Re: [scots-l] Jansch and Bensusan + sessions, Melrose, Sat-Thurs
thelanes wrote: How did this go? Sounds an interesting week. What happened to the recent Open Air Festival in Kelso? Jan Lane Excellent concert - odd. Bert had two guitarists in support, both of whom he named, but were not down in writing... so of course, I can't remember anything except that Johnny or Donny, Bert's 12 Bar Club mate with the cowboy suit and extraordinary grimaces, did the second half with him. First thought was, oh poo, supernoodles... but actually, after getting into pace, this guy added some slide guitar and lead playing which worked well. Bert overprocessed his guitar deliberately - phased and chorused and delayed all over the place - and did no Scots material at all - very much blues and jazz-influenced songs. Berd from Norway who came with me said he could not understand a word of Bert's singing, and I had to explain to him that no-one ever could... you have to know the words first! Berd speaks perfect Scots English. Bert's companion apparently took charge of certain aspects of the gig. I asked the theatre owner Felix to say something about the session after the show - and about the INCORRECT local newspaper report mentioning sessions every night... etc - and he would not. He said there was a total ban on all theatre announcements, CD sales, signing, anything. not at Bert's insistence but at his friend's. It was a sell out full house. We had a nice small session just a dozen people in the George and Abbotsford afterwards. David 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] Jansch and Bensusan + sessions, Melrose, Sat-Thurs
Toby Rider wrote: David Kilpatrick wrote: Bert Jansch plays the Wynd Theatre, Melrose, Scottish Borders on Saturday, Sept 27th. Does Bert Jansch qualify as a traditional Scottish musician? If so, does that mean that Johnny Marr does as well (heavily influnced by Bert Jansch)? :-) Yes, 100 per cent. Bert is a Glaswegian whose primary repertoire is traditional Scottish song. Or maybe you've not heard much of his post-Pentagle material. He also plays a wee bit sort of blues and songwriting. But much of that was long ago. About the time of 'The Ornament Tree' album he expressed a desire to return to Scottish roots, and he's stuck with that since. And M Bensusan is very much an interpreter, validly, of tunes which include (but are far from limited to) Scottish sources. And anyway, the sessions are open to traditional music. The purpose of posting here is to get traditional musicians to come to Melrose and show the stuff to visiting guitar pickers! David 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] Jansch and Bensusan + sessions, Melrose, Sat-Thurs
David Francis wrote: Yes, 100 per cent. Bert is a Glaswegian from Edinburgh surely? He was brought up in Pilton, I think. I'll have to read his biography again. I thought he was born in Edinburgh but brought up Glaswegian! whose primary repertoire is traditional Scottish song. I saw him last year and his set was a mix of stuff - he still does Angie and Blues Run the Game, as well as his own songs. He's the kind of musician who has never wanted to be seen as anything other than a guitarist and songwriter, regardless of the material (which is as it should be, I think) I was not being entirely serious. But he does do a lot of Scots/Irish material now - far more than he used to. I got a cheap copy fo the Dazzling Stranger CD (2.99 remaindered - daughter found it somewhere) and that reminds any listener how versatile he is, and what a range of stuff he's been involved in. But now it's mainly to one man, guitar and voice. DK 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] Jansch and Bensusan + sessions, Melrose, Sat-Thurs
Bert Jansch plays the Wynd Theatre, Melrose, Scottish Borders on Saturday, Sept 27th. Pierre Bensusan plays there on Thursday Oct 2nd. Since we've got acoustic guitarists coming in from Ireland, Norway, Holland, and England - many staying the 'week' in Melrose - the theatre is opening its nice wee bar every night for open sessions (I'm definitely there on Tuesday, my original suggestion was to host one on Tuesday for people, but our local paper has it that there will be sessions nightly. On Tuesday I will bring a range of Troubadour instruments (zouk, mandolin, mandola etc) to lend round and try out. There will definitely also be a late night jam at the George and Abbotsford Hotel, just next to the theatre, on Saturday from 11pm to 1.00am - this has a bar extension and is all arranged. Mixture of musicians expected including traditional Scots/Irish. It is possible that Pierre will do a masterclass for a limited num,ber of players, subject to arriving in time and being OK, on the Thursday during the day. This will be a 'no beginners' class (we did one in 2000 at the Theatre with PB, in an event which I organised, and it was a very mixed ability and age range group - he says he found that difficult to handle, and would prefer experienced DADGAD players). Cost not known yet. The Wynd Theatre is on 01896 823854. Tickets for these concerts are #10 (the theatre only seats 90 and is a fantastic venue acoustically, as well as for atmosphere and location). The sessions are of course free. Nearby Big Sky Studios, Tweedbank (about 2 miles) say they will open their doors to any visiting musician wanting to see their facilities, on Monday and Tuesday. Even make a booking to do some recording. Call Tom Roseburgh, on 01896 751326. This is not an ultra-late announcement, I had already posted about this, it's a recap and reminder. David Kilpatrick 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] Gig next Saturday Edinburgh
I will be 'appearing' at the Auld Hoose Festival (and then disappearing for a further year) at 9.00pm on Saturday August 9th - till 10.30pm. The venue is New Dalry House, a Jacobean house in Dalry, Edinburgh, near the Haymarket railway station - the King Charles Music Room, a 90-seat venue with a ceiling dating from 1661. Details of the entire month's events and concerts can be got from: http://www.scotfestival.com/contents.htm You can download a 640 x 480 jpeg of my poster from http://www.troubadour.uk.com/posterdk.jpg The intention is to feature the three instruments shown ghosted; they are Simpson of London c1770 English guittar, Hanna Hessler 1965 'gyterne' (or who knows what?), and Peter Cox 1999 six-course cittern. I am erroneously down as 'Early Scottish Music' which is a misleading title - actually, I'm doing mainly new and original songs and tunes using my modern Lowdens (steel and nylon strung), and diverting to glimpses of the past as it relates to this. This is an Edinburgh Festival Fringe associated gig, so the admission is a rather steep B#8, but the profits go to assure the future of the building. David 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] He hirpl'd
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I found this tune in Bremner's Scots Reels and wondered about the title. 'Hirpl'd', I understand, means 'hobbled', but He hobbled till her makes little more sense to me than the original. Any ideas of what is meant? Till means 'unto' - or just to. Normally speltt with only one t - til, and sometimes said as 'until'. Middle Scots and English. Also, the tune below it on Bremner's page is called Had the Lass till I winn at her. Am I correct in assuming this is some sort of sexual assault? No, it's a plowman's title - like 'Hit her between the legs' and 'Up wi' it Eli Eli!'. These sexually ambivalent titles are from the shouts used by horse or ox ploughmen or teams. 'Hold the lass until I get on to her' (winn means to reach or make, but in this context, to mount a horse). Of course it has a double meaning, and everyone would be aware of the double meaning at the time. Pretty much all the titles refer to horses or oxen. More sexually explicit titles come from the Gaelic - especially women's singing - tradition, notably 'Tail Toddle' which is happily taught to kids at school as if it was a sort of nonsense lyric. Even then, there's a double meaning with dancing/fiddle playing. David 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] Musics welcome Swinton (Berwickshire) Gala Sat 14
thelanes wrote: Give us some warning! That event sounded excellent! Hope it went well. It would take us a bit of an early start to make it to the borders, but it would have been worth it. (This list takes a few days sometimes?) It was a lovely day - worth staying at home instead for, actually... but it was still good fun. DK 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] Musics welcome Swinton (Berwickshire) Gala Sat 14
2.00pm to evening, Saturday June 14th, the village of Swinton (between Kelso and Duns, Scottish Borders) has its annual Gala and has been given some asssistance based broadly on King James VI/1st accession quattercentenary. Expect some oddly costumed villagers wandering round. Musicians are welcome to play on the green during the afternoon (song and dance equally welcome). Matt Seattle will be doing a quick turn as a 'Border toon piper' in a new 18th century drag he's acquired for acting this neglected historical role; I shall be placing sundry instruments on a table, for people to try out more than in any hope of selling 'em, and mandolin, mandola, guitar, zouk etc will happily be lent to anyone able to make a favourable noise. I'll have my cittern tuned 18th c and a laud tuned and strung as a six-course lute, and some kind of small battery amplification hidden away just in case. Any kind of traditional Scottish and ENGLISH folky stuff is OK as they are trying to celebrate the UNION of the crowns and will welcome visitors from south the Border. Swinton's committee folk have said they will especially welcome pipers and anyone pretending to be 400 years old. Whatever, it may be a nice day, and there's a chance to perform or create an open-air session with official approval and refreshments (ask me about that, Matt and the ceilidh and the disco are 'bookings' - I'm a freeloading sales stall - but there's a bit left in their pot to be hospitable). Kelso's ceilidh musicians will be around during the early part of the evenign barbeque around 8.00pm to 9.00pm, making a rapid dash from Carham where they are playing until 7.30! This may be indoors, or outside if the weather permits (looks very much as if it will!). After 9.00pm there's a disco indoors. Beyond this, I only know that there will be the usual attractions, stalls, activities, beer, food and stuff - great for kids because Swinton really has a lovely village centre and green. David 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: scots-l-digest V1 #526
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 7/6/03 9:34:41 am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: NB: on the Buckfast topic - someone has left an 80 per cent finished bottle of Buckie opposite my back door. Abandoned midway down a 100 yard lane. Says it all, about Buckfast, and about small towns! DK I have an 11 acre smallholding in S. Lanarkshire, and my land is oveerlooked by a Council Housing estate, whence my fields receive betwen two and six Buckie bottles a week. Some are empty, but many not. On a more sanguine note, I also receive oveer the heges two or three Barr's bottles a week, - and there is 25p reclaimable on each of these (the glass ones), which pays for our weekly Radio Times! Have you yet managed a decent rubber harvest from the hedges? I hope that if you have livestock you've not had any problems. Good to see real Scots culture reaching this list DK 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] Folk in Angus
Toby Rider wrote: However... some small towns have a lot of social problems and some of these places would need a bit of care, particularly if you have kids and are concerned about schools etc. What sort of social problems?? Same as in the Borders - lovely towns, sod all to do for kids, not a lot for young adults, and mainly drinking for everyone else. Anyone intelligent enough to need a college education usually has to leave town to get it, and not many return early in life (plenty come back, or move in, in later years). Come to think of it, same problems as most of rural Scotland, rural Wales, rural England, rural Ireland... NB: on the Buckfast topic - someone has left an 80 per cent finished bottle of Buckie opposite my back door. Abandoned midway down a 100 yard lane. Says it all, about Buckfast, and about small towns! DK 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] Reivers Festival + otherevents
A few things happening:
On Friday March 28th at Hawick High School there's a concert to kick off
the Reivers Festival, starting 7.30pm.
The compere will be Fiona Armstrong of Border TV ('Songs of the Clans'
etc) and there will be an introductory talk by author and Border
historian Alan Massie.
The rest of the programme is made up of music, dance and poetry
featuring: yours truly with at least one new auld sang, Pat Douglas, Ken
Moffat, 3D, Scotch Egg, Stuart Anderson of Newmill Accordion Fiddle
club, Michael Aitken, the Papa Stour Sword Dancers and a rousing finale
from Hawick Scout Fellowship Pipe Band. It's fast moving with about 15
minutes of each flavour, and ends early enough for me to get a pint and
a tune back at the Kelso session afterwards...
Tickets are just B#4 or B#3 for concessions and are available on the door,
or in advance from 'Evelyn in Solutions', 17 High St, Hawick or by phone
from Scottish Borders Tourist Board on 0870 608 0404.
On Saturday March 29th during the Reivers Festival I've got a musical
instrument 'stand' in the Commercial Room of Drumlanrig's Tower in
Hawick (10.30-4.30pm). I have some sub-B#20 instruments for kids (not
toys) and will put a good few not-for-sale oddities on display too. The
important bit is not this, but the music in the room -
James Wyness will be playing early lute pieces, and Elspeth Smellie will
be doing Scottish harp tunes and Border ballads in the room. Young
traditional musicians from Hawick High School will be playing sets, and
I've been asked to fill in any gaps - so I welcome any suitably
mediaeval to 16th century (theme period!) performers who can relieve me
of this responsibility! (I'll be providing a small amp with microphone -
not a full PA but enough let a solo/duet overcome the teeming crowds
expected). Optional wear - single-soled shoon, yellow hose, slashed
doublet, wimple etc. Men with spurs and women in excessively revealing
bodices will be asked to remove these before entering the Tower.
For the rest of the Reivers Festival details are online at
http://www.teribus.com. It's a full weekend event and if the weather
holds out, Hawick's newly slighty-remodelled town centre will be
buzzing. Some of this stuff looks great and very photogenic - hot trod
pursuits with blazing turf on the end of a spear!
On April 11th Kelso Folk Club welcomes Debra Cowan. I've just returned
from an internet music weekend where Debra did some great solo spots.
Tonight (Monday) she's sharing a bill in Buxton with John Renbourn, who
was our guitar newsgroup's main guest for this get-together. Fingers
crossed that John might pop over to Kelso for Debra's gig... she's a
superb singer, rightly compared with June Tabor (and others) and she's
studied in Scotland with Christine Kidd, Ray Fisher (and others) to
deepen the roots of her New England style and traditional repertoire.
This is one NOT to be missed - 8.30pm, Cobbles Inn.
Plans are forming for a 'Free Folk Fest' for Kelso, weekend of Sept
5-7th. We have potential co-operation of the Folk Club, the Small Hall
Band, the Kelso Laddies Association (for open-air town square stage),
JAM Music in the Community, several key local musicians and of course
all the businessfolk of the town. Concerts, workshops, small
masterclasses, open mikes, sessions, open air daytime performances on a
totally free or ticket-by-event basis. Help, suggestions, performances,
trade participants etc all welcomed at the planning stage which is NOW!
