Re: [scots-l] Re: ABCs
T:Fluffy Thing C:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ 2004 M:6/8 L:1/8 K:A Lydian A2e e3|d2A e3 |A2 e e3 |=g2^g a3 | A2e e3|d2A e3 |ag=g e2d| ed`e a3:| f2d e3|aga f2d|f2 d e3 | ag`a b3 | b2d e3|agf f2e|ag=g e2d| ed`e a3:| Good one - about a cat by any chance? Nope. One other person knows what it means and she ain't telling. What's the symbol between the d and the e (| ed`e |) mean? It's a spacer. Allows you to align notes without breaking beams; the ` character wasn't being used for anything and is usefully inconspicuous. I suggested it as addition to the ABC standard about a year ago and (uniquely for an ABC proposal in my experience) it was instantly agreed to and implemented by all the developers within a few days. You could do the same thing before, using non- breaking space characters, but no two OSes used the same codes for those. It resolves a conflict between ABC readability and the readability of the staff notation generated from that ABC. Not very significant here, but it lets you show what parallels what (or not) in tunes like this: X:2 T:Mrs Hamilton of Pencaitland S:William Shepherd: A Collection of Strathspey Reels c B:NLS Glen.345(1) N:copy inscribed to his brother the Rev John Shepherd, 13 June 1793 M:2/4 L:1/16 K:D .F2.F2`.G2.G2| ef`ge (dc).B.A|\ .F2.F2`.G2.G2| ef/g/ ec Td4:| Tfe`fg (fg/)a/ fd|(ef/g/) ec dA``FD |\ Tfe`fg (fg/a/) fd|(ef/g/) ec Td4:| or this: X:53 T:Lord Mayo S:Smollett Holden, A Collection of Favorite Irish Airs [1806] B:NLS Glen.398 M:C L:1/8 Q:1/4=80 Slow K:G Dorian GF | D`G (G/A/)c d2 cA | d2 GA GFD2 |\ D``G (G/A/)c d2 fd| dc``AG G2 :| d2 |(f``d)`(fg) a2 (gf)|(dc) (d/e/f) FG``(FD)|\ (f``d)`(fg) a2 (gf)| d2 (g```a) g2 (ag)| f``d```fg a2 gf |(dc) (d/e/f) (FG)`(FD)|\ D(G```c)``(A G)F`(fd)| dc``AG G2 |] (You probably know that one from Tim O'Leary - he plays it lower, in E minor, and his first part is different). Or in this sort of tune (a minuet, more or less) the usual beaming ties six quavers in a bar together but spacing the beats out makes the ABC easier to read: X:82 T:The Flower of the Thorn M:3/4 L:1/8 S:Brian McNeill H:Welsh, from Jones c.1812 K:A Minor E2|A4B2|c2 B2 A2|e2 dc`BA| B4 E2|A2 Ac`Bd|c2 B2 A2|^G2^GB`Ac|B4 :| B2|c3 B c2|d3 c d2|e4f2| e4 ed|cB`cd c2|dc`de d2| ed`ed`ef|g3 fed| cB`cd`ec|dc`de`fd|e2 e2 a2|^g4 b2|a2 e2 c2|f2 e2 d2| c2 dc`Bc|A4 |] - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: ABCs
Still a bit slow here?... Here's another tune in the same vague category as Nigel's. I wrote it a few months ago. X:1 T:Fluffy Thing C:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ 2004 M:6/8 L:1/8 K:A Lydian A2e e3|d2A e3 |A2 e e3 |=g2^g a3 | A2e e3|d2A e3 |ag=g e2d| ed`e a3:| f2d e3|aga f2d|f2 d e3 | ag`a b3 | b2d e3|agf f2e|ag=g e2d| ed`e a3:| - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] FW: Accordions
I've just received this query. Can anyone help? Please include Henry Aitken [EMAIL PROTECTED] on replies. Where in Scotland does a person see a reasonable range of accordions for sale in order to try them before upgrading to a newer version, primarily for Scottish Country dance music? John Douglas, Dumfries Bill Wilkie, Perth Read Box and Fiddle magazine for more (you should subscribe if you're at all interested in playing Scottish music on the accordion). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Rocky Road to Dublin
[ I'm back - I noticed by sheer fluke that the spam problem had been fixed, while looking to see what had happened to an email somebody had sent me about mediaeval grimoires... ] Does anyone know when Rocky Road to Dublin was written? It was in O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland (1905?), but there is an earlier sighting in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883)... I've checked and the one in Mammoth is a different tune with the same title. It was written as a song originally. The tune, though, seems to me to be a derivative of Ay Waukin O. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle Vol 2
I picked up a copy of Alasdair's new CD. It contains the tunes of the time of Robert Burns. So it isn't a cd of fiddle music. It's more a CD of instrumental versions of songs from that time. Could you post a track listing? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: ABCs
Now, guys, see if you can pick this one apart. It started as a fingering exercise and very quickly became a tune. X:735 T:Untitled C:Nigel Gatherer Nov 2004 Z:Nigel Gatherer L:1/8 M:6/8 K:Am EAB cBA | FAB cBA | ^FAB cBA | ^GAB GAB | EAB cBA | FAB cBA | ^FAB cBA | ^GAB cde || fdB Bcd | ecA ABc | B^GE EGB | AcA ^cde | fdB Bcd | ecA ABc | B^GE EGB | BA^G A3 || It'd make a nice companion tune to Jump at the Sun. I'd prefer a bit more chromatic weirdness in bars 3 and 7, though: X:735 T:Untitled C:Nigel Gatherer Nov 2004 Z:Nigel Gatherer L:1/8 M:6/8 K:Am EAB cBA|FAB cBA|^FAB =F^FA|^GAB GAB | EAB cBA|FAB cBA|^FAB =F^FA|^GAB cde|| fdB Bcd|ecA ABc| B^GE EGB | AcA ^cde | fdB Bcd|ecA ABc| B^GE EGB | BA^G A3 || - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle Vol 2
I thought you signed off of Scots-L? Can't remember if I ever tried to sign off or simply stopped collecting mail to my scots-l userid - it seems I'm still subscribed, anyway. I don't often go to look at the purr mailqueue on Demon's server - when I did earlier tonight (for entirely non-musical reasons), it was obvious the spam had gone, both from here and the ABC list. So, I reactivated those accounts. God knows what you did but it was pretty effective. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] bye (for now, anyway)
The level of spam here has now gone past my tolerance limit. Okay on broadband via a webmail interface (I was doing that on holiday in Kurdistan, last at the wonderfully slick and professional Saraf internet cafe in Diyarbakir) but I don't have broadband here and some of these spams have been huge. As far as I can see, it isn't a matter of the address database being compromised (by either a public archive or a virus attack on some subscriber's machine) - these spams have been routed through the mailserver itself, so simply inventing a new address as I've done before won't do a thing to reduce the spam volume. I'd like to resubscribe if/when the mailserver gets secured against spammers and HTML/virus abuse (subscriber-only posting and challenge/ response subscription, or something like that). Meanwhile I'm a regular on ballad-l and uk.music.folk, both of which overlap this forum. cheers - jack - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Untitled Ossian Reel - ID?
Anyone know what this tune is? X:712 T:Untitled Reel D:Ossian, Dove Across the Water Z:Nigel Gatherer M:4/4 L:1/8 K:Em ef | g2 fgagfa | gefg dB B2| g2 fgagfa | gefd e2 :| eg | dB B/B/B dBdg | dB B/B/B cA A/A/A | dB B/B/B dBdf | gefd e2 :| It looks very much like one of the Highland reels first published at the end of the 18th century by Patrick Macdonald and later by Aird. If you read it as being in A, Gore's index sorta matches it with a Harris Dance in MacDonald (p37). Anybody got a MacDonald to check? It would go quite well with the Harris Dance usually played these days. Anybody on this list coming to Edinburgh for the Festival? There's a series of four programmes on Gaelic music from different regions of Scotland in the official Festival, at the Hub, which look good if pricy (and subject to the problem that the Hub's main hall has an ambience like a school assembly room). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: two tunes
T:Boston Urban Ceilidh um, it occurs to me that the tune i just posted is neither traditional nor scottish, and hence is probably off topic. Phooey. It would fit just fine in a set of Scottish reels (with Jenny Dang the Weaver or Glenburnie Rant, maybe?). Or you could play it slowly and it could be a swinging 4/4 march like Hamnataing. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] two tunes
God, things are dead here... something to be going on with: X:1 T:The Weaver and His Wife C:Andrew Rankine S:Jim Paterson Z:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ 2004 M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=120 K:A c|E2E EAB|c3 A3|c3 A2c|edc B3 | E2E EBc|d3 B3|E2e dcB|A3 A2:| c|EAc e3 |EAe c3|EAc edc|d3 B2c| ded BdB|G3 F3|E2e dcB|A3 A2:| X:2 T:Edmund MacKenzie of Plockton C:Andrew Rankine S:Jim Paterson Z:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ 2004 M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=120 K:G DEF GAB|d2d B3| c2c A3 |d2d B3 | DEF GAB|d2d B3| d^cd =cAF|G3 G3:| e3 c3 |d^cd B3|=cBc DFA|d2c B2B| e3 c3 |d^cd B3| ded cBA|G3 G3:| - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Events in Sco 12-16/07?
A friend of mine will be in Sco last fortnight of July, any interesting sessions, festivals, etc. at this time? Try the festivals list on my website. What are the actual dates? (the subject line and body say different things). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] another forum
The Footstompin Records discussion forum is currently livelier than this one: http://www.footstompin.com I don't think I'm ever going to like web forums as a medium, though. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Gaelic help, please
Can anyone translate the title of this tune for me, please? X:677 T:Bodachan ar-i-ar-o S:Eilean Fraoich, 1982 Z:Nigel Gatherer M:4/4 L:1/8 K:D FA A2 BA A2 | FF F2 FF E2 | FA A2 BA A2 | FFFD E2 D2 :| FFAA d2 dd | =c2 cc d2 d2 | FFAA d2 dd | FFFD E2 D2 :|] Bodachan ar-i-ar-o Ar-i-ar-o-ar-i-ar-o Bodachan ar-i-ar-o Bidh e ruith nan caoach. John the fiddler who goes to the Antiquary in Edinburgh on Thursday nights used to sing that - I haven't been there for a while but you might ask him if you know where to find him. (Karen Jones knows him). The tune he used was more like The High Road to Linton (the second parts are similar anyway). Somebody at Sandy Bell's (John Shaw?) once told me this was an 18th century Jacobite song. If so (putting that together with Cynthia's information and that ri means king) maybe the subject was George II? BTW :|] is illegal ABC, though some applications accept it. :| is what you need there. And you have four times as much music as words; is there a lot of repetition? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 fax 0870 055 4975 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music, and Mac logic fonts Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Taransay Fiddle Camp-Last Call
There are still some spaces left on the Taransay Fiddle Camp July 19th-23rd off the North West coast of Scotland on the Castaway island of Taransay. Did this start out as a spinoff of the reality-TV show? What next, Big Brother for fiddlers? Nominations for Scotttish music's nearest approximations to Nasty Nick or Jade? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Cathal McConnell's birthday party
Edinburgh Folk Club announces The Forever Young Ceilidh to mark Cathal McConnell's 60th birthday 8pm Tuesday 8 June Pleasance Cabaret Bar Edinburgh 5 pounds - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] D-Day tunes
With the 60th anniversary celebrations upon us: what pipe tunes were written to mark events around the D-Day landings? The HLI Crossing the Rhine for a bit later, but the landing itself? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] the more sensitive may avert their eyes at this point
Thanks to the uk.comp.sys.mac newsgroup for this one. Darius is certainly Scottish and is also arguably a musician so this should be on-topic, shouldn't it?... http://plum.flirble.org/~owen/DariusCock.jpg I believe we once had an account here of Scott Skinner doing something similar? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] electric bagpipes
Anybody got a set of electric bagpipes they want to sell? I was hoping to get a set from Young in Middleton but he has a huge waiting list, and so I think does everybody else. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Kerr's etc
Howking around in some old piles of sheet music I came across a book in Merrie Melodies format called 'Kerr's Pretty Tunes of All Nations', which I'd never heard of before. There are a lot of Scottish tunes in it. Anyone else encountered that one? I use a couple of things from it in my Embro, Embro CD-ROM. It's like the Odd Foreign Stuff pages at the back of the Merry Melodies books, only more so. It sets the same sort of puzzle as the dance- tune sequencing I posted about before: how was it *used*? It must have had a specific purpose and market, but what on earth could it have been? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Consultation
[proposal for] a grades system for Scottish Traditional Music to parallel those which currently exist for normal music and jazz as well as the two systems which ahve been in existence for Irish traditional music for some time. Music should be for pleasure (mutual if possible g), the enhancement of social gatherings and most importantly of all ... for the love of it, not for status and the acquisition of prestige and prizes. It's the 'competitive spirit' which is the cancer which has eaten out the musical core of art music. Grades and competitions are different things. There have always been competitions in Scottish tradition, back to the piping competitions of the 18th century. They do serve a useful function in getting people to sharpen up their act in ways they might not otherwise think of. They vary in how precise their rules are: there is almost no flexibility in repertoire or style in the Mod or the major Highland pipe competitions, most TMSA competitions are fairly laid-back about what you can try, the accordion-and-fiddle crowd are in between. And Scottish traditional musicians are no more or less personally competitive than classical, jazz or pop musicians. The fact that being an international recording superstar in Scottish music gets you an income comparable to that of a suburban supermarket manager doesn't stop some people in the business developing triple-platinum egos. a grading system may be a divisive thing, the thin end of a wedge which could lay open the driving forces of individual players to the light, be those forces ambition or love of music or a combination of the two, and I can't see any good coming of that. What bothers me more is uniformity rather than competitiveness. Irish music as marketed today is horribly monocultural. And the areas where there's most creativity in classical music at the moment are those where grading is nonexistent and next to impossible: early music and the avant-garde/crossover genres. Where would a grading scheme leave somebody who plays a non-mainstream instrument (harmonica, say) or who wants to work in an unusual repertoire (like children's songs)? We may even end up with another music category - 'Art Trad'. We've already got it. It's what Matt Seattle and David Greenberg do. It's good stuff and you should listen to some of it. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Tune Question
Is the American fiddle tune Betsy (Henry Reed, Alan Jabbour,
et. al.) just about the same as the pipe march Greenwoodside?
