Hello Derek' In a way you've answered your own question. G & D drones would presumably have been used originally for these tunes as they probably precede the development of tuning beads but they don't sound right to many people.
Here is what Forster Charlton, Colin Ross and Roland Wright put in the introduction to the second edition to the NPS 1st Tune Book: "Small Coals and Little Money and Cuckold Come Out The Amrey are in an unusual mode for which the drones should be tuned to the notes A and E. Any drone which will not tune to either of these two notes is best shut off!" Personally, I agree - others don't. As for speed it is probably an age thing but slower (allowing pulse to permeate through the tune butters my parsnip) these days (wasn't always so). I've put a clip here [1]http://http://www.robbpipes.com/Hesleyside-Spoots for people unfamiliar with this lovely pulse (again not all agree but it is the quintessential Northumbrian way of doing it). Two of the players are from 'The Shepherds' and were the best exponents of the real old country style of playing which cut across all instruments (including pipes) in their part of the county. Hope this helps Best wishes Anthony From: DEREK LOFTHOUSE <dloftho...@shaw.ca> To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, 14 August 2012, 14:36 Subject: [NSP] small coals, and the peacock following the hen I decided to play through the contents of the first 30 tunes book, just to see how many of them i actually knew, or could play. Fortunately i've played most of them. There are only 2 that i had never looked at, as the title suggests, Small coals and little money, and the Peacock followed the hen. Both of these appear to be what (I think) Matt calls bi-modal. switching between G and A minor, they sort of resolve to G, although the g drones (to me anyway) dont always seem to work. What drones do people use on these tunes? Also how fast should they be played. I've heard the Tickel version of small coals, but should it really be that fast? thanks in advance Derek To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://http//www.robbpipes.com/Hesleyside-Spoots 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
