The Jacobite Trail

Patrick Wamsley sent me this a while back, but the link was to a place holder, and I wanted to wait for the full site to go up.

Historic Scotland, the National Museum of Scotland, The National Trust for Scotland, and other organizations have pooled their resources to create "On the trail of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites", following the path of the '45 rebellion.

Discover 26 of Scotland’s famous Jacobite sites, some of the country’s best historic places and a major exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland (23 June – 12 November 2017) all in one accessible trail.

Check out the map of sites on the trail!

It looks like a lot of fun, especially for those traveling to Scotland this year!

Cape Breton Fiddling Article in the NYT!

From John Blanck:


Hi Pete, today's NY Times has an article about Scottish/Cape Breton fiddle music in Nova Scotia, and wasn't sure if it was appropriate to reference in the newsletter or send around by email.

Habbie's Howe Decoded

This last month, Elke taught tunes from the 6th Gow Collection. One of them was called "Habbies Howe".

Smartphones were whipped out to figure out what the tune refers to, but we couldn't zero in on it.

Patrick Wamsley has found a blog on hiking a site by that name, and here's a relevant quote:

Habbie's Howe is the setting for much of Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd', and there is an excerpt from it carved into a stone panel 200m or so [5] from the bottom of the steps. It refers to the 'flowerie howm' on the opposite bank, as well as features such as Peggy's Pool with its waterfall. Look out for Sandy Cave [6].

Mystery solved!

Notes from the March Meeting

We covered Aird's 4th collection in the last meeting, and Patrick Wamsley wrote in with some additional information about several of the tunes.

Patrick writes:

1) Pibroch of Donald Dhu
Gaelic name = Piobaireachd Dhomhnaill Dhuibh

This song is often misinterpreted.  Some think that "Black Donald" is Donald Balloch of Clan Donald when he was actually the Cameron Chief who defected to the royal army . . . . After the battle, Donald Balloch ravaged the Cameron lands in revenge for their treachery . . . . 

Also see http://www.clan-cameron.org/battles/1431.html

Pete here with some additional information about "Black Donald's March". Most piobaireachds today are played very slowly, especially in the first variation (the ùrlar, or "ground"). There are a class of them, "marches" (in the older sense of "martial music", not necessarily "for parade quickstep") that seem to have originally been breezier in tempo, similar to what we'd think of a march today. The McIntyre's march appears to be one such piobaireachd (known in its reduced form today as "High Road to Gairloch", but originally as "Gabhaidh sinn an ràthad mòr"), and Piobaireachd Domhnaill Dhuibh may be another. Here's a Pipes/Drums article that shows how it appeared in the early piping sources.


Patrick continues:

2) A Trip to Inchcomb

Inchcolm Island is by far the most beautiful of all of the island in the Firth of Forth.  Take a free virtual tour of Inchcolm Island here: http://www.integral-solutions.net/inchcolm/

3) The Gobby O

Here's a version of this tune entitled "Jefferson and Liberty"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-h19sNJy_0

The lyrics are full of old-fashioned blood and thunder: "No lordling here with gorging jaws/Shall wring from industry its food/No fiery bigot's holy laws,/Lay waste our fields and streets in blood." 

You can't ask for much more than opposition to fiery bigots in a campaign ditty. And it culminates in a bellow of Biblical proportions: "Let foes to freedom dread the name/But should they touch the sacred tree/Twice fifty thousand swords would flame/For Jefferson and Liberty."

All of the lyrics can be seen here: 

http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=3167

4) Little Man of the Cave

Bodachan a gharaidh
Cho friogadach 's cho frogodach
Bodachan a gharaidh
Cho frogodach 'sa bha e riamh. 

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/mactalla/vol4/24/no24.pdf

Alternate version of the tune: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opPi4sDgiMU

5) What Can the Matter Be

Old version = "Johnny bydes lang at the fair."

The oldest recovered American text of "Seven Old Ladies Locked in the Lavatory" is in "The One, The Only Baker House Super-Duper Extra Crude Song Book", which was probably compiled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology around 1955.

Also see http://www.darachweb.net/SongLyrics/SevenOldLadies.html

Thanks, Patrick, for the fun info!

Gaelic Songs of Scotland

Patrick Wamsley shared this link to a UK government source for Gaelic songs for primary schools.

Check it out!

DC-Area Scottish Jam is Back!

Greetings, all,

After a hiatus, we’re relaunching the DC-Area Scottish Jam Session launches anew at a new location, John Strongbow's Tavern (http://johnstrongbows.com), located at 710 King St. in Alexandria. John Strongbow’s is a Medieval and Renaissance themed pub that opened up in conjunction with Medieval Madness.

The jam will take place from 2 PM - 5 PM this coming Sunday, 1/25/2015, and if all is successful, will repeat on the 4th Sunday of every month.

