The North East Scotland Session Tunes Project 9: March, Strathspey and Reel

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Gordon

FluteFling NE Tunebook Project: 09 Pipe Major Jim Christie of Wick/ The Rose Amang the Heather/ Bonnie Kate o’ Aberdeen

A session at the Dalriada at Edinburgh FluteFling 2019. L-R Munro Gauld, Harry Mayers, Malcolm Reavell, Melanie Simpson, Orin Simpson (c) Gordon Turnbull

This ninth video in the series features three tune types – a march, strathspey and reel.

For background to the project of 10 sets of tunes being recorded over 10 weeks, and to see the first video, start here. Alternatively, go straight to the videos on my Youtube channel.

You can download the free PDF of the sheet music here:
FluteFling Aberdeen 2019 NE Scotland Tunes

Wick to Aberdeen Over the Heather

FluteFling NE Tunebook Project: Pipe Major Jim Christie of Wick/ The Rose Amang the Heather/ Bonnie Kate o’ Aberdeen

This ninth video in the series features a march, strathspey and reel, all associated with the North and North East of Scotland. These are from the FluteFling NE Tunebook of Scottish session tunes for flute and whistle and I play these on my Rudall and Rose 8-keyed flute in D.

Pipe Major Jim Christie of Wick

Pipe Major Jim Christie of Wick was written by Wick fiddler Addie Harper. Apparently one of Addie Harper’s earlier compositions, it sits neatly in the bagpipe scale and suits flutes and whistles well too. I find the structure encourages a pulse of breath that makes it flow along readily. Look out for variations in the deployment of snaps in the melody.

The Cape Breton fiddler Buddy McMaster helped to popularise this tune in Canada and The Traditional Tune archive has some background information on the composition.

For more background on Jim Christie, who founded a girls’ pipe band during WW2, there’s a good account of his life here.

The role of Pipe Major is explained in this Wikipedia entry.

Update: Munro Gauld (pictured, above) was in touch about this tune, with helpful information on different versions and background. In particular, he points out that the version in the NE tunebook is not a common one in Scotland and is usually played in 2/4 time with 4 parts. He said,

It’s a tune I know well as it was a staple of the Plockton session when I lived up north 20 years ago, here in Dunkeld it’s also played most weeks at the session and wherever there is a session with a Borders / lowland / cauld wind piper, it usually gets an airing. But it also makes a great fiddle tune. And once you’ve got the hang of articulating the Strathspey-like dotted notes and octave jumps, it’s great fun to play on the flute.

But looking at the NE Tune book version – I’ve never seen it / heard it played as a 4/4. Any time that I have ever heard it played (or played it myself) it is always as a 4-part 2/4 pipe march (as written for the pipes).

Munro illustrated this by sharing a Pipe band version:

Additionally, here’s a session-like version played by a young fiddler in Wick, Addie Harper’s home town.

Munro continues:

It would seem that the version in the NE Tunes book is taken from the playing of Buddy MacMaster (as found on the Trad Tune Archive). Obviously when it travelled with him over the Atlantic it got smoothened out from its 2/4 Pipe March roots to more like a 4/4 reel. Having said that, I couldn’t find a recording of Buddy MacMaster playing it online, so I may be wrong. I did find this fiddle version from Gus Longaphie from (I think) Prince Edward Island which might give an indication of how Buddy MacMaster plays it.

I’d suggest that perhaps, in a Scottish context, the Cape Breton version of the tune is an outlier – and not one that would be commonly played in Scottish sessions. In your Blog it might be worth mentioning this and if you can easily find it, put in a link to music for the 4-part 2/4 Pipe March version.

Munro adds,

Note that the third and fourth parts are both quite tricky – but lovely to play on the flute.

PM Jim Christie of Wick as published in Ceol na Fidhle, published by Taigh na Teud Music Publishers.

This is a good reminder of how things are often not straightforward in traditional music, with different versions and origins often sitting side by side. This is true, even when the composer is known and the music is published, and my thanks to Munro for drawing attention to this.

From my own perspective, I was surprised that the pipe march only had 2 parts, when 4 is more common. Now I know why.

Munro illustrated the 4 part version with a photo (opposite) from the excellent Ceol na Fidhle music book series published by Taigh na Teud Music Publishers based in the Isle of Skye, edited by fiddler Christine Martin. It can be found in the combined Book 3 and 4 edition and I can recommend these and the related books. To see a list of some publications that have been helpful to us in FluteFling, check out the Resources page.