Where might we hear it? Do you have ABCs?
My ABCification of the transcription at the Library of Congress
site; I left out a few upward slides and pitchbends that ABC can't
represent...
X:1
T:Betsy
S:Henry Reed LoC site
Z:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ April 2004
M:4/4
L:1/16
K:A Dorian
(B2``c)cA2`A2- A(B``cd)e4 | d4 G4- G(ABc) d2`B2
|\
(B``c2)A- A2`A2- A(B``cd)e2``d2 |(ef`gf e)(dB2) {G}[A3A3][A3A3] (AB
|
c)(Bc2) (G3``A) (AB```cd)e4 |(ed`BA) G3```G- G2 ((3ABc d2)B2
|\
(c``Bc2)A2`A2- A(B``cd)e2``d2 |(ef`ge e)(dB2)(G[A2A2])[AA-] [A2A2]
||
e2-|e(^cef/g/) a3`(b ^c'2)(ae-e2)`d2 | e(de2) (fg)g2 e(dcd)[e4e4]
|\
(e4{f}) a3`(a ^c'2)(a/f/e- e2)(ef)|(gf`e)(d cA``B2)[A3A3][A3A3]
[A2e2-]|
e(^cef/g/) a4 ^c'2`(ae-e2)(dc)| e(def) g3``(g ed)(^cd) [e4e4]
|\
(e3```f/g/) a2(ab ^c'2)`af e2``d2 | f2(ed cA``B2)(G[A2A2])[AA-] A2
|]
Similar in places, yes. Just about the same is *really* stretching
it.
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
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Re: [scots-l] Re: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Unfortunately the background to the Kerrs books is vague, although I've often felt like doing some research. I believe the company still exists in some form in Glasgow, but I'm shy of approaching them (apart from having failed to find the time to do so). They turned into a classical record shop in Woodlands Road. I used to go in there regularly in the early 1980s. They're not there any more and I don't know what they're up to now. I think it would be possible to trace many of the original sources for the tunes in Merry Melodies. It seems obvious, for example, that Joseph Lowe's Collection was heavily borrowed from; the Gow books similarly, and Simon Fraser's collections. There are clearly contemporary compositions in there, particularly from Carl Volti, which makes me suspect that he was possibly the editor. Somebody remind me what Carl Volti's real name was? He was a Scottish musician who adopted an Italian professional name. I used to hear his reel The Apple Tree a lot a few years ago, it seems to have gone out of fashion. The tune is sometimes known as Willie Cook's Apple Tree, was Cook really Volti? (It's printed in Merry Melodies with Volti's strathspey Willie Cook before it). X:2 T:The Apple Tree Z:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ April 2004 S:Kerr's MM v2 p5 M:C| L:1/8 Q:1/2=112 K:A A2 a2 fe`dc| Aa`ga fe`dc|[1 Bc`de fB`Bc| Bcde fefa:|! [2 Bc`de fB`Ba| gefg a2e2|| (EA)AB (cB)AF|(EA)AB (cB)AG|! (FB)Bc (dc)BA|[1 GABc defe:| [2 GEFG A2e2|] - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
I used to hear his reel The Apple Tree a lot a few years ago, it seems to have gone out of fashion. [...] A2 a2 fe`dc| Aa`ga fe`dc|[1 Bc`de fB`Bc| Bcde fefa:|! i play it... and sometimes people recognise it, but more often not. at least i'm pretty sure it's the same tune, but i'm not very good at humming through raw abc. my abc converter barfs at the backquotes in the above line. do you know what they're supposed to signify? my copy of the abc documentation doesn't mention this character. It's a relatively recent feature, introduced at my suggestion. It's a kind of null character; it provides a way of spacing out ABC notes to allow for more readable alignment of parallel phrases, but without breaking beams as an actual space would. In most fonts ` is very unobtrusive, and while most character sets have a nonbreaking space somewhere, they don't agree on its ordinal position, so ` gives a portable near-equivalent from the ASCII set. Current ABC software handles it correctly - it was implemented in both abcm2ps and BarFly within a week of me suggesting it, which makes it the fastest-ever- agreed-on feature added to ABC. If your ABC software can't handle it, just delete all occurrences of it first with a text editor. The other sneaky thing I did in that was to use ! for a linebreak - that wasn't formerly standard, but ABC2WIN used it, and I argued for a long time that it was a good idea, so it's become more widely adopted (though BarFly's implementation of it isn't quite right yet). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
it provides a way of spacing out ABC notes to allow for more readable alignment of parallel phrases presumably this is assuming a fixed-width font? ABC is hard to use with anything else. i should probably get a newer version of abc2ps... For Scottish music you shouldn't be using abc2ps at all, as it makes a complete mess of pipe gracenotes. abcm2ps is much better. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Somebody remind me what Carl Volti's real name was? Archibald Milligan, b. 1849, came from a family of fiddlers. His uncle was George Hood, a celebrated fiddler of his time (apparently). Young Archie's first tune on the fiddle was High Road to Linton (he said, in his autobiography). Any relation to George Hood the present-day bandleader from East Lothian? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Is anybody except Nigerian scam artists still reading this?... Kerr's collections have pages and pages of reels and strathspeys in similar key signatures printed alternately, this being handy for some kinds of dance that were popular at the time. Whatever those dances were they must have been VERY popular in the 1880s for this arrangement to make up such a high proportion of the books. And they sure aren't popular now. What were they? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Sheila Stewart
From Fred McCormick on Ballad-L: I've just been told that the Scots ballad singer, Sheila Stewart, has been diagnosed with breast cancer and goes into hospital in late March. She will be happy to hear from her friends and can be contacted by mail at 42 High Street, Rattray, Blairgowrie, Perthshire. Tel 01250 874829. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Celtic Fonts
Does anyone have the celtic font Owens? It was posted to this list a few years back (possibly by Jack Campin?) I used it a lot but have recently had to change to XP without being able to save the fonts file. Can anyone help? Jan lane I wouldn't have posted a binary to a list, and while I might have posted a link to a font file, I use Macs so I haven't come across that one. The only free Celtic fonts I know of are the Apple Irish ones, but that's just because I haven't gone trawling for them. [Matt - Lastrumpany is definitely Gaelic but I have long since forgotten what the intelligible form of it is, what it means, or where I read about it. Alois Fleischmann's Sources of Irish Traditional Music might be a good place to try.] - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Petrie collections
I have a facsimile of Robert Petrie's tune books (thanks to Jan Tappan), which I think have never been reprinted, Llanerch Press reprinted them, they're still available and not very expensive. these tunes are scored for melody plus bass line (Petrie says, suitable for Harpsichord or Cello); if I do pursue this project, is there value in transcribing the bass lines as well? Take a look at a few of them and see how good they are. My take is that it's worth doing the bass lines for 18th century sources but not for much past 1830 - by then, they tend to be over-elaborate and pianistic in ways that not many people would care to replicate today. The very bare lines of things like the early Gow collections are much more usable as a starting point for a modern setting, or for recreating a period public performance. (Think of those later, more complicated settings as like the piano reductions of symphonies that were so popular at the time - people wouldn't actually dance to a piano, it was acting as a reproducing device to evoke a sound they didn't have radios and Robbie Shepherd for). Few of the Petrie tunes (if any) will have a bass line by the original composer, so there isn't the sort of gain in authenticity you'd have with Mackintosh or Nathaniel Gow. Also Llanerch are doing good work and deserve not to be undercut. A melody-only edition wouldn't compete with their product. Somebody else suggested transposing into convenient keys. I would suggest NOT doing that; there are computer tools for it if you need to. And one instrument's easy key is another one's nightmare. I have found a few tunes, originally intended for harp of keyboard, which happen to work very well on an F alto recorder in the original key; they sorta fit the fiddle in that key, but very few fiddlers play them. Mr Ronald Crawford (F minor), Belhelvie House (C minor) and Miss Gordon of Gight (C minor) come to mind. I wouldn't have thought of that if I'd been using transposed versions. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Scotland May 25-June 5th
I will be in London from May 25 then to Edinburgh May 29, out about on to Glasgow, leaving June 5. I will have with me a dear young niece recently infected with a passion for Scots traditional music and two of her friends, new graduates also, ready for introduction. Anything good going on I can bring them to hear? Any suggestions for this person? There isn't anything regular in Edinburgh on Saturday night, but there is a Saturday afternoon session at Babbity Bowster's in Glasgow. If that's not practical, go to one of the session pubs in Edinburgh (Sandy Bell's, the Tass, the Royal Oak, Canon's Gait, West End Hotel...) and pick up a copy of the Gig Guide (free), which will give you a current listing. Sunday afternoon is me and my pals at Sandy Bell's. Monday is Marieke and Andrew's session at the White Hart in the Grassmarket (not been to that one yet). Tuesday is the ALP session at the Athletic Arms (a.k.a. the Diggers) beside Dalry graveyard (vast army of fiddlers) and a session I haven't yet been to at the Central Bar in Leith (worth seeing just for the astonishing interior). Wednesday is Nigel's slow session at the West End Hotel and a session with wildly varying numbers at the Shore Bar in Newhaven. Thursday is the session at the Antiquary in St Stephens Street, Stockbridge (big smoky as hell) and the session at the Old Pier in Bath Street which I go to fairly often (smaller, friendlier and you won't emerge smelling like an Arbroath Smokie). You'll manage to just miss the TMSA session (fourth Monday of the month), the Musselburgh one (first Monday of the month) and the Edinburgh Shetland Fiddlers (first and third Sundays of the month). There are also weekly folk clubs in Edinburgh, Balerno, and Newtongrange; also Haddington and Penicuik, beyond getting-back-by-public-transport range. Newtongrange is not that great for traditional music, the others might be worth a visit but find out what sort of night that week's is (they have guest spots that could be almost anything). There are also regular ceilidhs, e.g. at the Caledonian Brewery, see the local press. Also use BBC Radio Scotland for Ken Mutch's Dance Diary in Robbie Shepherd's Take the Floor programme (available via Listen Again on the BBC website). There is also a folk festival at Dunblane and Doune the weekend of the 28th-30th May. See the TMSA calendar on my website. http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=67012messages=1 Go to the link at the bottom with any suggestions. I don't do web forums, but you can repost this there ** SO LONG AS YOU DON'T INCLUDE MY EMAIL ADDRESS ** - use the URL of my website instead. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Cretin Desires to Be Musical.
