Re: [scots-l] Re: Music source books
At 07:41 PM 10/12/02 +0100, you wrote: Are you sure that's correct? As I understood it, the copyright last for 75 years after the artist's death, so if someone's work was published in 1921 and he or she died in 1928, it's still under copyright. In the United States, anything published prior to January 1, 1923 is in the public domain. It has something to do with the Berne Convention and then the changes made by the Sonny Bono Copyright laws, and while I have Circular 22 from the Library of Congress (which manages copyright in the U.S.) here in front of me, I still can't really make sense of it. However, when I was writing my first book of tunes for the harp (all folksongs), I personally went to the copyright office in the LoC and begged them to help me clarify this. They explained everything quite clearly, which I can't begin to do, but they did write across the front of the Circular for me anything prior to Jan. 1, 1923. This was confirmed for me when I actually went into the copyright records in the Library to research the tunes. It was common knowledge among all the researchers and staff there. So, I take that as good enough for me. Additionally, I based my copyright application specifically on that date and I did get approval. Now, for things published AFTER this magic date, the rules change mightily. Rather than try to understand them, I just stay in the past! (Or write my own music, or commission it...) --Cynthia Cathcart http://www.cynthiacathcart.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] Re: Music source books
Jack Campin wrote: American copyright law is weird and American copyright law on broad- casting is even weirder. Anybody know how it ever came about that US radio broadcasters don't pay any royalties? Can that be right? I don't know much about American copyright law but I do know BMI collects royalties from radio stations for songs played and distributes them to songwriters who are members. -Steve -- Steve Wyrick - Concord, California There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says: Fool me once, shame on [pause] shame on you. [pause] Fool me... you can't get fooled again. -George W. Bush 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: Music source books
I stand corrected. However, I tink a lot of the problems you list are resolvable by intelligent use of the words/chords features in abc - ie: they're mostly added text. I also think it's useful to distinguish between what the abc specification allows and what particular player or print programs do. Regards, Ted -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jack Campin Sent: 11 October 2002 12:56 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [scots-l] Re: Music source books No can do. Skinner's books use a lot of fiddle-specific notation that ABC can't represent. I'm not convinced. Could you give us some examples? Opening The Scottish Violinist at random, I hit page 48. All the tunes on the page have fermatas, which are doable in most current implementations of ABC but I think not in the same way. The Rolling Spey has: - dal segno (not specified in ABC so any player program can use it), with the segno placed between a gracenote group and the following note (that's going to be a fun one to implement) - last-time-round ending (also not an ABC control structure) - finger numbers - crescendos and diminuendos across several notes, in one case with a sforzando hairpin within the scope of the diminuendo - indications 4 bows, 16 and 12 bows for three bars - straight slurs between staccato notes - ties between notes marked as staccato - double stops on the same note with one of them having a slurred gracenote, (^d[e2)e2] - you *can* write that in ABC but I doubt if any two programs will interpret it the same way Professor Blackie adds: - alternate individual notes for first and second time (at least I presume they aren't meant as double stops) - acciaccaturas - looped ties (is that what you call them? - between the last two notes) The Editor's Farewell adds: - harmonics (that's what the circles on the e' and some other notes mean, I think?) - a kind of accent marked by a staccato dot with a dash under it (at the end of bar 4) All three tunes have both a genre marking and how to play it marking in different typefaces. On the facing page, Hector the Hero has a sample verse of the text under the title, Sarona adds rit. ... a tempo, and Delnabo has turn-with-a-sharp (something long overdue in ABC), nested slurs (which not all ABC software will get right or use the same syntax for) and apparently wants something stopped with the 6th finger, which suggests Skinner was wanting violinists to evolve as well as their notation. Perhaps no one fiddler will use all of that detail but representability in ABC shouldn't be the criterion for what to leave out. === 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 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: Music source books
Simply putting raw scans[of Skinner's work] on-line would be better. Wouldn't there be some copyright issues with raw scans though? The Lester Levy sheet music collection is mostly stuff published in Skinner's lifetime, and they seem to have found a way round it; they are high-profile enough that the publishers, if still in business, *must* have noticed them. Pity their scans aren't better... There is also an Argentinian tango scores site with even more recent material, and even worse scan quality. BTW, I recently had to stop broadcasting Scottish music over the Internet because of the CARP ruling: http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates_final.html Copyright always gets you in the end. Gone before I ever got a connection fast enough to try it. Damn. American copyright law is weird and American copyright law on broad- casting is even weirder. Anybody know how it ever came about that US radio broadcasters don't pay any royalties? === 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: Music source books
