A quick round up of the many things that have been going on with FluteFling
The Edinburgh FluteFling Weekend is taking shape nicely. Firstly, we welcome Munro Gauld, who brings his studies into strathspey playing to the day of workshops on Saturday 27 April alongside Rebecca Knorr and Claire Mann.
In addition, we are really excited that The Cathal McConnell Trio will be performing an early evening concert after the workshops and before the evening session. The acoustic concert takes place in the same building as the workshops, will have a bar and takes advantage of the magnificent old church hall at Bellfield — essentially similar to the Queen’s Hall in central Edinburgh. It should be a real treat.
Further details, including links to tickets for both events, can be found on the Weekend web page.
Resources update
I have also been able to record tunes for the February Edinburgh workshop and update the Repertoire page for 2019 properly. Irish, Scottish, Breton, Swedish? Lots of tune types covered so far this year and the recordings for March have also been updated. Have fun!
Calum Sgàire (Òran Chaluim Sgàire) is a Gaelic love song from Bernera that was the focus of the February workshop in Edinburgh. We also looked at a Swedish tune (Engelska frå Småland) and had fun with Laridé de Portobello.
Other versions can be readily found too. However, the instrumental version that we focused upon was that by fiddler Alisdair Fraser with Tony McManus on guitar:
Convention holds that the best way to learn a song air is directly from a sung version. This provides an understanding of the lyrics and phrasing that underpins the delivery of a fine narrative. This is important when playing flute or whistle as the breathing and dynamics are able to closely match that of the singer. (The best performances of song airs on flute or whistle are often singers).
The next best way is to learn from a musician who knows the song, but also to have an existing understanding or performance of the song in mind. This provides an anchor to reference. In Alisdair Fraser’s playing, the bow performs the role of the breath and it swells, rises, falls, stops, pulls and pushes the timing to bring out a sense of the story.
Additionally, certain grace notes and articulations lend themselves to the fiddle, much as they do with other instruments, including the voice. We sang along with the song to get a strong sense of the phrasing and inflections and then also to the fiddle version, which was simpler to focus upon due to the simple and sparse arrangement.
I have put a bare bones written version of this in the resources section. The arrangement does attempt to show how to negotiate the phrases that go below the flute range and it should help when referring back to the original.
The question of fingered vibrato (ghost trill, or flattement in Baroque flute parlance) arose and we tried a few ideas out for this. Each flute and whistle will be different and various combinations of fingers will suit different situations. It is worth taking the time to try these out and they aren’t confined to slow airs, but may also appear where notes are held in other tunes too.
The Engelska (a Swedish interpretation of an English dance) I learned from Fun Fiddle in Portobello. We tried out some harmonies and Malcolm Reavell contributed a third one on the spot for his sonorous A flute. Here’s an authentic Swedish version, that shows we were in the ballpark. Note the bowing emphasis, which squeezes and stretches the melody:
The next workshop takes place on Saturday 23 March and will focus on a set of Irish jigs. A recording for this will be sent out in advance.
Look out for the Annual flute and whistle weekend on 26-28 April. Lots of things happening that weekend: workshops, performances and sessions featuring flutes and whistles.
We began the January workshop with a simple warm-up piece, a Gavotte Ton Double from Brittany and had fun taking turns in playing call and response with drones in a Breton-influenced manner with various high and low pitched whistles and flutes in D and a sonorous A flute. I have taught this previously and wrote about it here.
This led to a discussion and interest on playing parts against each other which led to Laridé de Portobello, a 9-part extended arrangement of mine of a 2-part traditional Breton tune. This page has some discussion and a version of it played by a FluteFling ensemble a few years back (via the Soundcloud widget). If you scroll down this page there is a bit more written about it, with some suggestions on how to play it, along with another recording of a performance. I haven’t yet recorded the parts separately for people to learn, so that’s one for the future.
Our main tune was an Irish march, The Rose in the Gap. I was surprised to learn that The Rose in The Gap is not widely known. I have heard it in Edinburgh sessions played by Dublin singer, whistler and fiddler Saidhbhin Bhreatnach. As I recall, she plays the version by Dónal O’Connor (fiddle) and John McSherry (uilleann pipes, whistles) on their Tripswitch CD:
If you haven’t heard this before, by the way, it is highly recommended, with some very fine arrangements and a stripped-down sound. Listen and more at John McSherry’s website.
Dónal is the son of Dundalk fiddler Gerry O’Connor and singer/ fluter Eithne Ní Uallacháin, who performed as La Lúgh, and a 4-part version of The Rose in the Gap appears on their CD Senex Puer (confusingly as The Rose in the Garden, but see below) as well as their Brighid’s Kiss album.
They popularised many tunes and songs from the Louth area, which has an often overlooked gaeltacht, Oirialla (Oriel in English). You can hear their version on the well-produced Oriel Arts website which is a mine of information and is well worth an explore. We listened to both versions in the workshop but focused on the Tripswitch one. The La Lúgh one is a little closer to the original source.