There's a usenet group for pipers. The feeling is unanamous that one needs to have a teacher to learn the pipes. That's what I feared. I guess we had one locally for a while, then he went postal and was fired by the university. It may not be that bad - lots of people use the (Glasgow) College of Piping's teaching materials on their own (books, recordings, videos). You hear lots of complaints about Seamus McNeill being an arrogant old SOB but I haven't heard anyone saying his stuff doesn't work. By gateway instrument, you might mean tin whistle. Tin whistle is very fun to play, and relatively easy to pick up on your own. And not much like the pipes. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] TMSA festivals calendar 2004 available on the web
I have put an HTML version of the TMSA Scottish folk festivals calendar for 2004 onto my website: http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Variations
You've probably got all the relevant currently available Scottish stuff, but maybe have a look at the related Northumbrian piping tradition, which stll keeps the variation flame burning, as does the Border piping tradition, but with even fewer exponents. I'd suggest something entirely different: piano music. A mandolin can do chords, and there were a good many variation sets from the late 18th and early 19th centuries that exploited both hands of the keyboard (or did equivalent things with the harp). Two that come to mind are Mackintosh's variations on Lord Kelly's Strathspey and Mrs Robertson of Ladykirk's set on Follow her over the border. These will NOT work out of the box, but should suggest ways of mixing chordal and melodic textures in a way that's more mandolinistic than a straight performance of a fiddle, flute or pipe set. As far as I know none of these early variation sets was ever reprinted and most only exist as music sheets. Whose catalogue entries don't usually even mention that they *are* variation sets. Yes there *is* still work to do after Gore's index... - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] J.F. MacKenzie
I'm looking for a good strathspey in the key of A to arrange for the lever harp. I am looking at a copy (ABC) of J.F. MacKenzie that Toby Rider entered. I would like to hear it. does anyone know of a CD that has this on it - preferably with fiddle and guitar? Why would you be interested in a guitar-accompanied version when the harp can do it so much better? I can't offhand think of *any* performance of a strathspey with a guitar backing where the guitar was doing more than hang in there producing a vaguely appropriate harmonic blur; it just doesn't have the rhythmic precision you need. I would also discourage trying to learn strathspeys off ABC or MIDI playback if you aren't already familiar with the genre. The dotting is usually more marked than the notation says explicitly; some ABC players or converters can oomph that up, albeit in a mechanical way, but most don't, and one (the standard release of abc2midi) makes a disastrous reinterpretation of the notation in exactly the wrong direction (it gives dotted pairs 2:1 lengths instead of 3:1). J.F. Mackenzie is one tune where the dotting is always exaggerated. Try The Laird o Thrums for another strathspey in A. The second half opens with a momentary shift into F sharp minor; no other tune I know of does that, and it would sound dead effective on the harp. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] J.F MacKenzie
The reason I like to listen to back-up is not so much the rhythmic
precision as the nice base line it offers, if the guitar/piano/? if
effecient. I think if I listen only to harp music I will get in a rut
of 'sameness', when with effort it could be 'refreshing'.
Cape-Breton-style piano would probably transfer pretty well to the
harp and give you a gutsier result.
The one you mention below sounds interesting. Where do I find the
music-either written or played?
Try The Laird o Thrums for another strathspey in A. The second
half opens with a momentary shift into F sharp minor; no other tune
I know of does that, and it would sound dead effective on the harp.
It's very popular as a fiddle competition tune (possibly not the most
danceable of strathspeys). Maybe Paul Anderson has recorded it? - I
think I've heard him play it. Here's an ABC version:
X:1
T:The Laird o' Thrums
C:J. Scott Skinner
M:C
L:1/8
Q:1/4=120
K:A
g| (3 agf (3 efg ({g}a2) (ed) | (ce)(Aa) (cB) (Bg) |
(3.a.g.f (3.e.f.g ({g}a2) (ec) | (df)(Be) ({cd}cA) (Ag) |
(3.a.g.f (3.e.f.g ({g}a2) (ed) | (ce)(Aa) ({cd}cB) (Bg) |
(3.a.g.f (3.g.f.e (3.f.e.^d (ec) | (df)(Be) ({cd}c)A A ||
c|f2 (cf) (Af)(cf) |(3.c.f.g (3.a.g.f (3.c'.f.g (3.a.g.f|
({^d}e2) (Be) (Ge)(Be) |(3.B.e.f (3.g.f.e (3.b.e.f (3.g.f.e|
{g}a2 (ea) (ce)(Ag) |(3.a.g.f (3.g.f.e (3.f.e.d (3.e.d.c|
(3.d.e.f (3.B.c.d (3.c.d.e (3.A.B.c|(3.d.e.f (3.e.f.g ({g}a2-) a |]
Skinner probably published it with an accompaniment (I've seen the
original sheet but don't remember it), but don't expect anything
exciting in it - you have to remember that one of Skinner's basic
principles was Accompanists Should Know Their Place.
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please
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Re: [scots-l] William Marshall
The recent post about William Marshall made me wonder where I can buy books of his compositions. The closer to the original the better; best of all are copies of originals. I've started work on a CD-ROM edition which I expect to mostly replace the Fiddlecase one. What I was intending to do is transcribe the full score for the earlier collections but not the posthumous one (since it doesn't seem likely Marshall had any hand in the accompaniments for that book, and they're much more complicated than the early ones). There are a couple of small Marshall sheets or collections the Fiddlecase compilation left out. I'll include the ones I know of. There are also a few Marshall tunes in other people's collections, printed before Marshall himself published them. I might include these too, but the dating makes them a vague target. [Fiddlecase Books] claim a copyright on the collection and I'm not sure if it's legit to reproduce it (considering it's simply a reproduction of the originals which are in public domain, plus a 1 page introduction, I don't see how their copyright is valid, but what do I know?). They could do that legitimately if they had a unique copy. Since none of Marshall's collections is that rare, they're bluffing. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] a new way of looking at an old celebration...
Not much specifically musical content but kinda hilarious... punchline at the end. Wet Do We Care, We're Up Four It! Jan 1 2004 Daily Record Party People Have A Fab '04 Weather No Problem For Revellers By Marie Sharp PARTYGOERS from across the globe flocked to Scotland to celebrate Hogmanay. And despite horrendous rain and gales, they brought in 2004 with style. An estimated 100,000 people packed the streets of Edinburgh for the capital's annual bash. Glasgow sold 25,000 tickets for the George Square show headlined by The Proclaimers, but police estimated more than three times that number hit the streets for the Bells. Sadly, the dreadful weather forced the cancellation of Aberdeen's 200,000 party in the streets. But hundreds of Australians in Scotland marked New Year by Sydney time 11 hours before the rest of us. They met up in bars to watch the firework display which lit up Sydney Harbour Bridge at lunchtime yesterday. Australian theme bar Walkabout in Glasgow's Renfield Street was packed with party-daft Aussies. Pals Matt Alexander, 21, and Matt Snow, 22, of Melbourne, stopped off in Glasgow before heading to Edinburgh for midnight. Alexander said: ''It is a bit of a change for us celebrating Hogmanay here because it is about 38C back home. ''But Edinburgh's Hogmanay is one of the top things to do before you die and we've been really looking forward to it for ages.'' Snow added: ''We have heard that Scottish people really know how to party. ''We've been having a great time bringing in the new year twice in one day.'' But the best parties had a true Scottish flavour. Edinburgh hosted the biggest singalong in the world with 100,000 people singing Auld Lang Syne at midnight. And no one had an excuse for not knowing the words Rabbie Burns' world famous lyrics were flashed up on a giant screen. The Concert in the Gardens was a key feature of the festivities, with thousands dancing into the New Year below Edinburgh Castle. Erasure topped the bill, with Vince Clark and Andy Bell treating the crowd to their only UK performance of anthems from their greatest hits album. Liverpool band The Coral also featured in the line-up. Tickets for the traditional New Year Revels Hogmanay Ball at the city's Assembly Rooms, offering a ceilidh with pop, rock and fiddles, sold out within one hour of going on sale. The Seven Hills Fireworks which sees fireworks launched from seven sites across Edinburgh, illuminated the skies at the stroke of midnight, to the delight of the crowds thronging the streets. A spokeswoman for Edinburgh City Council said that, in all, half a million people were expected to have celebrated the new year in the capital. She said: ''We're expecting at least 500,000 people to enjoy the celebrations in Edinburgh, over the four days from Monday through to the 1st. '' A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders police said that at least ''a few hundred'' officers were on duty last night, doubled up with stewards, while The Met Office issued a weather warning. A spokesman said yesteray: ''We have issued a few severe weather warnings for Scotland. There is a 70 per cent chance of snow and blizzards in the east and a minimum temperature of 1C in Edinburgh a chilly New Year's Eve.'' Deputy Lord Provost, Steve Cardownie, said: ''Edinburgh is quite rightly in the spotlight at New Year; every year we really show the world how to celebrate.'' Gales and heavy rain wiped out Aberdeen's Hogmanay celebrations. The Granite City shindig was to have been headlined by The Waterboys who had spent the afternoon doing soundchecks at the Castlegate. But that was all that was going to be heard of Mike Scott and the boys as police and other event organisers decided to call a halt. A Grampian Police spokeswoman said: ''All events within the city have been cancelled due to gale force winds and heavy rain in the city. ''Snow is also affecting outlying areas and is blocking routes into the city.'' Police advised revellers to party at home and not to drive if at all possible. Further south, road conditions around Dundee were described as ''treacherous'' and there were reports of thunder and lightning. The problem with the Record's report being that the Edinburgh celebration was cancelled because of the weather early in the evening. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Calling David Kilpatrick.
Is this your company? http://www.troubadour.uk.com/ I'm doing a losing job of resisting the urge to order one of those bouzoukis :-) I got Marion here one of David's mandolins for a Christmas present. PHENOMENALLY good deal. Stop resisting! - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Johnny Cunningham
Why are all these brilliant Scots singers and instrumentalists dying? The same reason all the brilliant American rockabilly performers are dying recently.. Time passes.. He was only in his 50s. There must have been a genetic component, since his brother has also had a series of heart attacks. And being a bit overweight, drinking more than was good for him and leading the lifestyle that goes with being on the road almost all the time can't have helped. Not quite the poster child Hamish Imlach was but still a typical Scottish male of his generation all round. I only met him a couple of times but he came across as both thoroughly unapologetic about his talent and equally thoroughly unpretentious about it. I'd have looked forward to meeting him again. It just means we have to step up and fill their shoes.. No argument with that. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Up the Glen and Back Again
A woman fiddler (who I don't know) at the Old Pier session in Portobello last night played a nice tune called Up the Glen and Back Again which she said she'd learned from an old man in the Highlands. March tempo (I think), in D minor, and sounded more klezmerish than Scottish. It was very easy to pick up but also very easy to forget. Anybody here know it? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Tune authorships
10435 (49)
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:C
g||$
e2c {d}cBc|G2c E2c |e2c ege| c3 cde|f2dd2c|B2dd2c|B2G BdB| G3 G2f
|
e2c {d}cBc|G2c E2c |e2c ege|(cBc) efg|a2fg2e|f2de2c|Bcd GAB| c3 c2
||
f |e2ggag|e2g gag |e2c ege| c3 cde|f2a {b}aga|f2a {b}aga|f2d faf| d2e fed
|
efggag|efg gc'g|e2c ege| ccd efg|afageg|fdfedc|Bcd GAB|[1c3 c3
:|\
[2cag
fedD.S.|]
Note the duple-time Rose Tree, titled as The Old Lea Rigg, dates back to
the 18th century.
