> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Tappan > Sent: 16 October 2002 19:25 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [scots-l] Re: Shetland Fiddler, The > > > In my copy of the Edcath Collection, the Shetland Fiddler appears on > page 60, and it says it was *arranged* by Pipe-Major D.S. Ramsay - it > doesn't say he wrote it.
Thanks for the additional information. However, in the interests of clarity (and perhaps pedantry) can I make it clear that neither I nor Jerry Holland claimed that Ramsay wrote the tune. What I wrote (paraphrased from Holland's book) was: "This tune also appears in Jerry Holland's Collection of Fiddle Tunes. According to a footnote there, the tune first appeared in a pipe setting in "The Edcath Collection" Vol. 1, 1954 by Donald Shaw Ramsay." I think this makes it clear that it is the collection, rather than the tune which is being attributed to Ramsay. > > It doesn't look as if Ramsay wrote the Shetland Fiddler, just that he > arranged it, as he did for many other tunes in the book, including > Laird of Drumblair. He did write several other tunes in the book > apparently - the ones that just have his name and not the "arr." > before the name. > As I've already noted, the tune, as played by Holland, Altan and others, is a fiddle version of a pipe setting of "The Hawk" by James Hill. It's perhaps interesting to speculate on whether Ramsay was the initial arranger of the pipe setting. Are there any other James Hill tunes in the Edcath Collection? The title of the tune remains something of a mystery. Altan give their source as Dermot McLaughlin, who learned the tune during a visit to the Setlands, but I can't find a single recording of the tune by a Shetland player, nor does it appear in any of the major Shetland collections. Regards, Ted Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
