Namsess...

Ok, I thought if I did a little research I could find some interesting information out about names and naming conventions for tunes (as in the Irish music nomenclature of 'tunes' being pieces without vocal or text and 'songs' being with). I supposed there might be an interesting essay in comparing and contrasting the evident need for tunes in popular and folk idioms to have proper names (not Bob or Dave, but I mean proper in the other sense) as opposed to, say, classical music where a piece is perfectly happy to be 'sonata #42 in B-Flat for Foghorn and Wildebeest.' Some classical pieces have more namey names, but the great bulk seem not to (is this a modern invention, I wonder? Did most symphonies all have descriptive names in their day, but lose them over a few hundred years' time?). In contrast, folk and pop tunes almost all have names that suggest something other than a cataloguing scheme. Heck, in Irish session tunes it's not unusual for a tune to have several different names; it's also relatively common to get multiple tunes that share a name!

To quote Herbert Grönemeyer, "Was soll das?!?"

Anyway, I searched a bit and thought a bit, and in the end decided the essay will have to wait for a more interesting topic. Heh. Most tune names seem to be either (a) a tip of the hat to the inspiration for the tune (e.g., presumably Jack Ryan's Polka was written for or by a Jack Ryan, or maybe he just liked the tune best, or maybe he was the first guy to stagger into the pub after whoever wrote it first played it at a session), or (b) purely a mental bookmark. At any rate, less to discuss than I'd hoped. Blah.