>> ...does anyone have anyone good recommendations of recordings of
>> Scottish "mouthie" players?
> Donald Black is a contemporary player with at least a couple of CDs.
> There isn't a great deal else available.
> So who are the Scots moothie players? [Donald Davidson, Willie Fraser,
> Davy Marshall]
> Who else would make this list?
Bryce Johnstone (recording c.2000 titled "Combine"). And Tommy Basker
from Cape Breton, if his CD ("The Tin Sandwich") is still available.
>> The music should be the same regardless of the instrument. If playing
>> it on a certain instrument requires certain modifications, like is the
>> case for some tunes to work on wind instruments of certain keys, then
>> that is fine.
There's a good bit more to it with moothie tunes. You have a couple
of problems transferring stuff for fiddle or tubular woodwind. Wide
leaps are one - the octave leaps that are a doddle on a flute, the
drops down to low A you can do on the pipes by just moving a couple
of right-hand fingers, or the string-crossing alternating-pedal stuff
you can easily do on a fiddle can all be impossible on a moothie, you
can't move it fast enough. The other problem is mode; on a moothie,
mixolydian tunes mean playing in a different "position" with the tonic
up a fourth from its usual place on the instrument, and minor keys suck.
You can't play in the minor for very long before your lungs give out;
Iain Grant tells me he once saw Willie Atkinson pass out on stage from
hyperventilation when playing a long minor-key slow air. By now I know
what not to try with the moothie players I play with ("The Inverness
Gathering" is a no-no) but it's taken a long time to find out.
I really love these idiosyncrasies, you see the music quite differently
when you approach it with an instrument that has different technical
problems. e.g. try playing "Hamnataing" on a stringed instrument tuned
in fourths - aargh. But it might have been written specially for the
clarinet.
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