bucimis à bethanie

Bučimiš à Bethanie.

This tune was written as a schottische in 1981 by Jean-François ('Maxou') Heintzen, who named it Mominette. While the tune itself became popular, its origin and name were somehow generally forgotten. A few years ago Gary Chapin named it Schottische à Bethanie,* after his wife, this title catching on. Meanwhile a jig version appeared, entitled The Plane Tree and attributed to Undine Hornby who played with The Late Night Band in the 1980s.

Although the tune works well as a jig, I like it as a schottische about four times as much. So it made sense to play it as 80% schottische and 20% jig. This concoction has the same rhythm as bučimiš,** a Bulgarian dance here beautifully performed by the dancers of Kolo Koalition, Sacramento, who kindly allowed me to incorporate their video,*** from the extensive series posted in their youtube channel. On that video you can hear the lovely tune, by strange coincidence also called bučimiš, which traditionally accompanies this dance, other recordings of which can be readily found on the web (variously as 'buchimis', 'buchimish', etc).

The Plane Tree / Schottische à Bethanie is the March 2010 Tune of the Month at http://melodeon.net discussion forum. This version is played on a GCF diatonic accordion, aka melodeon, made by Oakwood of Leeds.
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* http://www.youtube.com/user/Accordeonaire#p/u/3/mp_12SA4NZc

** http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/dances/bucimis.htm

*** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPbQjq65Gho
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• bucimis
• buchimis
• bucimish
• buchimish
• plane tree
• schottische a bethanie
• melodeon
• diatonic
• accordion
• bulgarian
• thracian
• folk
• music

[Scallyanglo]

Funky! Dancers have brilliant timing ;-)

[zubz233]

Brilliant piece of interpretation and originality. Thanks for posting this - a great added contribution to TOTM.

[pigboy51]

Marvellous! I love the whole different take on the tune.

[Multiboxes]

Brilliant, love it! especially the key-change, with the dancers sneaking in! surreal...

[DerekTheNutter]

Thats a masterpiece ...excellent !!

[GbHandlebar]

That's great - a really fun sound. Thanks.