Cheers - David
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Re: [scots-l] Brilliant name for a shop
Jack Campin wrote: (re Xaphoon) Interesting idea but I don't see how anybody could play it accurately in tune: very short, no tuning barrel, no adjustable ligature, and a fiercely hard reed that would give you no lip control of the pitch at all. My demonstrator had a saoft no 1.5 reed fitted in place of the usual 2.5 sax reed! I've heard good playing on them, but only from really good sax players who have taken care to master the instrument. The pitch is prone to wander with an inexperienced player like me. The best results are jazz style with a lot of fast ornaments, short notes, volume variation and pitch variation. The hardest thing to do is a pure sustained fixed pitch note at a constant volume. David 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] Brilliant name for a shop
Toby Rider wrote: Jack Campin wrote: (re Xaphoon) Interesting idea but I don't see how anybody could play it accurately in tune: very short, no tuning barrel, no adjustable ligature, and a fiercely hard reed that would give you no lip control of the pitch at all. Okay.. I have to ask.. What on earth is a Xaphoon? See http://www.troubadour.uk.com/xaphoon.html It's a pocket saxophonish thing pitched in C and played by contriving a rather strange arrangement of the fingers, which takes a day to master. It is about as loud as a clarinet, with a tone like an old-fashioned sax, and has a fat mouthpiece like 19th century instruments. The advantage is portability, and for people who can play them, speed. As fast as a tin whistle but with a fat sax reed sound. David 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] Brilliant name for a shop
George Seto wrote: On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Toby Rider wrote: Okay.. I have to ask.. What on earth is a Xaphoon? It's a bamboo sax. Check out the web-site Jack provided. I'd heard of it a few years ago, but the price was outrageous for a Canadian. The new injection molded one, is REALLY well priced. $55US. We're doing them in the UK for #49.95 including VAT and postage, which is also the same price they were last sold through a few shops for (a German importer brought some to the UK). The bamboo ones are three times the price, and no easier to play by any means since the holes can be in even odder places, but the sound is LOVELY from bamboo. I have one 'C' bamboo and one special in 'D' made for celtic sessions, but of course, I can't play the thing - any more than I can play sax. I can get a decent note, and a decent scale, but that's about it. My website has a link to the US site for direct purchases, especially of the bamboo or 'one offs' like Bb, D or Eb. I didn't think they would sell very well and really took them on for fun, because their US distributor was writing some magazine articles for me (he's also a photojournalist). However we are now well through our second dozen since November and no-one has complained after buying. They must either have more patience or more talent than me, or both :-) David 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] Dunblane 1996
Hard to believe it's seven years, shortly, from that day. http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/1382/1382022.html I can tell that this year is much warmer, because the exact state of the snowdrops on March 13th 1996 is something I don't forget. They are pretty much over here now in Kelso, still all there but wilting. I was photographing them in the garden on March 12th here, then on the 13th, seeing the flowers behind the TV reporters on the news from Dunblane. We had no daffodils that time in 1996, but this year they're all coming out already. David 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] player pianos
Cynthia Cathcart wrote: Traditional musicians can sound dead-wooden as well, but luckily they tend to be fewer and farther between. Does anyone have theories on why this seems to be so? Not just traditional, but self-taught in general, or informally taught. I don't think that people with no musical talent (or interest) try to learn informally, meaning that people who learn that way are likely to be expressive. On the other hand, plenty of children are put through formal musical tuition and if they have advanced motor skills and a mathematical approach to reading symbols on paper, they may be surprisingly successful despite no innate 'musicality'. This is a bit hard because I think all human beings are innately musical. It does not help that many trained orchestral musicians actually hear traditional techniques as 'wrong' and that's the end of it. Once you are taught to consider one approach wrong and another right, you're pretty much locked in. In a way, trained musicians are more traditional than traditional musicians... David 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] Celtic Connections/SHSA Comps/fusions/the whole nineyards
Cynthia Cathcart wrote: I'm in a rather unique position with respect to the question of authenticity and history: I play the wire-strung clarsach, whose tradition was absolutely broken in the late 1800's, to lie extinct until the 1950's. So I have little choice but to look to history, there are so few of us playing it today! Late 1800s? More like late 1700s, and the wire-strung tradition was already dying in the early 1700s if sources are to be believed. I find a mystery why the wire-strung instrument fell into disuse, as to my ear, it is the better instrument. This leaves me somewhat stumped for why anyone would willfully ignore their history. The history is what ties us all together, it's our common thread. To be authentic, shouldn't we cherish every reference we can find of the ancient traditions? They are clues to a great mystery. Of course there are dozens of references going back to Giraldus Cambrensis and probably before, though sadly almost zero in the annals of Celtic Britain - strange, when we think of this music as belonging to the Celtic world, that the Celts (in religious or other texts) left very little by way of clues. Given that two musicians of different generations today will interpret a sheet of music differently, I think it may be impossible for us to know what people expected to hear 500 years ago - what the inflection and accent of the music was. Much of it is probably down to intuition on the part of a modern player, and that's where folk like you come in useful :-) David 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] ANNOUNCE: Dave Gibb at Kelso Folk Club, Fri Feb 14th
Dave Gibb, Kelso Folk Club's guest artist for Valentine's Night, is part of the big tradition of Scottish songwriters who can alternate humour, nostalgia and hard-hitting lines while still picking a mean guitar. Dave hails from the wild reaches beyond the source of the Tweed (where Robin Laing has fostered a very active Lanarkshire songwriters' circle) and this is his first gig in Kelso. Because it's Valentine's Night the folk club will start at 9.00pm giving people who've been out for a meal a chance to keep civilised hours and still catch the entertainment. The pub does serve meals, quite reasonable prices and good menu. The venue is the Cobbles Inn, upstairs room, February 14th 2003, 9.00pm. Tickets on door B#4/B#3 concessions. There will be supporting local acts and a raffle as usual, with an informal music session downstairs afterwards. More info from Pete Gillespie at Pet Sounds music shop, Woodmarket, Kelso, 01573 225097; or reply to this email; or call the Cobbles Inn, 01573 223548. Floor spots welcomed and last month our closing session was pretty good (greatly aided by Jack Campin's huge bass recorder, et al). First time we have moved everyone downstairs after concert nights, and I think we'll do that in future rather than wind up in the half-empty function room. Our weekly sessions are coming along very well with new musicians made welcome (and rapidly growing our resident ensemble), every Friday night apart from concert nights, from 9.30pm. For a look at/listen to Dave Gibb's stuff see http://www.davegibb.co.uk/ - David Kilpatrick 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] Jesse Rae
Jonathan Hill wrote: Fusion? That reminds me, whatever happened to Jesse Rae? ( For the benefit of younger lurkers, think of a cross between Wham and Groundskeeper Willie!) If he's Left the Building can I have his stage gear? Jesse is alive and well, living in St Boswells or its environs, running a studio in his garden shed and occasionally invading local supermarkets dressed in all the gear, which is not for sale. I don't know how you remember him, but last time I heard him it was all MIDI dance hip-hop with a female smooth jazz singer or two, and Jesse on a Roland 303 box dressed in the full celtic warrior gear and occasionally waving the claymore at a small audience. He was doing internet music collaborations with Japan, and it was a live broadcast via a weblink, from the Clovenfords Inn to Tokyo, or something! Last time I saw him was in Kelso Square were I think he was buying something in the Saturday farmer's market, dressed as usual in the full metal armour outfit. David 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: Burns Night
David Francis wrote: You could imagine a certain gentility and politeness in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, but you would expect other gatherings to be a bit more vigorous and boisterous. Were gatherings smaller? Did fewer people dance at a time? Were the bands bigger (I'm thinking about the pre-accordion era)? Did musicians play louder? Any thoughts? Yes - it's impossible for anyone brought up today to have any idea how people even 200 years ago 'heard' the world round them. I guess we get some impression by getting into mountains, etc, but even then a road 20 miles away can create a ground level of noise. Apart from rivers, the sea or the wind the background noise of 18th c Scots city life must have very cacophonous and not the sort of level drone of traffic, computer fans, central heating pumps and stuff we have taking up the first few decibels of our ear sensitivity. People talking, hooves and iron rimmed wheels on cobbles, dogs barking, artisans working with tools etc. And all that against a background of genuine silence - and in the country, just real silence with every shepherd's pipe or ploughman's call heard from miles away. I would guess they were more finely tuned to distinguish music from the noise of life, because they were not used to hearing it all the time and hearing it loudly, which we are. Many of the favoured domestic instruments of the time were pretty quiet, even the pianos when they first arrived were very gentle beasts by modern standards, and fiddles are supposed to have been softer in tone before the 'redesign' lifted the bridge and raked the neck with higher string tension. Guitar family instruments were much quieter too. Maybe people did speak more gently and take more care not to be noisy. My grandfather was still a Victorian in spirit and his house was always very quiet, raised voices and we would be told to stop shouting, radio on a very low volume. And Victorians lived in a noisy industrial age, he worked in shipyards and I'm sure they were not quiet at all. I seem to remember seeing, somewhere, an Victorian engraving of a singer performing with a kind of horn like a gramophone horn or the bell of large wind instrument. It might have been a cariacature lampooing the huge orchestral brass instruments which were being invented. David 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] Burns Night mp3-station
A short set of Burns stuff from various artists - http://www.mp3.com/stations/burnsnight Needs iTunes, Realplayer or similar. cheers! David 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] Oswald's English guittar (was Cumbernauld House)
Toby Rider wrote:
re:
http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/guittar.html
and also at
http://www.robmackillop.com/
Wow, these are some very nice photos. I can almost smell the wood. What a
fascinating axe! I noticed that the two bass strings are not doubled,
whereas all the other ones are. Do you know why they decided to set it up
that way?
As with the lute, orpharion etc. The question is more 'why do we have
doubled basses now' on any instrument. The beats created by double bass
strings are not pleasant, and lack the chorusing effect of double or
treble course means and trebles - they just sound off-tune. Single
basses are more than adequate, the thumb provides a firm pure sound of
the correct volume. The basses should be made from catline (gut wound
with a fine steel thread in it) or twisted brass wire, not the modern
copper wound strings I use myself. But reproduction strings sets are
from #40 to #80 a throw!
Yes, the tuning mechanism is *totally* different. It actually seems like
a logical way to do this. What were the downfalls of it? I'm wondering
why this style of tuner never made it onto modern instruments.
It was 'patented' by Preston around 1734 and it does seem incredibly
robust - mine has been
tuning away since around 1770 and still works like clockwork (which in
engineering terms, it resembles!). Portugese guittaras and German
waldzithers do still use these machines, but the Portugese put a big
tuning knob on each of the 12 screws of their instrument, instead of a
key which you have to remove and replace. The Germans use a grandfather
clock key on harp-tuner size adjusters instead, and it's much easier to
find those in a hurry.
So do you think that's where the open tunings that American old-time
players use originated from? I knew this was raise all of these
questions in my mind. Too bad I didn't see any sound samples of this
insturment.
I think the open triad/hexchord tuning is so fundamental it could
equally well have come from Africa as Europe. But I would guess yes,
that the American folk banjo, dulcimer and slide guitar tunings can from
German-Dutch-French-English-Scots-Irish influence (old cittern tunings)
rather than the Arabic-Spanish side (which tends be tuning in fourths,
the exact reverse of an open tuning). The oldest and most universal
tuning in the world is octave and fifth, as it's the most mathematically
pure tuning. It's fundamental to most Scottish music. From there it is a
small step to add a major third, a minor third, or ('mountain minor') a
fourth.
Sound samples were linked somewhere! Here are some, one correctly
Scottish (Bremner 1758):
Tweedside - http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/1617/1617988.html
and one which is just me doing a pastiche 'o'er the Border' variation in
modern folk style, which I suspect may be the way the instrument was
used informally, but Rob MacKillop finds too American/modern in manner:
Border Marches - http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/1416/1416640.html
I have one tune recorded, played on a modern instrument for comparison.
This was before I acquired the guittar, Jack Campin sent me a
transcription of a duet, on to one stave, for the 'Edinburgh Trained
Bands March' from Bremner 1758. I worked out a single-handed soprano
guitar arrangement from this, using a Tacoma Papoose, which has the same
scale length as a guittar, but rather heavier single modern strings:
ETBM - http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/900/900446.html
However, the best thing to do is get Rob MacKillop's wonderful CD
'Flowers of the Forest' which is played on several different lutes, a
Scottish mandour (tiny renaissance ukelele-scale lute!), Scottish
cittern, and his Broderip guittar. This CD can change your view of where
Scottish music came from, and what happened to it when the German
hired-hand composers got hold of it in the 18th c, and what further
damage was done by the piano, and then the accordion :-)
David
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Re: [scots-l] Cumbernauld House
Jack Campin wrote: Oswald himself specialised in guittar (English guittar) which has a sound like a very quiet harp or lyre. It's also a very easy instrument to write music with, as it transposes and the tuning forms two major chords (CEGceg, GBDgbd or AC#Eac#e normally). Here's the tune, in the vocal version from the Scots Musical Museum - I don't have Oswald's original handy. How easy is it on the guitar? I'll have a look, printed it out - but Barfly is so frustrating on my Mac! I can't use anything except 'beep' and it plays in a way which bears no resemblance to your demosntration - all the note lengths are wrong and the result doesn't even sound like a tune. More like some very long horrible ringtone. The tune looks OK on guittar, but I'll report back after trying it. The speed of the ABC would be a little fast for guittar. I would transpose the entire thing to A instead of G (my guittar transposes A, Bflat, B, or C and that's it - Irish ones transposed G, Gsharp, A, Bflat) since I have not yet made a capo I just play in A. But Chris Egerton, a luthier in London, has just made me an entire set of bone string pins and it's sounding very good as a result! David 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] Cumbernauld House
Jack Campin wrote: Barfly is so frustrating on my Mac! I can't use anything except 'beep' and it plays in a way which bears no resemblance to your demosntration - all the note lengths are wrong and the result doesn't even sound like a tune. More like some very long horrible ringtone. 1. Reinstall QuickTime - early versions of QT 5 are no good, up to 4.0.3 is okay and so is 6 - and make sure the musical instruments are installed. OK, my Classic installation has QT5. The instruments stutter and some don't sound at all. That may be the explanation - no problem adding them to Barfly, they simply don't work. David 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] Tempos
Cynthia wrote: re Highland march: Rather, Mike told me it was a swinging fast walk. Maybe he was thinking of the kilts, but a louping jog could fit the description as well. I think the great kilt (full thingy, huge length of fabric in one piece for cloak and all) pretty much forces a swinging walk on the flat. For battle the Highlanders discarded their philamor and fought in their smalls, must have looked like a load of Marley's ghost actors weilding claymores instead of candles. The theories I've heard (and, well, developed) on the harped brosnachadh are that it would have been performed in the camp either the night before the battle or the morning of the battle. Maybe just for the generals. The concept of a ritual stand-off that you refer to is intriguing. Can you share more? (And if everyone else is groaning right now, let us know...we can take our conversation off to a quiet corner.) A lot of my info is from rather doubtful sources like 'Waverley Anecdotes' (1833 - no author identified!) which in turn quote old accounts. The early Highland clan chiefs had champions - eventually becoming a hereditary thing - and they must originally have had some purpose. There's a load of stuff out there about the courtesy of Highlanders towards their enemies, and in the Borders (different ethnic group, but many shared principles of rapine, theft etc) it's said that battles were sometimes over without any blood being spilled. The real object was to take prisoners and then ransom them, and it was so formalised that the prisoner would be taken, would agree to pay his ransom immediately, would then be released and have to sit on the sidelines agreeing not to fight any more - like a chess piece taken off the board. Small inter-clan battles governed by rules of ransom, blood-money and blood-feud must have been a very strange mixture of extreme violence and caution. Kill someone, and you would either have to pay a substantial amount to their clan, or suffer a state of feud for generations; take them a live prisoner, unharmed, and they would pay you instead. Not only that, they might respect you and in a future battle would endeavour to ensure they took YOU prisoner in return since being taken prisoner was a good way to ensure safety. I bet that while all this courteous bloodshed was happening for the chiefs and their families, a load of the peasantry was getting wiped out on their behalf. I think the harpers were honoured and protected as if family members. They could well have been known to both sides in a dispute. David 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] Cumbernauld House
