When I was growing up, nearly every electronic keyboard I saw had something called Unterlanders Hemingweigh as its demo song.
That a song like this was chosen isn’t a surprise (very simple and easy to play with a one-octave range), but even now I have no idea where it came from. It’s not in any piano book I’ve ever owned, nor does it seem to be a traditional folk song (which was my first guess). Unfortunately, the more advanced electronic keyboards have phased out this song, so that’s all I know. Could anyone fill me in on this (almost) timeless classic?
On a whim (the title looked German) I started combing the net for info (I assume you can’t read German, otherwise you could’ve found this yourself). And I noticed that your Hemingweigh isn’t anything in German, but Heimweh is (means homesick(ness)). So it sort of translates to “Homesick for the Unterland”, I’m guessing Unterland means the lowlands in this context, but I’m not sure.
Anyway after some digging into German archives, I found it was written in 1824 by Friedrich Silcher (1789-1860). Go here for a bio, albeit in German. If you want to listen to the melody and see the lyrics, try here (click on “Melodie” at the top to hear the MIDI).
I was going to search for it on the Web (I think I have in the past), but I wanted to see if anyone knew first. The source I found (http://www.pdinfo.com/list/u.htm) credits the author as Gottlieb Weigle…can’t say for sure since there are no links. As for the site you mentioned, I do have a translation program, but it’s sketchy at best, so I wasn’t able to pick up much. Thanks anyway for your efforts.
Here…just so there’s no confusion, here are all the notes of the song in C major: low G C C D D E F G F E E D D C (repeats) / G F E E E F E D D D (repeats) / G E C D D C. Like I mentioned, extremely simple, and a very common demo song for electronic keyboards until relatively recently. It is a German folk song. What I still don’t know is how it got chosen over any number of other easy-to-play songs that were more familiar to the people buying the electronic keyboards…Three Blind Mice, Swannee River, Shenandoah, Ode to Joy, etc.