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please
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Re: [scots-l] Re: A flatpicked bagpipe tune
Nigel, Thanks for the tune. And X=589? That's *fast*. The X: field is the identifying number for the tune in the file. Tempo is indicated by the Q: field. For a jig you would usually have something like Q:3/8=124 - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Davie Robertson: Star o the Bar - 15 original songs
Davie Robertson will be well known to people around the Edinburgh and East Lothian folk scene. And completely unknown to almost everyone else, as he never tours, never goes to folk festivals, never headlines concerts, rarely goes to anywhere beyond cycling range of Longniddry, and, in his late 50s, has just released his first recording, a solo CD from Greentrax of his own songs (CDTRAX254). On the insert, after sarcastically dismissing most of the other labels you might think of putting on him, he describes himself as a Composer of Scots Songs. Which over-modestly forgets he's one hell of a *performer* of them, not just with his own material as here, but also such traditional ballads as Two Brothers, Johnny of Braidislee or Clerk Colven, which he often sings to his own smallpipe accompaniment. Perhaps we'll get a companion CD of this material someday. Meanwhile, his own songs are among the most often sung of recent pieces in the Scots tradition and for the first time singers have a way of learning them the way he conceived them without having to follow him round pubs in East Lothian to do it. They show the full range of what the Scots tradition can do. There has been nobody comparable since Matt McGinn; Brian McNeill is his closest living parallel, but Robertson's idiom sticks closer to the blunt language and melodic simplicity of the oldest Scots songs still in the repertoire. The first verse of the opening song on the CD hits you with a text that outgrosses Robert Fergusson, to a tune Fergusson would have known, Maggie Lauder: There's nuthin brands a man in life as plainly as his hanky, A gentleman's is nice an clean but mines is ayeways manky. Wi gairden sile and engine ile, an dauds o nasal mucus, An the wipins o ma fingers off o sliders bought at Luca's. and typically sets the song locally, Luca's being the celebrated ice cream parlour in Musselburgh. And there are intense love songs like Late in the Day; a wild exaggeration of the blokey-drinking-song genre in A Drinkin Man; a wonderful satire on the Iraq war with The Chimp and the Poodle; one of Scotland's most-sung folk-club anthems in The Star o the Bar; a send-up of tartan-shortbread-tin songmaking in Anthem for Scotland; and, in Cauld Comfort Tae Me, a song that hits me so hard in such a personal spot I can't bring myself to talk about it. There aren't songs you can listen to with half an ear while doing something else. There is one serious problem with the CD, though. It was all done in the studio, and to anyone who's heard Davie in a pub session or a live concert you'll know a whole human dimension of his performance is missing here. I don't know how this could have happened - didn't anyone listen to it and realize shit, this sounds like a man in a rubber room recording his confession for a televised show trial from a dictatorship? But meanwhile it *does* give you the songs the way he wrote them, and after listening to it you *will* want to learn some. Davie is a regular at the Musselburgh session, on the first Monday of the month (see my website). I have no commercial interest in this - in fact I think Davie would probably have given me a copy for free but I insisted on paying for it. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Re: Matt Seattle's 'Border Seasons'
A while ago I publicly lamented the paucity of recordings in what might be termed the Scottish Trad/Chamber Music genre, having nearly worn my Puirt a Baroque and Pete Clark albums threadbare. Matt humbly brought 'Border Seasons' to my attention. You might also give a listen to a newly released CD of The Art of Robert Burns recorded several years ago under David Johnson's direction and only just released (unsavoury bulmerish considerations having delayed it) on a new label, Scotstown Records. There are also some fiddle music tracks with Bonnie Rideout. Not every track works for me but rather that than the sort of thing Fred Freeman does any day. And I just heard David Greenberg's new CD Spring any day now with Concerto Caledonia. My God. That is *really* impressive. The kind of mixture (Scottish/early, avant-jazz, Hungarian, Finnish, Romanian) that you need a mind-boggling degree of musicianship to get away with, and they've got it. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Bruce Olson
Okay, I was able to save [Bruce Olson's] site. Can anyone volunteer to keep the site up-to-date, if give them write access to it? I expect there will be many volunteers, from the ballad-l readership as well as this list. I'd certainly be prepared to help. But I'd also expect Bruce would have thought about this - perhaps we should see what his will says about what should happen to his intellectual property? There are several options he might have chosen, and he was well enough aware of the value of his work that he might have been explicit about which he wanted. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] The Trumpet in Scotland
I have a student interested in a dissertation on the Trumpet in Scotland. The period up till 1800 has already been tackled at PhD level by another but I'm sure there must be some nuggets out there (Jack?). The obvious ones are Nathaniel Gow who trained as a trumpeter, the references in Purser, Jim Cameron's Dance Band in the 1950s. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I suspect your student is on a hiding to nothing. At around the time Nathaniel Gow died (1830s), the trumpet was rapidly and completely replaced as general-purpose top-end brass instrument by the cornopean (predecessor of a cornet). A cornopean can do a FAR better job of playing Scottish tunes than a trumpet - apart from everything coming out in B flat you'd have no problem leading a ceilidh band with one - and we know they were adopted by wind (later brass) bands as soon as they were available. So from then on, the trumpet had a limited role as a ceremonial instrument, and in the orchestra, but that was about it. So if that PhD really did the business on pre-1800 music (is it available anywhere?) there's not going to be a lot left. Did it cover the links between trumpet and other music in the early 18th century? - James Thomson's recorder MS of 1702 has quite a few trumpet tunes in it, along with the Scots ones and the English opera music. (He was possibly the father or uncle of the compiler of _Orpheus Caledonius_, which sorta brings them into the ambit of Scottish music by association). But they stand out a mile as being something nobody but a trumpeter would really want to play, and why on earth Thomson thought they'd sound any good on the recorder is beyond me. What might be much more interesting would be to look into the very early history of the wind/brass band in Scotland. These started in the 1830s, but the present repertoire didn't start to solidify for another fifty years. Probably they did a fair bit of late-classical or military repertoire, but the obvious thing for a Scottish band to get up and running with is Scottish music, though I've come across no reference to them playing any. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] File Beck
I've come up empty-handed in my attempts to track down the meaning of a Bremner title. Can anyone help with an explanation for his The File Beck is ay Ready ? Think of the pronunciation in file gumbo and voila you get philabeg. Ay Ready is a clan slogan, but I forget which. Putting these two bits of information together, I'd guess it's a clan rallying tune known by another name. cheers - jack - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Ball of Kirriemuir
Same lady wants a good version of The Ball of Kirriemuir (this does not mean one padded out to 200 verses with innumerable repetitive in-jokes off the Internet). Answering my own question - we decided to go for the Belle Stewart one in McColl Seeger, I'd forgotten it was in there and found it when looking for something else entirely. If anything it's a bit *too* short, but hey, size isn't everything. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Iain Grant obituary contributions
I'm writing an obituary of Iain Grant. If anybody has some anecdotes or other biographical information they'd like to share, could they email it to me or give it to me on paper at the funeral tomorrow? This will be a fairly short piece; I won't be able to use everything, but even contributions I don't quote explicitly will affect the way I write it. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] flute music
[ I sent an earlier copy of this from a userid that isn't subscribed to the list - hopefully that one will have been trashed somewhere. ] Irish fluteplayers are remarkably unambitious about the key, range and size/complexity of the music they play (cue plug for my Scots flute music CD-ROM, which takes the flute to places beyond Captain O'Neill's imaginings). Will you have copies for sale at Fiddle 2003? Yep. Will your Aird compilation be ready by then? That's the deadline I'm working to (though large areas of my life are going slightly pear-shaped at the moment and time is getting more limited). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Iain Grant died
Iain Grant, the old moustached multiple-moothie player from Edinburgh
who will be known to any regular at Scottish folk festivals or at
Sandy Bell's, died a day or two ago. Very suddenly, the way he said
he wanted to go; his son found him at home, still in his dressing gown.
He was widowed; his wife Alison died after very protracted illness last
year.
Iain had been my greatest musical inspiration and in some ways nearly
a father to me for many years. I am writing this through a smear of
tears; he'll leave a huge hole in my life, and in that of many others.
There can be hardly anyone in Scottish music with such unfailingly
upbeat enthusiasm. He had no enemies I've ever heard of and everybody
who'd ever played with him could count him as a friend.
Because his death was so sudden and unexpected, there has to be a post-
mortem, which will be next Wednesday. No date for the funeral yet, I'll
post it here when I find out.
He once told me that if he were to die suddenly in the middle of the
Sunday afternoon session, we were to keep him propped up in his seat
and play The Braes of Castle Grant over his body...
X:1
T:The Braes of Castle Grant
Z:Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ version 1.0 September 2001
C:Duncan MacDonald, Castle Grant 1863
C:3rd 4th parts by Geo. S. McLennan
S:G.S. McLennan, Highland Bagpipe Music book 1, 1929
B:NLS MH.s.234
R:March
M:2/4
L:1/16
Q:1/4=72
K:Hp
{g}ed|{gcd}c2{g}B{d}A {gef}eA{d}ce | a2{GdG}ag {afg}fe{g}fa |\
c2{GdGe}cf {g}eA{d}ca | B2{GdGe}Bc{gBG}B2{g}ed |
{gcd}c2{g}B{d}A {gef}eA{d}ce | a2{GdG}ag {afg}fe{g}fa |\
AB{GdG}ca ce{g}B{d}c| {g}A3{GdGe}A {gAGAG}A2 :|
{d}ce| {ag}a3e{gfg}fe{g}ce |{Gdc}df{g}fa{eg}eA{d}ca |\
Aaga{eg}eA{d}ca | B2{GdGe}Bc [1 {gBG}B2{d}ce |
{ag}a3e{gfg}fe{g}ce |{Gdc}df{g}fa{eg}eA{d}ca |\
AB{GdG}ca ce{g}B{d}c| {g}A3{GdGe}A {gAGAG}A2 :|
[2 {gBG}Ba{eg}ed|\
{gcd}c2{g}B{d}A {gef}eA{d}ce | a2{GdG}ag {afg}fe{g}fa |\
AB{GdG}ca ce{g}B{d}c| {g}A3{GdGe}A {gAGAG}A2 ||
{g}ed| {g}c2{GdGe}cB {g}AB{d}ce | {g}fgag {afg}fe{g}fa |\
c2{GdGe}cB {g}Ae{g}c{d}A| {g}B2{GdGe}Bc{gBG}B2{g}ed |
{g}c2{GdGe}cB {g}AB{d}ce | {g}fgag {afg}fe{g}fa |\
AB{GdG}ca ce{g}B{d}c| {g}A3{GdGe}A {gAGAG}A2 :|
{d}ce| a2{GdG}ae{g}fe{g}ce |{gfg}fe{g}fd {g}ceac|\
{g}Ad{g}fd {g}cd{gef}ec | {g}B2{GdGe}Bc [1 {gBG}B2{d}ce |
a2{GdG}ae{g}fe{g}ce |{gfg}fe{g}fd {g}ceac|\
{g}AB{GdG}ca ce{g}B{d}c| {g}A3{GdGe}A {gAGAG}A2 :|
[2 {gBG}B2{g}ed |\
{g}c2{GdGe}cB {g}AB{d}ce | {g}fgag {afg}fe{g}fa |\
AB{GdG}ca ce{g}B{d}c| {g}A3{GdGe}A {gAGAG}A2 |]
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
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[scots-l] Iain Grant's funeral
Iain Grant, the old moustached multiple-moothie player from Edinburgh who will be known to any regular at Scottish folk festivals or at Sandy Bell's, died a day or two ago. [...] No date for the funeral yet, I'll post it here when I find out. The funeral has been arranged for Warriston Crematorium, Edinburgh, at 3pm next Wednesday (1st October 2003). Some of us are writing obituaries for the press; if you would like to contribute some information or anecdotes please get in touch with me off-list. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] E Jig set suggestions (Calliope House)
I posted a C# minor one here a while back, you might give that a try in front of it if you want to keep the key signature... T:Carfrae Frolic This is quite an obscure one.. What's the story about how you found this one? Not-very-systematically trawling through EVERYTHING. I think I've read through at least one printing of almost every Scottish music sheet known to the National Library of Scotland. I was probably looking for something else related to Edinburgh or flute music in a music sheet at the time. The way those sheets are archived is usually in big bound volumes of up to 250 items, often assembled by somebody around 200 years ago and left the way they came when put in the library. Since the NLS cataloguing is often not very informative, if I'm looking for one item in such a volume I'd scan through the whole thing and note down anything else that might come in handy someday for one of the projects I've got in the pipeline. One future project that requires massive survey of such music sheets is my plan to survey the whole output of Scottish women tune composers. Almost none of their stuff made it into book form, and catalogues hardly help at all (as many of them used transparent pseudonyms or published tunes under both their maiden and married names, or had married names that changed when their husbands got fancier titles). So there is no substitute for sheer grunt with that one. (Doesn't help that their music is mostly for keyboard and sometimes uses pianistic effects that get lost if you try to reduce it to a melody line - no alternative to transcribing the whole damn thing). Anyone heard of Mr Mather, composer of the Carfrae Frolic? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] The Kirk
I was going through McGibbon's Scots Tunes (1762, according to Glen) and found a tune called An the Kirk wad let me be. I thought also of the title De'il Stick the Minister, also from the mid-18th century, and wondered if there was a connection. They're completely different tunes. There are words known for An the kirk wad let me be - it's much older than 1762 - but none I've ever heard of for Deil stick the minister. (There is a Shetland tune of the latter title, totally unrelated to the 18th century one). Perhaps some kind of reaction to the Scottish Kirk at that time? Was there some kind of anti-clerical feeling in Scotland in the mid-18th century, and was this an influence or a reaction to the politics of the time? How many books do you have time to read? Scottish religious politics has always been immensely complicated, and you don't have a prayer of interpreting a polemic against ministers unless you know exactly who wrote it and when. There are some 18th century polemics related to patronage disputes in which I can work out absolutely *nothing* of the author's intention, or who his target was, except that he was mightily pissed off about something. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] E Jig set suggestions (Calliope House)
I need some suggestions for jigs to play with Dave Richardson's
Calliope House.