Richard Evans wrote: I've started playing this tune on Northumbrian Pipes, having found it in 'Bewick's Pipe Tunes', published by Matt Seattle. In his notes, Matt says that this version is similar to James Oswald's. It sounds like a harp tune to me, and the title would possibly support that. Is this right? Any further information much appreciated. I've been playing it as an air- it's a beautiful, relaxed melody. Since Oswald published anything he could lay hands on, who knows what source... Oswald himself specialised in guittar (English guittar) which has a sound like a very quiet harp or lyre. It's also a very easy instrument to write music with, as it transposes and the tuning forms two major chords (CEGceg, GBDgbd or AC#Eac#e normally). But Oswald also played violin and keyboards. Rob MacKillop would know if Oswald played harp - have a look at www.robmackillop.com for more about Oswald. David 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] Tempos
Cynthia Cathcart wrote: Dancing maybe, but not marches writes my friend David (hi David!) Actually, that's not true. The brosnachadh (the incitement to battle) was a march, and was originally played with the wire strung harp, perhaps solo or perhaps as accompaniment for a chanted poem. I can understand the wire-strung harp being used that way with chanted exhortations. I was thinking more of 'marches' in the 18th century dance sense. One point of confusion is that early descriptions of the fighting methods of the Highlanders pretty much rule out any question of marching, as we know it, before the mid-18th c. How can there have been a 'march' when marching resembled mass fell-running, not the rythmic stride down metalled roads we are used to now? The Highlanders were famous for being able to outpace horsemen over their native country, and for being able to keep up a running pace (probably like fell-running, more of a louping jog). The march in current Scottish dance music is surely rooted in the tradition of the Assemblies, and the set music which grew up with these dance-halls - very much a Hanoverian military atmosphere. We certainly know that harpers accompanied warriors/chieftains into battle, but we don't have a very clear idea of the protocol of battle. The more I read about this, the more I get the impression of a ritual stand-off where a fairly small group of opponents might decide the day - maybe even a fixed combat between champions. For this sort of staged battle, where the risks were controlled by a recognition of the mutual need not to slaughter and main without good reason, I guess even the harpers themselves could have competed. The battles which are remembered most are often those which did not conform - which were massacres, or disasters, or where the enemy failed to understand the ritual and didn't give way (or returned some inappropriate fire, such as unfair use of arrows!). It's a great pity we do not hear wire strung harp very often in Scotland, except from a few players, and then mainly on records ;-) I've never once seen a wire-strung harp concert advertised in the Borders. David 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] Tempos
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The sad thing is that to be a master harper according to the Scottish Harp Society one must be able to play a March/Strathspey/Reel set and not much else. The repertoire requirement is 40 tunes, 75% of which is MSR's. (one also has to have 10 airs which are broadly defined. For example, Piobaireachd is classified as an air). Very sad indeed, as I'm quite sure the clarsach was not originally used for any of that. Dancing maybe, but not marches - and the strathspey hadn't even been thought of! To be a master harper, you should really have to extemporise an accompaniment for a recitationally sung eulogy, welcome, lament, nuptial, or whatever! And send people to sleep. That's essential... :-) David 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: A Fiddler's Book of Scottish Jigs
Wayne Morrison wrote: I don't know how this happened, but I apologize to you Cynthia (and anyone else bothered by the faster tempos) for any heartache and finger-stress I caused you in trying to match these higher tempos. It's even worse for guitarists where dance tempos can pretty much destroy the chance of expression unless you resort to flatpick melody playing against a rythmic chord accompaniment. It's not especially difficult to play fast, and some classical pieces are extremely fast - but NOT on the whole for the entire melody (more fast in the way that bits of Mozart or Bach can be fast - the melody threads itself into a pattern of alternating notes or arpeggios). And if I want to play that sort of fast I immediately pick up a nylon string guitar, too, not a steel string. I find it funny sometimes that dancers will completely fail to identify a tune when played at an entirely different tempo. A while ago I played 'The Birks of Invermay' from Bremner's 1758 guittar tutor - where it is written without much 'snap', and for an instrument which is best played delicately and with use of sustain. A Scottish country dancer friend liked it and asked what it was - after I told him, he immediately recognised it, but said playing at such a slow speed had hidden the tune from him. To me, the slow speed brings out the beauty of the tune (which has a very song-like melody and is no doubt a song too) and the dance tempo just makes it sound like everything else! David 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: Gael question (fwd)
mary umbarger wrote: Dear Nigel, Along this same thought: I have looked for the music to The Sweetness of Mary which I heard on a CD by Alsdair Fraser (Return to Kintail). It is really a beautiful strathspey -at least that is what I think it is. Anyway it is really nice. That's a copyright tune - Tony McManus did it solo on his first album, on guitar, as well as with Alasdair - can't remember off the top but it's by a well known Cape Breton fiddler, and I'm sure it's credited propely on both CDs. The original Tony McM album would be a better source to do a harp arrangement. David 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] Announce: Kelso Folk Club Jan 10
Jack Campin wrote: I fully appreciate that this notice will be reaching many who are thousands of miles from Kelso, but if you play loud enough we'll hear you! [...] tunes will include: [...] Balvenie Manor Freudian slip - I listed a tune as 'Balvenie Manor' due to not having info next to me, and thinking - that's wrong... to what came into my head. Belhelvie House' is the correct title! For most fiddlers, thousands of miles away isn't the distance that matters, it's the distance to three flats... Same for guitarists, Jack, so thanks for giving my capo some work! David 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] Announce: Kelso Folk Club Jan 10
Jack Campin, author of the EMBRO, EMBRO CD-ROM which has been so acclaimed for its lyric, commentary and tune content will be giving a performance-talk about this with the help of large screen projection at Kelso Folk Club next Friday. As Jack's 'piece' is an unusual one, we have arranged for a first half concert set by young clarsach playing duo Flora and Corrie Collingwood. These two girls are very talented, and last year I made a short demo CD of them - these recordings can be heard on http://www.mp3.com/harp2harp They have promised a 40 minute set with solo pieces and duets. Flora and Corrie will play at around 9.00pm, and Jack's show will be at 10.00pm. I'll be joining Jack with some simple chord or bass accompaniment to some of the tunes he is playing on Friday, but I would welcome any other volunteer instrumentalists: tunes will include: The Illumination - Lord George Gordon's Reel - The Scotch Hero's Reel The Duke of Buccleuch and his Fencibles - Miss Gordon of Gight - Miss Haig of Bemerside - Balvenie Manor for which I can forward ABC or a GIF score, sent to me by Jack. I fully appreciate that this notice will be reaching many who are thousands of miles from Kelso, but if you play loud enough we'll hear you! Venue: The Cobbles Inn, Kelso, Scottish Borders. Time: doors 8.30pm. Admission B#4/B#3 concessions. Floor spots welcome 8.30-9.00pm, and open session to close. The pub serves food if required beforehand and we normally finish up around 12.30pm. 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] Here's tae us! Wha's like us?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nigel, et al, MY interpretation, Here's to those who are like us is inclusive and outward-looking. Given my context, I have a hard time hearing that as anything but racist. I'll trust you that it's not intended as such. I think that would depend on the company. In our local context, the gathering where the toast might be used might include Scottish Borderers, other brands of Scot, Northumbrian and Cumbrian borderers, other English, Irish, German, French and tonight we are assured of one Welsh Canadian (etc). So if you say 'us' in such a gathering you are already being pretty broad! On Saturday night, a singer was being introduced in Galashiels, and was accidentally called 'Englishman' - followed by a hurried 'sorry, Yorkshireman!' which produced an immediate sort of murmur of amusement/approval from the audience. My experience is that Scots are NOT racist any more than they have any other prejudice. I've said before that there is more traditional hostility and prejudice between adjacent villages or towns, than between Scots and English these days. Incidents in cities might prove otherwise, but there are so many fewer in Scotland than in England, and immigrant communities seem to integrate so much better in Scotland (whatever their origins). The moment the kids acquire a Scots accent, they become Scots. We had a front page article in our local paper demanding that the government send asylum seekers to our region, instead of to Glasgow. We want them! We want their skills and diversity and we are short of everything from bricklayers to surgeons. Compare that with the attitude of many other parts of the country... David 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: Hogmany Traditional Tunes?
Nigel wrote: here is a toast which has become traditional in Scotland: Here's tae us wha's like us!, meaning Here's to those that are like us!. Unfortunately it has become distorted into an arrogant Here's tae us! Wha's like us? meaning who on this earth is as magnificant as we Scots?, usually appended with Damn few, an' they're a' deid! Jack will probably jump in on this one, but I think the arrogant version is old, correct and grammatically sound while your douce variant is not sound Scots or Inglis. The toast is a Border motto, and Borderers were not renowned for holding back on arrogance. Not sure about the 'Damn' though, I suspect that may have been Burns getting a bit racy. I've heard 'Gey few' from folk who will not say 'Damn' - and there are still plenty of those around, even in the Borders. Might say it falling off a horse, but not in a toast. I think Jack, again, might provide some history of toasts in Scotland. They led to some phenomenal feats of drinking, since it was not unusual to have a couple of dozen toasts proposed, and a glass drained for each one! You certainly should not toast a woman/girl by name - 'to the lasses' is fine, but not singling one out. It's got a specific meaning historically, as the words to Barbara Allen show. 'You gar'd the toast gae roon an' roon, an' slichted Barbara Allen' - it was a way of boasting of a conquest. David 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] Ballad question
David Francis wrote: David Kilpatrick wrote: maybe the ballads really go back even further to the Bronze Age, and ALL iron is 'metal clear' while those old bronze swords are 'metal broon'... It's an interesting thought, and maybe not so far fetched. Take a look at Alan Garner's essay (he of 'Red Shift', 'The Owl Service' etc) 'Oral history and applied history in East Cheshire' (it's in his collection 'The Voice that Thunders'). Here he proposes the view, based on deductions from place names and topographical evidence in an archetypal 'Sleeping Warrior' story, that the story itself probably has its origins in some of the earliest communities in that part of the world - dated to the Bronze Age around 4,000 years ago. The story is still current in oral tradition around Alderley Edge. As long as it's not the same as the sleeping Scotsman story... presumably it's a warrior asleep until rewakened to save the world story? I would have thought that was probably even older still and shares roots with all deist religion, and in turn with the fact of being born and having parents. I used enjoy Garner's kids books (with small reservations, even as a kid) but haven't seen his other writing and must look. David 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] FS antique finish fiddle
I have a new Romanian fiddle outfit for sale - basically a sample I bought in with a view to reselling as a regular item - which would make a really nice Christmas present for someone. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemitem=930975610 What's unusual about this is the appearance. It looks more like a well used, cared for oldish fiddle than a new one - sort of slightly matter than normal, antique shaded finish. The pix look a bit more red and less chocolate in colour than it is. And the ebony is all very nice and real. It could do with a new soundpost because I really made a mess of the one supplied (and my thumb!) trying to use the setting tool, and it's probably in the wrong place. I think it was a bit too short for the instrument. So a quick visit to an expert would probably do it some good. I've ordered a higher grade, flamed fiddleback model with a rather high factory price to see what these are like too, but that won't be with me until February, and the finish is a rather strident gloss - but they don't do this antique finish in a better fiddle. David in Kelso 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] Ballad question
Clifford Abrams wrote:
In many texts, spears or other weapons are often shod with metal
'free'. Why free. I understand (from the late Tony Cuffe) that a
wee pen knife was really very likely a weapon knife-- which
people were much more likely to carry around in earlier days. (As an
aside, many paintings by Brughel and Bosch feature men of all classes
carrying these kserviceablervicable-lookidaggers daggars. They seem
like long bayonettes mostly.)
Is a similar transposition happening with the free thing? Thanks.
I think Tony was wrong, because we would see this tautological structure
in early sources if it existed - and 'weapon knife' doesn't appear
anywhere. Also, there are English versions of songs which use 'little'.
A penknife was a necessary thing at the time the ballads were noted
down, if not at the time they are often dated (illiteracy doesn't go
with pen knives!). And I think they were quite different from a modern
penknife - a long handle with a short blade of considerable sharpness
needed for cutting a quill in one clean action. Probably as effective as
a stiletto. Maybe even adapted for personal defense use by women - after
all, the moment guns became available, most British women of any
standing carried a gun personally (I believe what I hear on the Antiques
Roadshow!), and I'm sure that they would always have carried a
serviceable small knife before that.
'Metal free' or 'metal clear' refers to the difference between naturally
occurring free iron and iron refined from ore ('metal brown') - or to
the iron derived from different ores. Pyrites, haematite and another
ironstone ore (can't remember, I knew all this once from my father)
require different extraction processes and there were very rare
occurrences of free iron - maybe meteorites. The results of working
these ores 500 years ago were not unlike the differences between cast
iron, wrought iron and common steel now. Good swords did not rust (ditto
armour) but went dark and stayed sharp.
Whatever the processes involved - the ores and the smithing skills - the
best weapons grade metal was superb stuff and has survived up to today.
The ballads are just making the point that these were expensive, serious
blades. Same way they labour descriptions of horse trappings, clothing
etc. 'Young Waters' is a nice one - just to make the point that he's
well turned out, his horse has to have golden graithes and silver shoes,
and he had a golden cloak, etc.
Someone who knows something about metallurgy may be better able to
explain why iron/steel could be free, clear, brown (but please note the
Hugh the Graeme error in MacColl or the Corries songbook, or both - his
sword was not of the 'the metal bent', or 'the metal burnt', but of 'the
metal broon' in contrast to his other sword which is of the 'metal clear').
Deep thought - maybe the ballads really go back even further to the
Bronze Age, and ALL iron is 'metal clear' while those old bronze swords
are 'metal broon'...
David
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[scots-l] Gig Edinburgh Sun Oct 27
I'm doing a solo set - songs and guitar instrumental, more of the former than the latter - at the Listening Room, the Blue Blazer, Spittal Street, Edinburgh, Sunday night 8.00-10.00pm. No amplification - part of Acoustic Underground's Edinburgh programme, in conjunction with Brett Perkins' Listening Rooms California and Denmark. Probably be entirely Lowden guitar, steel and nylon variously, not quite decided yet if any other instruments need an airing. David 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] I've got the virus too - perhaps I can help.
Ellen Sinatra wrote: Secondly, it is my observation that the traditional music scene in Scotland is healthy -- and even musicians who incorporate instruments from outside the Scottish instrumentarium and who perform popified arrangements are playing in pubs and festivals without their added gear. Am I correct in this observation? Do you know? Do you care? Yes, all over the place. Edinburgh pubs are full of loose components of Salsa Celtica (etc) and our Borders pubs are frequented by musicians who otherwise play for money, playing for fun as well, and of course without all the PA gear. David 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] I've got the virus too - perhaps I can help.
