Re: [scots-l] Re: Crossed Keys?
Dominique Renaudin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The same company that made that box still exists today, and is now mainly producing accordions under the Weltmeister brand name, though they also use the name Harmona on some instruments. Oh. My box is a 72-bass »Weltmeister« (»world champion« in English) piano accordion that I picked up at a music shop bankruptcy sale a few years ago. It's a neat little thing although Phil Cunningham would probably not go into a swoon over it. I'm not really much of a box player myself (for »work« I prefer my keys to be horizontal) but it's good fun annoying the neighbours every so often :^) Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lord, grant that we may always be right -- for thou knowest we'll never change our minds. -- Old Scottish Prayer 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: Scottish Fiddlers
Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Although I'm a dancer as well as a fiddler, John Taylor Andy Imbrie's 'Live' is one of the few CDs of Scottish Country Dance music that I like to listen to apart from dancing (and it would have been on my favorites list if Bob hadn't already mentioned John Taylor). I second that -- and while we're talking SCD fiddlers another one that should be mentioned is Keith Smith, who has recorded with Muriel Johnstone and is also very good (as well as great company). Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] To design a successful computer language nowadays, you have to think about how people think. Language design is 10% science and 90% psychology. -- Larry Wall 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] A Fiddler's Book of Scottish Jigs
Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Official RSCDS tempo is 110-112, although I find in practice it can vary somewhat depending on the figures in the dance and the skill and stamina of the dancers! As well as the type of occasion, the condition of the floor, the temperature in the room, the time of day (or, rather, night) etc. etc. ... Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] It's utter rubbish. The only reason they manage to sell it at all is because they're Microsoft. No other company could sell software this bad. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED], on Windows CE 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] Postie's Jig
Jerry Agin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The original source for the dance seems to be Omskirk Scottish Dances Book 5. At this point I'm going to go ahead and use Cardiff Caledonians to lead off a set for Postie's Jig. But my curiosity has been aroused. Can anyone add anything to what I've found? The Ormskirk book doesn't seem to contain sheet music but I could send you ABC for the set that I play, which starts with »Lassie come and dance with me« which I transcribed off a CD. The other tune, I hesitate to say, is John Philip Sousa's »Liberty Bell March«. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] With diligence, it is possible to make anything run slowly. -- Tom Duff 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] traditional tune names?
John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [Mairi's Wedding] This may be the best-known Scottish Country Dance in the repertoire. It may or may not be but it is certainly well-known enough that one would use the particular tune for it and for it *only*. Dancers will be very surprised indeed to hear another tune put forward for the dance, Mairi's Wedding, or to encounter the Mairi's Wedding tune as the lead tune for another dance. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] If everyone is thinking alike, no one is thinking. -- General George S. Patton, Jr. 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] Charles the Twelfth King of Sweden
Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hmmm, I didn't think of this one when I saw the original request. I do both SCD and Scottish Step and am familiar with this dance although it isn't in our current repertoire. I may have the steps for the RSCDS's version written down somewhere if this is what the requestor is after. Jack, out of curiosity, what are the other 3 dances in this pamphlet? If it's the RSCDS leaflet, the other three are Flora Macdonald's Fancy, Scotch Measure and the Earl of Errol. All of those except for the King have been taken over by the »national dances« crowd, so if you get one of the books that competitive highland dancers use they should be in there (in subtly different versions). The RSCDS leaflet is no longer in the publications list on http://www.rscds.org/, but it would seem to be worthwhile to ask them whether they have any spare copies lying around, or would be willing to make one upon request. It can't be out of print all that long as I can remember seeing it in the list, and I've also seen copies of the actual leaflet that looked very modern and brand-new. I suppose that a fusion of ballet and Highland dance is a pretty good way of describing Step Dancing, at least as the RSCDS does it. I always thought that the main difference between Step and Highland is that there tends to be more movement