I've tried darn near every E and Em jig I know and can't find one
that pairs well and transitions well to or from Calliope House.
I posted a C# minor one here a while back, you might give that a try
in front of it if you want to keep the key signature...
X:1
T:Carfrae Frolic
S:Miss Platoff's Wedding (music sheet, Gow and Shepherd, 1813)
B:NLS Mus.E.l.78(65)
C:Mr. Mather
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:C# Minor
{^A}G^^FG {A}GFG |{^A}G^^FG {A}GFG |e3 d2c|^Bcd G3 |
cdc BAG |ABA GF^E|FGF =EDC|^B,CD G,3 :|
{F}EDE {F}EDE |cde BAG |ABc BAG| FGE DC^B,|
{D}C^B,C {d}c^Bc|A=BA GAF |EFG FED| C3 c3 :|
(There aren't going to be a lot of C# major jigs to do the Cape
Breton stay-on-the-same-tonic trick with...)
Possibly is there an A jig that might fill the bill?
Stool of Repentance?
I know somebody who starts a jig set with Calliope House and ends
with Jig of Slurs, and I *think* Stool of Repentance is what he
puts in the middle. I'll let you know when I hear him do it again.
Grey Larsen's Thunderhead (B minor into D) might be a possibility.
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
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[scots-l] Old Age and Young
I suppose this sort of relates to last week's discussion of 3/2 hornpipes. I abc'd this tune from Robert Petrie's 3rd Collection of Strathspey Reels c. this week for a friend and thought someone here might be interested in it. The tempo seems weird at first glance but it's a lot of fun to play! I have 2 questions: 1) What does the title mean? I'm guessing Old Age and Young Never Agrees. Yup. I have seen a text for it once, perhaps Bruce knows it? 2) Does anyone know what sort of dance would have been done to it? T:Auld Eage and Young Never Grees the Gither It's a 3/2 hornpipe (as discussed here this week); I posted a mid-18th century version of it a few months back. It's probably a Scottish version of an English tune from the 17th century; Three Sharp Knives and Black's Hornpipe both resemble it. For lots more, look for John Offord's transcription of John of the Greeny Cheshire Way - ABCed and on the web somewhere - or Thomas Marsden's 1705 collection of Lancashire hornpipes, which I guess must have been reprinted but I have no idea when. Here's that Scots version (with only three parts): X:2 T:Old Age and Young S:Dow MS, fiddle part (c.1746?) N:written as 6/4 in MS N:first note in bar 2 of third section is missing in MS, my guess N:third note in bar 3 of third section is missing in MS, my guess M:3/2 L:1/4 Q:1/2=100 % my guess K:GDor G2 Bc d(c/B/)|A FF c A(G/F/) |G2 Bc d(c/B/)|A G2 g A(G/F/) :| ga gG A2 |F f2 F A/B/c/A/|ga gG A2 |G g2 G A/B/c/A/:| GA GG, B,2|G, D2 B AG/F/ |GA GG, B,2|D g2 B AG/F/ :| These things are metrically a bit like some Swedish schottisches. Is there any genetic relationship or similarity in the dance steps? An oddity of 3/2 tunes in Scotland is that by the late 18th century they came to be associated with childhood - Nathaniel Gow's Miss Baird of Saughtonhall was for a girl of 7, and Go to Berwick Johnnie is given a nursery-song text in the notes to the Scots Musical Museum. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Ferintosh in Linlithgow
Just a note to say that Ferintosh (Dave Greenberg, Abby Newton and Kim Robertson) will give an informal and FREE performance in St Peter's Church, Linlithgow this Sunday 15th September as part of Doors Open Day/Linlithgow Folk Festival. Has anybody got a definite time for this? I was going to come through for it, but the box office (01506 433 634) doesn't know anything. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Jig classifications
This probably has been asked before on this list, but what are Scottish 9/8 tunes referred to as? Slip Jigs? Jigs? 9/8 Jigs? Jigs or 9/8 jigs. Are the Irish classifications of slip, single and double jig being used for Scottish tunes in modern times No. Similarly, are 3/2 hornpipes referred to as Old Hornpipes or is there another term that is in common use? The tunes themselves are not in common use - I've never encountered one at a ceilidh or heard of one being danced to on Robbie Shepherd's programme. Double hornpipe, or triple hornpipe which confusingly means the same thing, are the usual terms insofar as they're mentioned at all. (I play a few of them - drives guitarists nuts trying to find an accompaniment pattern). The Baggpipe Tune from c.1675 on my Dalkeith site is one (I think it's the oldest-notated Scottish tune for bagpipes). It takes a while to figure out how to play it effectively. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Kirriemuir Festival
I am trying to find out what's up at the festival at Kirriemuir, all the information I have found just talks very generally (concerts, ceilidhs, sesions...) Does anybody know if there's any actual programme or list of events?  Thanks,  Manuel Waldesco I posted a list before and I'm just back from it. I don't think you were there? you missed yourself. It was rather unlike any other festival I've been to in having lots of small sessions scattered all over the town rather than two or three huge ones; I prefer the smaller ones as you end up with more varied repertoire and can hear what you're doing better. I don't think I've ever played so many tunes in F before. Many were meant to be that way, but partly it was due to a guy with a C/F melodeon who turned up to the session in Rennie's cycle shop. He could play it very well, but had no conception that what he was doing was in any way odd, or that some people might find The Mason's Apron in F or The 79th's Farewell to Gibraltar in C a tad problematic. Some people get the hint about excessive use of weird keys after I pull out my c.1900 continental-pitch Austrian ocarina and do a retreat march in E flat minor, but he wasn't one of them. Kudos to the very good whistle player sitting beside me who managed to mostly fake this F stuff using just a D whistle; I couldn't have pulled that off. Tunes and songs I resolved to learn after that weekend: - Willie Forrest (? I think) by Freeland Barbour (in E and A). - MacArthur's Reel by I don't know who (a recent tune that goes into fiddle third position; heard it before as a party trick but Karen Hannah made a real piece of music out of it). - Whatever You Say, Say Nothing (very funny Irish political song but the guy who attempted it got lost half-way through). (For anyone who was there and didn't introduce themselves, that was me in the green tweed kilt and the shirt that would do as military camo on one of the more garish moons of Saturn). The major disappointment was finding that there is no such thing as Kirriemuir gingerbread any more. The nearest bakery is in Forfar, and the only version of the stuff on sale was the made-in-Shotts one you get everywhere. And they're going to have to look further than Inverness if the virgin quota is to match previous years. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ * homepage for my CD-ROMs of Scottish traditional music; free stuff on food intolerance, music and Mac logic fonts. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Kirriemuir Festival
I am trying to find out what's up at the festival at Kirriemuir, all the information I have found just talks very generally (concerts, ceilidhs, sesions...) Does anybody know if there's any actual programme or list of events? I've got a paper one here (I'm going). Concert on Friday night, competitions during the day on Saturday, silver band concert Saturday afternoon, prizewinners concert, ceilidh, dance and singaround that evening, ceilidhs on Sunday afternoon and evening. Guest performers this year: Sangsters, Neil Patterson Karen Hannah, Laura Sarah Simpson, Iain Grant (who says I've got to buy a ticket to hear him or I'll never be forgiven), Doris Rougvie, Bryce Johnstone, the Danelaw Band, Jim Taylor, Joe Aitken, Forfar Instrumental Band, Scott Gardiner, Shona Donaldson, Angus SR Society, Carrou Mor Band. BTW, one person I haven't seen on the festival scene for a while is Ted Polytello (superb ballad singer from Auchtermuchty or nearby). Last heard him at a concert in Edinburgh with Jock Duncan. Anyone know what happened to him? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Tam Flanagan
Most people involved with Scottish music in East/Central Scotland will probably have encountered Tam Flanagan (Legless Tam). He died a couple of weeks ago; the funeral was last week in Falkirk, I didn't make it but apparently it was a pretty big affair. Not the easiest person to write about... - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] anybody recognize this?
Something I've been looking at lately - sorry for the repetition if you've seen it on the ABC list already. The following tune is from a small set of tablature tunes in the back of a tadpole MS mostly of English music from about 1680, one of the Panmure manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland. It comprises letters written on the top four lines of five-line music paper: The cloutinach 2 -|--|]|---:| ---aa|--|]---adcaa|--acd--:| -cd--|dcddcd|]-cd--'--|dcddcd---aa:| d|--|]d'--|---:| b---|--|bb-bcdcb--::bbcdcdcb-|b| -ca(cdca|cacd)c|--c-dd::d|-dcac| -'--|-'|--::-|-| |--|--::-|-| 2 --::] aacd--::] -ddcd---aa::] --::] I have figured out what the notation is - violin tablature - and hence what the pitches are, but it leaves rhythm wildly ambiguous. The parens represent a horizontal bracket drawn over the note group, probably just meaning this contains some short values, and I think the dots under the notes represent flattenings. There's nothing in the MS to explain the notation - the tadpole part of the book has music in French violin clef (one of them a rough copy of the baggpipe tune on my Dalkeith site, which I took from another Panmure book probably by the same writer, who I think was somebody in the household of Anna, Duchess of Buccleuch) and a piece or two for violin and alto recorder duet - nothing for lute or guitar, and the notation makes no sense as lute tab. Not so much a transcription as a free interpretation (see ABC list for how I did it): X:1 T:The cloutinach M:6/8 L:1/8 K:D Minor C2F G2A |d2c A2A |GFGGFG|A2c dDD:| fcA cd/c/A|cAc d2c |f3 fdf|gag fdd:| f2f gag |agf df/d/c|Ac/A/G GFG|A2c dDD:| The first note of the tune is either a C on the low G string as here, or perhaps better, a D unison on the D string and the G string raised to A. Makes a nice breezy pentatonic jig. Anyone know any tune like that or have the foggiest idea what the title means? I'm guessing it's derived from the Gaelic word for praise or renown. It's the only Gaelic-looking title in the group. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] two tunes and a list wanted
Below is the start of a project listing Gaelic waltzes. perhaps a better list might be compiled by Scots-L? Anyway, not what you were looking for, Exactly what I was looking for, many thanks. but it might provide an idea or two. Jimmy Shand's books of waltzes (were there three or four of them?) contain some sets, and they can be obtained from ? in Perth. I've got the first two (wre there others?), published by Mozart Allan in Glasgow. Most of the sets are other kinds of waltz, but I guess you can use this for one of your indexes? The Jimmy Shand Book of Waltzes: a selection of waltz medleys as played by his band, arranged for piano and piano accordion by Jimmy Shand and Ian MacLeish Mozart Allan, 84 Carlton Place, Glasgow C5 Copyright Price 3/- Net no date Book 1 (blue cover) Popular Scottish Tunes: Grannie's Highland Hame [G] My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose [C] The Queen's Maries [F] A Medley of Scottish Airs: Jock o' Hazeldean [G] We'd Better Bide a Wee [C] My Nannie's awa' [G] The Auld Scots Sangs [C] A Medley of Gaelic Airs: Griogal Chridhe (My Love is Dead) [Bb] Filoro [F] 'Si mo Leannan an te Ur (O I Love the Maiden Fair) [Bb] Caisteal a Ghlinne (Castle in the Glen) [Eb] An Irish Waltz Medley: The Meeting of the Waters [A] Believe me if all Those Endearing Young Charms [D] Cockles and Mussels [G] Tunes of Erin: The Gentle Maiden [G] Teddy O'Neil [G] Come Back to Erin [C] Tunes of Scotland: I Lo'e Nae a Laddie [G] Logie o' Buchan [D] Comin' thro' the Rye [G] A Scotia Waltz Medley: Kelvingrove [G] Green Grow the Rashes [Em] The Laird o' Cockpen [Em] There Grows a Bonnie Briar Bush [G] A Scottish Waltz Medley: Kirkconnel Lea [A] The Star o' Robbie Burns [D] Mary of Argyll [G] Book 2 (green cover) Melodies of Ireland: Love's Young Dream [F] Oft in the Stilly Night [Bb] The Harp that once [Eb] Memories of Scotland: Lochnagar [C] Annie Laurie [F] Auld Lang Syne [G] Clansman Waltz: O why left I my hame [G] Oh where tell me where [D] Bonnie Strathardle [A] Our Island Medley: Loch Lomond [G] There's nae luck [D] Mary McNeil [A] Tartan Waltz: Bonnie Dundee [G] Scotland Yet [C] Within a Mile o' Edinburgh Toon [G] Favourite Scottish Airs: The Auld Hoose [G] The Braes abune Bonawe [D] The Nameless Lassie [G] A Jacobite Waltz: The Standard on the Braes o' Mar [G] Charlie is my Darling [Dm] Sound the Pibroch [G] Gaelic Waltz Tunes: Fagail Steornabhagh (Leaving Stornoway) [G] Tiugainn thar Sà ile (Come over the Sea) [C] An Eala Bhà n (The Fair Swan) [G] Soiridh Slà n le Fionn-Airidh (Farewell to Fiunary) [A] Which, I think, mainly goes to show that bands don't use those books much any more, if they ever did. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] two tunes and a list wanted
