Sheet music for Eileen Ivers' Bygone Days
November 18, 2009 11:59 AM   Subscribe

My Mom loves the Thanksgiving: A Windham Hill Collection and would like the piano accompaniment for track 2, Bygone Days by Eileen Ivers. Her birthday is in late December and I'd like to buy it for her, if I can find it.

I've searched all the sheet music sites I've found but my Google/Bing-fu has failed me. All I've located is the same song (track 3) on Crossing the Bridge and a live version of the song on YouTube.

It's possible the song was written by someone else and only performed by Ivers, but the only alternate version I've found by Rudolf Friml is a different song.

Does anyone know where I could look (or if it exists)?
posted by jaden to Media & Arts (7 answers total)
 
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/7557 is the melody.

Stylistically, for celtic-type accompanists, the "piano part" was probably just a list of chord names and a good pianist, rather than ever having existed in sheet music form. You could probably ask on thesession forums, but at best that would probably yield the list of chord names.
posted by aimedwander at 12:22 PM on November 18, 2009


This book has a violin/fiddle song called "Bygone Days" on it. I don't know if it's the same tune, though.
posted by xingcat at 12:23 PM on November 18, 2009


Response by poster: @aimedwander I wondered if that might be the case. Unfortunately my Mom's a classically trained pianist so the chords wouldn't be of much user to her. I'll still ask on thesession forums just in case.

@xingcat Thanks, I hadn't seen that. I wish there was a way to peek at the sheet music to see if it's the right one.
posted by jaden at 12:39 PM on November 18, 2009


Best answer: It looks like "Bygone Days" was written by Eileen Ivers and Brian Keane. Keane produced and arranged the original album that featured the song (Crossing the Bridge which you found), and also co-wrote and performed on other songs (credits listed at allmusic). Also looks like he publishes his own compositions. In any case, if sheet music for the piano accompaniment is available, then he'd probably know about it -- might be worth a shot to contact him directly.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 8:14 PM on November 18, 2009


Response by poster: Thanks rangefinder 1.4, I've sent him an email.
posted by jaden at 9:27 AM on November 19, 2009


If you don't hear back from the arranger:
Based on the sample you linked to, that piece would be trivially easy for a student -- say, an undergrad composition major -- to transcribe. The labor would be just in making a nicely-formatted score (virtually every young composer uses notation software that, with some attention to formatting, can produce scores that look as good as printed music). So you could ask at your local schools and see if you can strike a deal with somebody.
posted by kalapierson at 2:12 PM on November 19, 2009


Response by poster: @kalapierson I didn't know how hard that would be, but a fellow Mefite offered to help out if I'm unable to find sheet music. I heart AskMetafilter.
posted by jaden at 11:35 AM on November 20, 2009


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