Ted Hastings wrote: And I suspect that it's the only one with which you've tried to use the complex mixture of applications described above. Not at all, and also about the 'no-one is obliged to install... etc'. We are. When you publish reviews of peripherals and software, you can not turn one company down and say 'well, I reckon your stuff may cause us problems' - even if that is your past experience. You have to give each revision a fair trial and that usually means installing it. You're not comparing like with like. 'ownership' issues and access privileges only become an issue if you're running a server, which should only be done if you have the appropriate training. Not so. On Mac OS X and similar opsys, ownership and privileges are concerns with any installation. It doesn't have to be a server, because this ain't Windows. ALL machines are servers, and have been since about 1986. Networking and file sharing are part of the system. OS X just firms it up a bit with Unix-style login etc. What I don't understand is why all the people who raved about the Mac OS for years have quietly dropped it in favour of Unix, which has been around a lot longer than Macs. Because the Mac operating system goes back to the Xerox GUI (which we first used on Apple Lisa computers, before Macs existed, and also used on Xerox workstations where it was even 'purer'). Unix can sit behind almost any GUI, and Mac users never raved about the actual opsys behind the GUI, only the way in which the GUI worked. The new operating system is actually not much enjoyed by those who preferred the economical simplicity of the orginal GUI, but then, Windows users don't often enjoy the child-friendly interface of XP either. For my business, Windows was never even an option. All the key software we use has now been ported to Windows, but back in the 1980s a PC was frankly unable to drive any of the scanners, imagesetters, or even the layout and graphics programs necessary. Windows owes it present font formats, colour management, printer drivers and just about everything else (including Microsoft Office, believe it or not!) to stuff which started out on the Mac platform. We do get many readers who clamour about obscure low-cost Windows programs which do wonderful things and say 'this isn't made for Mac!'... and then you look at what they are talking about, and realise they are using something which resembles a bit of Mac freeware from 15 years ago, which indeed does not exist for Mac today, since no-one in their right mind would pay the $49.95 asking price. There are payroll programs for Mac, but I don't trust them. Just the same way I don't trust graphics programs on PC. Accounts depts use PCs, and it follows that the most solid and reliable accounts stuff will probably be on PC. But for sound recording, magazine production, digital studio work, animation, etc I'll pay the extra for the similar dedication of Macs to those fields over the years. I don't criticise PC/Windows per se, just the way in which the entire market was contrived to keep 'consultants' in business instead of letting the user control their own machine. It still happens. One client of ours just paid several thousand for an ACCESS database when two hours with a copy of FileMaker Pro would have done the job (on Windows OR Mac, fully cross platform compatible). The consultant trashes FileMaker Pro and promotes ACCESS not because FMP is inferior, just because if the client gets FMP, they no need the consultant's services. And this particular aspect of the Windows/PC world is one which I deeply dislike as I hate deception for commercial gain. David 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] I've got the virus too - perhaps I can help.
Ted Hastings wrote: As far as I can see, the principal characteristic of the Unix user community is to criticise Microsoft and Windows at every opportunity. Windows users don't seem to be nearly as prone to bashing the competition, perhaps because they're getting on with productive work using the world's best-selling software, rather than writing their own fixes for OS bugs :) Try telling that to my son, who has been unable to work at all for the last three days because of the ridiculous registry system used by Microsoft, which if you are obliged to install many programs and attempt to remove them (we have to test digital cameras, scanners, software etc all the time) and also run heavily protected software like Sage Payroll on the same machine - well, the risks are huge. I was told that Mac OS X with its 64,000 system components was a nightmare but not so - unlike Windows NT/2000/XP whatever, it really can handle a re-installation without losing a single user preference or a single essential file, or any of the links betweens programs, data and system-level components installed by programs for their own use. We can't afford to have multiple PCs but we are now considering having one just to run payroll and contact info software, one just to run Internet access, and one for testing equipment and software which can be erased and reinstalled without risk. We've been using Sun, Mac, BeBox, Acorn, various Linux installations (on both Mac and PC), many handhelds and pioneer products over the last decade or so and: of all the systems and platforms out there, not one is as utterly awful as the Microsoft/PC platform. It is the only platform which consistently costs us time, money and anger. I can be frustrated at time with Macs, but at least: I can switch in two minutes to working under OS9 and do any work I need to on OS X components, without 'ownership' issues and access privileges hampering me I can boot up and run my system from a CD I can run software we bought in 1984 alongside the latest packages, and be utterly stable and print reliably - not ALL software from 1984, of course, and I have a cupboard full of software which stopped running the year after it was purchased, as was never rewritten... because Windows was the world's leading platform, and it wasn't worth keeping stuff live on Macs at the time However, now Macs are essentially Unix machines, that problem has gone, and I can well understand why the peculiar folk of the Unix community have been so gnarly for so many years. They were right all along. David 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] here comes bugbear - **READ THIS** if you use Tiscali
Jack Campin wrote: I just got a copy of the bugbear virus that must have come from someone reading this list. It was not routed through scots-l itself. Here are the relevant parts of the header and body: Received: from [80.40.54.94] (helo=aol.com) by mk-smarthost-1.mail.uk.tiscali.com with smtp (Exim 4.10) id 1817xM-0001sX-00 for [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Mon, 14 Oct 2002 17:20:37 +0100 From: thelanes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Re: [scots-l] The Border Gaitherin 2002 - May Weekend Coldstream [...] /htmlContent-Type: audio/x-wav; name=HAMSTER.DOC.pif Content-ID: EA4DMGBP9p The way bugbear works, that DID NOT come from anyone called thelanes, but it *did* come from someone with a Tiscali account who had thelanes in their address book. From some which I have seen, the 'from' address is a composite invented from two randomly chosen addresses in the infected computer's address book - so there is probably no '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' - I have received bugbear messages saying I've sent stuff to people, which have my domain and a someone else's personal identity - example, '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' was one, and that address does not exist. All of which makes bugbear 'senders' very hard to pin down and inform of their problem. David 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: Returning digests and stardom
Eric Falconer wrote: I also got a flood of digests last night. I stopped receiving them in January this year for no obvious reason. I tried re-subscribing a number of times without success. Thought I'd been blacklisted! Nice to see all the old familiar names still here - same old arguments? Re David's banjo stardom They didn't air it today and maybe it will be killed, which would be a good thing perhaps...! Your spot, on the other hand, is permanently enshrined in a series with spin-off videos. The Border face in Kelso is different in this generation of kids from oldsters. Good food turns those reiving, rugger-playing, farm labouring genes into MONSTERS compared with pre-beefburger-diet days. Huge lads and fair-set the lot of them. But the girls might object to characterising the 'Border face' as craggy, rugged... etc. David 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] Border TV Thurs night (possible laugh)
Border Television News, Scotland, tomorrow night, Thursday, 5-5.30pm: look out for bald bloke playing banjo badly We had a TV crew in to film a news item about music sessions in local pubs (we just started a two-month funded program of free live music) and I got 24 hours notice to attempt to raise a daytime interview setting, including young traditional Scots musicians. Our local High School in Kelso were aces, and the heid man released three young lasses who regularly drop in to play fiddle and flute on our Friday night sessions. But everyone else was at work, so it was down to me and my friend Pete (half-day closing for his shop) with guitars to add a bit of noise and give the impression of a real session. I took along a five-string banjo on the basis that if a few others turned up, a banjo never does any harm to the overall sound, gives it a lift, a bit like playing the spoons only with a hint of actual notes :-) I do not play banjo normally except for loud songs in G when no-one can hear what I'm playing. I ended up playing very badly accompanying fiddle tunes in A (not the banjo's strongest key) and then, when I tried to swap over for my nice safe guitar, was told to keep playing the banjo for continuity... so we did the entire set again for some more camera angles, including (my friend Dave on the ENG camera told me afterwards) close-ups of what my fingers were doing. Banjo players throughout the Borders region can now have a really good laugh. What they filmed was seriously inexpert banjo accompaniment and I hope it goes the usual way of TV news fillers - cut to five seconds. Life is funny - guitarist and singer, and here's the first time I ever get in front of the TV cameras... playing beginner-level banjo without rehearsing (or even knowing what the girls were going to play until they started). Cheers - David 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] Border TV Thurs night (possible laugh)
Philip Whittaker wrote: David, Thanks for the chance you gave to my flute playing daughter to get on TV with her fiddling pals. Did the school day lunch-time session on the TV give the flavour of the Friday night sessions? Did the school garb look obvious? Looking forward to seeing your banjo virtuoisty. Yes, the school garb looked obvious and when one of the girls decided she wanted to take the school sweater off, she had to put it back on - continuity, the same as my bl**dy banjo... they even had to play the same tune twice, so that bits could be cut together with different camera angles, and it was all done without rehearsal of any kind at all, so I fear that what they got right I may have spoiled. The banjo is seriously not good, wrong chords and stuff in places - I just hope they have an editor capable of spotting the occasional bar or two which was RIGHT, and cutting the wrong stuff. But I was not able to STOP, because that would have ruined the continuity too... But with the pub fire lit, and close shots of the fiddles and flute, and apparently quite close shots of my hands on the banjo neck with Pete and his guitar sort of in the background, it may be quite abstract and give a decent feel. Also during the interviews (the girls got the do a few words) the diners in the pub were laughing at jokes and stuff, it was quite relaxed, and with luck it will sound like a reasonable atmosphere. David 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] Wha Saw the Forty Second etc
Nigel Gatherer wrote: Wha saw the tattie howkers, Wha saw them gang awa? Wha saw the tattie howkers, .. the Berwick Law? I believe it may originate as hawkers, based on Irish potato sellers. No, it's to 'howk' or dig. Tattie howkers is not just Scottish, it's what they are called throughout northern England for sure (I photographed Irish tattie howkers in Yorkshire in 1968 and that was the title used for the series of pix). David 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] John Anderson
tom hall wrote: Hail andrew, et al, I assume that you're referring to John Anderson, My Jo, by Burns. The version he wrote for the Merry Muses of Caledonia does suggest that he was a piper. To wit: To see your hurdies fyke, John, And hit the rising blow: It's then I like your chanter-pipe, John Anderson, my jo. When I came to Kelso he was chairman of the local photo society. It's a very common name! the tradition does exist. Even if he had not been the town piper, Burns would probably have used the same symbolism. David 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] Places
Philip Whittaker wrote: Thomas the Rhymer - who was a real scholar who probably went off to Italy, giving rise to alegend that he lived in fairy land for this time. As i recall he entered he entered after meeting the Fairy Queen by the Eildon Tree - presumeably near the three Eildon Hills, by Melrose. I cannot recall whether I have heard this sung, but no tune comes to mind. Steeleye Span's version is a nice tune but not sure how it could be treated. Tam Linn, has a similar theme but the fairy queen is more malign this time. She keeps the young man in Fairy land against his will. It is through the bravery of his lover that he escapes. He rides out in a fairy troupe on horseback on Hallowe'en. She follows his instructions, pulling him from the horse and wrapping him in her cloak while he changes shape into an adder and and asp - a red hot coal. She holds on through all this and the spell is broken. I think this is in Scott's Border Minstrelsey. Again no tune comes to mind. I have heard it recited to the reel of this name, but that's not much use to you. Matt Seattle has produced some sheet music for Tam Lin (the tune and reel) and we'll be printing that with the notes for the CD on which the recitation appears. Try: http://www.mp3.com/melbournescottish for the Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Orchestra's version In general there are plenty of songs of the borders - the Border Widow's lament which has a simple effective tune and then there's The Twa Corbie's sung , I think, to an African tune. Again very effective. The tune is An Alarch, a Breton tune, adapted by Archie Fisher for the use. He qualifies as Melrosian I suppose... too. And of course you could try Jock o'Hazeldean - there's at least one housing estate road by that name nearby... David 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] Schehallion
Nigel Gatherer wrote: I have been asked for any info on a group called Schehallion who ...used to include parodies of songs in their set. There was one called Rose Street Rag and another one which was sung to the tune of Peter Sarstedt's Where do you go to my lovely which included the lines Where do you go to my ugly Late on a Saturday night Is it tae Leith or tae Gorgie Ye just dinnae care where ye fight as a chorus... Does anybody here know anything of this? There seem to have been plenty of Schielhallions around. I don't think the parodies are connected with the Borders-based band of this name, which gigged mainly in the late 80s and early 90s, until their songwriter and singer Bruce Robson was killed (the tragic accident where the fire engine went through the parapet of Kelso's old bridge into the Tweed). They have recently reformed as a foursome but I heard nothing of this kind in the sets they have done so far. But possible could-be for you. David 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] Tantallon
Nigel Gatherer wrote: I'm going to see a Celtic folk group from Tasmania called Tantallon, who are playing in a nearby village. Anybody heard of them? Dunno, but if they are any good, they can come and do a spot in Kelso. Let me know. David 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] Is anyone there?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Many laments don't really contain much anger I don't know about that, David. I don't mean to challenge you, it's just that my experience is different from yours. I find that most laments do indeed have at least one phrase that expresses anger. Usually at the beginning of the B part. I understand what you mean - yes, that certainly is the case in terms of positioning for a dramatic phrase or a swelling of expression, and it happens in Owen Roe O'Neill (the tune from Alison in the same and it is Carolan in origin - it's also a very popular guitar piece). But you talk about a glissando etc - that's just not there in the original music as written, it's entirely down to the expression of the player. The source is a plain melody without any hint of harmony or arrangement. There are modern harmonic usages like 6ths, 2nds and 9ths, which really don't have any place 300 years ago, but can add a great deal of to the 'anger' or darkness or a 'plain minor' piece. David 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] Stock and horn
At the weekend I purchased an 1880 facsimile reprint of the 1788 illustrated edition, with music, of Allan Ramsay's 'The Gentle Shepherd'. The first picture shows Patie with his new ivory bound pear-wood 'flute' (a recorder), and on the ground is what must be Roger's 'stock and horn' - it appears to be a reed mouthpiece like a bombard, followed by a straight barrel with six fingerholes, on the end of which is a cow's horn acting as a trumpet bell. It is mentioned in the lyric as 'stock and horn' or I would not have known what this was. The implication is that the sweet flute/recorder beats the rough shepherd's 'stock and horn' sound - Roger's would-be girlfriend tells him to stop the racket as soon as he starts tuning his reed. Does anyone make these now? David, Kelso 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] Geezersong
Or, as they say, gie's a song... nothing to do with Scotland, but I've got my current 'signature tune' up and playable on mp3.com. It's called 'Take Me Back to 1969' and at least in the Borders, the average age of audiences means it goes down better than anything I've ever done before! http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/1851/1851880.html Even if you can't play these unwieldy streaming audio things, you might like the words which do appear on the page. David 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] Whistlebinkies Webcast
