Re: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Jack Campin wrote, Do you have the Patrick McDonald collection? I thought somebody had reprinted it but now can't find any trace of the reprint. Was I imagining it? I have it and sell photocopies. There have been a few reprints in the past; I don't know if any of them are still available. Jan Tappan Fiddlers Crossing Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Eva M wrote: How about the Shetland tune Spootiskerry--simple (practically pentatonic), very rhythmic with lots of repitition. It's alot of fun to play. Yes, I agree (that F# at the beginning of the B part really annoys me because apart from that note it IS pentatonic!), but it's not for the very first lesson. Quite often the people who come into the Beginners Whistle class have never played any musical instrument before, and my aim is to get them playing a decent tune in a very short time, so that they can look round at each other and say Hey, we're actually playing music! A couple of Irish polkas fit the bill, such as the one I posted, or Egan's Polka (if you miss out the high D in the B part). I keep thinking there must be a Scottish equivalent, a song air perhaps, which is perfect for the job - but WHAT IS IT? After a couple of years teaching beginners the whistle, I'm now re-thinking the whole course, and part of the plan is to start with a handful of the easiest notes to play (on the whistle that's D, E, G, A, and B), introducing the notes that take a little more skill gently and gradually (high D, C sharp, C natural, notes on the upper octave). -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Going a bit further afield, a while back as a Scottish dance, we included the following simple but beautiful tune in a medley for an air-type strathspey. Some of the dancers recognized it and had big grins on their faces. We omitted the repeat of the fourth phrase, of course, to get 16 bars. This tune goes well with Banks of Spey, and sounds great on the pipes. X: 1 T: Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika T: God Bless Africa C: Enoch Sontanga 1897 R: march Z: John Chambers [EMAIL PROTECTED] Apr 2000 N: Enoch Sontanga was a teacher at a methodist mission school in Johannesburg SA. N: The first part is now incorporated into the South African nation anthem. M: 4/4 L: 1/8 K: D | Ddc de f2 f2 | A7e2 e2 Dd4 \ | Dff ef A7g2 g2 | Dff f2 A7e4 | | Ddc de f2 f2 | A7e2 g2 Df4 \ | Eme4 Dd4 | A7cd e2 Dd4 \ | Eme4 Dd3d | A7cd e2 Dd4 :| % This part not usually used nowadays: | Dd2 cB A4- | A8 \ | Dd2 cB A4- | A8 \ | Dd2 ef GbB4 | Emgf e2 Dd4 | A7cd e2 Dd4 |] Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Bruce Campbell wrote: Bluebells of Scotland springs immediately to mind. [Humming it in my head.] Um, unless I have the wrong tune, Bluebells uses nine different notes, counting low doh and high doh as two different notes: ABC notation: A|d2 cB A2 Bc/d/|FFGE D3 A|FDFA d2 Bc/d/|cAB^G A2 z| Tonic Sol-Fa: .s |d' :t .l | s :l .t,d' |m .m :f .r |d :- .s |m .d :m .s | d' :l .t,d' |t .s :l .fe |s :- || -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Cynthia Cathcart wrote: May I put on my Pedagogy Hat? Now, I don't play the fiddle... Neither do I... :-) However, the situation I'm considering is the very first lesson for a Beginners Whistle class. I would like to start off by getting them to learn, say, three notes: G, A and B. We'll noodle around on that for a while and then I'd introduce two more notes, say E and D. From that it would be a short way to introducing a tune which used all these notes and only these notes. The high D is a problem because it takes a particular skill to play it, and I'd like to wait a while before learning that skill. ...I look more for tunes that have lots of repetition in pattern, rather than focus solely on tunes that have just a few notes. The Steve Foster tune Oh! Susanna for example, works real well with my American students, because it is very familiar (they already know the tune, so I don't have to teach that) and the first, second and fourth phrases are identical... This is the ideal: a well-kent tune with few notes so that, very quickly, the students would achieve the playing of a tune on a new instrument to them. The polka I posted is a good example in some ways, but it's not well-known. I'll be looking for suitable tune, but I thought I'd ask y'all for help. ...Au Clair de la Lune is the same way... Yes, and the first part uses only three notes (e.g. G, A, B)! BTW, anyone know what Stole My Wife is about? Is it reflective of some old wedding tradition, like the American tradition of decorating the newlyweds' car so they can't get away quietly for the honeymoon? I can't say I know that tune. Where does it come from? -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes
Bluebells - eight actually, at least in pipe music where it is unusual because it is not pentatonic in structure. I always found it very easy to teach because it is mostly crotchet or tied crotchet single note beats. I used it for teaching learner pipers who could even pick it up and play it quite well within day or so. Anyway. Bruce Campbell From: Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [scots-l] Re: Few Notes Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 16:21:21 +0100 Bruce Campbell wrote: Bluebells of Scotland springs immediately to mind. [Humming it in my head.] Um, unless I have the wrong tune, Bluebells uses nine different notes, counting low doh and high doh as two different notes: ABC notation: A|d2 cB A2 Bc/d/|FFGE D3 A|FDFA d2 Bc/d/|cAB^G A2 z| Tonic Sol-Fa: .s |d' :t .l | s :l .t,d' |m .m :f .r |d :- .s |m .d :m .s | d' :l .t,d' |t .s :l .fe |s :- || -- Nigel Gatherer, Crieff, Scotland [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/gatherer/ Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com 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: Few Notes
In a message dated 4/14/02 4:16:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Neither do I... :-) Fancy that! All this time I imagined you with the fiddle, but goodness, I know better than that, don't I? Dear me, wake up, Cynthia. I will start scouting tunes for you! Anything to launch new musicians! Besides, there might be something that would work for me and my students, too. Re: They Stole My Wife Last Night. It is in the Patrick McDonald collection (1784). My Gaelic is very shaky (read that V-E-R-Y shaky) and so I ran it past a friend who has pretty solid Gaelic for a translation, and he came up with the same thing. Ghoid iad mo bhean uam an reir. It's a very cool tune, pentatonic. I should try my hand at ABC notation so y'all can see it...it's also in my second book, where I have arranged it so one can play it on a clarsach tuned with either one sharp (F), one flat (B) or no sharps or flats. It's my perenial "workshop tune". Great for teaching fixed finger, gapped scale theory, and wire-strung clarsach ornaments. Do you have the McDonald collection? It's in the middle of page 3. I'm putting it on my CD with some really rhythmic damping. Verycool. --Cynthia Cathcart http://www.cynthiacathcart.net/