The ever-reliable Tune Archive website throws up some interesting links and origins for the tune. The Rose in the Garden is a different tune that contains phrases to be found in The Rose in the Gap, hence the confusing renaming on the La Lúgh recording.
The Rose in the Garden seems to be better known as The White Cockade, which is also known by other Scottish titles and some northern English ones too. The White Cockade appears in late 18thC/ early 19thC Scottish collections as well as being part of fifing traditions, Cape Breton, Old Timey and Morris traditions too. For me the connection underlies the ties between neighbouring traditions and how a good tune will always travel.
Resources for the January workshop can be found on the new Resources page for this year.
A few of us braved the icy conditions last Saturday to continue the journey of learning tunes aided by a process of internalisation. The Tribe Porty White Hall is far warmer than a couple of years ago, with new heating and insulation in place. And Malcolm brought some mince pies along, which were equally welcome!
A few blind tunes were prepared and all of them had noteworthy names: Hunt the Squirrel and The Droketty March were from the playing of Cran, an Irish band with an active interest in Scottish repertoire that also have flutes, whistles and pipes at their instrumental heart.
These proved to be popular, but everyone was also taken by the performance of Mike Vass and Mairearad Green of Tha ‘m Buntata Mor. So instead of working on a new tune and then repertoire, we learned Hunt the Squirrel and Tha ‘m Buntata Mor. Sheet music and recordings of all three tunes are in the Resources section.
Hunt the Squirrel has a rich history. The Sleeve notes for Cran’s Dally and Stray CD seem to be no longer available online, but a search around sees it associated with Dumfriesshire and Ayrshire.
Tune Archive suggests it is played in England, Scotland, Ireland and USA and first published in Playford’s English Dancing Master, 1689. There it is listed as A New Scotch Jigg, as Scottish music was fashionable in London at that time. It appears in Oswald’s Caledonian Companion in 1760.
Another, possibly later, name for it is The Geud Man of Ballangigh, which seems to be the name of the dance that accompanies it. This fascinating account reveals that The Geud Man was none other than James V in disguise going about his people in Stirling. Although whether that tale was collected by Scott or invented by him is open to question. The dance that accompanies Hunt the Squirrelcan be found on YouTube.
Other references associate it with Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire and Kelso, which gives it a good Lowland spread.
Cran play Hunt the Squirrel in quite a stately and unhurried way, which leads nicely into the busier 3-part Drocketty March. The D and G notes sit strongly on flutes and whistles and are helpful for getting the ear into focus.
Tha ‘m Buntata Mortranslates as The Potato is Large and appears to be a 9/8 port a beul, as sung by Julie Fowlis here:
Aside: Note that the portJulie Fowlis sings is more like what the Irish call a hop jig, characterised by an underlying long-short note pattern throughout. By comparison, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh‘s following song An Bairille has a more standard slip jig sound featuring quavers grouped in three. Incidentally, if that second sounds familiar, it’s a version of The Rocky Road to Dublin. This set is one they recorded on dual, available as a download here. With fine singing, flutes and whistles and Éamon Doorley and Ross Martin accompanying, it’s one to look out for.
However the arrangement by Mike Vass and Mairearad Green, simply entitled Buntàta, is in the old 3/2 hornpipe time, illustrating the connection between 3/2 and 9/8 tunes. Indeed, their arrangement, as recorded on A Day a Month may have been influenced by that relationship.
In G and Em, the tune sticks closely to an arpeggiated melodic structure, so the rhythm becomes even more important. The close repetition of phrases and unusual time signature lends it a hypnotic and beguiling air that draws the listener in. As in some other 3/2 tunes such as Pawky Adam Glen, the underlying rhythm is a constant:
1-and-2-and-3-and | 1-and-2-and-3-and |
1-and-2-and-3-and | 1-and-2-and-3-and ||
The beat tends to fall most heavily on the 1 and 3, so requires a pulsing breath. 3/2 tunes tend to be punchy but this one can also take a moderate pace, so feel free to take it easy while learning it as you won’t lose its inherent identity.
At the workshop we had the three low whistles and two flutes getting into quite a groove with countless repeats and nuances merging that was pleasing to be part of. I wish I had recorded it at the time, but it inspired me to play for a bit longer than usual in my own reference recording of it.
This tune would go well in a set ahead of Pawky Adam Glen. Both are in 3/2 and the shift from G/Em to Bm/D is a striking one. Alternatively, going into a tune in 9/8 would also be effective.
The Droketty March is from Drogheda in County Louth. While we didn’t manage to cover this tune, I have also included it in the Resources.
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 workshopwill 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.
Hunt the Squirrel has a rich history. The Sleeve notes for Cran’s Dally and Stray CD seem to be no longer available online, but a search around sees it associated with Dumfriesshire and Ayrshire.