So come on out, bring your instruments, and play Scottish tunes on Rabbie Burns’ birthday!

The Ewe Wi' The Crookit' Horn

One of the great tunes in the Strathspey repertoire is The Ewe wi' the Crookit' Horn, in Gaelic as A' Chaora Chrom, for the words in the accompanying song "'S galain aig a' chaora chrom (and the crooked-horned ewe has a gallon)"

What is this mystical beast, an ewe with a crooked horn? Well, it's a still. An illicit one, of course. 

And now it's easier than ever to envision, since a reenactor's sutler, Goose Bay Workshops, has begun producing a reproduction of an 18th century still:

The picture shows the still (right) and the condenser worm (left). When in use, the still would sit on a 3- or 4-legged trivet over a fire, which might look like this:

With the trivet as the legs, the handle as the head, and the vat as the body, you have your ewe; and the crookit' horn is the condensing tube from which the magical "water of life" emerges.

I'll drink to that!

Celtic Cross Article

World Magazine has done a great article about Fiddle Club's own Perdue Family, and their band Celtic Cross! Check it out!

Blame it on the Weather

Our December Fiddle Club meeting was cancelled at literally the last minute, because of the recent snow and freezing rain. We apologize to anyone inconvenienced by it, but it was necessitated because several of our key personnel (like our esteemed music director!) were unable to get through the traffic snarls to get to the meeting.

The December music will be mailed out as usual, and Elke will include an article with the January newsletter about it, providing the information that would have been given at the workshop had it taken place.

See you in January, and Happy Holidays from the Potomac Valley Scottish Fiddle Club!

A Scottish King Arthur?

Patrick Wamsley sends along this item, a hypothesis that posits that the fabled King Arthur may have been an ancient Scottish warlord.

Author Adam Ardrey claims that instead of the romantic English king of legend who lived at Camelot – which is often said to be Tintagel in Cornwall or in Wales – Arthur was actually Arthur Mac Aedan, the sixth-century son of an ancient King of Scotland, whose Camelot was a marsh in Argyll.

Check it out!

ForScore & The Craic - iApp reviews

It's the digital age, and many of us are replacing our trusty music binder with a tablet computer. The advantages are manyfold - one can store vast amounts of music on a single device that's maximally portable, and provides other functionality

I've been using two iApps recently for my music. These are for the iPad, and I don't know if there are Android versions available. 

The first of these is ForScore. This is an app that allows you to download PDF music scores from the web or Dropbox (or upload from your computer via iTunes). The organization is excellent; scores can be grouped into set lists, sorted, and bookmarked. Turning the page is as simple as a quick tap to the right of the screen, or left to go backward. Images can be zoomed using standard gestures, and the app supports both landscape and portrait modes. In addition, there's a metronome function, and the ability to add your own notes to the page.

I'm using for virtually everything these days - as you can see over at the Fiddle Club website's "Community" section, there are a lot of old music scores now scanned and available in PDF format, and they work very well with this app, and it's easy to print to PDF with your own favorite music software, or scan a paper score to this format.

If I have a complaint, it's how some PDF images are rendered by some music programs - leading to an issue where on lower-resolution iPads, it's unclear if a note will be on a line or space until you zoom in. So far I've only run into this issue on shareware music printing software with an iPad 2 (mainly that issued for the City of Alexandria Pipes & Drums), and expect that with a more recent iPad, with a Retina display, the issue would go away. 

The second app I've been using a lot is called The Craic. This app takes advantage of the text-based .abc format to store tunes. Not only can you import your own .abc collections from your hard drive, import .abc tunes from emails and your DropBox, but it also has a search function to scour the web for tunes in this format through various dedicated search engines. This means that you can find multiple versions of many traditional tunes within the app itself, if you need to quickly find something.

In addition, The Craic includes a playback function (using a flute voice), with variable tempo.

The app produces very attractive sheet music on your tablet's screen, but can also send music to printers via AirPrint, or via email. This puts it far ahead of my old favorite .abc program, a PPC Mac routine called Barfly (which, sadly, has not been updated for Intel Macs and the recent OS versions that no longer support CarbonLib, specifically 10.7 and above). 

The Craic is in its earliest forms, and there are some issues with it still. First of all, it does not support all .abc's various extensions yet, like multi-voice - meaning your 4-part scores will not render in the current version. The playback can not use other instruments, and its tempo slider is far too small, meaning it's hard to get the tempo you want. Furthermore, the app does not recognize tempo headers in the tunes themselves; if it did, and used that as the center of the slider's range, one would be able to get more appropriate results out of the playback. Editing tunes is possible in-app, though the interface window is small, and it might be easier to do major editing and composing on a desktop, and then tweak and read with The Craic. Also, The Craic prints chords above the melody line, as Irish players are accustomed to seeing, and not below, which seems more common among Scottish musicians, and there appears to be no option to reverse the display.