Stuart Eydmann wrote: Sorry, this should not have been under Tune Archive. Just another note to say that my band the Whistlebinkies did a live webcast from the Edinburgh Festival for BBC Radio 3 last Tuesday evening. The show can still be accessed at the following: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/edinburgh/ram/edjunction.ram Sound and pictures are a bit ropey, but - hey its the BBC! Our bit is clip 4 at the end - after earlier spots by a flamenco band and Jackie Leven. I'm the bald one with the glasses. If anyone is able to save the clip for me I'd be eternally grateful - there's a free CD in it. Also, we are playing at the Church of St Andrew and St George, George Street, Edinburgh this Saturday night as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - see you there? would love to but sorry, I'm playing at, er, Whistlebinkies: couldn't you have got a gig there to REALLY confuse people? Hey, they named it after you, after all... David 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] Kelso: massive turn out
Despite the total absence of traditional isntrumental music, Kelso got an incredible turn out for the first of our 'enterprise board' backed publicised sessions on Friday. There was standing room only. It was pretty much all songs, but 75 per cent traditional (with the usual modern stuff like BTTW, Athenry and Caledonia by dint of requests). No difficult drunks except one young man locked out by the barman who barred the door the moment he tried to get in, and called the polis. Lots of good singing and reasonable hush when needed. We could seriously have done with some traditional inst - fiddle and whistle, whatever. I did bring along a few whistles but you wouldn't recognise what I do with them as anything resembling music :-) David 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: A session wi the (insert name here) Lasses
Jack Campin wrote: Problem with Midlothian is that most of the pub session and folk club space is taken up by people with guitars doing tedious Nashville-type singer-songwriter stuff, which I find so brainfreezingly dull my fingers don't work right any more after listening to a few numbers of it. Coincidence - I find an hour of nonstop jigs and reels wipes my song memory entirely :-) David 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] Your Patience Required, Your Help Appreciated
Judy Reynolds wrote: Matter of fact, Scottish humor is wonderful stuff. Is there a place to go to where we can find more? Aye, lass, it's ca'd Scotland... :-) 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] Wanted Flower of Scotland for organ
A friend of mine is desperate to get Flower of Scotland for church organ for a wedding, needed urgently. A piano 'arrangement' would do. Any luck? David 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] Kelso
Philip Whittaker wrote: I think you are hard on teachers - those who are the stalwarts of what traditional music scene there is. I do not think it is so much unease at meeting ex pupils - or current pupils drinking under age. I think the session/club problem is more one of venue. I don't blame them - not because you, or Ian etc are wary of the pub, but because the pub is actually a lousy place for music in most ways. Remember the Bar-L when it was still the Sportie? Same problem. Traditional music thrives on introducing kids to join sessions and learn, on accepting beginners and watching them progress, etc - hard drinking pubs like the Red Lion, or 'dive' joints like the Sportie are not the right places for this. They are fine for eejits like me and Jim bashing out a few Eagles songs, but so far I have not (for example) attempted to play Tweedside on 18th c guittar for the benefit of the bar! The ex-pupils you meet are likely to be the ones who have done time, carry concealed weapons and are out of their heads and being forcibly ejected by the barman. I think the 'current pupils' problem has been tackled by the Red and and it no longer has quite the under-age client problem it used to. The problem is that with the exception of the Waggon until the new management - 'ah've heard a' the snide wee comments you are yer wee cronies mak aboot us, ye think yer a' better than us' (to quote the owner when he persuaded us to leave) - there isn't a pub in Kelso which is 'right' for sessions AND a fit place for 'family' participation. Which is why the Box and Fiddle club hires a hotel function room, the Music Makers club uses a community centre room, etc. The Waggon was actually a great venue, just a pity it was taken over. The new owner did not hire Bob Liddle back to play accordion and sing (no more popular or useful to him than we were); indeed Bob, who turns out to be a fine guitarist and aspiring bodhran basher as well, came to three of our Red Lion sessions when he had a quiet spell between gigs. We may yet rise and be a folk club again - the funding from what we are doing for the Season of Sessions is going into the new Kelso Folk Club bank account - I'm treasurer, Jim Johnstone is chair and Pete Gillespie is secretary. We intend to book and pay for some above-the-line artists - but the Red Lion will not be the venue, it could never be controlled by ticket admission. David 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] Kelso (wis: Bessie Bell and Mary Gray)
Nigel Gatherer wrote: Nigel, this is sub-judice. In fact the girl was from Kelso. You've just written a pretty good ballad on an ACTUAL INCIDENT LAST WEEK. (Actually, it's pretty traumatic and is being treated as a serious assault by the police). How on earth did you know that the Gemini II Club is, indeed, right next to Hogarth's Oat and Meal Mills in Vasult Square? You must be that old geezer the girls complain about hanging around in the wynds... (NB: brilliant. Quite excellent. We have our Kelso 'Session' on Friday officially listed by the tourist board for this week so we'll just have to sing this one!) David THE KELSO SHEARIN Now as I went doon tae Kelso Mill I met wi Tam MacNee An' he looked at me wi ma lang yella hair Wi a twinkle in his ee Ricky doo dum day, Doo dum day, Ricky dicky doo dum day I asked him whaur he wis gaun the nicht He said a pairty up Broomlaunds An' I knew by the way he touched ma hair That he had dead sexy hauns Ricky doo dum day, Doo dum day, Ricky dicky doo dum day Aff we went through Kelso toon I had ma new lad on ma airm Till a gang o slags cam efter us Intent on daein me hairm Ricky doo dum day, Doo dum day, Ricky dicky doo dum day They dragged me doon a closie Held me doon, startit tae laugh Grabbed ma ears, an' took oot some shears Said C'mon girls, cut it aff! Ricky doo dum day, Doo dum day, Ricky dicky doo dum day By the time these hags were finished I wis shocked an' feart an' stunned As I staggered oot I wis as bald as a coot An my hair wis on the grund Ricky doo dum day, Doo dum day, Ricky dicky doo dum day Noo a' ye Edinburgh lassies Wha come doon fer a jig Dinna pit on airs, dinna flash yer hair Wear a hat or e'en a wig Ricky doo dum day, Doo dum day, Ricky dicky doo dum day ... From Songs of Kelso, Gala and Frangipanni (Rupert Calvert, 1888). Taken down from the singing of Bauldy Shavencroon, an itinerant flax separator from Floors. 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: Kelsae Lasses
Eric Falconer wrote: There is nothing Kelso girls like less than a pretty face, unless it's long blond hair. The town is notorious for any girl who looks half decent getting waylaid and scarred for life by members of the plug ugly majority! Oh David, how could you malign the young ladies of your adopted home town so??! Just when we're trying to get the tourists back too. I've taught the lassies of Kelso (and the laddies) at the High School for the last 12 and a half years. They're lovely - well, most of them. A town like Kelso needs jobs to keep its young people here. Hairdressing seems as good a trade as any. Lovely girls, aren't they? Actually, it does sound as if the 'attack' was less serious - more like just a part of the girl's hair getting cut off, not a massacre. But Gemini II is a dangerous place to go if you dress a bit differently. Actually, what Kelso needs desperately is higher education. A town with no education after the age of highers loses all the more intelligent kids over 17 or 18; all that remains is what doesn't go to college. Even Hawick has Borders College, even Duns gets an annexe, Kelso has little but one room for a mainly adult course. Kelso will remain the way it is - visually attractive, pleasant enough but devoid of any real culture apart from teachers, teachers' kids, professionals and professionals' kids - until someone puts a decent college level faculty in the town. My own kids say Galashiels is a safe place to go, you can be whoever you choose to be, the Heriot-Watt influence means that strange gothic beings and eccentric styles of dress are normal, and intelligent conversation can even be found in the taxi queue at 3.00am. Kelso is quite different. I'm not a fighter and I can survive with a man grabbing my arm and telling me his laddie has just spent six months in jile but he's a gud lad, would I sing Athenry for him? And tourists, on the whole, don't see this side of it. They're safe in bed. For the 17-25 age group Kelso is hell; the only kids who stay here are in factories, on farms or unemployed. You teach the ones who disappear and go to uni, or at the worst, drudge through a year or two getting lists of modules from Borders College. It's very easy to shut your eyes to the others since they leave school just when they are getting really unmanageable. We have a great folk session at the Red Lion, but it lacks traditional input now since most of our traditional players are teachers, and won't come. They end up face to face with elements they don't want to remember. Actually, we don't like them much either and if we do any serious folk 'bookings' we won't use the Red; these are not an audience I would care to inflict on any visiting artist! Despite this Kelso is the best place I've ever lived. It's fine for tiny kids, young families, oldies. And on the whole, it's great for visitors. The difficult elements are only that way with 'their own' and in their own space. Jedburgh is supposed to be pretty rough, and one of the worst Border towns for drugs, but my kids and their friends have always reckoned it a safer environment for a night out. David 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] Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
Jack Campin wrote: I have a pencil copy somewhere of a broadside from 1789 which is a rhymed catalogue of Edinburgh prostitutes who would be available at that year's Kelso Races As usual, the local lasses just aren't up to it... But I wonder if they grabbed their Edinburgh rivals in the privy and cut their hair off, they way they do today? There is nothing Kelso girls like less than a pretty face, unless it's long blond hair. The town is notorious for any girl who looks half decent getting waylaid and scarred for life by members of the plug ugly majority! Two court cases pending. The only town with a worse reputation for this is Hawick, where it's still not entirely safe to hit the town as a single teenage boy. The local girls hunt in packs and the lads go for safety in numbers. As for going there if you are from ANOTHER town... it gets safer once you're past 65, apparently. David 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] Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
Nigel Gatherer wrote: (Bessie Bell and Mary Gray story) The ballad became popular after the girls' death, and was adapted by Allan Ramsay, John Leyden (who worked with Walter Scott, and moved the scene of the story to the Borders) and James Duff of Logiealmond. Just wanted to make shoes of yellow try to rhyme with Yarrow... 'onestly, guv... David Kilpatrick: the plague reaching Kelso must have been a traumatic time. Some infected houses were set on fire, but the flames went out of control and destroyed the town. I wonder if this incident is recorded in any local songs? And the other two or three occasions on which the entire town appears to have burned down - but no songs. I can't remember if the next fire was in the very late 1700s, but for whatever reason, most of the town centre is circa 1790-1810 and whatever they rebuilt in the 1600s either burned down again or was demolished and remodelled in continental (northern French, Dutch and Venetian) styles. Result, Kelso looks totally unlike any of the other Border towns in layout and architecture. There seem to be just about zero real songs about the place - it gets a namecheck in 'The Runaway Bride', and 'We'll a' tae Kelso go'. Calvert's 1799 book (which Philip Whittaker gave me a copy of) has half a dozen tunes like 'A Trip to Kelso' with the town in the title, since he published the music here. On playing them they sound suspiciously familiar and slightly Irish and I'll bet they all have other names which are better known. David -- Icon magazines: http://www.freelancephotographer.co.uk/ Music CDs and tracks: http://www.mp3.com/DavidKilpatrick Personal website: http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/ 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] Rizzio's 'lute'
A vendor on eBay with a $116 framed Victorian print of historic musical instruments (Antiques and Art Section) has been kind enough to provide highly detailed scans of the entire print which includes a back view of 'Rizzio's Lute' confirming my own suspicion that Rizzio did not play a lute :-) It's a view of a chitarra with a slotted headstock and guitar-shaped body, very sadly from the back because this is wonderfully ornate and made of many dozens of lozenge shaped wooden sections. From what one can see it may be a four-course, or five-course, doubled course strung instrument and might well be wire strung (Italian style) and not gut as it has a narrow neck and the headstock is hardly angled at all. Of course I've copied the pictures off the eBay site - very nice quality scans... no intention of buying the framed picture, prefer to find the book it was probably sliced out of. Or, even better, the source: Where is Rizzio's lute? Is it in Scotland? Did James Oswald know about this instrument when he attributed pieces he 'wrote' for the wire-strung guittar to Rizzio? Because - it's possible that is Rizzio did play a chitarra he might actually have written them. I'm sending a copy of this with the piccy to Rob MacKillop, who is the No 1 authority on Oswald and the Rizzio question, to see if it sheds any light. Anyone else who wants to see it, email me or go have a hunt on eBay (a search under lute will find the item). David 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] Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
Nigel Gatherer wrote: David Kilpatrick wrote: There seem to be just about zero real songs about the place - it gets a namecheck in 'The Runaway Bride', and 'We'll a' tae Kelso go'. There's The Wife o' Kelso but that may be simply a local variant of a widely known tune (there was a Dundee version of that song, and if I remember correctly at least one English version). Indeed it is - she tries to poison the husband, he drowns her. Forgot that one. It does refer to the Tweed but it's easy enough to substitute Tay, Tyne, Tees or any other T-river! I think there is a also a 'Kelso Market' or 'St James's Fair on the Green' but those might be the 'all to Kelso go' song under another title. I guess we should really get them all together and do a local song and tune book. David 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] Fy Gar
Ted Hastings wrote: Possibly, but the expression fye for shame seems to crop up fairly often. I think the most recent example I can remember is the use of Fi! Fi! in the English translation of Strewelpeter, which is around 1890 (something about a cat, I seem to recall - I have a copy somewhere which I found in Moffat last year, sadly not in very good nick). I think 'fye for shame' is in the same class as 'ochone alas!' or 'dule and wae' - doubling the meaning by repeating a very similar sense of word. David 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] Fy Gar
Jack Campin wrote: The Online Scots Dictionary at gives the meaning as an expression signifying haste. And given by English and American dictionaries as an 'expression of digust, dislike or... being shocked'. In the case of 'fye gar rub her o'er' it could be either. In the case of Killiecrankie it could be either. In several other cases it could not be 'hurry' - 'Fye on ye Peggy' clearly means the disgust exclamation [...] I'd like to see an example of 'fy' used in a context where it could only, definitely mean 'hurry'. Fy let us a' to the bridal That seems definite enough. I think the 'fy' is the 'hurry' as Ted suggests in rub her o'er wi' strae - the semantics are the same - used before a verb, does not have any exclamation before it. I think the 'fye Mackay' is the other word, shame not hurry. Probably just an ordinary English word while the 'fy' is purely Scots. David 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] Tuning and Electronic Tuners
Wendy Galovich wrote: Might this variation in the harmonics also explain another phenomenon: two instruments are tuned using the same electronic tuner, and when checked against that, appear that they're in tune with each other, and each one sounds in tune by itself, but.. when played together, they sound *out of tune* with each other. Could the differences in the harmonics of individual instruments create that effect, if the tuner is measuring the fundamental? I'm not a big fan of electronic tuners either - my favorite tuning device is a tuning fork.. no batteries to run down, and no annoying little needle jumping around alternately indicating both sharp and flat on the same string. I like electronic tuners - all the players at our session use them at home, and you can turn up and find everyone is in tune. Compare that with 20 years ago when you could turn up at a club and find no-one really in tune with each other unless they went outside and sorted it. I find that my electronic tuner is sensitive to open strings ringing, so I have to damp all the other strings. It does pick up harmonics and can suddenly jump to a fifth in error, especially if the strings aren't damped. I do adjust my guitar tunings after using the electronic tuner. Each instrument needs slightly different tweaking to sound right. The same applies to various friends' instruments - you can not just centre the needle on all strings and hope for perfect intervals all the way up the neck. That needs 'tempering' to iron out minor flaws in the instrument's build. My best guitar for accuracy without this fine tuning is probably the Lowden O-10. Also, I tune my wife's clarsach, and BOY does an electronic tuner help get THAT one sorted quickly and correctly! Same goes for an autoharp I have. Without this very inexpensive device it would take hours of adjustment by ear to get right. I can tune the autoharp in about five minutes with the electronic tuner. Guess the same would go for hammered dulcimer or any other multi-string, unfretted instrument. David 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?
