> Just a comment from a couple of weeks back: I did take versions of > the two tunes called "Gramachree" along to the dance event, and it > was pretty much agreed that neither of these tunes was what was > needed. The jig was out because the dance is a strathspey. The air > was a more likely fit, since airs are sometimes used for strathspeys. > But we just couldn't make it sound right. So we picked some random > strathspey tunes that we knew, and the dancers seemed happy. > > Maybe there's a version of "Gramachree" that we don't know of, that > would work for an air-type strathspey. The usual sources for Scottish > dances seem to imply that "Gramachie" is a tune that everyone should > know. But none of us seem to know it, and it isn't in any of our > books. The dance was published by Miss Milligan (Miscellany v.2) > without a tune, and she also implied that the tune was well-known.
Somewhere I have a paper-and-pencil copy of a c.1800 song with the refrain "and aye he grat for gramachrie" followed by some mangled- Gaelic nonsense (i.e. this dates to before I acquired a laptop and will take some finding). I think it might have been about a country wedding going spectacularly wrong. I can't remember what tune was suggested for it. Maybe this might be another tune that could have been given the same name? =================== <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> =================== Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