horizontally (around the floor) and less vertically (i.e., the steps tend to be done lower to the ground) than in Highland. Highland dancing, if you ask the purists, consists of just the Fling, the Seann Truibhas, the sword dance and the Strathspey Highland Reel. There are lots and lots of highland-like dances, some of which have been recently devised and some of which go back at least 200 years or so. This includes the so-called »national dances«, most of which originally appeared during the second half of the 19th century (but have since been modified so much that their inventors would hardly recognize them any longer). In their current versions, some of these are very much like »genuine« highland dances (e.g., Barracks Johnnie), and others are quite balletic indeed even though they still incorporate lots of highland-type movements (e.g., Blue Bonnets O'er the Border). The Fletts, of Scottish dance history scholarship fame, have published a scholarly book called »Traditional Step-Dancing of Scotland« which examines the history of many of the well-known and not so well-known dances. In particular, a fair number of the dances used to be done in »hard shoes« rather than the soft pumps now in use for RSCDS-style country dancing and competitive highland dancing. The King of Sweden and the Earl of Errol are examples of these, as the »trebles« are most fun if you actually get to tap out the rhythm on the floor for people to hear. The kind of dancing that the RSCDS crowd goes for, e.g., during their (our?) annual summer school in St. Andrews is what they call »ladies' step dancing«, which involves soft shoes only, as well as white dresses and a tinkling piano. Very genteel, and not to be confused with the »Scottish step dancing« that is now coming back into fashion in Scotland by way of Cape Breton. Ladies' step dancing is what the girls get to do in place of Highland, which at RSCDS Summer School is boys only (age 16-99), thank you very much, ma'am. And of course neither of that has anything whatever to do with competitive highland dancing as done at highland games. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill. -- Robert Heller 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] Highland Cathedral
Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I been looking (fruitlessly) for some background to the tune Highland Cathedral by Michael Korb Ulrich Roeve. Can anyone tell me more, or point me to a likely source? According to http://www.rampantscotland.com/let010818.htm: | The pipe-tune, amazingly, was written by two Germans, Uli Roever and | Michael Korb. The words and music are intended to emphasise the feeling | of a National Anthem. The story goes that, under the reign of King James | I of Scotland, all clan chiefs were asked to meet in a secret place, the | Highland Cathedral, to pledge an ending to their constant feuding, and | live in peace. This they did and peace reigned but, alas, only for as | long as the king lived. I seem to have heard somewhere that Messrs. Roever and Korb hail from Berlin, but don't know how reliable this is. I've sent a message to the pipe major of the local pipe band, who have recorded HC on their latest CD (which pipe band hasn't, anyway?). Maybe they, being rather big shots in the German bagpipe scene, know something we don't. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. -- Stephen Wright 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] Tempi
Steve Wyrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: how does a devisor decide if a dance should be a jig or a reel? Are there figures that work better for one or the other or is it just a matter of personal preference? I suppose this is really a question for the strathspey list! I suppose so (and feel free to re-ask it there), but in a nutshell there are no hard-and-fast rules of the form »poussette always goes with reel time«. There are various observations that one could make which may either be »tradition« or pure coincidence, but there are lots of dances that disprove any rule that one could postulate from those observations. Let's discuss this on Strathspey, where some of the big names in dance devising (such as Iain Boyd) might be tempted to throw in their 2¢. Just one thing: If you could ask Hugh Foss (who of course is no longer with us), he would tell you that to devise a dance, you pick a tune first and then come up with suitable movements that fit the twists, turns and rhythms of the tune. Try to get hold of Foss's booklet, _Roll back the carpet_; there are some very interesting little essays in there that try to explore the connections between some dances and their music. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your buggestions are welcome. -- Richard Stallman, *GNU Emacs Manual* 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] Tempi
Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I think as you said we need Anselm or David South to come in with their thoughts now. SCD strathspeys are at 116 »ticks« per minute or so if you let your metronome tick four times per bar. (I'm desperately trying to avoid the issue of »beats« to the bar -- the SCD teacher in me says that the strathspey step is really four beats rather than two. Marches have two beats per bar but not strathspeys, and with the strathspey there is a big emphasis on the 1 and a not-so-big one on the 3). 32 bars (that is, 128 »ticks«) of strathspey time at SCD speed take somewhat more than a minute or so, so you can take it from there. 116 is really quite zippy already -- except for Glasgow Highlanders, which is played a good bit faster, and some other dances involving Highland setting steps, such as »Schiehallion« or the »Garry Strathspey«. As for dancers not knowing the difference between a reel and a jig: why on earth should they? I can't see that it's very relevant to how they dance. One plays 2 or 4 notes to the beat, the other 3, but the beat remains the same, doesn't it? Nope. Most SCD dance steps are composed of four separate »actions« (such as »hop-step-close-step« or »step-beat-beat-hold«). Simplifying things somewhat for the sake of argument, in reel time, these actions take place on beats 1, 2, 3, 4 of a bar (assuming 4/4, common or cut-common time), and in jig time on beats 1, 3, 4, and 6. The RSCDS sells a nice book called »Any good tune«, by Muriel A. Johnstone (who as some of you may be aware of is the doyenne of RSCDS-style SCD music) which is targeted at beginning SCD musicians and contains a nice selection of well-known and useful country dance tunes, arranged for piano. The introduction to that book gives various hints about playing SCD music, including tempo specifications, and it says: »Tempos vary greatly according to different situations and different preferences. A metronome marking lying between half note = 104 and half note = 112 for reel time quarter note = 104 and quarter note = 116 for strathspey time dotted quarter = 104 and dotted quarter = 112 for jig time would cover most dancers' needs from the expert demonstration dancer to young children learning; from a formal ball to a barn dance. Tempo is not something that should become an obsession since music that has powerful rhythm and good lift swings along and brings the dancers with it, even at a relaxed speed. [...] It is important to remember that a VERY SLIGHT [Muriel's emphasis] alteration in the speed of the music can make an enormous difference to the dancers. [...] If you notice people struggling to balance and dancing ahead of the music then the speed is too slow. If the dancers are repeatedly late for the next figure of the dance and look rushed and ungainly with a loss of any accuracy in the steps, then your music is too fast.« Mind you that this is, more or less, the official RSCDS position. You will find very popular dance bands who take their strathspeys rather a lot quicker than the suggested 116, and I have a recording of another very famous and popular band whose rendition of the 8x32 »strathspey«, The Duchess Tree, clocks in at something like 9'20, which is *way* too slow even from the RSCDS perspective. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.-- Oliver Wendell Holmes 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] Tempi
John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: (And the tune for The Yellow Haired Laddie is actually labelled minuet rather than waltz, though I'd predict that the Renaissance Dance crowd would object that the tune isn't a minuet at all. ;-) It's not a waltz, either. When that tune was new the waltz hadn't been invented yet. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] See, the story goes on and on and on. It's like a soap opera, only this soap opera is real, and has changed our world. -- Robert X. Cringely, on Microsoft, Netscape, AOL and the history of the Net 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] What makes a style Scottish?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (SUZANNE MACDONALD) writes: Altering the intervals of the most perfect instrument to those of the primitive and very imperfect one makes no musical sense nor any other sense Well, both these comments come from fiddlers so what do you expect? Of course a fiddler would regard the bagpipes as a `primitive and very imperfect' instrument -- just nine notes and so on. However a fiddle isn't any good in, e.g., battlefield-scale psychological warfare, and any piper would be forgiven if they considered a fiddle `primitive and very imperfect' on that account. In summary a note whose pitch lies about half way between G and G# is not in the equal tempered scale, is not in the just intonation scale, and does not designate a tune as Scottish. It is simply out of tune. It may be `out of tune' by your scientific definition but it may still sound right to the musicians (and audience). I have Ken Perlman's book on the fiddle music of Prince Edward Island, and his transcriptions show many instances where particular players play their notes `too sharp' or `too flat'. It's their style, and they've been doing it for ages in blissful ignorance of Messrs. Lloyd, Honeyman or Gill. I suppose you could walk up to a PEI fiddler and tell them that they're playing out of tune but chances are you would just be laughed out of the kitchen to the strains of vigorous out-of-tune fiddle music. And the same thing probably applies to Scottish fiddlers. Flattening the G# may not be a sure-fire indicator of `Scottish' styling but it is something that, for various reasons, one shouldn't be surprised to encounter in the playing of many Scottish instrumentalists, and if it does occur that usually happens on purpose rather than through sloppiness. P.S. I, Alexander, am the writer of these e-mails, not Suzanne Mac Donald. Well, if that is the case then maybe you should get your `From:' header fixed. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Anyway, a little bit of Unix mindset is good for any programmer's soul. And a bit of education never hurt anyone. -- Tom Christiansen 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] Amazing Grace