Jack Campin wrote: Another table is pertinent to a discussion we had a few weeks ago; the lists of historic fundamental pitches beginning on p.495 show how fantastically implausible it is that anyone in Britain in the mid-to- late 18th century would have used a pitch below A=390, even for such an obscure instrument as the guittar, without saying explicitly that they were doing something really, really weird and foreign). In this I think Rob MacKillop has changed his Ephraim Segerman-inspired viewpoint. The Abbe Carpentier's notes on the late 18th century notwithstanding, Rob has now tuned his guittar to a true A=440 C hexachord, and uses this, along with higher capo positions, for his Oswald Divertimento recordings. That's a full 2.5 tones up from the pitch of his earlier recordings and it sounds quite different; brighter, clearer, less twangy and more accurately intoned. I have raised the pitch of mine as far as the string lengths will permit, it ends up being in B not C, but it's improved dramatically in sound and the pitch matches the comments made about vocal accompaniment in Bremner. I plan to make some new strings with a shorter untensioned length and better loop twists, to be able to take it up to a true modern C. It is really the instrument itself that says 'this is the right pitch' as it becomes infinitely more robust and playable - and by no means mandolin like, still very much a more airy and harpsichord-like sound. David 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?
Toby Rider wrote: On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, John Chambers wrote: So you'd think that fiddlers with a classical background would know and understand that different musical groups use different intonation rules. Traditional Scottish music shouldn't be anything other than yet another sort of intonation, to be mastered if you want to pass as a Scottish fiddler. You would think that this would be the case. However it so often isn't the case, that I forever swore off playing in an group with more then two other fiddles. Some local musicians with a well-known wee band were after 18 microphones and a monster mixing desk - one mike for each players, including one per fiddle. This is not apparently to make them louder. It's so they can secretly turn the mike DOWN on one or two of the fiddlers who have a different idea about intonation, tempo (etc, etc) compared to all the others :-) DK 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?
Alexander wrote: If the interval between A and a flatted C# were a deliberate musical choice in the key of A major then the interval between G and B in the key of G major should also be a flatted B. It never is. You've never tuned a guitar by ear then. One of the nice things about the fifth tuning on violins, mandolins etc is the welcome absence of an open string third interval. If you tune the G-B interval (3rd and 2nd strings) of the guitar to the best possible open string harmony by ear, you end up with flat B. I play the small 18th c wire-strung guittar and here the instrument is tuned to a hexachord - two triads with major thirds, cegc'e'g'. If you tune it by ear without using the frets, and try to get the major third right it is almost invariably flat. A beat-free, harmonious sounding major third interval is definitely flat and to be correct you have to train your ear to accept a slightly harsher interval (if you don't then the open string fails to agree with the fretted note corresponding to it, which sounds awful). David 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] solfa
Nigel Gatherer wrote: Jack Campin wrote: ...I have occasionally thought about implementing an ABC-to-solfa translator. The bit I don't have a tool to do is a solfa font... Showing my ignorance here, but wouldn't any non-proportional font do, such as Courier? It's got wee punctuation-like thingies which are its real secret. I have no idea what they do. Jack can obviously read them so he knows what the system is able to convey. David 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?
Jack Campin wrote: Odd thing is that similar brief bursts of 'drone' occur in smallpipe playing What do you mean? The actual drones don't do brief bursts; are you talking about using a chanter note as a secondary pedal by filling in the subsidiary beats with it? Probably. It usually sounds very droney or bass. Sort of punctuative farting. When I think about it is can also happen with what sound like random, loud 'noises off' which are clearly deliberate and not bass. It's an effect or technique I really like but have never tried to copy on a guitar :-) [ringing strings on fiddles] Now I may be told that exactly the same things happen in Irish or English, Welsh or Appalachian music (or if Jack's reading, Turkish) so this may not be Scottish style. Doesn't have to be exclusively Scottish to be Scottish... You certainly do get the same thing in Appalachian fiddling (listen to Bruce Molsky), and in Scandinavian styles. You don't in Turkish playing on either kind of keman (a word used for both Western fiddles and for an instrument from Central Asia resembling the Chinese er-hu), as they are played in as vocal a manner as possible. You get a LOT of it in Black Sea fiddling (using the kemence, shaped like the old European kit) but as that's tuned in fourths, played with lots of double-stops and three- strings-at-once bowing, it sounds really different; the least vocal music imaginable, with the highest metronome speeds ever found in the field anywhere, accelerating up to 900bpm in one of Picken's transcriptions. Help! Throw all those books from 300 years ago with 72-80 bpm as the natural state of human musical speed out of the window. What do they drink to go with this? English in former times I'm not sure about. The English were the first people in the British Isles to use the fiddle for folk music, and if we are to believe the illustrations in Playford's books from the 1650s, the kind of fiddle they used was the kit. Did English kits of this period have flattish or highly arched bridges? There must be surviving examples. Not sure there any 17th century kits surviving that were definitely used in Scotland, though the instrument must have got here. I always wonder whether instruments have changed, or artists just couldn't draw them. I think the MOMI website (Museum of Musical Instruments) has some examples of the ambiguity of f-hole shapes, body lengths etc in old woodcuts. David 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?
SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote: All of this brings us back to the beginning of this discussion, the pitch of the seventh note in a Scottish fiddle tune, specifically G# in the key of A major. The pitch of the seventh note is dictated by the ratios of the just intonation scale. Playing this note somewhere between G and G# is something which violin instruction books warn teachers is a natural tendency, is something which many fiddlers do and is an example of what Lionel Turtis refers to when he says but how many do not [play in tune]. 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. If I can go back to something I said a long time ago at the beginning of this thread, which grew into the current discussion/argie, and which I've already repeated once: The sharpened note is not out of tune. It is imitative of the *correct* sharp pitch of the appropriate note on (in this case) Border pipes. Each type of bagpipe - great Highland, Scottish smallpipe, Border, Northumbrian and to a lesser extent the more elaborate and almost microtonal Irish inventions which look crossed with a clarinet - not only has a traditional overall pitch which often isn't A=440, but also a traditional relative pitch for each tone. To my ear the modern highland bagpipe usually sounds most 'normal' and the conical bore Border pipe the most extreme, but I've heard Northumbrian ones which are similar - one local player has a vintage set which gives him space at sessions, since no-one can join in with anything he does without retuning. Many fiddle tunes are also pipe tunes, and fiddlers take great pride in playing them in a manner which makes this ancestry audible. Part of the skill in doing that lies in imitating the tones (sorry, I don't like using the word 'note' instead of 'tone' in the context of a pitch) of the pipes. And that is one thing which can make a style sound 'Scottish' - back to the original difficult question. Combined with other refinements of style, tempo, bowing, ornaments etc. If it's worth another comment from a non-fiddler but occasional repairer of old fiddles, my friends tell me the following also applies (after attempting to play my repaired fiddles): Pre-watershed date in fiddle design - apparently around mid-19th c - the fingerboard is closer to the body and the bridge much lower. Also, the radius of the fingerboard may be a little flatter. I've had a couple of these old fiddles and sorted them out, but 'orchestral' or classically trained violin players don't like them. They prefer the modern design where the angle of the neck is much steeper and the bridge is pretty high, lifting the strings well away from the body. It permits clean bowing of individual strings. The old flatter design is better for playing against the chest, instead of under the neck, and lends itself to drone-effects as it's relatively hard to avoid playing two strings together unless you bow right next to the bridge. Since Scots country fiddles were made, or imported, with the flatter 'old' geometry until some time after this had changed, some of the 'drone hits' you hear in traditional playing (slightly random but rythmic with it!) are really just a result of this. Players with modern orchestral fiddles where the strings are more widely radiussed, using a modern trained bow action, now have to learn to hit these deliberately. Odd thing is that similar brief bursts of 'drone' occur in smallpipe playing and in some squeeze box styles, apparently the pipe thing is another 'feature of the instrument' occurrence, not sure about the squeezeboxes or whether they are just imitating the effect by hitting a bass or chord button briefly. Now I may be told that exactly the same things happen in Irish or English, Welsh or Appalachian music (or if Jack's reading, Turkish) so this may not be Scottish style. But it's certainly a feature of Border fiddle playing, combined with a robust attack, if recent recordings are properly representative. David 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?
Anselm Lingnau wrote: 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 :^( The use of crushed notes, semitone slurs and little passing notes on the semitone adjacent, either higher or lower, can create the right sort of 'feel' on the piano. I also believe that some composers use particular chord intervals or keys because they create harmonics, or sound more appropriate. I do know for certain that playing on an electronic (Clavinova) piano in the keys of D or A, which are those used most often in the session music I know, sounds totally wrong. For some reason keys like E flat or C minor sound far better - the black note keys seem to have better intervals. I have not tried using the 'transpose' function on the keyboard to shift Eb down to D. Tony McManus was playing some Scottish pieces on guitar at a local concert last month, and for one piece he used almost nothing but touched harmonics - that gave the intervals a different sound. David 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] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: For harp you would assume that tuning using an advanced electronic tuner set to the same kind of temperament used for virginals, I gotta get one of those tuners! What I do on my clarsach is tune with the aid of a tuner (it saves time) and then I play a couple of pieces and adjust some of the intervals, until it sounds right. So I can't really say which tuning system I'm using. I'd love to find out if I am getting close to an established system. I am planning to get one myself as I have a spinet to tune. My regular music shop in Edinburgh has a whole range - I think the name might be Fisher? - and the version with a whole set of stored 'temperaments' is very expensive - around $200 compared to the usual $30. But my existing tuners have lasted for years, and been very reliable, so I think owning one of these would be a lifetime investment and very valuable. Apart from anything else, it would probably be accurate enough to measure the fretted note pitches on my 18th century guittar, which are different from the intervals on a modern instrument. David 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?
Janice Hopper wrote: What's the definition of Scottish in style? Maybe I just need to go back to my CDs and listen a while longer. I think it's not so easy for many of us USians to recognize Scottish style. It's a good bit harder for me to recognize the Scottish musical accent in music than it is in language. So Allison Kinnard's comments as quoted by Rita are not helpful to me, Janice in Georgia feeling a little argumentative this am It has a lot to do with how the emphasis is placed on tones relative to their place in the melody, I think. Someone has mentioned a website with midi tunes for a lot of folk songs and tunes which is costing its originator $150 a month due to traffic. This site - can't remember what it's called - is a labour of love but relatively useless for conveying the music, since the tunes have been put into MIDI just as written on paper. The result is that they don't have any of the rythm or emphasis which is present when a real singer or player handles them, and in some cases you hardly recognise the tune. Useful though ABCs played through Barfly etc are, they have the same fault and a real live performance is so very different. I've come across examples of written music which use ridiculous 1/32nd notes and complex instructions to convey emphasis, hiatus, changes of pace for Scottish music. The original early notation for the same sort of tunes often turns out to be nothing more than a bunch of quavers on a stave (and sometimes without the courtesy of a time signature). Another point is the use of slightly microtonal sharps/flats and instruments which are not in modern equal temperament. This is why most Scottish music sounds utterly, totally wrong on electronic keyboards; even the accordion, which is well loved for dance music, has a temperament which is not compatible with correctly played Scottish fiddle, or with traditional pipes (some modern pipes are set up to play more compatibly with other instruments). A good reason for NOT accompanying a solo singer is that left unaccompanied, the singer will use the natural vocal temperament and intervals, and when this happens some of the classic Scots tunes take on a special quality and beauty which they don't have if forced to a piano scale. The solution in the guitar world is to adopt a drone accompaniment style typically in DADGAD tuning, and to stick to specific keys or fingers, using a capo to change (this follows the tradition of 250 years ago). For harp you would assume that tuning using an advanced electronic tuner set to the same kind of temperament used for virginals, or a vocal natural temperament, would be better than tuning to modern equal temperant. Fiddlers are lucky, they can play using natural temperament. When learning a reel in A major with a fiddler, I had to question a 7th frequently used: was it a minor of major, G or G sharp? Neither - it was a note similar to the G on smallpipes and distinctly sharper than a standard minor 7th. So on the guitar this needed a sort of 'bluesy' bend upwards. It is written as a minor 7th in the music. This is only part of it and I am only on the fringes of even telling when something is right. I am informed by those who do when I am, or am not, playing or singing in Scottish style. The general opinion is that I don't, and when I do not play in English style, generally go towards Irish. So my experience of this is mainly based on people telling me that I do it WRONG. David 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] Scottish music Harp competitions
Janice Hopper wrote: Ok, I have a question: The Scottish Harp Society of America (SHSA) has recently revised its Rules of Competition. One of the requirements states: Music must be Scottish, or an explanation give as to the tune's relationship to the Scottish tradition Scottish music must be played to receive an SHSA level. Any opinions on whether I could justify the inclusion of Northumbrian tunes into a competition setting? The Border tradition includes both Scottish and Northumbrian tunes, on both sides of the Border. William Dixon (of Morpeth) 'New Road to Bowden' (in Scotland) is Northumbrian or Scots - Scots tune, Northumbrian tradition, Border pipes. Since the clarsach 'tradition' is a re-invented one and no one knows for sure exactly how the instruments were played anything earlier than 250 years ago (except for specific clues like Bremner's reference to the shake on guittar being equal to anything on the harp, 1758 - etc) you could presumably take any Northumbrian tune title with a provenance of having been printed in any Scottish published music or written MS; and any Scottish tune (by name) which had appeared in any Northumbrian equivalent. If the tune was pre-1100 AD - especially anything known to be from the period around 600 to 1000 - you could justify it easily since the question of whether or not Northumberland was really part of Scotland was only settled later on. Personally I think the rule set out above is counter productive, read Alison Kinnaird and others on the interchange between Scotland and Ireland, esp in the Gaelic domain where clarsairs survived longest. Since you can successfully play 'Scottish music' in a totally inappropriate manner, enough to remove its specificially Scottish aspect; and you can play non-Scottish music in a Scottish manner; what do the examiners say about this? Do you have to play the music in a Scottish manner? Or can you get by with Scottish dots in front of you and play them just as written, without any of the subtleties of rythm and phrasing which complete the work? David 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] Scottish music Harp competitions
Rita Hamilton wrote: As Alsion Kinnaird says(Paraphrased):You can tell by my voice that I am from Scotland. Thus you can also tell Scottish music when you hear it. I've heard her say that often enough in US Scottish Harp Competitions. And, when you hear her speak, you know she's Scottish. So, I believe her. She's probably an exception because of her expertise (she invented a great deal of the idiom herself) but the more I listen to the various musics of Scotland - definitely in the plural - and dig around old music sources, the more I hear very considerable differences between a) gaelic Highland Scotland, lowland Aberdeenshire, south west, and eastern Borders b) all music before the influences of Haydn, Pleyel, Kozeluch, Beethoven etc and after this watershed. The unexpected thing is that the south-eastern corner of the country has kept very close to 17th or 18th century origins while the Highlands and Islands (starting with an entirely different sort of music) has been much happier with the 20th century. I've been listening to William Jackson's Ancient Harp of Scotland CD for the last month, once a day, and conclude that it is essentially modern music and has few special hallmarks which make it Scottish. This is not a criticism, I like what he does in its own right or there's no way I would keep listening (the idea is just to absorb the tunes - I don't play harp, I play guitar, but these pieces are suitable for adaptation). In contrast some of Alison's stuff has some really unique hallmarks and mannerisms and sounds distinctly Scottish to me even when I can't follow what on earth is happening. One of the things I really like about harpers/clarsairs is the incredible variety of approach and repertoire you get to hear from them. Most guitarists sound like others unless they muck around with percussive effects or tunings, but harp players have more available to them (I think) to create personal style. I made a couple of recordings of Elspeth Smellie and her trio BEL last year and her harp style is radical (and I would say not especially Scottish). David 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] Session anchoring opportunity Borders
PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY and *pass it on to anyone you know* who may be able to help. I have about seven days in which to put together a diary of venues and sessions: I do not have a complete email address list and your help in reaching others will be appreciated. - David Kilpatrick, vice-chair, JAM -- JAM, the Scottish Borders Music in the Community charity org, has just been allocated a £2,500 budget to administer to support informal music sessions in regional pubs from August 13th through to October 19th 2001. In addition, Scottish Enterprise Borders will produce a flyer this month and provide this to all tourist offices and to hotels, etc, listing the resulting program. It would also be available in Edinburgh. This is NOT an opportunity to fund premium fee solo appearances etc but the budget allows reasonable flexibility. We have 10 weeks to cover, 5 weekday nights each week, one session or live music appearance per night. A wide spread of towns is required - Jedburgh, Kelso, Gala, Peebles, Hawick, Lauder, Duns, Eyemouth - or suitable village or country venues. The average budgeting will be £50 per night which is intended to be an expenses payment for a session anchor or anchors capable of attracting other participants on a voluntary basis, or 'holding their own' to a sufficient standard to satisfy anyone coming along specifically in the hope of hearing local music. There is no restriction on musical genre but the intention is for unamplified, social pub sessions. Existing sessions - if you have an existing venue and session which may be SHUTTING DOWN in August (not unusual) the money can be made available to your club or session funds, if you agree to miss the 'holiday season break'. If you run every two weeks, and are willing to increase frequency to weekly, the same could apply. If you have no guest artists due to costs, but can offer an existing programme of 'local musicians' we can include in the program at no cost, we may be able to allocate a sum to enable you to add a guest to your program. Musicians/singers with venue and night suggestions - we need most of all to fill Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights (sessions can already be found in the Borders on Thursdays and Fridays, provided no holiday gap interrupts these). Sunday nights are also a possibility. We also need help in the eastern region - Duns, Eyemouth etc. Since the regular sessions in Berwick are in England and not in the Scottish Borders we can't even list them, which is a pity. Recap: professionals - would you be interested in taking part, bearing in mind that we need to fund this evenhandedly? Paying a £100 fee means we must have one night covered at no cost, a £150 fee means two nights. But maybe have some supporters in the Borders who could volunteer to provide several anchored sessions at no cost and transfer their funding to pay for a gig. We would be very happy to have some 'name' appearances amongst the program of 50 sessions. Recap: existing clubs - you can secure listing in the flyer and related publicity, and funding to increase frequency, keep going when you normally shut up shop, or to book a guest you're having doubts about affording. Recap: competent (even if non-professional) local session anchors who can propose a venue and dates which fit in can benefit from this payment for expenses, if a core of around three musicians can be assured. We are quite willing to consider flying visits from Glasgow, Edinburgh or the other side of the Border! SUNDAY EVENTS: there is some scope for visiting professional musicians able to come to the Borders for approx 12.00 noon, Sunday, and provide a Sunday afternoon workshop or class PLUS an evening pub/hotel appearance. The dates for this opportunity are: Sunday August 26th; Sunday September 9th; Sunday September 23rd; Sunday October 7th; Sunday October 14th; and Sunday October 21st. The last three dates form part of the Get Creative! events programme. EXISTING FESTIVALS: the Hawick Jazz Festival is September 7th-9th and the Both Sides The Tweed Festival is at Innerleithen, October 12th-14th. As these are weekend festivals they dovetail with the funded session programme; you may wish to consider whether you are likely to be present at either of these festivals, and could extend your stay to be involved in events immediately before (Thursday) or after (Monday) on either weekend. We can 'use this scenario'! Please email me: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or if necessary, call 01573 226032 to discuss It is my job to identify and put together a programme but the final diary will be decided by JAM and agreed with Scottish Enterprise Borders. In the event of two proposals for different towns on the same (regular) night/s we would liaise to ensure the best geographical spread of sessions. It is unlikely that we will fund one session for the entire
Re: [scots-l] tunes that aren't in 8 bars
Jack Campin wrote:
- the ballad air Lord Gregory, which is in 7-bar phrases.
