Category Archives: Classes

The Johnstown Reel: an Edinburgh flute tune

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A focus this term has been modern tunes by Edinburgh flute and whistle players. The Johnstown Reel is a fine slow reel by Rebecca Knorr and is often played in Edinburgh sessions.

Rebecca is an exceptional flute player and teacher, with a great line in pipe tunes. She created the traditional flute degree course for the Royal Conservertoire of Scotland in Glasgow and plays regularly with Islander Ceilidh Band.

The tune is named after Rebecca’s grandmother’s home town in Pennyslvania and in E Dorian and Bm, making for two unusual and contrasting wistful parts. This has been recorded by Rebecca with guitarist Tony McManus and with her band Calluna, while The Tannahill Weavers also recorded the tune. Here she is with Tony McManus, who she played alongside with fiddler Tim O’Leary in the 1990s:

There’s a little bit of discussion on The Session, with a good version uploaded by Kenny Hadden. I’ve recorded a slightly different version for the class that can be found on the Resources page.

A resonating flute tune: The Cameron Highlanders revisited

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This week we revisited The Cameron Highlanders, a four-part tune originally by James Scott Skinner that changed a little when it went over to Ireland.

I have taught this two-part version a couple of times, but not recently (although I included it in last year’s resources). I may have heard this played by Irish band Stockton’s Wing originally, but it has changed and developed a bit since then.

A nice thing about the setting of the tune in D is that it focuses on D F and A and it is possible to emphasise the bottom D on the flute and really get it to resonate.

Getting that hard bottom D beloved of traditional flute players is a holy grail. For me, it’s the key to unlocking the sound of the whole flute. The entire relationship between you and your instrument can be expressed through this discovery and it is worth spending time working on it. I wrote up some notes on flute tone exploration with Amble Skuse in 2013 and further notes more recently.

Some other thoughts:

Some information on the tune from last year, with links to the recorded music on flute and whistle.  More on James Scott Skinner here and here. The music in ABC format and as a PDF is on the Resources page for this year.

Image: Fronticepiece from the Miller o’ Hirn collection by James Scott Skinner, 1881; University of Glasgow Library.

A port-a-beul in reel time: Dhomhnuill a Dhomhnuill

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This week’s tune is a piece of port-a-beul (Gaelic mouth music) in reel time entitled Dhomhnuill a Dhomhnuill (or as I learned it: Donald Donald). I learned this from Gaelic singer, scholar and musician Michel Byrne when we played in The Big Squeeze Ceilidh Band together for many years.

Realising I know very little about the song, I did a bit of online digging. The trustworthy TuneArchive project has a reel with the same title and some of the same phrases that comes from the Athole Collection (1884) and would appear to be a relative of our tune.

However, clarsach player Karen Marshalsay has recorded our version, which she says came from the Isle of Skye collector “Frances Tolmie’s 100 Songs of Occupation from the Western Isles”, which was published in 1911. There is more on the background of Frances Tolmie and her work on this web page on the Gaelic Literature of the Isle of Skye. This would suggest the song and tune come from the Isle of Skye, which is as I remember it, but I’ll check with Michel.

This recording is from the Edinburgh International Harp Festival in 2004.

Michel sings this in Bm/D, which brings about a top D in the B part, so the resources are for a setting transposed to Em/G. There are few places to decorate, although cuts and rolls can be used along with the casadh.

Scottish flute and whistle tunes

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Last week the Flute and Whistle 3 class looked at a couple of reels, one traditional, the other contemporary, and so began what is going to be a bit of a theme this term — modern Scottish tunes written on the flute or whistle.

The Brig o’ Tilt is in a few collections. I think I initially learned it from Kerr’s Merrie Melodies, but it is also in the Athole Collection, and it perhaps celebrates the new bridge over the north road built at Glentilt in 1823. Bridge of Tilt is near Blair Atholl and today the A9 flies past.

The tune is solidly in D and has a distinctive second part where an arpeggio “tune within a tune” element prevails. There aren’t many places to decorate, so much depends on the breathing to provide emphasis. A couple of places do exist for cranning however. If not feeling confident on this, try cutting to separate the D notes.

The second tune is a three-part reel in Em by Niall Kenny, The Trip to Pakistan. Niall used to live in Edinburgh, but is now based in Lanarkshire and can been playing regularly in Glasgow and Edinburgh sessions.

The trip to Pakistan has been recorded a few times, appears in many collections and has a pipes setting too. Here’s a video of him playing it (right at the end of two sets, but it is well worth watching all of the video just to enjoy his music):

There are a few places to roll and cut, but much the genius of the tune is in the tune is in the third part, where the emphasis of the descending lower notes of the phrases invert the rhythm. There’s some discussion of it on The Session, to which Niall contributes and describes his intentions behind the tune.

The class resources for the tune are on the usual page.

Photo: Gilbert’s Bridge by Anne Burgess, some rights reserved

Fingal’s Cave, but not by Mendelssohn

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A quick update ahead of FluteFling’s Scottish Flute Day, which is on this weekend. We looked at a tune that is probably a march or possibly a strathspey and I have certainly heard it as a reel.

Fingal’s Cave (Cuilfhionn) was published in Kerr’s Merrie Melodies, possibly in 1875 according to the usually reliable Tune Archive, but there is little information beyond that other a description of it being a Highland tune. It seems to have been relatively little recorded too, although is described as being popular.

I first heard it by Andrew Cronshaw on The Great Dark Water and he got it from Kerr’s if I recall correctly. Other recordings have since been made and my version is derived from one of Christine Martin and Ann Hughes’ Ceol na Fhidle collections — or so I thought but I can’t find it online.

There is another, lesser-known tune with the same title composed by John Gow, one of Niel Gow’s sons, which appears to be unrelated. There’s some background information on the cave and Gow’s version on The Fiddler’s Companion (the precursor to Tune Archive).

I have yet to record this and will do so after the FluteFling weekend. However, the dots are now up on the resources page for this year.

Photo of Staffa by Scott MacLeod Liddle, some rights reserved.