Carol Thompkins [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: As a Quaker for many years, I can guarantee you that Amazing Grace is not a Quaker hymn. Quakers don't sing at meeting except in rare instances, nor do we have hymns. I think Philip meant the Shakers, not the Quakers (slight difference!). Anyway, it's Lord of the Dance (the well-known Irish traditional song written by Sydney Carter some time during the 1960s or so) which derives from a Shaker (not Quaker) hymn called Simple Gifts. You can hear the tune in Copeland's Appalachian Spring, among other places. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Think where man's glory most begins and ends/And say my glory was I had such friends.-- William Butler Yeats, *The Municipal Gallery Re-Visited* 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] Troy's Wedding - pipe version?
Philip Whittaker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The pipers and our hosts often played Highland Cathedral which they are convinced is a traditional Scottish tune. Oh well, Over the Sea to Skye and all that. There is a tradition of non-Scots writing tunes which are readily accepted by Scots as traditional! Just wait for another century or so. By that time Highland Cathedral (which AFAIK was written recently by two chaps from Berlin) *will* be a traditional Scottish tune. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one. -- John Galsworthy 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] What makes a style Scottish?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (SUZANNE MACDONALD) writes: That is why a piano tuner has to achieve this objective by listening to the interplay between repeated fifths and fourths. Even employing this method and with infinitely more time than a fiddler has to play a single note, it has been demonstrated that the best piano tuners deviate somewhat from the ratio. This is also to do with the fact that the twelfth-root-of-two (or 1.059) ratio applies to `physically ideal' strings that have no diameter. If you look at a piano with the various lids and covers off you will find that this is obviously not true, especially for the bass notes. It turns out that a piano tuning must be `stretched' somewhat for the piano to sound in tune with itself on account of these deviations, and good piano tuners are supposed to cater for this. As a pianist, I don't know what to make of all this varied-interval business. On the one hand, I'm half glad that I don't have to worry about it; on the other hand it seems that I can't really play Scottish music, which I think is a pity :^( Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it, and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.-- Mark Twain 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 aren't in 8 bars
Jack Campin wrote: I thought, youch, that last bit sure hit the spot. [...] - a few rather obscure songs like Fee him, father, fee him. There's The Wee Cooper of Fife, which I wouldn't exactly call obscure -- it is to be found in many readily available books of Scottish folk songs. It's not a popular session tune, though (or is it?). Are there many more? Do we need to start a Movement for the Preservation of Scottish Tunes In Funny Sizes? There are two fairly well-known (recent) Scottish country dances by Hugh Foss which use non-8-bar phrases. One is The Wee Cooper of Fife, written in 10-bar phrases to the song of the same name, and the other is Cairn Edward, which is in 6-bar phrases to a specially written set of tunes (also by Foss). Apparently there are some 10-bar tunes which are suitable as alternatives for TWCoF, such as `Last May a Braw Wooer' (which incidentally is also a dance, albeit much less well-known, by John Drewry), or `O Wha's at the Window'. Some people have written their own (yours truly included). In general the idea doesn't seem to have caught on. Another dance with non-8-bar music is Tweedside, to the eponymous air, which is also in 6-bar phrases (IIRC). There is a dance to the Princess Royal (called, surprisingly enough, The Princess Royal), of which one turn is 28 bars long. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau .. [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying. -- Woody Allen 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] Music related to Scotland Winning the World Cup in the 80's