Does anybody happen to have already-typed-in ABCs for either The Braes of Locheil... Again, I'm not sure this will be what you're after... X:577 T:Braigh Lochiall T:The Braes of Locheil B:The Gesto Collection Z:Nigel Gatherer L:1/8 M:4/4 K:C C | DE D2 D4 | d2 d4 cA | G2 A2 c4 | ED C2 G4 | A2 d4 cA | G2 A2 c4 | FE D2 C4 | D6 |] The one I know is recognizably the same tune: X:1 T:The Braes of Locheil Z:Jack Campin M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=50 K:Hp ABG A3|age deg|BAB d2B|e2g edB| ABG A3|age deg|BAB d2g|B2A A3 |] but there's a second part too, which I can't remember. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] following myself up
One of the tunes I was looking for... X:1 T:The Ladies from Hell C:Jas. Macmillan Tait, 1941 S:John A. Maclellan: S:More Music for the Highland Bagpipe S:(Patersons Pubs, Edinburgh, 1967) M:2/4 L:1/16 Q:1/4=72 K:Hp ed|B2G2 GGGa|g2G2 d2ed|B2A2 B2d2 |e4 e2g2| a3fg2a2 |gfed e2g2|B2AB BGBd|e4 e2 :| ge |B2e2 efed|B2e2 e2ge|d2B2 B2AB |e4 e2g2| agfe gfed|efge a2ed|B2AB BGBd|e4 e2 :| ge |G2B2 Bedc|B2G2 G2ge|G2B2 gfed|e4 e2g2| agfe gfed|efge a2ed|B2AB BGBd|e4 e2 :| There's a nice version of it on a recent recording by Fred Morrison (immediately followed by a forgettable piece with a silly bouzouki accompaniment; oh well perhaps Fred's mother likes the bouzouki or something...). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] two tunes and a list wanted
Does anybody happen to have already-typed-in ABCs for either The Braes of Locheil or Ladies from Hell? I could find them myself but I'm in a hurry - Braes of Locheil just needs to be accurate enough to stop me recomposing the second half on the fly every time I try to play it, but I'd rather Ladies from Hell was reasonably close to mil-spec. Secondly, does anybody have a sizable list of Gaelic waltz tunes and where to find them? Every ceilidh band seems to have its own set with something in it nobody else does, and I've never seen a book-sized collection of them. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Question on modes
I think you're a mixing up key-mode with scale. Not as much mixing them up as trying to avoid doing so... I know that mode and key signature are not the same thing -- I'm trying to find out how the oh-so-natural just intonation of classical violin works with fiddle's modes (compared to key signatures). Taking your example of tunes in D mixolydian (you were asking about the intonation of the F and C): the F would almost invariably occur (thinking of it harmonically) as part of a D major broken chord, so there is no reason for the intonation to be any different from when playing in major. The C will sometimes occur as a leading note, but in typical Scottish mixolydian tunes the tonality alternates between tonic and subtonic, i.e the C is the root of a C major chord and needs to be pitched accordingly (i.e. C-G should be a perfect fifth). This is not a common pattern in common-practice-era art music. The tuning of bagpipes reflects this, with the low G being near the just-intonation optimum and the the upper one being some (variable) distance sharp of it. The tuning of leading notes in fiddle music can wander all over the place, it's obvious that in some cases transcribers have heard the same thing but one has written it sharp and the other natural. What you don't often get is the other situation that would fix the pitch, with the C occurring as the third in a dominant chord (A minor). In a few tunes (e.g. the 18th century jig Lads of Leith) the C gets sharped when used that way, momentarily shifting the harmony to A major. Any particular tunes you were thinking of? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Modal Tunes (but seriously)
Standard notation practice (not folk musicians notation practice) would be to write an E Dorian tune with the E minor/G major key signature of one sharp (F#) and then sharp the individual Cs in the tune. It needs to be explained to a classical musician that in traditional music it's a common practice to use a key signature that represents the mode, in this case dorian. The folk notation practice is not standard. We do it because it's useful for our purposes. The distinction you're describing only applies to classical music from a very short period, roughly 1750-1880. Up to Bach's time the usual practice was to write minor-key music in a dorian key signature and use accidentals on the sixth. (Probably a holdover from liturgical practice, where aeolian wasn't a recognized mode). Since the folk practice has been applied continuously in English and Scottish music since Ravenscroft's time, anybody who doesn't get it has some catching up to do. I think the first publisher of Scottish tunes to use minor as a catchall term also including dorian was Surenne, around 1840. The Gows use a different terminology, like in E with the flat 3d. - no comment on what the sixth might be. This looks odd to a modern reader but is actually more sensible. The point of printing it in the score was presumably so the fiddler could communicate it to a cello player vamping an accompaniment with nothing on paper, like Philip's bassist... - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Modal Tunes (but seriously)
I had an experience recently with a tune which we were playing for a particular purpose. It was Morrison's (jig) which is Irish in origin but much loved, with a life of its own in Scotland. A double bass player looked at the sheet music and played along with the tune. He then complained that it was in two sharps but was in E minor. My explanation that it was a dorian not an aeolian tune (I do hope I got this bit right) was greeted with some derision. OK, if modes do not mean anything to you how do you explain this one? God made bass players to plunk not think. Here's something he can plunk; I tried to come up with a bass line/ countermelody. (Almost everybody would do the same thing in the first part, I think; the second is less obvious). X:1 T:Morrison's Jig M:6/8 L:1/8 Q:3/8=124 % the following two lines are BarFly-isms V:1 midi program 1 11 V:2 bass middle=d transpose -24 midi program 1 33 K:E Dorian [V:1] E2E BAB|E2B AFD|EDE BAB|dcB AFD|E2E BAB|EBE AFD|G3 FGA|dAG FED:| [V:2] e6 |e3 d3 |e6 |G3 D3 |e6 |e3 d3 |e3 d3 |G3 D3 :| % [V:1] B2e fee|aee fed|Bee fee|fag fed|Bee fee|aee fee|gfe d2A|BAG FED | [V:2] e3 B3 |A3 B2G|G3 B3 |d3 B3 |e3 B3 |A3 B2E|E3 F3 |G3 A3 | % [V:1] Bee fee|aee fed|Bee fee|faf def|g2f g2e|def g2d|edc d2A|BAG FED|] [V:2] e3 B3 |A3 B2G|G3 B3 |d3 A3 |d3 B3 |A3 B2D|G3 F3 |E3 D3 |] It doesn't use any C's at all. The tune is nearly hexatonic (you would hardly notice if that c were made natural or avoided by lengthening the previous d) and the countermelody is completely so. Challenge him to come up with something similar featuring a C natural that doesn't sound wrong. (Well actually God also made Mingus, who could undoubtedly think, but Mingus knew what the dorian mode was). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
RE: [scots-l] Modal Tunes (but seriously)
Jim Dawson wrote: In fact I do not see any real information regarding modes coming out in this discussion, plenty of show boating about how much music history they know and nothing about how to use modes in real life music. I presume you mean me. I'd already put a fair bit of such information in the modes tutorial on my website; I wasn't about to repeat it. I assumed that everybody on this list had already read that. One point I make there, about an honest-to-god technical feature of the sort you seem to be asking about, is the one about gap-filling as a structural principle in large pieces, like multi-part pipe marches. I can't believe I'm the first to notice that, but I've never seen anybody else mention it in print. It's so pervasive I'd expect it to be on the RSAMD traditional music syllabus. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Looking for a Venue in Edinburgh
I'm helping to organise a small concert in Edinburgh in October. The duet appearing are an acoustic duo, mandolin and guitar, and I expect there will be an audience of between 25 and 50. They particularly like performing in a church-type environment because of the acoustics. Can anyone think of a suitable venue? The crypt of the Cornerstone, if you can get it. I've played to that number of people with the improbably quiet combo of greatbass recorder and clarsach - worked fine, so an unamplified mando guitar would too. The Augustine Chapel on George IV Bridge is often used for non-profit events, and its acoustics are fine, but it's way bigger than you need. (It also has a crypt that sounds okay but has all the atmosphere of a prison gymnasium). === http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ === --- off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please --- Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Oswald miscellany
Composite followup to three messages. [Oswald] : I see in the Scotman that there is a music festival soon in Crail. An : obvious opportunity for an ensemble specialising in the music of one : of the Scottish masters of the baroque and traditional styles. I wonder : whether the organisers even know or care? Rob McKillop posted here a couple of years ago about his attempts to interest them in an event devoted to Oswald's music. They said we'd rather have a slide show about Antarctic penguins or something to that effect. [Bruce Olson's list of now-traditional tunes Oswald composed] * That's all that come to the top of my mind at present, but I'm * sure others can add more to this short list. According to Manson in Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, The Hen's March to the Midden comes from Fortunatus, the unfinished opera that was Oswald's last work. I haven't seen it, the nearest copy to me is in Dundee. [Caledonian Pocket Companion] I heard that someone was going to publish a facsimile, but haven't seen it yet - any news? If not, a good project for Jack maybe? There are, I think, two such projects. They started as one, but the parties involved had a terminal disagreement of some sort (I don't know the details and don't want to). I was talking to Alistair Hardie at the launch party for David Johnson's reprint, and he said his CPC edition was going ahead, with somebody doing detailed notes on all the tunes. He didn't give any dates. As Rob MacKillop posted here on 9 May 2001: + The Hardie Press are to publish the Cally Pocket Companion later + this year. I'm more interested in the popular-culture end of things at the moment, which is why I'm doing Aird - his books were practical tools, not the almost-coffee-table stuff that most facsimile publishers like doing. Another reason for sticking to collections of fairly short pieces is they're the ones where my CD-ROM design is most effective - you often won't need to print them out at all, and if you do you've got all the advantages of having individual sheets. And I'm hoping that the more different CD-ROMs I have available the sooner the music-book-buying public gets the idea and starts digging in its collective pocket. One is a what is that thing?, two is oh, you've done that too?, three starts to look like a product category. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Modal Tunes (but seriuosly)
I used to think that modal composition was primarily found in celtic music. However since I started exploring other traditional genres of music, I'm finding modes to be very common in everything except Western European Art music. Art music always used modal systems until about 1600; there was a sharp drop in their use between Bach's time and the late 19th century, but composers picked up on folk modality in a big way again around 1900 (e.g. Sibelius) and now people like Steve Reich use modality to a more obsessional extent than anybody in the folk world. And any composer quoting a chant melody (i.e. anybody writing religious music) had to deal with its modal character whatever their own style might have been like. For me, Mahler's way of blending Wagnerian-chromatic art music with central European modal folk works a damn sight better than Corrina Hewat's attempts to create Scottish-trad cool jazz. Jazzers are the people who *really* don't get it. Coincidentally I've just been listening to Blumen-Strauss, a set of organ suites from around 1700 by J.C.F. Fischer. There's one suite for each of the eight church modes (each suite with several movements; together with another set of pieces in all keys, the CD has 89 tracks for 78 minutes of music. Is this a record?) So even as long after the Renaissance as that, the idea of doing modes systematically was still seen as a challenge. It's just about impossible to tell where Fischer is quoting church music, where he's using Czech folk music and where he just made it up. BTW, anybody know where Schubert got the main theme for the Quartettsatz in C minor? - it's very similar to Highland Harry but as far as I know he had no contact with the Scottish-music-arrangement business. American country music spends a lot of time in the Major pentatonic and dorian modes. Doesn't American country music have Irish and Scottish roots via immigration to the Appalachian region? And English roots. Breandan Breathnach has some numbers on this: he found no difference between the relative frequency of modes in English, Irish and Scottish tunes. The best documentation of this stuff is for songs rather than instrumental music - see Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, for example. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Arrochar
Has anyone been hiking in Arrochar? Is there a bridge there?
