Talk:Thomas Bulch

Was Bulch's Craigielee based on Barr's?

I read the article on Bulch and was interested by its questioning of the delivered doctrine that Parker's (Bulch's) Craigielee was the intermediary between Barr's tune for Tannahill's poem and Paterson's Waltzing Maltilda -- not because I had any views of my own, but simply because this was the first time I had seen the connection questioned. And the information that Thomas's great-granny-in-law's maiden name was Craigie supported the doubt -- or maybe not, as it might have been why Bulch used Barr's tune, if in fact he did use it.

I made some small additions to the article, adding that the supposed original was Tannahill/Barr where the article had said simply that it was Scottish, and adding that the Barr and Paterson tunes are alike, but I didn't tamper with the earlier contributor's questioning of whether Bulch's tune was connected to them.

But I was left wondering. Everyone on the web copies what everyone else writes, and that will be why the Barr/Bulch/Paterson chain appears so often. Someone, somewhere must know rather than just go by what they have read ... someone, somewhere, must have read or heard Thomas's march, not just read about it. I tried to find out ...

Bulch's march is rarer than hens' teeth, but after much web-trawling I found it, published by Lyons Music Store in the 1960s, in two editions, in the National Library of Australia catalogue [1] and [2] and physically held in the State of NSW's Mitchell Library [3]. Well, I'm in England, it's a long swim, and I can't read music, but if anyone lives nearby and want's to check it out ...

Interestingly, while the catalogue entries for both editions have

Title       Craigielee quick march /​ Godfrey Parker.
Creator     Parker, Godfrey.
Published   Melbourne : Published by Lyons Music Store, [196-?]
Medium      music
Notes       printed in Germany

and various other things, the catalogue entry for the second edition adds

Contents    Thou bonnie wood of Craigielee /​ written by Tannhill. [sic]

Was this the publisher accepting the urban myth, or ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wyresider (talk • contribs) 23:23, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up to the above -- I have found a copy of Parker's (Bulch's) march and it does have a tune very like Waltzing Matilda. There appears to be little reason to doubt the the Barr-Bulch-Paterson sequence and I have removed the suggestion in the article that the sequence is wrong.

Wyresider (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I note that a person identified as Thomas Bulch musician of Melbourne died insolvent in the 1890s, according to Australian newspapers. Is there any relation to the composer? Added some citations and removed the need-citation-banner. Tradimus (talk) 01:56, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

The missing link?

I've been conducting detailed research on Thomas E Bulch for three years now and have a fairly good grasp of his life. I believe there is a missing link in the hypothesis of Barr/Tannahill - Bulch - Patterson which is Carl Volti. Tom Bulch played violin as well as piano and brass instruments (this was related to me by his grandson) and was familiar with the work of Glaswegian violinist Carl Volti (a.k.a. Archibald Milligan - as confirmed in Milligan/Volti's own book of 1909 Reminiscences and Verses) - Bulch arranged some of Volti's collection of traditional Scots melodies for brass band, resulting in the frequently seen misunderstanding and conflation that Bulch 'was' Volti (which he wasn't). Volti, though his publisher, James Kerr of Glasgow, issued a number of these collections of traditional tunes from not just Scotland bu the British Isles. Volti included Craigielee in one - his "Highland Wreath". Bulch arranged at least one of the pieces in this collection for brass band publishing it under Volti's name - that being "The Fair Maid of Perth" (again often mistaken for an Australian piece on account of the two Perths) adding to the confusion between the two identities. The other he arranged (under the name Godfrey Parker - which was actually a Tom Bulch pseudonym) and that was of course Craigielee. I honestly think the chain should be Barr/Tannahill -> Volti -> Bulch -> Patterson. That said, though there is evidence to support the theory, I cannot prove it irrefutably. Interestingly some of Tom Bulch's piano pieces were later published by Volti's publisher in Glasgow with both composers appearing in the same 'albums' of piano pieces. I have added a video of the Felling Band playing Craigielee on our website www.wizardandtyphoon.org Deafska31 (talk) 22:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Collecting Scores for public use

As all of Thomas works are now public domain, I feel a worthy project would be to collect copies of his scores and upload them to Victorian Collections or Trove so that these scores remain for future use.

I'm willing to assist with the upload and looking for others who may be interested in this. Rtbk (talk) 20:58, 22 April 2021 (UTC)