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Elheran Francis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am trying to locate information a music which may have been written and recorded on the occasion of Scotland Winning the World Cup in Football (Soccer) in the early 80's. Which century would that be? Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] People act on fear a lot, and in fear there may be a financial impact. We don't want people going and buying generators when they should be out buying jeans. -- Director of the Year-2000 project for Levi Strauss, quoted by *Infoworld* 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] Burrolling, as we posh fowk call it
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: "Surprisingly enough it WAS called exactly that when he published it in his Harp and Claymore collection in 1903. The term is almost certainly a dancing reference, although in 18th century Scotland a "Rocking" was the Lowland equivalent of the Highland "ceilidh". The rocking step is one of the canonical steps of the Highland Fling and must have been around in Skinner's time. The tune sounds reasonable for a Highland Fling as far as I'm concerned so that's probably not far off the mark. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] You're much more likely to be knocked down by a snowball than by an equivalent number of snowflakes. -- Larry Wall 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] Was Burns a racist?
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Derek Hoy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I played in a show several years ago about his life (sponsored by the Post Office :) It is crying out to be turned into a screenplay. Incidentally, there is a Scottish country dance called Indian Peter's Reel, devised by the late John Bowie Dickson and published in Dunedin Dances, book 3. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Motif is] such a PIG on memory AND cpu. Kind of like having an elephant as a house pet. -- Cary Petterborg 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: Auld auld lang syne
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], David Kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Personally I reckon Burns wrote all that stuff about paidlin in the brook. There are lots of WWW pages dealing with Burns and Auld Lang Syne. The general consensus seems to be that, although it is difficult to be sure, the Bard came up with the »We twa ...« verses and gave the rest, which he found somewhere else, a fairly thorough going-over. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] Life teaches us that there's no correlation between simple questions and simple answers. -- Larry Wall 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] Music-writing program?
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Ian Brockbank [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know there are several people on the list who typeset and publish Scottish music. What do you use for laying it out? What are the pros and cons? I use abc2ps (the vanilla version by Michael Methfessel, as of now) on a Linux PC for the music. My current project is a book of tunes in melody-plus-chords format, for which I generate EPS files out of individual ABC input files which are then included in a LaTeX document. abc2ps produces only the dots -- everything else, from the tune titles to the little stories and explanations of the tunes to the table(s) of contents, is produced by LaTeX. A makefile keeps it all together. I've been looking into the ABC-embedded-in-LaTeX idea that was bandied about here a few weeks ago and my prototype of that seems to work, but I haven't moved the book project over to that yet. I like to think that the quality of the typesetting compares favourably with that of, e.g., _To Dance To_ by Muriel Johnstone, which sucks (IMHO). I don't know what Muriel uses but I don't like it. Pros: - Reasonable-looking output for music - Top-of-the-line quality for non-music content like accompanying notes - Easy to rearrange stuff while keeping table of contents etc. consistent and up-to-date - You can generate PDF which then goes straight off to the print shop or on the Web - Dirt-cheap -- all free software Cons: - Too difficult to use for people not well-versed in LaTeX, general Unix tools (make) etc. May change once ABC-embedded-in-LaTeX gets off the ground - Requires fairly extensive and current installation, in particular for the PDF option - Unsure whether the setup will fly on a Mac My main beef with abc2ps right now is that »« comes out like -- - -- | |-| | o. o o o. (you get the idea) which doesn't look right to me -- I would much rather see something like --- | -| |- | o. o o o. Do any of the abc2ps variants offer that option? I haven't bothered to go into the code yet; I usually write »aa aa« which is still sub-optimal but doesn't hurt my eyes as much as the other thing. In my only foray into the field, I drew every note by hand in a drawing package, having tried MusicTex and Noteworthy Composer. It took a while... I suppose so! I used raw MusicTeX for my first book of dances and it is an experience I don't care to repeat. This is a job that you give to your worst enemies if you *really* want to see them suffer. I don't know Noteworthy Composer, though. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison 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] Blind fiddlers et al.
