[scots-l] Re: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Right, after I posted the message below, I found the announcement about the sale of Kerr's to someone who was going to expand and continue the business as Glasgow Music Center - so that's the right group. Glad to see they have a web site. Clearly, I haven't kept up with the evolution of Kerr's! Jan Jan Tappan helpfully wrote: Clearing out old papers today I came across a 2000 catalog for Kerr's. I'm pretty sure they still are in business ... snip ... I haven't looked to see if they have a web presence or email now; perhaps they do. It doesn't look like they themselves do, although I did find this supplier which lists and sells the company's publications: http://www.glasgowmusiccentre.co.uk/home/kerrs_music_corporation/km_catalogue.html The Merry Melodies are in the Violin Albums section. John -- *** John McChesney-Young ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html 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: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Stuart Eydmann wrote: There is a clue in the Introduction to J.T. Surenne's The Dance Music of Scotland (Edinburgh 1852): This Collection contains two hundred and forty-five of the best Reels and strathspeys The tunes are distributed into sets of three, as they are generally danced; that is to say, Reel, Strathspey, Reel. Also in Kerr's Modern Dance Album: Foursome (or Scotch) Reel. Play each reel and Strathspey three times... Cameron's Got His Wife Again/Jenny Dang the Weaver/Highland Whisky/Speed the Plough/Jessie Smith/Rachael Rae/The Piper o' Dundee/Reel of Tulloch Play Reel of Tulloch 8 times -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Andrew Kuntz wrote: Have the Kerr collections been definitively dated? I don't recall Merry Melodies having a publishing date in any of the four volumes, but I understand the publishing house was (is?) active for some time. And Nigel answered, No. 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). Clearing out old papers today I came across a 2000 catalog for Kerr's. I'm pretty sure they still are in business; Debby Hand who bought Fiddlers Crossing and put FC on the Internet ordered from them not long ago. Here's the contact info from 2000 for what it's worth; hopefully it's still the same. They were lovely folks to deal with in the years that I used to order from them. Kerr's Music Corporation Ltd. 65 Berkeley Street Glasgow G3 7DZ Tel 0141 221 6805 Incorporating: James S. Kerr established 1863 (one imagines that the Kerr's books were published after 1863). Bayley Ferguson, established 1869 Mozart Allan, established 1868 Thistle Records, established 1953 I noticed that they tended to be a bit behind the rest of the world, technologically, when I used to order from them. It was rather charming to get hand written invoices, but frustrating not to be able to contact them via fax, in the pre-Internet era. They do have a fax now, but I haven't looked to see if they have a web presence or email now; perhaps they do. Jan Tappan 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: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Jan Tappan helpfully wrote: Clearing out old papers today I came across a 2000 catalog for Kerr's. I'm pretty sure they still are in business ... snip ... I haven't looked to see if they have a web presence or email now; perhaps they do. It doesn't look like they themselves do, although I did find this supplier which lists and sells the company's publications: http://www.glasgowmusiccentre.co.uk/home/kerrs_music_corporation/km_catalogue.html The Merry Melodies are in the Violin Albums section. John -- *** John McChesney-Young ** [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** 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: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
Andrew Kuntz wrote: Have the Kerr collections been definitively dated? I don't recall Merry Melodies having a publishing date in any of the four volumes, but I understand the publishing house was (is?) active for some time. No. 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). I'm in Edinburgh for two-and-a-half days a week, and although my free time there is short, I may spend some time in the National Library seeing what can be rooted out. I'm surprised if nobody has done this research before [do you know, Jack?], but if not, it would certainly be worth doing. Gore only lists the Merry Melodies books (1-4), and gives a date from 1875; others guess a little later. I think that's because there is some concordance with Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883), but I think not. /I/ think it's more likely that the Kerr's editor had access to earlier collections published by Elias Howe (publisher of Ryan's). 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. Ah well, as you can see, the Kerr's collections have fascinated me, and I wish I had more time to research. For anyone who's interested, I've a Kerr's section on my web site (URL below). -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kerr's Collections: http://www.nigelgatherer.com/books.html 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
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. cheers, rog. 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
[scots-l] Re: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