Not so as you'd notice. There's one carrying the railway over the
road midway between Arrochar and Tarbert, and doubtless a few small
ones, but nothing spectacular. I can't even imagine where you'd
want to put a big bridge near Arrochar.
{This is the title of a tune recorded by the Five MacDonalds,
who were fiddlers from Cape Breton).
There wouldn't be an Arrochar in CB that's got one?
I recently looked up another local bridge tune, a waltz called
Lugton Brig. From my guess of the date, it's most likely to
optimistically commemorate a bridge that was designed in 1840
to replace one in Dalkeith, but never built. There seems to be
a category of virtual bridge tunes. (As I point out on my
Dalkeith pages, Dalkeith Maiden Bridge is not at all that it
seems, either).
Scottish music can't be alone in celebrating things that never
happened - I'm sure given the 19th century US's industriousness
in writing music for electoral candidates, there must have been
many songs or hornpipes written to mark the victories of people
who eventually lost. (The most-played of these commemorative
pieces now is President Garfield's Hornpipe, and much good it
did him).
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music.
off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please
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[scots-l] the rest of this song?...
Having got back from Newcastleton on Sunday and still feeling the obvious aftereffects, having cleaned out all the antihistamines in the house, I've been trying to remember the rest of this Andy Stewart song... The midges, the midges I'm no gonna kid yiz The midges is really the limit With teeth like piranhas They'll drive you bananas If you let them get under your semmit. Anyone? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] David Johnson reprint
Just a short note to say that Mercat Press in Edinburgh (who used to be part of the James Thin book empire, which went spectacularly bust last year) have reprinted David Johnson's Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century. ISBN 1-854183-049-6. Paperback, price 12.99 (or thereabouts; that was what it was going for at the launch party last night and I don't think it was discounted). It's a reprint of the original 1972 edition with a new introduction and some new reference material. Try www.mercatpress.com for more info. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] I'm back, and the next project
Not knowing what kind of limbo my subscription had gone to, I didn't want to resubscribe immediately in case something went horribly wrong, but just using the normal route seems to have worked. I've updated a few of my web pages and added one for the next CD-ROM I'm going to publish, all 1200 tunes from James Aird's six books: http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/aird/. Comments in advance about features you'd like (e.g. from people who've got one of the others) are welcome. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files and CD-ROMs of Scottish music. off-list mail to j-c rather than scots-l at this site, please Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] change of address
I am sending this to four lists I subscribe to. I will be signing off these lists under my present address, hopefully resubscribing under a new one when I get back from holiday; this address has now become completely unusable due to spam (about 300 spams a day, requiring a filter update before every single download) and will be inactivated in a few days as I change my mail delivery mechanism. I will then have no way to know what has been sent to the address I'm writing from now, and I'm not sure if you'll even get a bounce message if you use it. You can get to me off-list by emailing j-c at this site; that address will persist indefinitely (the worst I've had sent to it is a few viruses from friends with regrettable tastes in software). I won't be using it for any mailing list, though - it seems that no list is proof against bozos leaking bits of it out to the web where it can be spidered for From: lines. (Obscure as it is, the woodenflute list has been hit that way recently; my woodenflute userid, invalidated a year ago and unused since, has started getting spams over the last month). Other addresses I use are unaffected by this. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Sands of Kuwait
One of my students has asked me for a tune, The Sands of Kuwait. I think I might have it on a record somewhere, but I can't remember where. Does anyone have a transcription of it that they can let me have? If you can listen to tonight's Take the Floor - it's on-demand from the Radio Scotland website for the next week - you can hear the Gary Forrest band playing it. Strange-sounding tune, it comes across as if the whole thing was based on a pipe cadence figure. === 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
Re: [scots-l] Kilsyth?
Anyone been to Kilsyth? I have a friend who lives there now, says it's boring, in his thick Glasgowegian brogue. Is he right? :-) He's probably just spoilt by the cultural buzz and 24/7 excitement of Cumbernauld next door. I think the nearest regular Scottish music is Fintry one way and Falkirk folk club the other. === 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
Re: [scots-l] Re: Looking for a tune
Thank you for the correction! I just started using a new program and didn't realize I had not made the adjustment. Big improvement, but you still haven't quite beaten it - superfluous X- header lines and too much quoted (and double-spaced) text. The default settings you started with appear to imply that IncrediMail must be the only mail client in the universe that makes Outlook Express look good. Nigel posted... X:518 T:Brilliancy Medley D:Eck Robertson, Master Fiddler Z:Nigel Gatherer M:4/4 L:1/8 K:A (3efg | a2 ga f2 eg | aecA BA F2 | A,2 C2 dA,CA, | B,2 E2 G2 eg | aecA Bcde | aecA BA F2 | A,CEG A2 f2 | ecBGA2 :| (3EFG | Ab c2 GABG | FEFG AGFE | D2 FD C2 EC | B,A,B,C DCB,C | A,CEF A2 cA | BABc d2 cB | ABce fgaf | edcBA2 :| Is that high B in bar 9 for real, or an octave-out slip? (Those are exasperatingly easy to make in ABC, it's the main source of error in the notation). === 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
[scots-l] Benjamin Franklin on Scottish music
I happened to come across Benjamin Franklin's Dissertation upon Scottish Music this week - grandiloquent title for one page of speculations that reads like a Usenet post. I'd expected to find it on the web (e.g. as part of a collected Franklin site) but can't; I might type it in next week if it doesn't turn up. He has an interesting idea. He thought that the oldest Scottish music was mainly derived from harp repertoire; specifically, harps that play without damping. This, he thought, had implications for its underlying harmonic structure; instead of being organized guitar-accompanist style with every moment in the music having a definite chord, and the melody placed above that, he thought that the harmony arose from *successive* tones in the music - each note harmonizing with its predecessors, and the sequence of intervals being chosen to make this work, which implies a preference for melodic intervals wider than a tone. Now this can't entirely work, as string damping must have been practiced from very early times, and ignoring the possibility that some tunes might be of purely vocal origin is nuts. But it does connect with Scottish music's tendency to arpeggiate, and maybe it *does* work the way he thought it did for a subclass of tunes. What would the repertoire of Scottish tunes that could be played effectively on an undamped wire harp be composed of? === 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
Re: [scots-l] Scots Music Quiz
I would need books to answer most of those (especially number 10), which is cheating, but I suspect the answer you're going to give to this one is the wrong way round: Finally, what are the original Scottish tunes on which the following are based: 20. The Gallowglass (Ireland) Surely it's more likely that the Irish jig (or perhaps a march version thereof) came first? There is another lament by a relative of the composer of that one, also based on an Irish tune, where the Irish version was printed in the same book the Scottish one first appeared in (thanks to Charlie Gore for pointing that out, in an issue of Box and Fiddle last year). I think it was in print elsewhere before the subject of the lament died. Amazingly, the OED (first edition) doesn't have gallowglass. When would they have been topical enough to have the tune named (or renamed) after them? These two tunes work well together - you're usually going to surprise the whole audience because hardly anybody knows both the Irish and the Scottish one. (The third one in the family - see my Dalkeith site - is much less played than the other two). === 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
Re: [scots-l] Re: More Scottish fiddle questions
For Something Totally Different, try J.F. Dickie (dunno what might be currently available; not much, at a guess). There was a casstte, which I think I have, which combined previously unissued Dickie recordings with tracks by his grandson (?). Also, Sleepytown are going to reissue the Topic LP of Dickie's stuff soon. It's an acquired taste in my opinion, but it's an interesting document of that particular style. Mary Anne Alburger is working on a PhD about J.F. Dickie (or maybe has already finished it). So there should be at least a full discography at the end of that. Dickie was one of the musicians from the past it would have been most interesting to have on the net (like Peter Milne with his crossposts to alt.drugs.hard, Skinner probably spamming the whole of Usenet with every new tune because genius does what it must, and William Marshall, webmaster to the Duke of Gordon, whose meticulously coded site would be googled the world over for its resources on sundial mathematics, falconry, amateur track-and-field and clock repair). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Pet Peeves in the playing of certain tunes.
Another pet hate is Da Slockit Light which I regard as a lament. When our fiddlers get hold of it it becomes a jolly canter. I don't know how much of that is simply my feeling, or if others just think I'm being pernickety. But Da Slocket Light *IS* a lament and should be played as one! But the way Tom Anderson himself played it was faster than any other performance I've heard. I prefer it slow too; bugger the composer's intentions. But unlike Nigel I prefer The Burning of the Piper's Hut as a flat-out reel. === 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
Re: [scots-l] Location (source) for pdf-piping.pdf.
Sometine ago I downloaded a pdf file from a www site which I have forgotten. The file is pdf-piping.pdf and is 1,675 KB. It includes about 60 pages of Scottish tunes arranged according to scales or modes. It seems to be a piping tutorial. I would like to pass on the source of the file to some friends but I cannot find it on the www. The first tune in the file is The Diatonic Pitch Set and the White Note Pitch Set This is followed by a page of scales. The first real tunes appear on page 2 and they are Duncan Gray and Corn Riggs. The last tune in the file is the OSLO WALTZ Does this ring a bell with anyone? I would really like to know where this file is located on the web. This is somebody's adaptation of the modes tutorial on my website - which is a single file of text with embedded ABC tunes, and hence only about 140K for 200 tunes plus commentary. I would like to know who the idiot was who decided to make that version publicly available without referencing my site, crediting me or including any of my text (which is the point of the whole damn thing). It isn't just aimed at piping: I included as many genres of Scottish music as I could, though I do make a specific point of analyzing pipe tunes. A couple of the harpists on this list have found it a useful pedagogical tool. It should help you get more music out of any diatonic instrument. If you ever find where the PDF came from, let me know so I can get the omissions fixed. My guess is that what happened was that somebody ran the whole thing through a tool that transformed the tunes while omitting the text, and by some typical internet Chinese-whispers degradation process, that ended up on the web as if it was the intended product. Since my server (Demon) is as fast as any, the net result is that readers of this copy will typically end up with ten times the download time for less information. I think Homer Simpson has a word for that. If you have a Mac, try it with BarFly; the audio interaction will tell you more and quicker than working through printed scores. ABCMus on Windows will be nearly as good (but it doesn't do highlighted playback). - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Brilliant name for a shop
There was a shop in Edinburgh which sold secondhand angling equipment and secondhand musical instruments. It was called Scayles (and still exists as a music shop). They could of course have called themselves Reels. Or Dr Hook. (The transparent green plastic recorder I'm playing in one of the pictures on my website came from them; it works very well for five quids' worth). + There is a sign outside the shop advertising this new section; Pet + Sounds. I think that is just perfect! Am I showing my age or what? I needed reminding. Couldn't identify the song (though I must have heard it when it came out) but the name was vaguely familiar. : All Pets now does quite well with Pet Sounds and - I kid you not - : has sold two Xaphoons... TWO of those buggers sold in one small : town - I couldn't even manage to demonstrate one at Sandy Bell's : this afternoon. Two notes and the cry was raised to get the thing : off me. I think you should reposition your market; they could be a useful diagnostic tool for ENT departments. (Having entirely failed to get a squeak out of it, I now know exactly what went wrong with my surgery...) Interesting idea but I don't see how anybody could play it accurately in tune: very short, no tuning barrel, no adjustable ligature, and a fiercely hard reed that would give you no lip control of the pitch at all. David brought some of his Romanian-made twangy things to Bell's; I hadn't seen them before. Solidly built, do exactly what he says they should, and in particular stay in tune. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] astonishing key for a jig
This one seems never to have made it into a book; at least it isn't
in Charlie Gore's index.
None of the single sheets or four-page publications are in Gore.
I knew that - the point I was making was that no anthologist seems
to have picked up the tune and renamed it; I can;t see anything that
might be it in Gore under any other name in any key. It's fairly
unusual to find a tune in a sheet like this that doesn't occur in
*some* form in a book. The Persian Dance from the same sheet did
get into the repertoire, via George Cameron, despite being less
melodically interesting.
Presumably all the anthologists took one look at the key signature
and thought omigod, commercial death. There is a saying in the
publishing world that for popular science books, every equation you
include cuts the sales by 10% - the same is probably true of key
signatures with more than 3 sharps or 2 flats in the field of tune
books.