No can do. Skinner's books use a lot of fiddle-specific notation that ABC can't represent. I'm not convinced. Could you give us some examples? Opening The Scottish Violinist at random, I hit page 48. All the tunes on the page have fermatas, which are doable in most current implementations of ABC but I think not in the same way. The Rolling Spey has: - dal segno (not specified in ABC so any player program can use it), with the segno placed between a gracenote group and the following note (that's going to be a fun one to implement) - last-time-round ending (also not an ABC control structure) - finger numbers - crescendos and diminuendos across several notes, in one case with a sforzando hairpin within the scope of the diminuendo - indications 4 bows, 16 and 12 bows for three bars - straight slurs between staccato notes - ties between notes marked as staccato - double stops on the same note with one of them having a slurred gracenote, (^d[e2)e2] - you *can* write that in ABC but I doubt if any two programs will interpret it the same way Professor Blackie adds: - alternate individual notes for first and second time (at least I presume they aren't meant as double stops) - acciaccaturas - looped ties (is that what you call them? - between the last two notes) The Editor's Farewell adds: - harmonics (that's what the circles on the e' and some other notes mean, I think?) - a kind of accent marked by a staccato dot with a dash under it (at the end of bar 4) All three tunes have both a genre marking and how to play it marking in different typefaces. On the facing page, Hector the Hero has a sample verse of the text under the title, Sarona adds rit. ... a tempo, and Delnabo has turn-with-a-sharp (something long overdue in ABC), nested slurs (which not all ABC software will get right or use the same syntax for) and apparently wants something stopped with the 6th finger, which suggests Skinner was wanting violinists to evolve as well as their notation. Perhaps no one fiddler will use all of that detail but representability in ABC shouldn't be the criterion for what to leave out. === 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: Music source books
Nigel: this was an interesting response, but did you really need to send it twice? Or is the Scots-L software acting up again? Anyway, I'm sure the world needs plenty more tunebooks, so why don't you give it ago? The need for a Complete Scott Skinner has already been mentioned, so how about it - I don't think anyone will be chasing you re copyright. Regards, Ted -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Nigel Gatherer Sent: 04 October 2002 18:12 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [scots-l] Re: Music source books Ted Hastings wrote: Jack Campin wrote: ...I have never had much time for the Balnain House approach of gratuitous rewrites of pipe tunes for the fiddle, shifting mode and range, with no indication of what they've done; Despite the fact that my list doesn't include a single book published by Balnain House... What Jack meant, I'm sure, was Taigh na Teud (who published half of your selections), and I have sympathy for both his opinion and yours. TnT happened to produce collections of Scottish-biased tunes at a time when people wanted such collections, and they managed to fulfil that need successfully and at the right time. (It was once my intention to do the same thing, so bear in mind I'm speaking from more than a little jealousy here.) I own several of these books, and indeed use them at times, but they frustrate me. They almost never give sources for the tunes they use and no background information is given. The keys they sometimes use baffle me. Their collections of fiddle tunes appear to be made up of an awful lot of pipe tunes. Their use of Gaelic puzzles me. Occasionally their choices are dubious (The River Cree is the name of the dance. The tune is Humours of Donnybrook) The lack of a good index annoys me, and damn it all, they just didn't make AS GOOD A JOB OF IT AS I WOULD HAVE! Having said that, they actually went ahead and did it, and have provided tunes in their collections which would be difficult to get elsewhere, and, most importantly of all, their books are popular and widely available. -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ 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
Re: [scots-l] Re: Music source books
Ted writes: | Nigel: | this was an interesting response, but did you really need to send it twice? | Or is the Scots-L software acting up again? | | Anyway, I'm sure the world needs plenty more tunebooks, so why don't you | give it ago? The need for a Complete Scott Skinner has already been | mentioned, so how about it - I don't think anyone will be chasing you re | copyright. How about a Complete Scott Skinner ABC project, to put all his tunes online? When we finish it, we could do a quick conversion to PDF and publish it ... Any volunteers to start transcribing? We could start by asking people to send in what they have now, after making sure that there's a B: header line in every tune that documents the source. I also have a Ryan/Cole project going, with a few people doing that transcription. Anyone with a copy of either book and a few free hours is welcome to contribute. You're too late to get in on the O'Neill's Project; we have his 3 major tomes as ABC. (But if you know of any more odds and ends of his lying about, we'd welcome them.) In scale, neither of these comes close to Johnny Adams' Village Music Project ... 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: Music source books
