Linstead Market

• Rangeminor seventh
• Notes58, 7 different
• ScaleMajor, no accidentals
• Time6/8
• Length hereabout 30 s

About Linstead Market

A Jamaican folk song about a market woman who carries her ackee to Linstead on a Saturday night and sells none of it. The tab follows the earliest printed version, No. 121 in Walter Jekyll’s Jamaican Song and Story of 1907.

It is in a skipping six-eight, and its lowest note is the leading note just under the tonic, which puts it below a 17-key kalimba and inside a 21-key.

Play Linstead Market on your instrument

25 of the 27 playable instruments here have every note it needs. 22 play it where the library writes it; the rest move it to another key or octave, and each page says which. Every page has the instrument itself, with the song loaded, above the notes.

• Kalimba tabsmoved · B4–A5 · minor seventh · an octave higher
• Piano letter notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Mbira tabsas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Oud notesas written · B2–A3 · minor seventh
• Violin notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Cello notesas written · B2–A3 · minor seventh
• Erhu notesmoved · F♯4–E5 · minor seventh · in G key
• Dulcimer tabas written · C♯4–B4 · minor seventh
• Xylophone letter notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Marimba letter notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Glockenspiel letter notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Steel Drum letter notesas written · E4–D5 · minor seventh
• Ocarina notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Harmonica tabsas written · B4–A5 · minor seventh
• Trumpet notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Clarinet notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Saxophone notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Flute notesas written · F♯4–E5 · minor seventh
• Recorder notesmoved · B4–A5 · minor seventh · an octave higher
• Tuba notesas written · A1–G2 · minor seventh
• Euphonium notesas written · A2–G3 · minor seventh
• Trombone notesas written · A2–G3 · minor seventh
• Accordion letter notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Harp letter notesas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh
• Lyre tabsas written · B3–A4 · minor seventh

Instruments that cannot play it

• Guzheng — it would need C♯4, G4, which it does not have in any size or key here.
• Handpan — it would need B3, which it does not have in any size or key here.

Linstead Market letter notes

Written in C major, from B3 to A4, with each note’s number in the scale under it — the form that transfers to any instrument. A dash holds a note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and each line is one phrase.

Where these notes come from

Jamaican traditional; as printed by Walter Jekyll in “Jamaican Song and Story”, 1907, No. 121. Public domain.

No lyrics are printed on this page or any other here: these pages are about a melody and how to play it.

More folk & traditional songs

• Happy BirthdayPatty and Mildred Hill, 1893
• Yankee Doodle18th century
• When the Saints Go Marching In1896 (in print)
• Amazing Grace1835
• Sakura SakuraEdo period
• Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower)18th century
• Auld Lang Syne18th century