Category Archives: Classes

An impromptu reel: Jenny Picking Cockles

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Barra Cockle Beach by Fiona BownieSo there I was ready with a couple of reels for the week’s class and this reel popped into my head instead. Inspired by Rieke’s trip to Barra to pick cockles, we did Jenny Picking Cockles — I hope that the weather was good!

Jenny Picking Cockles is an Irish reel with a few variants and titles. In D mixolydian (it has C naturals instead of sharps), some versions have F naturals in the second part, which possibly borrows from a very similar three part reel called Jenny’s Welcome to Charlie. The version we did lifts and slides the C naturals in the second part through what was once termed “C supernatural” in online message boards to C# as it the tune transitions from C natural to D.

There is a suggestion that this reel may be associated with the north of Ireland and my own personal feeling is that “Jenny” tune titles also betray a Scottish connection, both Jenny and Jock(y) appearing in many earlier Scottish tune titles as generic female and male names.

It’s just an observation however and I have no other evidence for this wild assertion. More information on the origins over at Tune Archive. Different settings of the tune can be found over on The Session website. Our version can be found on the Resources page.

Here’s Eric, Hugh and Colm Healy, Noel O’Donoghue, Seán McGrath playing Jenny Picking Cockles, George Whites, Jenny’s Wedding:

Photo: Barra Cockle Beach by Fiona Cownie, some rights reserved.

 

The Iona Boat Song

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The summer term began this week with another gentle Scottish rowing tune.

Caol Muile (The Sound of Mull) or The Iona Boat Song is a Scottish Boat Song intended to assist with the steady rowing rhythm required to cross the stretches of water that link the islands, these are possibly very old tunes. The words for them have been lost but, as with The Skye Boat Song, words have sometimes been added in more recent times.

The excellent archive web site Tobar an Duchais/ Kist o’ Riches has a field recording of Hugh Duncan of Islay singing a version in Gaelic that was collected in 1953. The words were composed by Rev. John MacLeod of Morvern. There are links to other versions of the song on the site from about 30,000 different field recordings in total.

Another author was Sir Hugh S. Roberton, founder of The Glasgow Orpheus Choir. His words evoke the spiritual heritage of the island which has been a final resting place for many saints, leaders and royalty of Scotland.

I taught this tune with the Scots Music Group a couple of years ago. See the Resources page for this class for the music. Our setting owes something to the excellent Ceòl nam Fèis tunebook published by Fèisean nan Gàidheal.

Photo of Iona by Jim Barter, some rights reserved.

FluteFling Summer Term details

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Flute players at the Flute Fling workshops

Flute players at the FluteFling workshops. (c) Ros Gasson

It’s shaping up to be a busy and exciting term. The second FluteFling Scottish Flute Day takes place on 9th of May, with workshops, sessions, a talk and concerts also taking place.

More is also being planned, so do make sure you don’t miss out on one of the flute events of the year.

Regular FluteFling classes also resume this week on Thursday 23rd April, with 5 fortnightly classes for two groups, taking us into the end of June.

Do come along and explore different techniques and expand on your repertoire of music from Scotland, Ireland and beyond. Open to wooden and metal Boehm system flutes, whistles and low whistles. Full details on the Diary and Booking pages.

There is additional good news about our regular venue of St James’s Church Halls in Portobello as the situation remains unchanged for this term at least.

Photo of FluteFling workshop particpants: (c) Ros Gasson

A highland tune in a modern style: The Lochaber Badger

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Fred Morrison

This week we continued looking at the tunes that Amble Skuse taught in February. There was a big pentatonic theme and we focused on a modern one by the highly-regarded Fred Morrison, who plays various pipes and whistles and writes distinctive tunes.

The Lochaber Badger is a relatively simple reel with modern-sounding, syncopated phrases that come out of the Highland piping tradition. It makes a good introduction to this style of tune, having a hypnotic quality and able to take being played fairly slowly. Where the notes are held across the main beats, you can provide more air on the beat to make it pulse and give it a bit of swing, which is what we did in the class.

Other Fred Morrison tunes are to be found in two collections of his compositions that can be purchased through his website.

I have recorded Lochaber Badger on flute and whistle, but not provided notation, which can be found with some discussion at The Session website (ours is the first one, in Em). My recording of a simplified, slowed down version can be found on the Resources page. Here is Fred Morrison himself playing it with Michael McGoldrick (the second tune in the set):

Photo of Fred Morrison by BedwyrPhoto.com, some rights reserved.

Lucy Farr’s Barndance plus one

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This week we caught up with some of Amble’s tunes from when she took the class. Our main focus was Lucy Farr’s Barndance and we followed this with another, Where in the World Would we be Without Women?

Lucy Farr was a fiddle player from east Galway, who ended up living in London. She featured on the influential 1968 recording Paddy in the Smoke, which was a live recording from the London session scene of the time. There is a great profile of Lucy Farr here. Fetch a cup of tea to have while reading that one as it is as detailed as it is fascinating.

Our barndance is one of two associated with Lucy Farr, who called it The Kilnamona Barndance according to flute player Niall Kenny on this lengthy discussion on The Session. There is also some discussion about it’s identity as a German (Northern Irish dance form) and a 7-step dance (also German, possibly the same dance). I know little about this dance form other than it has a similar musical feel to a barndance, which in itself feels like a little like hornpipe.

Once in a session in Sandy Bell’s, someone from the Western Isles sang in Gaelic to this tune when I played it and told me it was well known and that the song translated as I Saw the Cat. It is worth checking out the recording by fiddler Martin Hayes, from neighbouring east Clare, of a much-slowed down and meditative version of this simple but effective tune.

If We Hadn’t Any Women in the World is a barndance that could follow Lucy’ Farr’s quite nicely. Harry Bradley recorded this on As I Carelessly Did Stray…, but he cites Hammy Hamilton’s recording on Moneymusk as the source. I believe that I may have heard this on an early cassette version of that recording (and have misremembered the title slightly too — Where in the World Would We Be Without Women?). Hammy Hamilton’s fine version is freely available online and I note that he freely switches phrases around, which may also account for my own fluid setting of the tune. Again, many versions and much discussion on The Session website. The tune was first recorded by James Morrison in 1928 according to the sleeve notes.

Dots, ABCs and recordings for both tunes can be found in the Resources section.

Photo of Lucy Farr via Mustrad.