I'll be still using Barfly to create my tunes, but the quality of printing in The Craic is so much better that it's likely that I'll be using it to store, display, and print my final scores from now on - at least the ones that use a single voice. I look forward to The Craic's continued development, and the addition of new features.

Next time, I'll talk about some tuner and metronome apps I use.

Three tidbits from Patrick Wamsley

Patrick has been practicing his researching skills, and has sent me several tidbits of interest to Fiddle Club:

First, a link to lyrics and background stories for 150 Scottish Songs - a great resource!

Secondly, some unusual names from the Norse influenced islands north of John o' Groat's: some from Shetland, and some from Orkney.

Thirdly, lyrics to the "Piper o' Dundee", a tune which first appears in Hogg's Jacobite Relics, supposedly related to Aiken Drum:

Websites:

http://www.contemplator.com/history/jacobite.html

http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/piper.html

http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_piperdundee.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIUj5IOmBuo

And finally, an excerpt from an interview with author George R. R. Martin, about the Scottish inspiration for the "Red Wedding", which is being called in some quarters as possibly the most shocking event in television history:

Interviewer: What do you say to readers who are upset about the "Red Wedding" scene?
Martin: It depends on what they say. What can you say to someone who says they’ll never read your book again? People read books for different reasons. I respect that. Some read . . .  that certain kind of fiction where the guy will always get the girl and the good guys win and it reaffirms to you that life is fair. We all want that at times.   There’s a certain vicarious release to that. So I’m not dismissive of people who want that. But that’s not the kind of fiction I write . . . . I think the best fiction captures life in all its light and darkness.
Interviewer:  One of my favorite elements of the scene is you introduce this idea of “salt and bread.” We accept that as readers — Okay, in this fantasy world, people don’t harm each other once they eat a host’s bread and salt in their home. Then you break your own rule . . . .
Martin: It was stolen from history. Hospitality laws were real in Dark Ages society. A host and guest were not allowed to harm each other even  if they were enemies. By violating that law, they “condemn themselves for all time” . . . .
Interviewer: What about the Red Wedding itself? Is that based on history too?
Martin: The Red Wedding is based on real events from Scottish history. One was a case called The Black Dinner. The king of Scotland  was fighting the Black Douglas clan. He reached out to make peace. He offered the young Earl of Douglas safe passage. He came to Edinburgh Castle and had a great feast. Then at the end of the feast, the king's men started pounding on a single drum. They brought out a covered plate and put it in front of the Earl and revealed it was the head of a black boar — the symbol of death . . . . They dragged them out and put them to death in the courtyard.
[In most versions of the Black Dinner story, the symbol of death was the head of a black BULL.  
See http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/images/People/blackbull.jpg
Edinburgh castle, town, and tower, God grant ye sink for sin
And that even for the Black Dinner, Earl Douglas got therein.]
Martin: The larger instance was the Glencoe Massacre. Clan MacDonald stayed with the Campbell clan and the laws of hospitality supposedly applied. But the Campbells started butchering every MacDonald they could get their hands on. No matter how much I make up, there’s stuff in history that’s just as bad, or worse.

John Turner in Concert, October 5

The concert is in Glen Allen, VA. More information at this flyer.

North Sea Gas in Columbia MD this weekend

One World Coffee House sent us this info:

The One World Coffeehouse presents: North Sea Gas in Concert 
Saturday, September 22, 2012 @ 7:00-9:30pm, Doors Open At 6:30pm
Owen Brown Interfaith Center, 7246 Cradlerock Way, Columbia, MD 21045

Come welcome one of Scotland's most popular folk bands, North Sea Gas, to the One World Coffeehouseduring their North American tour. With their songs, new and old, great instrumentals, tremendous three-part harmonies, and keen sense of fun, they provide a rousing show for everyone!

Going for over thirty years and stronger than ever, North Sea Gas have recorded 17 albums, won numerous awards, and performed to audiences throughout Great Britain, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, Canada, and the United States.  Their shows consist of traditional Scottish and Irish music, contemporary and self-penned songs and tunes on everything from guitars, fiddles, mandolins, and banjos to mandolas, bodhrans, bouzoukis, and whistles. With Gold and Silver disc awards from the Scottish Music Industry Association, they consistently sell out shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Help us make a sellout show in Maryland!

The trio features:

• Dave Gilfillan (Lead and Harmony Vocals, Guitar, Banjo, Mandola, and Bodhran) is a founding member of North Sea Gas. He has built up a reputation for rousing vocals, heartfelt ballads and a sense of on-stage fun.
• Grant Simpson (Fiddle, Mandolin, Harmony Vocals) is a full time musician who has played with many leading musicians in the folk world. He has recorded with various artists, organizing and fronting many of the folk music sessions in and around Edinburgh.
• Ronnie ("Mac") MacDonald (Lead and Harmony Vocals, Guitar and Bouzouki) infuses the group with his great love of Scottish folk music and sense of humor.