David Francis wrote: This is something that has puzzled me for years too. I had been led to believe that Kerr's pages were laid out that way to provide suitable music for the foursome reel, which was popular in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but any descriptions of that dance I have seen always have the dance moving from strathspey to reel, but not back to strathspey again. I can't quite believe either that the dance was so popular that it merited the pages Kerr's devotes to it. The Athole Collection follows the same scheme. I don't know if Anselm Lingnau still lurks around here, but he once said... The Highland Reel doesn't have an actual fixed tune. Usually what people do is they start out in strathspey time (i.e., slowish) and then speed up either all at once ... or gradually (this is the `Cape Breton' style and therefore more likely to be the way things used to be done in the Scottish highlands in days of yore) up to reel speed. You can use pretty much any strathspey tune followed by a suitable reel tune; if you're looking for printed music then any of the first three volumes of `Kerr's Collection of Merry Melodies', one of the standard collections of traditional Scottish dance music, will give you as much of a choice as you could possibly want and more... I've also read another explanation of the Strathspey/reel/Strathspey/reel arrangement, but I can't remember where. My memory isn't as good as it once was, and now I'm beginning to think I may have dreamt it (although Nat Gow refers to it in the quotation below). As an aside I wonder if the Cape Breton custom of staying in the same key for a set of tunes comes from the use of printed collections? I think changing tunes within sets is relatively modern. Older Scottish collections often arranged tunes by key and in some there are medley sections for dance tunes. The tunes are arranged in batches of three to six tunes, always in the same key (or relative modes). In The Beauties of Gow (c.1819) Nathaniel Gow writes: The following are a choice Collection of the best original Scotch Dances, arranged as Medleys, a Strathspey and Reel following alternately in their respective keys, as the frequent changing the Key, more or less, has been found to offend the ear. There you have it, all ye offenders of ears. :-) Listening to recordings of Scottish musicians from 1908, say, till the thirties and forties, the convention is often sticking to one key, and I think it's an inheritance from previous generations. Even the more recent Scottish fiddlers (by that I mean Hector Macandrew, Arthur Scott Robertson, William MacPherson, Angus Cameron) tend not to change keys very often. After that the Irish influence changed matters somewhat. Personally I like both. In a march, Strathspey and reel set, I tend to use one key as it's the change in tempo and style which lifts the set; if I'm playing sets of jigs or reels, I'll more likely run through the keys. -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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: Kerr's reel-and-strathspey pages
David Francis wrote: ...I don't have a copy of Kerr's to hand, but aren't the tunes arranged into groups and numbered? In Book 1 of the Merry Melodies they're in sets of six or four mostly, but the other volumes simply start at No.1 and end at No.446 or whatever - that's one hell of a set! In Kerr's Caledonian Collection - more recent than Merry Melodies - there are also arranged sets, again there are Strathspeys and reels, but this time the keys change with each tune. Another change is the addition of accordion chords, pointing at the 1930s at the earliest, in my opinion, and more likely the 40s, after the rise of the dance bands. Interestingly, if you look at early Kerr's publications (Merry Melodies for the Piano, or Kerr's Collection of Reels, etc) you'll find the keys changing throughout; they actually say in one: In arranging Reels and Strathspeys in sets for dancing, it is customary to have each set played all in one key; but the effect of this is very monotonous. In this collection the airs - nearly all - follow each other in relative keys, in such a manner that each one comes in with a freshness and variety which it would not otherwise have. -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 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
In a message dated 4/5/2004 5:02:47 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
In Book 1 of the Merry Melodies they're in sets of six or four mostly,but the other volumes simply start at No.1 and end at No.446 orwhatever - that's one hell of a set! In Kerr's Caledonian Collection -more recent than Merry Melodies - there are also arranged sets, againthere are Strathspeys and reels, but this time the keys change witheach tune. Another change is the addition of accordion chords, pointingat the 1930s at the earliest, in my opinion, and more likely the 40s,after the rise of the dance bands.Interestingly, if you look at early Kerr's publications ("MerryMelodies for the Piano", or "Kerr's Collection of Reels, etc") you'llfind the keys changing throughout; they actually say in one:
Have the Kerr collections been definitively dated? I don't recall Merry Melodies having a publishing date in any of the four volumes, but I understand the publishing house was (is?) active for some time.
Regards,
Andrew Kuntz
