1973, showing the then-Marine Midland Tower, Niagara River and Buffalo's Lower West Side.
This popular melody has been set in a variety of musical forms and genres. The name 'Buffalo' for the New York town derives from the name of a Native American. It was first called Buffalo Creek, becoming simply Buffalo as the town grew.
It has been speculated, however, that the name of the tune/song derives from Erie Canal workers who frequented the prostitutes located on Goose Island, in Buffalo. The tune is widespread in American tradition, though as Samuel Bayard (1944) points out, the song is widely disseminated and is now an 'international melody'.
Curiously, he thinks the air itself probably originated in Germany, but came to America and was assimilated in 'British style'. Instrumental versions, not surprisingly, are more ornate than vocal settings and display much wider variation, as a comparison of the sources listed below will attest. "Version B ('Johnstown Gals') affords a good example of how the influence of common melodic formulae, combined with tendencies toward attaining easy bowing and fingering will modify the outlines of a tune in instrumental tradition.
Version A ('Hagantown Gals') is much like some recorded further south; B is in some ways distinctive...Sets from American tradition are Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs, pp. 288–289; Ford, p. 53; Adam, No. 12; and three play-party versions from Texas in Owens, Swing and Turn, pp. 45, 54, 103. (Bayard, 1944). See also "O Dear Mother My Toes are Sore (3)" for a 6/8 version ('A' part only).
Although we are not trained musicologists and make no pretense to the profession, we have tried to apply such professional rigors to this Semantic Abc Web as we have internalized through our own formal and informal education.
This demands the gathering of as much information as possible about folk pieces to attempt to trace tune families, determine origins, influences and patterns of aural/oral transmittal, and to study individual and regional styles of performance.
Many musicians, like ourselves, are simply curious about titles, origins, sources and anecdotes regarding the music they play. Who, for example, can resist the urge to know where the title Blowzabella came from or what it means, or speculating on the motivations for naming a perfectly respectable tune Bloody Oul' Hag, is it Tay Ye Want?
Knowing the history of the melody we play, or at least to have a sense of its historical and social context, makes the tune 'present' in the here and now, and enhances our rendering of it.
Andrew Kuntz & Valerio Pelliccioni
Please register as a user to make the most of the many functions of the TTA, and enjoy the many ways that information about traditional tunes can be elicited and combined, from simple to complex situations. Users may make contributions, which, when reviewed by an editor, become part of this community project. Serious user/contributors may become editors through the TTA's autopromotion process, in which quantity and quality of entries allows increased levels of permission to edit and review the entire index.
Above all, the developers wish you joy in the use of the TTA.
Navigation: Registered users can navigate the Traditional Tune Archive for information in a number of ways.
Search. The Search function is located at the top right, and can be used to search the entire index for any key word. See Search help pages
Alphabetically by tune title. Under “The Archive” on the SideBar on the left is “The Index”. Click on it to open up the list of tune titles in the TTA arranged in alphabetical order, 200 titles to a page. At the top of the page is an alphabetical breakdown that serves as a shortcut to pages. Clicking on any title will bring one to the music and tune fields. Once the tune appears, clicking “Tune Discussion” at the bottom of the page (below the notation) will open up the narrative information on the tune.
Query the Archive. The “Query the Archive” function under “The Archive” in the sidebar can be used to draw down reports from the TTA in either in single items or in a number of combinations. One might, for example, use a single item query to run a report in the TTA for a particular composer/core source. Clicking on the arrow at the right of the bar draws down a list of composer/core sources, or one may be typed in. For example, clicking on “Bill Pigg” and then the “Run Query” tab at the bottom left will result in a list of all compositions listed in the TTA that the Northumbrian piper either composed or is the core source for. Reports may also be run in combinations, as, for example, by selecting “William Marshall” as a composer/core source, “Three Flats” for the number of accidentals, and “Major” for the Key/Mode. This will result in a report of all Eb Major compositions of Scottish fiddler/composer William Marshall that are indexed in the TTA.
Tune Books/Magazines in the TTA can be accessed under “Publications” in the left side bar. These are reproductions of publications for which access has been granted to the TTA by the copyright holder, under the Creative Commons license.