Eight bar phrases, surely?
This is the tune I know for it (from several sources):
X:1
T:Lord Gregory
B:Burns, Poems and Songs, OED collected edition
M:3/4
L:1/8
K:A Minor
A2 |e4 AB |({A}^G4) E2 |A4 B2 |c4 ||\
(3(ceg)| {f}e4 dc | B4 cA|B4||
B2 |e4 A2 | {A}^G4 E2 |A4 B2 |c4 ||\
(3(ceg)|({f}e4) dc | c4 TB2 |A4||
A2 |e4 ee | f4 e2 |({e}d4) d2 |({d}e4)||\
ed |c4 cd/e/| {e}d4 c2 | {c}B4||
B2 |e4 A2 |^G4 FE| (A4 B2)|c4 ||\
(3(ceg)| {f}e4 dc | c4 TB2 |A4|]
I've put double bars at the line breaks, as in old hymnbooks.
The air is rather like an old psalm tune, come to think of it,
and they often have irregular structures.
Is there an 8-bar one in Bronson or somewhere?
Maybe you're prolonging the last note of the three-bar lines?
No, I'm singing it in common rather than triple time and there are
several added beats. From Ewan MacColl's 1960s book and other sources,
and quite altered in modal quality too. Would you also use the above
tune if the song was called The Lass of Lochroyan, or Annie of
Roch/Rough Royal? (all basically the same song as far as I'm concerned).
David
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Re: [scots-l] Re: scots-l-digest V1 #420
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Re (scots) TOW On the way to the Ligonier Highland Games last September we stopped at a festival in honor of flax--they had demonstrations of the whole process and the machines used. It is an annual event up there in Pennsylvania (USA). Interesting about the invasion of the former habitat of the teasel--we have a governmental Inter-agency committee in the US that is concerned with invasive weeds--I'll have to check on whether they are aware of these species taking over your original native plants. I have a feeling that most of our invasive weeds here are New World species! We can ship you over some good Scots nettles to replace some of your poison ivy. The giant hogweed is real, real problem on the banks of the Tweed in many places (since it is injurious, or even poisonous, and a danger to children). The balsam flowers are easier to live with; they do take over entire stretches of riverbank, but at least they look attractive and have a very strong scent. We only have the past to blame - exotic plants were being laid into gardens next to the Tweed over 300 years ago and there was a real mania for bringing back almost any sort of seeds and specimens, then seeing if they would grow. We accept rhododendrons as a natural part of the West Highlands landscape now, as well as most other parts of Britain, and we deliberately plant huge areas with types of pine tree which are not indigenous (but will be now, for ever!). I get people staring (disapprovingly) at my house courtyard since we don't weedkill it and we let stuff grow - vervain, toadflax, herb robert, poppies, the big Scottish thistles, all kinds of wildflowers. I can look out of the kitchen window and see small birds on the grasses and large flowering 'weeds' all the time. My neighbours have perfectly plain brown earth and tarmac, with neat specimen bushes from the garden centre, and bird-table to feed the birds. However, when the occasional giant hogweed, oilseed rape, balsam or similar plant appears we DO pull it up. I guess everyone does the same because if they didn't these plants would ne everywhere. We were very disappointed when the farmers here grew flax for a while, as it didn't self-set wild like oilseed rape does. Recently they tried growing borage for a year, and there were beautiful blue fields, but again it didn't seem to self-set. We have borage growing naturally now but only after growing some from seed and planting it. The best invasive weed we have in Kelso is the wild strawberry. All our flowerbeds are completely carpeted with wild strawberry and it's a far more reliable fruit than our cultivated strawberries; slugs and birds don'e seem to eat to wild ones, and they taste FAR better and keep fruiting for most of the summer. I'm seriously considering replacing the ordinary strawberries with carefully lifted and planted wild ones. My neighbours who carefully hoe and weed their gardens don't have any wild strawberries. Personally I prefer a messy flowerbed full of stawberries to a neat one with lots of nice plain earth. David 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] Tenor Banjo Players in Edinburgh?
Nigel Gatherer wrote: I have been contacted by a sixth year pupil who wants to do tenor banjo as his second instrument for Higher Music (his first being euphonium!). I told him that my adult mandolin class would not satisfy him (many of the participants are picking up an instrument for the first time, without any grounding in music). It would be good if I could direct him to a tenor banjo player who might give him some lessons, but I don't know any. There's a very good Irish player in Edinburgh, Aiden Someone - anyone know? Or do you perhaps know any other players who might give the lad some pointers? I've got a playable proper small Irish type tenor banjo he can have for £100. Not like those big modern things which look like a five-string with the wrong neck, a decent 1920s 'Maryland' branded heavy wooden thing with a vellum skin and proper tenor scale length. Not the easiest banjo in the world to play since it echoes like a cathedral but quite funky. Found at a Border Union showground antiques fair for £25 and restored, new machines, new tailpiece (fortunately had the original bridge). Sadly I can't play it any proper sort of way or I would volunteer. Limited to making machine gun sort of sounds in rythm with music. David 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] Tow
Janice Hopper wrote: At 12:36 PM 6/24/01 -0700, you wrote: Would anyone be able to tell me what the title Weary Pund o' Tow means? Its the title of a slow air from Gow's 3rd Repository. Tow is wool in its unspun state. A pound of it represents one hell of a lot of work ahead in spinning it. Correction: Tow is made up of the short fibers of flax. To process flax, you take the retted stems of the plant and run them through hackles (essentially sharp tined combs.) This process splits the fibers of the stem of the flax plant, and combs out any short bits. The short bits are the tow. The long-combed out bits frequently look very much like long blonde hair (hence flaxen haired) and the short bits like short blonde hair (tow-headed boys.) Spinning a pound of tow would be a lot of work! Fully agree. The process Janice describes is what I referred to in an earlier post, but there's also a lot of work in the 'retting' (rotting) and beating the stems to soften them. The sharp combs are relatively modern (18th c), the hackles were once the heads of the teasel plant also used for carding wool (and still grown, I think, in the Priory Garden in Melrose where the main use is now in dramatic dried-flower arrangements). There used to be teasels growing by the Tweed next to the Hempsford reed beds which grew flax, hemp and later tobacco. There do not seem to be any now, it's taken over entirely by Canada balsam and giant hogweed - and they have just declared it a site of special scientific interest, ironic considering all the old riverside flora has been driven out completely by these rampant invaders! No wild flax, no reeds, no hemp, no teasels or anything. Sorry, omitted the most recent arrival which is naturalised self-set oilseed rape, whether genetically modified or not I don't know. David 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: scots-l-digest V1 #420
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: and Mr. Iain Fraser of Glasgow, Scotland. You mean Mr Iain Fraser of Jedburgh, Scotland. Happily living in a better place and running Calburnie Records which is his/Alastair's label and doing excellent work getting the Borders fiddle tradition on record for the future. David 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] Mystery Title
W. B. OLSON wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would anyone be able to tell me what the title Weary Pund o' Tow means? Its the title of a slow air from Gow's 3rd Repository. (snip) There's another song that's related to Weary Pund o' Tow. It's called Wary Bachelors in Jean Thomas's, 'Devil's Ditties', 1931. The 3rd and 4th verses closely parallel verses in Weary Pund (SMM #350). 3rd and 4th verses: I bought my wife ten pound of flax As good as ever growed And out of that she hackled me One single pound of tow. Beware of a pound of tow Before it is begun I am afraid my wife will end her life Before the tow is spun. A double meaning: literally, to get a small quantity of linen from a large amount of flax steams by beating them and shredding them (hackling) which is particularly back-breaking manual labour. The men used to have the job of cutting the flax or hemp, and soaking the stems or fermenting them in piles; the women got the job of breaking up the rotted stems to extract the fibres, which would then be spun. The method was to thrash bunches of the stalks against stones, until devices were invented to speed this up, including kinds of water and wind mills. Apparently it's one of those jobs which leaves you either with no skin on your hands - combination of highly abrasive, cutting fibres with water. So: to get a very small quantity of reward from a large amount of effort. Above: to devote your life to a marriage which produces little reward in return. This might be taken to metaphorically today, as we expect relationships to be judged on their emotional value. When the phrase was coined, the meaning was probably more literal; the wife was expected to be an economic partner and to manage the prosperity of the household, so the writer is probably really complaining about a marriage where material wealth is wasted. However the words above have a 'feel' of being about the emotional side as well, something which begins to appear in the 18th century. For related song expressing attitudes towards women/marriage see 'The Wife Wrap'd in the Wether's Skin' (etc) which definitely comes from before this 'watershed' and happily describes how an unsatisfactory wife (again, mainly in economic and functional terms) can be cured by beating! (But does acknowledge that a man should not really beat his wife - hence the sheep's skin to wrap her in, as he can legitimately beat his sheep). David 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] Mini-Summit, Highlands, Scotland
Nigel Gatherer wrote: I've played three great mandolins in my life: Sam's Red Diamond, Mike's Nelson #3, and a friend's Vanden. To me most mandos sound pretty good but if you'd like something quite different I've just fixed up a rather crude, but impressive, 100+ year old 12-string triple courser. Incredible for playing Irish triplets, just pick down slowly over three strings and back over one. I've strung with one high string on the bottom two courses, for fun. I don't intend to keep it, strange thing bought from a luthier who had partly repaired it. Sounds great. David 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] Is there anybody there? (was: Dumbarton's drum)
Nigel Gatherer wrote:
David K, what are your plans
for the Scottfest?
First priority - get our local paper NOT to spike my letters on the subject!
So far I've got myself dragged into an impromptu 1-minute interview with
Michael Aspel to go out next April in Antiques Roadshow from
Mellerstain. I tipped them off about the bicentenary and he's used it in
his intro, and done a rather silly bit of film with a souvenir Scott
book of mine where he taps the wooden cover ('Made from trees grown on
the Abbotsford Estate').
They will probably leave that entire bit on the cutting room floor...
David
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Re: [scots-l] Hogg
Eric Falconer wrote (re Billy and Me, Hogg): My brother had to learn that at primary school and recite it. So he practised at home over and over again. Funnily enough I've loved it ever since. It probably sounds perfect from the mouth of a six-year-old! I know what you mean. Anything you hear and learn at that age/ish can stay with you. It took me 40 years to discover that something I half-remembered and knew from the age of 4 or 5, which I had loved hearing at the time because of its tune and some of the words, was 'The Duke of Atholl's Nurse' probably repeatedly played on BBC Radio around 1956-7, and probably due to Ewan MacColl; though I also have an odd idea that a Workington wifie who used to 'mind' me and let me feed her hens and stuff might have sung it - just the first verse and the verse about sack and sugar candy. If anyone can tell me whether that song WAS widely played on radio around that date I'd love to know. I do know it wasn't heard from my mother, dad, brothers, or school etc. David 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] Scottish Minstrelsy Bicentenary 2002
W. B. OLSON wrote: Can I try again to do that 5 verse version of John Anderson, my Jo from 'Philomel', 1744, that I sang last Friday night? That verse where the reciter of the traditional text in 'Philomel', forgot the 3rd and 4th lines of one verse and just repeated the 1st and 2nd, sort of threw me, and I lost track of where I was on the tune. It's really a delightful very old Scots ballad on a rare theme - marital bliss, no blood or booze. Slightly non sequitur but I would agree about the song. Even the versions least favoured by the taste of Scott's era (and personally I reckon he was responsible for a lot of that change) can be very moving when sung well, and don't sound in the slightest vulgar. Good contrast to current songs about sex! David 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] Scottish Minstrelsy Bicentenary 2002
George M R Duff wrote: Hi David, Serendipity or what?,I've just been asked this week to record an album of Hogg's songs with Tony McManus,John Martin,Ian McInnes and Marc Duff as backing musicians.I'll keep ypu informed of developments. Hogg's songs are nearly all later than his Minstrelsy contributions (this was the very beginning of his link with Scott) but that has to be worth a concert or mini-tour in the Borders. As long as you don't do that bloody awful song about 'that's the whateveritis for Billy and me' - some sort of sentimental doggerel about Border burns and childhood which turned out to be his No 1 hit :-) Nearly as bad as the Kelso toon sang. David 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] Trad Scots?
