> 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