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of John Chambers Sent: 10 October 2002 22:16 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [scots-l] Re: Music source books Ted writes: | Nigel: | this was an interesting response, but did you really need to send it twice? | Or is the Scots-L software acting up again? | | Anyway, I'm sure the world needs plenty more tunebooks, so why don't you | give it ago? The need for a Complete Scott Skinner has already been | mentioned, so how about it - I don't think anyone will be chasing you re | copyright. How about a Complete Scott Skinner ABC project, to put all his tunes online? When we finish it, we could do a quick conversion to PDF and publish it ... Any volunteers to start transcribing? We could start by asking people to send in what they have now, after making sure that there's a B: header line in every tune that documents the source. Excellent idea! I'd be happy to contribute some ABCs, but not The President. I'm not so sure about ABCs that people have already done - I think a lot of these may be from recordings or sessions rather than the original tunebooks. I also have a Ryan/Cole project going, with a few people doing that transcription. Anyone with a copy of either book and a few free hours is welcome to contribute. You're too late to get in on the O'Neill's Project; we have his 3 major tomes as ABC. (But if you know of any more odds and ends of his lying about, we'd welcome them.) Which books do you already have? I have a few of his odder ones lying about. Regards, Ted 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: Music source books
| Anyway, I'm sure the world needs plenty more tunebooks, so why don't you | give it ago? The need for a Complete Scott Skinner has already been | mentioned, so how about it - I don't think anyone will be chasing you re | copyright. How about a Complete Scott Skinner ABC project, to put all his tunes online? When we finish it, we could do a quick conversion to PDF and publish it ... No can do. Skinner's books use a lot of fiddle-specific notation that ABC can't represent. And for this music, it matters. There is no point in doing a project on this scale in such a way that it needs to be done all over again in a few years. And no it would NOT do to simply code up some quick abcm2ps-style hacks to reproduce Skinner's notational graphics. That would simply create hostages to fortune as there is no telling what people or their programs would interpret them as in future. The right way to do it is for a human editor to figure out what they mean, and for ABC to evolve so as to represent that meaning unambiguously in an agreed way. Meanwhile, it's not the right tool. Simply putting raw scans on-line would be better. - Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland tel 0131 660 4760 * fax 0870 055 4975 * http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ food intolerance data recipes, freeware Mac logic fonts, and Scottish music 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: Music source books
Ted writes some more: | Ted writes: | | Anyway, I'm sure the world needs plenty more tunebooks, so why don't you | | give it ago? The need for a Complete Scott Skinner has already been | | mentioned, so how about it - I don't think anyone will be chasing you re | | copyright. | | How about a Complete Scott Skinner ABC project, to put | all his tunes online? When we finish it, we could do a | quick conversion to PDF and publish it ... | | Any volunteers to start transcribing? We could start by | asking people to send in what they have now, after making | sure that there's a B: header line in every tune that | documents the source. | | Excellent idea! I'd be happy to contribute some ABCs, but not | The President. I'm not so sure about ABCs that people have | already done - I think a lot of these may be from recordings or | sessions rather than the original tunebooks. Yeah; any serious ABC transcription project is going to insist that you use the original book. All the projects that I know of have taken a warts and all approach, and tried to get as close to the original as ABC will permit. You may not play it like they did back then, but if you're going to put someone else's name on your collection, you should have their versions of the tunes. | You're too late to get in on the O'Neill's Project; we have | his 3 major tomes as ABC. (But if you know of any more odds | and ends of his lying about, we'd welcome them.) | | Which books do you already have? I have a few of his odder ones | lying about. All of the 1850, Dance Music of Ireland, and Waifs and Strays are in ABC now. I have copies of them all, and there are some mirrors around on the Web. I've read of some other books that he published, but I haven't seen them. If you want to contribute to the O'Neill's ABC archive, and have one of the others, I'd be happy to add them to the collection. But back to Skinner's music ... 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: Music source books
