October’s FluteFling Edinburgh workshop continued to develop the skills of learning by ear, using the same approach as in May and September.
The tune we focused on was Borve Castle, a retreat march by Donald MacLeod that I first heard on The Cauld Wind recording by Chris Stout and Finlay MacDonald. It’s the opening tune in this set and there are other live versions by them on YouTube:
This recording is slightly faster than previous ones we have been learning from, which made it a little trickier. However, recognising an internal section within the tune that is repeated in both the A and B parts was helpful in unlocking the structure and building confidence.as we sang, moved and played our way to consolidating the tune.
There are two Borve Castles, one in Benbecula, the other in Sutherland, and it isn’t clear which of them the tune title refers to.
I have recorded a flute version of the tune and notated two settings — one with piping decoration from the PDF linked to below, the other with my own decoration from a flute/ whistle perspective. These can be found in the Resources section.
In trying to locate the sheet music for the tune, I came across some interesting sites. First of all, the Celtic Arts Foundation Winter School Music Book Vol V from 2017 has some very fine Highland pipes tunes in this PDF.
Over 7, 000 tunes can be found from the CeolSean website too, scanned from out of copyright tune books.
Donald Macleod’s tune collections can be bought in a number of places, including PipingPal.
Upcoming workshops
The next workshop will be part of the FluteFling Aberdeen Weekend, 17th November, where Dougie Pincock, Sharon Creasey and myself will be be teaching and there will be sessions and performances too. One not to be missed!
Sharon Creasey also has her next Glasgow workshop on 10th November in Partick. By all accounts this has been going very well.
The next Edinburgh workshop will be Saturday 15th December. Dates for 2019 will be announced before soon.