Enjoy these gifted singers/musicians and help raise funds for a good cause ~ proceeds benefit people in crisis and families in need. Baked goods and beverages will be for sale. Feel free to bring your own wine or beer.  

Hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia

Suggested minimum donation: $12 per adult / $6 per youth

For more info and advance tickets: www.uucolumbia.net/concerts

Questions? OneWorldCoffeehouse@uucolumbia.net or 410-381-0097

Click here to go to North Sea Gas‘ website.

Performer Websites:

http://nsg.gplrank.info

www.northseagas.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/NorthSeaGas

To hear some of their music, check out these links:

Dark Island http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmxjWHJD274

The Gallowa Hills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvrmgh_MEJ8

A Little Bit More http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zus0ulPFlNI

Sets for the Fiddle Club Dance are up!

Greetings, all!

We're launching our "Downloads" section of the website's "Member's Only" area with the program and dance sets for the upcoming Fiddle Club Dance.

To get download the sets, click the "Members' Area" button to your left. Enter your ID and password and click "Submit". This will bring up a new page, and click the link that says "Click to Enter Members-Only Area". When you do, a new set of navigation buttons will appear on your left, the bottom of which is "Downloads". Click that, and you're there.

Royal Mile Jam is back on!

I spoke with the new owner of the Royal Mile pub on Friday afternoon, and our jam session is back on! I will have to talk to the owner's son, who is in charge of the calendar, to get us back on it, but we are on for our regular time. Indeed, the owner indicated that we could go to 8 PM if we wanted to.

Amy and I went there for dinner yesterday, and I was approached by two patrons who were excited to see me there and were asking about the jam's return. If ever you've wondered if the jam is appreciated, there's your answer.

With the jam's return coming up next weekend, I hope everyone will turn out for a strong showing of support for the pub and what it represents.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

News on the Royal Mile Pub

The Wheaton Calling blog writes:

Mr. WC happened upon Michael Moore, who was taking a smoke break outside of Limerick.  The big news is that he is now the former owner of the Royal Mile.  Moore said that he found a buyer, and described them as someone with some experience in the restaurant industry.  From the sound of things, the new owner will be keeping the Royal Mile name and Mr. Moore even said that the owner is getting in touch with former staff to try and rehire as many of them as possible.  The new owner has a crew at work to make needed repairs to the restaurant and Moore said the owner hopes to reopen the restaurant by St. Patrick's Day.

This could be very good news for fans of the Royal Mile pub; especially since many of its fans have been hit with the double-punch of the Royal Mile's closing and the reality TV-driven "re-imagining" of the Piratz Tavern into the "Corporate Bar and Grill" that has some folk wondering if any of their favorite  quirky spots will still be around.

What is not known yet is the new owner's degree of interest in remaining a "Scottish" pub, with all that comes with that, and what that means to the Royal Mile Traditional Scottish Jam Session. Mike Moore was very supportive of both the jam and the Virginia Scottish Games, and was open to having Scottish acts play there as well (the former general manager, apparently, not so much).

I'll stay on this story as more news trickles out.

A Harp Pibroch for Fiddle Club

I was doing a little reading about old Gaelic harping, when I came across this.

It's a tentative reconstruction of a Ceòl mòr tune (normally a pipe tradition), as it might have been heard on the harp in the first half of the 18th century. The tune is An Tarbh Breac Dearg (The Red Speckled Bull).

Here's a way to break the variations down, at least to my ear.



0:00-1:08 Ground (urlàr) variation
1:09-1:48 Ground doubling
1:47-3:03 "Double-traveling" (A' chiad shiubhal) singling & doubling
3:04-4:27 "Half-falling" (leth-leadagh) variation, singling & doubling
4:28-5:34 "Open crowning quick" (crunluth fosgailte) variation, singling & doubling
5:34-6:42 Ground, reprised

I hope you enjoy it.

UPDATE: And here's an article about the tune. Maybe it'll become the subject for a forthcoming Piper's Corner article...

November 2011 Fiddle Club Jam

We had a small, short jam this time, but that made it no less lively! Here are the tunes we played:

Bonny at Morn

Knockadhu Reel

Nine pint coggie (Laura risk)/Skye Air/Hughie Shorty's

Shetland Fiddler/Tail Toddle/High Drive

Laxo Burn/Barrow Burn/Patterson's General Store

Sitting on the Stern of a Boat

Iggy & Squiggy/Cranking out

Remembering Marie Maclellan/Miss Gordon of Fochabers/Boys of the Loch