Jack Campin wrote: And no it would NOT do to simply code up some quick abcm2ps-style hacks to reproduce Skinner's notational graphics. That would simply create hostages to fortune as there is no telling what people or their programs would interpret them as in future. The right way to do it is for a human editor to figure out what they mean, and for ABC to evolve so as to represent that meaning unambiguously in an agreed way. Meanwhile, it's not the right tool. Simply putting raw scans on-line would be better. Wouldn't there be some copyright issues with raw scans though? BTW, I recently had to stop broadcasting Scottish music over the Internet because of the CARP ruling: http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates_final.html Copyright always gets you in the end. 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: Music source books
I'm not convinced. Could you give us some examples? Regards, Ted -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jack Campin Sent: 11 October 2002 00:12 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [scots-l] Re: Music source books | Anyway, I'm sure the world needs plenty more tunebooks, so why don't you | give it ago? The need for a Complete Scott Skinner has already been | mentioned, so how about it - I don't think anyone will be chasing you re | copyright. How about a Complete Scott Skinner ABC project, to put all his tunes online? When we finish it, we could do a quick conversion to PDF and publish it ... No can do. Skinner's books use a lot of fiddle-specific notation that ABC can't represent. And for this music, it matters. There is no point in doing a project on this scale in such a way that it needs to be done all over again in a few years. And no it would NOT do to simply code up some quick abcm2ps-style hacks to reproduce Skinner's notational graphics. That would simply create hostages to fortune as there is no telling what people or their programs would interpret them as in future. The right way to do it is for a human editor to figure out what they mean, and for ABC to evolve so as to represent that meaning unambiguously in an agreed way. Meanwhile, it's not the right tool. Simply putting raw scans on-line would be better. -- --- Jack Campin * 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland tel 0131 660 4760 * fax 0870 055 4975 * http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ food intolerance data recipes, freeware Mac logic fonts, and Scottish music 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
Re: [scots-l] Re: Music source books
Ted Hastings wrote: Nigel: this was an interesting response, but did you really need to send it twice? Or is the Scots-L software acting up again? Yes it is. I just got Nigel's original message, dated 10/4. -Steve -- Steve Wyrick - Concord, California 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: Music source books
Ok, I'm going back to sleep and see if I can get my brain twisted back into correct shape! Nigel Gatherer wrote: Rita Hamilton wrote: NONONONONO it was the Brian Boru that I wanted you to hear w/o interference That IS track 17! -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html -- May neither your strings nor your spirit ever break, May your harp and your soul always be in tune. Rita 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: Music source books
Rita Hamilton wrote: I'm wondering just what you would use as your music source books. I've been thinking about this a bit more, and I'm strongly tempted to include 'The Nineties Collection' (Canongate Books, Edinburgh 1995, ISBN 0 86241 599 3). It is a collection of new Scottish tunes in traditional style, but the point is that more and more tunes from the book are being played and spread around. When I first got the book (in the '90s) I played through it, tune by tune, and to be honest I wasn't very impressed; on the one hand I thought the selection wasn't brilliant when it could have been, and on the other hand they didn't include any of my tunes. Of course they didn't know of my existence, but that's neither here nor there. However, since then many of the tunes have grown on me, and my opinion has changed. This is a valuable collection. Tunes that are being played widely - off the top of my head - include Creag an Righ ==+== Marni Swanson of the Grey Coast ==+== The Setting Sun ==+== Mr and Mrs MacLean of Snaigow ==+== Father Tom ==+== Crabbit Shona ==+== The Road to Banff ==+== The Jig Runrig ==+== Da Eye Wifie and the featured composers include Phil Cunningham, Freeland barbour, Alasdair Fraser, Jim Sutherland, Aly Bain, Brian McNeill, Iain Macleod, Davy Tulloch, Simon Thoumire, Patsy Seddon, Mary Macmaster, our own Stuart Eydmann (are you still lurking, Stuart?), Billy Jackson, Eddie McGuire, and the list goes on and on. In the sixties JS Kerr's company published 'The Thistle Collection', modern compositions by musicians of the day (inc Bobby Crowe, Addie Harper, Tommy Ford, Bill Murray, Tom Anderson, etc). I wonder if it was the 'Nineties Collection' of its day? -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ 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: Music source books
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], Cynthia Cathcart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 04:10 PM 10/4/02 +0100, you wrote: I've been straining my ears to hear bells and antipodean growls on the CD ...It's...only on Track 17. That explains it then: Rita made me promise only to listen to that track on a misty evening, and I have tended to stop the CD when arriving at that track (we've had a lovely Indian summer in these parts, but I've a feeling it won't be long before I'm allowed to hear the mysterious Track 17 in all its glory. -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ 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: Music source books
