And now something about ethnomusicology.

Three years ago, I was at a party. At one point the host requested an old folk song, "Tief im Tannwald ein Vöglein...", and I liked it very much. After recording it, I set out to discover more about it.

In recent times, this song is almost forgotten. I found the lyrics at Chefkoch.de and GuteFrage.net, neither of which specialises in folk songs (the first one is a cooking portal, the other one is generic question-and-answer portal). But the sheet music was nowhere to be found. So I recreated it from the recording in ABC notation format. The lyrics were taken from the first link, all three verses; I do not like the third verse, as the first and the second are about whats happening outside, and the third verse suddenly pictures what is happening at home, which appears somewhat inconclusive. It would be interesting to hear, whether there are other German folk songs with similar structure of lyrics.

Here are the results as an ABC score (the lines need be rewrapped) and an image from it:

X:1
T:Tief im Tannwald ein Vöglein...
A:Oldenburger Münsterland
H:As sung by Mrs. M. Ostendorf and guests on 27.12.2015
O:German Volkslied
K:C
M:3/4
L:1/4
G/2G/2 | DDE | CC E/2G/2 | cBA | E2 G/2A/2 | EE G/2A/2 |
w: Tief im Tann- wald ein Vög-lein hat das Christ-kind er-schaut, dort wo zwi-schen Tan-nen-
w: Und die En-ge-lein pflük-ken all die Tannen-bäum-chen ab, und das Christ-kind blik-ket
w: Wenn die Ster-ne-lein blin-ken in der Hei-li-gen Nacht, wer-den all die Tan-nen-
EE C/2D/2 | E/2E/2 D C | D2 G/2A/2 | G/2A/2 G/2A/2 G/2A/2 | EE E/2C/2 |
w: wip-feln hell der Win-ter-him-mel blaut. Und das Christ-kind schüt-telt sei-ne Löck-chen klin-ge-
w: lä-chelnd auf die Flei-ßi-gen her-ab. Und die Eis-kri-stal-le klir-ren lei-se, klin-ge-
w: bäum-chen zu den Kin-der-lein ge-bracht. Oh wie ju-beln da die Kin-der-her-zen, klin-ge-
G2 E/2C/2 | G2 A/2B/2 | c/2c/2 B/2B/2 A/2A/2 | EE A/2G/2 | A/2G/2 A/2G/2 (c | c2) ||
w: lang, klin-ge-lang. Aus der Fer-ne tönt's wie Sil-ber-glöck-chen: Klin-ge-lin-ge-lin-ge-lang!_
w: lang, klin-ge-lang. Und die Tan-nen-wip-fel nik-ken wei-se: Klin-ge-lin-ge-lin-ge-lang!_
w: lang, klin-ge-lang. Bei dem Lich-ter-glanz der Weih-nachts-ker-zen, klin-ge-lin-ge-lin-ge-lang!_