Keith W Dunn wrote: Just what would be the deciding factor that would make it Scots Fiddle music if you didn't know the origin or author? a) the tune b) the style of playing In the first case you have total crossover and sharing anyway, but there are trademarks of Irish tunes and trademarks of Scottish tunes, and it would take too long to describe them. They include small details like the Scotch snap (short note on the beat followed by emphasis on longer note), octave and fifth 'jumps', and the so-called double tonic or dropped tonic (but that is hardly absent from Irish). In the second case you can't even begin to say 'Scots' as there are totally distinct styles of playing from Shetland, the Borders, Western Isles, North-East, etc. Since a non-fiddle player like me can only just begin to tell what these are after a few years of hearing them... The only real answer is you would have be in Scotland and hear and play a great deal of music with other people, then be in Ireland, then be in Scandinavia - etc. Alternatively you would have to listen to identifiable music from every possible 'celtic' genre you wanted to study. And after a few years of listening, you might suss it. DK 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] Scottish Minstrelsy Bicentenary 2002
FOR: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Also circulated to private and e-list addresses by email. Next year, 2002, is the Bicentenary of the publication of Walter Scott's 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border', printed in Kelso by Ballantyne. This is an opportunity not only for Kelso, but the entire Borders region. Our Minstrelsy Bicentenary Year offers the chance to celebrate not only the subjects of the ballads - places, ancestors, events, and stories - but the collectors such as Leyden, Hogg and less famous names like Shortreed of Jedburgh. We really can't let down our beleaguered Scottish Borders tourist industry, our visitors attractions and currently all-too-empty 'beds' by letting such a chance be missed. Since nothing has already been done by any of the regional authorities to capitalise on this bicentenary, a voluntary group is forming to get things moving. I have alerted the Scottish Borders Tourist Board, Scottish Enterprise Borders and the Borders Regional Council with a brief memo, and hope that this is now in the forefront of their minds for 2002. Outgoing Scottish Borders writer in residence Tom Bryan has agreed to join a proposed committee. So has Kelso writer and playwright Lis Lee, and Kelso Graphics printworks director Clive Dibbern. Borders storyteller and 'Guid Craik Club' organiser John Hamilton has already expressed his support and enthusiasm. One objective would be to publish a 'New Minstrelsy' reflecting 200 years of tradition and innovation in Border verse since Scott's day drawn from published works and new material. There are many other possible objectives involving traditional and contemporary music, illustrative and fine art, drama, readings, talks, walks and trails, workshops and far more for which funding and support must be gained now if 2002 will be turned into a year to make up for the foot-and-mouth led disaster of 2001. We intend to hold a meeting to from a committee, and make contact with anyone who can be of help. Those who are interested should contact me on Kelso (01573) 226032 or email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] David Kilpatrick Maxwell Place Kelso TD5 7BB 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] Adult Learning Project
Jack Campin wrote: Re ALP: Perhaps somebody could tell us about parallels in Glasgow? as I understand it the Castlemilk Whistle Workshop is a samba-school-type politicized creation, whereas the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop has narrower aims. Neither is anywhere near as high-profile as ALP. Can't do that, but I can tell you that independent of any real funding, the Borders organisation JAM has functioned without political overtones of any kind in much the same way. Over the past ten years it's spun off a succession of young rock groups, oldish jazz groups, competent hordes of bodhran bashers, small dance groups, and countless (not all young) musicians. JAM does employer pro musicians to head up workshops, short courses, etc but also operates on a coffee-bar basis; instead of having courses on one thing at once, JAM has a whole building hired for the day and runs five events simultaneously. So you'll get two rock bands practising, a formal guitar class for kids (after which the guitar tutor joins the jazz band), a dance group, a percussion workshop - whatever - and in the middle a general meeting area where people can just walk in and bring a guitar, or a songbook, and see if anyone can help or if they can help anyone else. This year JAM sort of came of age and secured real funding - almost £30,000 in total - and now we do have a couple of 'funded' pro musicians taking Foundation for Youth Music activities all round the area, and also doing our own 'Older Singer' project which is driven by the requests and expectations of residents in sheltered housing or day-centre visitors - a very discerning lot and some of 'em placing heavy demands on Rod Ward, our main musician, to come back next time KNOWING all the stuff they want to sing! We are now appealing for any unwanted keyboards - ideally with proper size keys - which can plug in and function as a piano/organ for these groups and for the parent/child stuff we are doing (Rod and his team bring a short course to small groups of parents and children together, showing them how to continue teaching or using music in the home). We need the keyboard to loan to people who can't practise, and decide whether they need to get one; the idea is that the individuals, or the old folks homes, etc, may invest in a proper keyboard (most have disposed of the old joanna) once they realise the benefits. It's not like ALPS - which has a really good syllabus, best way to describe it, and even includes things like learning luthiery and building your own guitar. JAM is fairly informal and does whatever its grant-gaining successes will permit. In the absence of funding it reverts to doing everything voluntarily, when funds permit it will employ outside musicians as leaders and spread wings further afield. There is no remit for traditional music over any other form as JAM is totally even handed about the merits of all musical forms. However, traditional events, tuition etc are probably about 30 per cent - 10 per cent dance, 10 per cent jazz, 30 per cent rock band, 20 per cent uncategorisable. Percussion used to be very important but TRASH (another charity org) has spun that one off into a huge success and the kids (generally) have taken their home-made percussion bands overseas and to many festivals and events. David Kilpatrick (Vice-Chair of JAM) 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] The Border Gaitherin - Coldstream 2001 is on.
Janice Lane wrote: Thanks, Philip, for a fantastic weekend. The children in the Borders are very lucky to have such caring adults providing such a variety of events. No wonder they are so talented. We moved the Kelso session on Friday night to Coldstream, arrived at 7.30pm (two hours earlier than our usual!) and did spend five hours doing songs, a little fiddle as well - but only Guy Norris and Sandy Watson with family bothered to drop in. That was good, but where were the 15 or 20 we were briefed to be ready for? We actually had an audience of half a dozen British Legion regulars, and true to brief, we got them singing - one chap had a fantastic memory for (obscure) songs from before the war. We actually had a very good session, probably one of the best in terms of keeping it together, but no-one came along (Guy and Sandy aren't regulars at the Kelso session but do occasionally appear, or did when it was in a more family-friendly pub - which the Red Lion is not). From what our scouts reported, instead of sessions being active in half a dozen different Coldstream pubs on the first night, everyone ended up jamming the White Swan to the point of bursting. This seems to be a fiddle thing; if there's one good fiddler, no-one can bear to miss THAT session so everyone sticks together. It happened in Kelso in October, too, with almost 100 (so the pub claimed) fiddlers trying to occupy the Cobbles. This was a lie. At least one of them had a cello and some were not fiddlers at all but were waving flutes and things; however, the pub was convinced they were all fiddlers. But it does look as if instead of getting music at many venues, Coldstream got some oversubscribed music in one venue on Friday night, while we 'singers' occupied an empty British Legion hall capable of holding all of those and more - and even boasting an unused dance floor. Fortunately we had our own fiddler in the form of Kerry, and it was her last session locally since she emigrates to Ellesmere Port later this week. On Sunday night, I thought I'd pop out and see if there were any sessions. I walked the circuit of the Coldstream pubs from 10.00 to 10.30 but no music anywhere; not a single session. I did not check the Legion, though... maybe I should have... David 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] abc matters and the Calvert Collection - Kelso 1799
Philip Whittaker wrote: Maybe there is something in this abc format I thought. So I tried a few tunes from the Calvert Collection of 1799(?). I tried all the features that were on offer and was very pleasantly surpised. I manged to notate just about everything I wanted. It seems to cope with most effects. I then had the idea of doing as the above mentioned abc heroes. Why not transcribe the whole of the Calvert Collection? I've never heard of this or seen it before your mention, Philip, despite being in Kelso and having a fairly good selection of books about the town - not mentioned. Also odd is the small number of Kelso tunes that do not appear - "We'll all to Kelso go" which seem like a Northumbrian pipe tune", Kelso Races (Gow Collection), and Kelso Lasses which I do not have access to. It would be an interesting project to collect tunes which mention Kelso. One of my favourites is The Runaway Bride, which contains the words 'She gart the clap gang through the toon', so easily misunderstood by modern ears... There's another one called the Goodwife of Kelso or something like it, have to find it again, which is a simple comedy song about a wife trying to poison her husband until he finally manages to push her in the Tweed and drown her. Just like it is today! ANyone interested. If you want the photocopies but do not want to any abc work, just send me a tape of some intersinting Scottish Music - a legal version - and I'll send you the copy of the Calvert Collection. I would love a photocopy of this. I can trade you a copy of Bremner's Instructions and tunes for the guitar 1759 which are mainly Scottish, written as if in the key of C. Below you will find the abc file I have created. I have stuck to Calvert's spelling of the titles including the "f" for "s". Rather iritating! For authenticity change your font to a distressed serif font! This is not an f for an s. If you look, you'll find the typeface has no crossbar on the f, unless it was set by a country printer - but most printers were very literate and aware. That's just an s in an antique form and shouldn't be reprinted as an f. If you use Postscript fonts I have Fontographer and I can alter an existing (public domain) font to provide this character. I did this for my brother who was printing baroque music and wanted a suitable 'New' typeface (probably Baskerville). It converted to PC Truetype well enough apparently. David Kilpatrick NB: are you doing Friday night sessions at Yetholm now? 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] Border Sounds - any new material?
Just a reminder that I have an mp3.com 'station' which plays at the moment approx 50 tracks all related to the Scottish Borders, and could do with more - they have to be on mp3.com, I can't add mp3s or ra from other sites. Anything relating the the Border tradition (Scott ballads, etc), instrument (pipes, fiddle in Border style) or places (pretty much anything between Hadrian's Wall and the Central Belt), and trying to get a mixture of songs, instrumentals etc. At the moment all the material is folk/traditional but in theory if a rock band from the region had stuff up it would be eligible. So far, none of our local rock/indie etc bands seem to have got on to internet. Station - http://www.mp3.com/stations/bordersounds Email me - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - with any suggestions, please give me Artists Name and Name of Track as used on mp3.com - even better, a direct lo-fi URL as well so I can just click and listen to see if it's OK. David 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] Interesting 78 rpm Scottish fiddle record
Stuart Eydmann wrote: Have I stumbled on something really important? Yes, the inability of Real Player to play backwards the way the old original Apple Quicktime player can - so far all attempts to save the file, convert it and open in and ancient Quicktime player have failed, but I have pretty good backwards ears... Nice one! David 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] Tony McManus 4/15 Berkeley, CA House Concert
Sally Greenberg wrote: Scottish guitarist Tony McManus is returning for the 3rd time after 2 previous sell-outs to perform a concert at my house on Sunday, April 15th. For those of you who don't know Tony, he is incredible. In 1996 I received a call from an Edinburgh music shop saying 'you like celtic guitar, come and have a beer, we've got a demonstration by this incredible player' - Tony. I hadn't heard of him then but I had heard his name mentioned. So I went along and was completely converted. I even forced him to play crap guitars (Takamine or something) instead of his handmade job and to abandon the PA. I just had to be sure that no aspect of the remarkable sound he produced was only to do with instruments or set-up; of course, it isn't. He can do it on anything, and since then I've met Tony several times in different contexts - workshops, houseparties, summer schools. He has proved he also can do this while he should be asleep, and can drive a guitar under the influence of Old Sheepshagger 'drawn from the wood'. If you play fiddle or pipes, it's probably fair to say you won't very much like what guitarists do with your timing, ornaments, modes and harmonies etc - in fact, most guitarists will either hamper your own playing or provide a very inadequate imitation on the wrong instrument. This is where Tony is totally different. He will persuade you that tunes YOU thought were written for the fiddle, whistle, smallpipes or even the Great Highland Pipes have been since their birth destined for the guitar. So it isn't just guitarists who need to hear and see Tony (to mend their ways) but other traditional Scottish/Irish/Cape Breton etc players who can gain insights. Tony will be playing back home in Scotland at the Wynd Theatre in Melrose on June 15th - sadly he won't be doing a workshop, as he must fly out to Italy the next morning. But at risk of overdoing the praise, this is one guitar player you must hear if you think you have no interest in guitar players - and one player that 'celtic guitar' players should hear to reassess their approach and standards. David -- Icon magazines: http://www.freelancephotographer.co.uk/ Music CDs and tracks: http://www.mp3.com/DavidKilpatrick Personal website: http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/ 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] Border Gaitherin, May 5-6th 2001
The Border Gaitherin is a traditional music weekend festival that WILL be going ahead. Based in and throughout the Scottish Border town of Coldstream, on the River Tweed, May 5-7th Weekend will see a substantial tuition and workshop 'menu' with special interest to younger players, but also pretty compelling for older hands given the quality of the tutors. There will be concerts, and sessions all over the town, and to cap it all the Douglas-Home stately home The Hirsel holds its Bank Holiday weekend craft fair (they have a complex of workshop units there plus many guest exhibitors) to coincide. Names? Try: Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley (fiddle and guitar); Simon McKerrell (pipes and Scottish smallpipes); Jimmy Nagle (Borders fiddle); Ian Lowthian (accordion); Karin Ingram (dance); Rebecca Knorr (flute and whistle); Wendy Weatherby (cello and singing); Keith Easdale (bodhran); Lori Watson, Kathleen Graham, Fiona Young, Donal Brown, Malcolm McEwan. http://www.bordergaitherin.musicscotland.com is the website, but for full copies of the A4 poster and 1/3rd A4 leaflet download three Adobe Acrobat PDF files which I've put on my own website for the Gaitherin's benefit: http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/gaitherinposter.pdf http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/gaitherinleaflet.pdf http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/gaitherinleafback.pdf The total size of these is less than 100Kb. The two leaflet files are all you actually need as the front of the leaflet is a mini version of the poster. These two total only 46Kb and can be printed on your inkjet or viewed using Acrobat. Please feel free to copy and print any you like for your own club or friends, or for a number of 'printed' copies, email Liz Marroni - [EMAIL PROTECTED] David Kilpatrick Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