I'm wondering just what you would use as your music source books. Would you mind sharing? Hi Rita. Luckily I had compiled such a list back at the beginning of April, so here goes: 1. Clan Dumphries Miscellany - a collection of sheep-calls, cattle-summoning songs, mussel-sellers' ditties, etc, adapted for the German Flute and Harp I recognize that! It's a shameless plagiarism of the Newtongrange Collection. The tunes all started in Edinburgh - originally shanties from the shovellers who went round the closes collecting fertilizer in the mornings, marches from guilds like the Leather Basque Makers of Broughton, restaurant-owners' songs for enticing pigeons and stray cats, etc. Ted Hastings wrote: I have never had much time for the Balnain House approach of gratuitous rewrites of pipe tunes for the fiddle, shifting mode and range, with no indication of what they've done; Despite the fact that my list doesn't include a single book published by Balnain House. Fair cop, I was mixing them up with Taigh na Teud. === 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: Music source books
At 09:24 AM 10/4/02 +0100, you wrote: 6. Cathcart's Selection - Music for the wire strung harp, didjuridu and cathedral bells. Nigel, you are too funny. But I just thought I should let you know, the cathedral bell part has not been written out, so sorry! It's not there! (Neither is the didj part. We couldn't agree on how to notate the growls and barks.) Did you get a copy of the CD from Rita? What did you think? (Or does being included in your prestigious list before Gatherer's Musical Gumption provide my answer?) :-D On a less cheerful note, y'all need to go easy on Silver Spring, Maryland. We've had a rash of random shootings here (no kidding) and our schools are all locked down to keep the kids inside and this maniac outside. Trying not to repeat history... --Cynthia Cathcart http://www.cynthiacathcart.net/ 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: Music source books
Jack Campin wrote: Somebody really oughta do a collected Skinner. I've always thought that; it would be a must-have. Another book I'd like to see would be a big collection based on Jimmy Shand's repertoire. Not his own compositions (which are useful for dancing perhaps, but rather forgettable) but the vast number of grand tunes he played in his long career. I've started working on a collection of tunes played by Scots musicians from early recordings (say 1905-1933) which constitutes another era between JS Kerr and the rise of the radio dance bands. In amongst the reels, jigs and strathspeys can be found an American influence in the compositions of Felix Burns and the craze for quadrilles and lancers. The rate I'm working on it, it should be ready by, oh, the end of the decade easily. My list? Mmm. Kerr's Merry Melodies Bks 1-4 With a tattered copy of one of these books I taught myself to read music and discovered much exciting music. To paraphrase Stan Reeves, I discovered that instead of diddley-diddley music I could be playing DURRum-die-do DURRum-do music! The Gow Collection I'm not sure what Jack's objection to this is. There are a few mistakes in the notation and the odd spelling mistake (there's one tune credited to National Gow - long lost brother perhaps?), but the tunes are taken directly from the Gows' publications, with no transposing. They're clear and easy to find. Obviously I would have preferred a huge fat volume including all the four-page sheets, the vocal melodies, the Beauties, and transcriptions of some of the early player-piano rolls (I made that last one up), but you cannot have everything. The Scottish Violinist Or Scott Skinner's Greatest Hits. Henderson's Scottish Music Maker is perhaps a better selection of Skinner's pieces, but it's not currently available. Now that Skinner's 75 years are up, I presume I could reprint SMM without copyright problems? Ah, no. It would be Henderson's copyright I'd be abusing. Sorry. Winston Fitzgerald, A Collection Along with Jerry Holland's and Brenda Stubbert's collections, this books contains music as played by modern musicians. Traditional Celtic Violin Music of Cape Breton Kate Dunlay and David Greenberg have produced a marvellous work here. Flowers of Scottish Melody J Murdoch Henderson's knowledge of Scots fiddle music was extensive, and here he selects and annotates his idea of a rounded collection. Some people might grumble at the amount of his own compositions included, but hey, that's traditional. However, I don't think it's available, but much of it is rehashed in Hardie's 'Caledonian Companion'. The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland GF Graham published a one-volume edition of a formerly three-volume collection of Scottish songs. I often play through it, and I like his choice. He was another who seems extensively to have researched Scottish music, and his copious notes are valuable for anyone interested in tune histories. Not currently in print. The Gesto Collection I like the Skye Collection and Fraser's 'Peculiar' collection, but if I could only take one of the three to my desert island, it would be Gesto for its wonderful journey through interesting Highland music. Two more. This is hard. I don't want to include too many books that are out of print. The RSCDS Books (several volumes, but the early ones are best) Lots of good tunes from various sources, and the odd not bad contemporary one. I kind of think of Shetland music as almost another genre, or at best a sub-set (even though many latter Shetland fiddlers were also great Scottish fiddling advocates: Tom Anderson and Wille Hunter to name but two), however, I think an overall view might allow a Shetland corner. To that end, I'd have 'Haand Me Doon da Fiddle' as my tenth book. -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