Skinner also published tunes in two- or three-tune sets which aren't
listed. If I remember correctly, well-known tunes such as The Spey
in Spate can't be found in Gore.
That's partly because it came too late for his cutoff date; maybe
Murdoch Henderson was the first person to put it in a book?
The Gow-published sheets of this kind are numerous, and I've had a look
at a great many in Perth
I think by now I must have seen at least one copy of every one that
still exists, either at the NLS, Dundee, Perth or the Mitchell. While
I was researching the CD-ROM I often found myself sitting next to a
bloke who was doing a systematic bibliography of all the Gows' work,
going through these sheets with a transillumination light to check the
watermarks; he told me he started that only after independently doing
a lot of what Charlie did without realizing there was anyone else doing
such work. So he switched direction a bit. I haven't seen him for
about three years and have no idea what he's done with his research.
One very interesting sheet is Largo's Fairy Dance which turns out to
be a suite of two tunes: The Fairies Advancing - a slow march - and
The Fairy Dance, both composed by Nathaniel Gow for the Fife Hunt in
about 1802.
I didn't note down the way it appears there, but here is how it looked
when it was first published in book form, which probably wasn't very
different:
X:1
T:Largo's Fairy Dance
C:Nath. Gow
S:Niel Gow, Fifth Collection
B:NLS Glen.408(1)
M:2/4
L:1/8
K:C
z|({cd}e2) ec|e2 ec |({cd}e2) ec | BG dB |
({cd}e2) ec| (fe)dc | BG dB| c2 C :|
f|({ef}g2) ge|{^g}a2 a=g| (Tfe).f.d|({ef}g2)gf |
{f}edec|A2 fd| BGAB | c2 cf |
({ef}g2) ge|{^g}a2 a=g|Tfefd | {^f}g2 g=f|
{f}edec |A2 fd| BGAB | c2 C |]
That would create a few puzzled expressions in a session...
=== http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ ===
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[scots-l] Ale Moller's cow horn
I heard (I think on Travelling Folk) a snippet of Aly Bain and Ale Moller playing together last week. At one point, Aly played one of my favourite tunes, Da Day Dawn, with Ale introducing it on what he described as a cow horn. If I remember right he only played the first half (plagal A dorian, staying within the octave), perhaps because the second half was beyond the range of the instrument. What kind of instrument was that? It didn't sound like it was playing in harmonics like most trumpet-family horn instruments. There is also a cow-horn instrument which is acoustically an ocarina (a variant of the gemshorn, which is traditionally made from ibex horn), and it's easy enough to play that part of the tune on an ocarina (I just tried), but the timbre of Ale's axe wasn't anything like that. Another option might be something related to the cornetto, i.e. a brass-family instrument with fingerholes, and the timbre suggested that. But I didn't think it was even possible to make fingerholes work on a horn with such a wide bore, and Ale's playing had virtually none of the sliding-onto-the-note that cornetto players usually have to do. There is another musical cow horn I've heard Robin Huw Bowen play, the Welsh pibgorn, which is like a pipe chanter with an open windcap - double reed, but it's at the bottom of a funnel of horn, your lips don't touch it directly (and the other horn is used as a bell at the far end, making the instrument symmetric). I didn't hear a double reed sound in Ale's thing. Anybody seen him do this live? What sort of instrument is it? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Tune Id?
The only idea I have that it ain't Scottish (or Irish), or if it is, it's a recent composition fashioned to an Eastern European sound. Well, this was defined as trad Irish in a primary school songbook, but no one ever heard of it on any list I posted it to just out of curiosity. I added something to fill in your missing beat: X:1 T:??? C:??? Q:1/4=200 M:4/4 L:1/8 K:E Minor B,B,|G2GG FE^DE|B,6 B,B,|E2F2 G2A2 |(B4 B2) GA |B2cB A2 BA|G2AG F2 GA |B2 EE GFE^D| E6 :| B,B,|E^DEF G2 FG|AGFE ^D2 B,2 |E^DEF GFGA | B6 GA |B2cB A2 BA|G2AG F2 GA |B2 EE GFE^D| E6 :| Maybe it's a klezmer tune? The scale is a gapped variant of melodic minor - E ^F G A B c ^d e going up, e c B A G ^F E going down - perhaps John Chambers could put a name to that? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] simple tunes for young fiddlers
Anyway, I don't think it's any sillier than Squirrel in the Tree jig. Oh no, I was waiting for that Squirrel in the tree jig to come up. Sandy MacIntyre would play that jig at the Gaelic college and laugh. To my horror, other people got excited and wanted to know what that tune was.. ABC please... Dunno the connotations that might have, I assume there's something I'm missing. I had a similar experience when I asked on rec.music.folk for an ABC or MIDI of the Gilligan's Island theme tune; this turns up a lot in Usenet discussions, usually in the context of you can sing X to the theme from Gilligan's Island, but I've never seen the programme and have no idea what the tune is. The concept that there might be people who didn't know it seemed a bit much for the collective mind of rec.music.folk to handle. (I offered a swap for the theme from The Archers, but r.m.f didn't seem to know what that was either...) Another place this came up was when I heard an American fiddler play If I Had a Brain from The Wizard of Oz in the middle of a schottische set. To an American it was probably funny. To someone from this side of the pond it was a wozzat? - I must have heard it before but couldn't remember it then and can't now. (At least with that one, I do know where to find the music if I ever need it). === 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
Re: [scots-l] Maggie Cameron
Okay here's a set question. The problem here is too many choices, as opposed to not enough choices. What do you guys play after Maggie Cameron? I'm looking for a reel in A. Mrs MacPherson of Inveran. === 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
Re: [scots-l] Tunes that go with Jean's reel
If you are still looking for tunes that set well with Jean's Reel... My current preference is a set consisting of Charlie Lennon's air The Parting followed by Sheehan's and then Jean's Reel. I haven't yet found any good D(mix), D(dor) or D(min) tunes that fit together with Jean's quite as well as these do. I think they'd make an awesome set for a box player. Give it a try and let me know what you think. As far as I know, box players always do Jean's Reel in F. I don't play it, but it seems to me that Lochleven Castle (A minor) ought to go quite well with it. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Tam Reid
I was told today that Tam Reid died last week - went out to see to his sheep in a blizzard; his wife found him dying in the snow a few hours later, and the weather stopped the emergency services getting through fast enough to help. Apparently there were something about it in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, anybody see it? I can't find anything on the web. A very fine singer; I'm posting this to two lists and I think there are people on both who knew him well. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] player pianos
Interesting that Scott Joplin comes up at this time. I'm taking a course on the History of Jazz, and we just listened to what is probably the same recording. It's a scratchy 78 RPM recording of Maple Leaf Rag from a player piano playing a roll recorded by Joplin. I actually heard it before the piano player was identified, and my reaction was this is awful! The left hand accompaniment was clunky and overpowering. I was extremely surprised when I heard that the artist was Joplin himself. But when I learned it was from a piano roll, I realized what had happened. Player pianos are not able to reproduce dynamics, and all the subtleties of expression have been wiped out! There are two kinds of player piano technology. The cheap rolls used by domestic pianolas (like the one I've got but haven't got working) were intended to have tempo and dynamics added by the user. The very much more expensive reproducing pianos like the Welte-Mignon system encoded everything, and are about as accurate a representation of what the pianist was doing as a CD and a lot better than MP3 (the only thing they couldn't get was Glenn Gould's groans). Pianola rolls usually don't name a pianist, they were an encoding effort like ABC and the only instruments you need to know how to play are a punch and a sharp knife. Neither is better than the other - the pianola was intended to allow creative input after you bought the recording, which makes it an interesting category of musical production. I thought Joplin's recordings were done on Welte-Mignons? In that case, assuming the equipment was adjusted right for both recording and playback, they will be *exactly* what he meant. And if they don't sound like Fats Waller, too bad, maybe he didn't *want* to sound like that. There is no earthly point in listening to a 78 of a piano roll, whether pianola or reproducing piano. The equipment still exists, the rolls still exist, so they can be played live or re-recorded onto present-day media. There are probably zillions of pianola and reproducing piano websites. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: ABC question
Toby wrote: I've long since given up on getting precise accuracy out of abc's. It's a pleasant surprise when they're dead on, and you always know who's abcs will usually be perfect. Usually Jack's are spot-on, because precision seems to be an important element of his personality. If Nigel was listening to what I was up to in trying to get through Margaret's Waltz on the ud last Wednesday I think he can testify that I am not one to let the possibility of missing a note get in the way... There are two reasons why I do ABC that way. One is that I've been on electronic forums for nearly 20 years and seen what happens if you let even a slight ambiguity past - it's just quicker to get it right first time than field the questions if you slip. The other is that once I saw what ABC was about I decided to stick to doing stuff nobody else was doing, either in print or electronically, and do it so that nobody would ever need to redo it. I'm in a fortunate position for access to the major paper sources for Scottish music, and it seems only fair to the people who aren't that I shouldn't tease them by giving a rough approximation to something they'd either need to visit Scotland to look at or else pay a fortune in photocopying fees if they wanted the real scoop. Most of the time though, I just use them to either give me a rough idea of the notes, or else to confirm what I think I've figured the notes out to be, off the recording.. We should be so lucky - take something like The Fine Old Man versus Gladstone's Hornpipe on my Dalkeith site - it's a great gutsy tune but it seems nobody but me has ever heard of it, and I doubt there's any recording. (I'd quite to be told of recordings of tunes I've transcribed, so I can add the discographic stuff: I can't afford to buy recordings any more except occasionally from charity shops, so my main source of info about the world of recorded music is the radio). Steve Wyrick wrote: : JC's abc text file does match the midi file so I assume there's : a glitch in the software Jack used to produce the gif file. You have some wires crossed, I didn't produce any GIF that Rita looked at. - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: ABC question
I got a copy of Rose Among the Heather from the Chambers website. HOWEVER, it has, if you look at the GIF file, only 1/8th notes. However,if you play the midi file, it has 1/16th's and dotted 1/8/s. What's going on? As I recall it, the tune, despite being a strathspey, has only forward-dotted note pairs like a hornpipe. Some MIDI-generating programs have an option to interpret even-length notes in hornpipe fashion, particularly if the transcriber puts R:hornpipe in the header; a lot of people who transcribe hornpipes count on their software to do this for them. So I'd guess that's what's been done here; somebody's thought might as well get this interpreted as a hornpipe to save a bit of typing. There are two versions of that tune. I prefer the pipers' one but it's almost unrecognizably different from the fiddlers' version. Is there a song behind both? - Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes, Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Gudewife, admit the wanderer
Gudewife, admit the wanderer is something I've never heard sung. The idea of the text (by Captain Charles Gray, R.M., F.S.A. Scot.) is a good one: an aged follower of Prince Charlie who's gone with him after his defeat is knocking at a door and asking for a nook to lie down and die in after his task has been done - and I could imagine it being an effective song if it had a decent tune. But the tune by Finlay Dun just plods. Someone once told me there was a Gaelic version of it sung to The Bob of Fettercairn (strange choice for such a dark subject but better than Dun's thing). Anyone know it? === 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
Re: [scots-l] Cumbernauld House
Oswald himself specialised in guittar (English guittar) which has a
sound like a very quiet harp or lyre. It's also a very easy instrument
to write music with, as it transposes and the tuning forms two major
chords (CEGceg, GBDgbd or AC#Eac#e normally).
Here's the tune, in the vocal version from the Scots Musical Museum -
I don't have Oswald's original handy. How easy is it on the guitar?
I suspect there isn't much difference from Oswald; Johnson didn't
often simplify instrumental tunes to make them more singer-friendly.
X:38
T:Where winding Forth adorns the vale
T:Cumbernauld-house
S:SMM no. 142
M:C
L:1/8
K:G %Transposed from F
GA|(BA) (Bd) {c}B2 AG|ED EG A2 Bd| e2 (ge) (dB) (AG)|E2 GA G3A|
BA Bd {c}B2 AG |ED EG A2 Bd|(ed) (eg) (dB) (AG)|E2 GA G2||
BA|GABcd3e |(dB) AG d2 gf| efga {g}f2ed |B2 ef e3f|
(gf) (eTd) B2 (e3/f//g//)|(dB) TAG A2 Bd |(ed) (Be) (dB) (AG)|E2 (GA) G2|]
The Scots Musical Museum would have been a far more accessible source
for Bewick to use than Oswald's original, which had not been reprinted
for 90 years.
-
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack * food intolerance data recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM Embro, Embro.
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
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