Jack writes: | > Mairi's Wedding: is that Scottish? | | Yes. It's based (I'm told) on an older Gaelic song, "Mhairi nighean | a Donnachaidh", but I don't know it. Mairi still alive, I think; the | song was written for a specific wedding in the 1930s. There is a | specific dance for it, but you could use it for any reel. It's a | nice tune but the words (which I think were first written in English, | don't blame the Gaels for it) are crap.
If you ask google about "Mairi's Wedding birthday" you'll get pointers to a number of copies of an article from about 2 years ago, about Mary McNiven's 90th birthday. She was the one the tune and song and dance were written for. She was a young singer and step dancer back then, and in the 20's a friend wrote the tune as a gift. Another friend wrote lyrics, in Gaelic (but it was soon translated poorly to English ;-). The song was about her, but didn't mention a Wedding, since that was still about 5 years off, and then the song got rewritten for the occasion. The dance was made up by a third friend, for the wedding IIRC. Anyway, she's still around, and still singing and dancing. One warning about playing it for dancing: The dance is a 40-bar reel. When sung, it's a 16-bar song, AB. You need 5 phrases to fit the dance. The usual pattern is ABABB, though sometimes the last B is modified to have a proper ending on the tonic. Musicians not used to playing for SCD may find this confusing. If you medley it with other tunes (marches work best), you'll want to find tunes that work with a 5x8-bar phrasing. Some do, and some don't. This is one case where the common practice of changing tunes for every round of the dance actually helps the musicians. You effectively play each tune 2.5 times, in whatever pattern makes most sense for that tune. Sometimes ABABA works better than ABABB. Sometimes AABBB is best. When you see the dancers doing the last figure (circle left then right), you know to change to the next tune. If your musicians haven't played your chosen tunes together, you'll want to write the repeat pattern in LARGE letters above each tune. This may be the best-known Scottish Country Dance in the repertoire. (And it would be one with a funny length. ;-) Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