In article 004a01c03394$fef63aa0$a6ae989e@edinfolk, David Francis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Philip Whitaker can find the figures for a minuet, 'The Yellow Haired Laddie', in one of the early RSCDS books. I've seen members of the Edinburgh Renaissance Dancers dancing minuets, so they would be able to supply more info. The Yellow-Haired Laddie is in RSCDS book 12, and it has nothing whatever to do with »minuets« in the strict sense of the word. It's a country dance to minuet music (in 3/4 time). The »real« minuet is a couple dance (as opposed to a dance in a set like YHL) with rather complicated footwork (and arm movements); years ago I spent the best part of a week-end at a workshop dealing with this and it is a completely different world from country dancing. (It may also be noted that there is no way in h*** that you could learn to do the minuet properly in just a single week-end.) Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] Never learn to do anything: if you don't learn, you'll always find someone else to do it for you. -- Mark Twain 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] string materials
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The silk bit is also an example of unusual technical accuracy. Oriental soldiers have worn silk shirts for ages, for a good reason. While an arrow might penetrate the outer clothing, even if it's armored, an arrowhead usually won't cut the silk. So you can grab the shirt and pull the arrow out. The silk will have blunted the arrow's edge and retarded its penetration. You still have a serious puncture wound, but it's not a cutting wound. With a little forced bleeding to flush it out, your chances of survival are far greater than with any other cloth. On the same (non-musical) note, readers of C. S. Forester's Hornblower novels will remember that the good captain insisted on his officers wearing silk stockings instead of woolen stockings when going into battle, for much the same reasons. The rationale was that a bullet or shell fragment would carry wool particles into the wound, usually resulting in gangrene and loss of the limb in question (or life), but that wouldn't happen with silk. Hornblower, of course, was absolutely tone-deaf (in spite of his name), so those with an interest in naval fiction as well as music should stick to the late Patrick O'Brien's work :^) Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. -- Oscar Wilde, *An Ideal Husband* 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] Blue-Bell polka (Siamsa Beirte)
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I asked on irtrad-l about what my notes said was Irish, and it turns out to have originated (as far as anyone there knew) with Jimmy Shand. So I thought I'd ask the experts over here ... The issue came up on the Strathspey list just the other day, and we found out that the Bluebell Polka can't be by Jimmy Shand because it is in Kerr's Collection which came out in 1875. (Jack Campin also points this out in his modes tutorial.) The actual composer was a chap called »F. Stanley«. Don't know whether he was Irish or Scots or something else again. Trivia department: If you look at the Strathspey Archive at http://www.tm.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/strathspey/ you can also find a (more recent) set of lyrics. Anselm -- 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] Burn Baby Burn
responding to the individual tracks; there is of course software which will do this for you by looking for moments of silence (The »gramofile« package for Linux will do that as well). If this doesn't work -- possibly because the material in question is a live recording with no pauses between pieces -- you may have to insert the track beginnings yourself. (I've never actually done this so you will have to figure this out on your own, depending on the software you're using. CD-burning software, I'm told, will sometimes let you do this.) This is approximately what I do, and I'm generally happy with the results. From the point of view of a country dance teacher and musician, the ability to process sound files on the computer is quite invaluable, since in addition to copying old tapes and LPs to CD for practical purposes, it is also possible to cut bits out of the middle of a 8x32 bar reel to make a 3x32 bar reel suitable for a demonstration, or to play tunes at half speed (one octave lower) to figure out more easily exactly how they go. Anselm -- Anselm Lingnau . [EMAIL PROTECTED] May your life be like toilet paper -- long and useful.-- Robert E. Irie Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
