A Tune I Can't Find

[Lakelark]

Can anyone help to identify a tune which I learned as a boy? It's Long Meter, in d major, and it goes:

d e f f--e g fe d--
e f g a c b ag f--
g g a b a c ba b
c D ba D ba g d g fe d--

Thanks in advance to anyone (?)everyone who replies, and apologies for any strangeness in the above attempt to render the tune alphabetically.

[Hare]

Could you please clarify; is crotchet default note value? Does f-- signify 3 beats? Are underlined notes quavers? What is significance of upper case Ds?

(I am not picking holes here - just anxious to help you!)

Don't suppose you can recall any words?

[Lakelark]

Dear Hare (and anyone else who may be wondering),

Yes. the default note is a crotchet, f-- is a dotted minim, underlined pairs of notes are quavers, and an upper-case letter signifies the octave beginning (in this case) on a top D.

Looking again at this alphabetic melange, I see that in the second and third lines the c should be a c natural.

Now, to confuse the issue, yes, I do remember some words - Iesu dulcis memoria. And, because I learned the tune at school, it must have been in the Public School Hymn Book. Well, that's off my chest now!

Many thanks for taking an interest in what for me is a purely personal activity. I don't think I can make any use of any results that might appear on this site. But I am still grateful.

[Thomas Hoyer]

You can go to the public library and look up "index of tunes".
It is a quite thick book containg some hundred thousands of melodies
They are organized according to whether the tune moves up or down, whenever it changes,
irrespective of duration and repetitions.
I think it is about 10 steps it takes to narrow down the choices to only very few.

Your melody would be characterized as:
* u u d u d d d u u u u u d d d d u u u d u d d u u u d d u d d d d u d d d

with * denoting the first tune, and u and d meaning up or down.

So under the heading, (10 first)
* u u d u d d d u u u
you are bound to find your melody by itself, or in ompany with very few others.

It sounds a bit crazy, but it is amazingly efficient.

d e f f--e g fe d--
e f g a c b ag f--
g g a b a c ba b
c D ba D ba g d g fe d--

[Southern Comfort]

Can anyone help to identify a tune which I learned as a boy? It's Long Meter, in d major, and it goes:

d e f f--e g fe d--
e f g a c b ag f--
g g a b a c ba b
c D ba D ba g d g fe d--

Thanks in advance to anyone (?)everyone who replies, and apologies for any strangeness in the above attempt to render the tune alphabetically.

The answer is as follows:
The tune name is DULCIS MEMORIA (L.M.)
The composer is Percy C. [= Carter] Buck (1871-1947)
I first located this in Hymns for Church and School. no. 147, second tune, where it is printed in D flat rather than D

Lakelark has not remembered it quite accurately:
The first phrase has no lengthening on the second f
The final phrase is c D ba D ba a d g fe d--
There is a final Amen, consisting of d e-- d---

The text at no. 147 is a metrical version of the Veni, Creator Spiritus beginning "Creator Spirit, all-divine"

I also found it in the New English Hymnal, no. 223, second tune, set to a translation of Jesu, redemptor omnium. It is identical with the HCS version both in notes, rhythms and key.

[Lakelark]

Well, I couldn't possibly ask for more. Thanks to all who replied. An elderly tenor will sleep well tonight, secure in the knowledge that SSG is corporately pretty omniscient.

[St Wilfrid]

There's quite a slick piece of sofware out there, produced by Stainer & Bell, which does the index-of-tunes bit in an online fashion - and it's very clever and effective. Tapping Lakelark's letters into a keyboard graphic thingie returned "Dulcis Memoria" instantly. It works off a sequence of enharmonic intervals, ignoring key, time values and so on, and sits on top of a database of about 400 hymnbooks - so the vaguest idea of the tune stands a good chance of giving a result.

http://www.hymnquest.com

Hours of fun with the free demo version!