The NE session sets tune book was compiled by John Crawford from existing session material to be found around Aberdeen music groups. The 2-part version allows us to also play with Cape Breton musicians and there is now an opportunity to broaden the repertoire by adding in the additional parts so that we can play with others. I’ll be adding a bonus video of the 4 part version at the end of this project.

Uncertainty about origins and versions is a big theme for this set of tunes and illustrates the folk process in action.

The Rose Amang the Heather

The Rose Amang the Heather is a traditional strathspey in D. It is known by various titles and was taught by Tom Oakes in 2021 as a Northumbrian tune, The Kielder Schottische. I learned it as The Laddie wi’ the Plaidie and it is a good example of a tune that happily exists in different traditions (link to The Session).

The Traditional Tune Archive gives a different, but related, 2-part tune for The Rose Amang the Heather, from The Middleton Collection of 1870.

However, a search for The Lad wi’ the Plaidie reveals a 2-part version from 1910 and a more elaborate 5-part strathspey, 3 of which are the same as our version.

For comparison, here is The Kielder Schottiche from The Session.

And here’s a recording of Tom Clough (Northumbrian pipes), Billy Ballantyne (piccolo) and Ned Pearson (fiddle): https://youtu.be/rrQaMMjCczA

I suspect that it is Scottish in origin and originally in two parts, but completely take on board Tom’s assertion that it is Northumbrian. Many tunes are common to both Northumbrian and Scottish traditions as each repertoire leaches over the Border.

In addition, the running triplets in the third part are a strong feature of hornpipes beloved of Northumbrian pipers and others. Harvest Home and The Belfast Hornpipe are two notable and well-known tunes that feature this. However, triplets and quadruplets are also common in strathspeys, which are often played at a hornpipe tempo.

I’ll leave it there with regards to this tune, but in my opinion, Northumbrian pipers’ tune books are generally a rich resource for flute and whistle players exploring different settings of Scottish material. Cross-Border hybridisation is clearly a long and noble tradition and there are many threads to the heritage of this lovely tune.

The three part version is the one I have come across the most and it certainly fits the flute and whistle well. Be sure not to let the triplets run away, find a space in the music to breathe and keep it steady.

Bonnie Kate o’ Aberdeen

Bonnie Kate o’ Aberdeen is a reel in Em and has its own questions regarding origins. A tune and a country dance by that name were published in 1771 by Thomson, but the melody, also known as Bonnie Kate, is different. After a bit of hunting around with little success, I tried playing the tune into the Tunepal app.

Mobile phone screenshots of the Tunepal logo, music score and letter notation in ABC format.

Tunepal is a cloud-powered app developed for traditional musicians by Bryan Duggan and his team. It is available for Android and Apple phones, as well as online. After playing a 12 second clip into the app, it will search the free online databases and suggest matches with different degrees of confidence. For any musician trying to identify a tune from a fragment, maybe heard or recorded in a session, it’s a really valuable tool.

Tunepal suggested an Irish reel, called The Mountain Lark, which I have heard but don’t play. A search on The Session reveals that there are two tunes with that name, both in the same key, but distinctly different from each other. One of those is our version and lesser known.

The tune also has a couple of alternative Scottish titles – The Rakish Highlander and Bonnie Kate o’ Aberdeen. Additionally, the annotation to The Rakish Highlander in The Traditional Tune Archive discusses the interest in Scottish repertoire to Irish fiddlers.

On The Session page linked above, FluteFling’s own Sharon Creasey, aka The Archivist and a specialist in Fermanagh music and older manuscripts, writes:

This tune is in the Gunn Book (Fermanagh 1865) as Boney (sic) Kate of Aberdeen.
What a great tune!

The Gunn Book predates Ryan’s Collection (1883) by almost 20 years and strengthens a Scottish claim.

Sharon herself reintroduced the to Aberdeen, teaching it in her workshops, and hence into this PDF. I’m not aware that the tune is otherwise known in Scotland currently.

From Scotland to Ireland and back again with this reel, a Northumbrian schottische or a Scottish strathspey for another tune, from Caithness to Cape Breton and back for our march. Whichever way you look at it, the connections and cross fertilisation of people, culture and music makes the world a richer place.

Ten weeks of videos

Over a 10 week or so period, I am recording and uploading to YouTube a set of tunes from the PDF roughly once a week. The aim is to introduce the tunes, point out some techniques along the way and then play them as a set as I might play them in a session.

As I go along, I’ll take in suggestions to improve the sound and presentation and get back into the way of teaching again. There is an in-built slow down function in YouTube and the PDF is available to everyone, so why not join me on the journey?

Edinburgh September workshop: Sir John Fenwick’s

Posted on September 29, 2018 by Gordon

Flutes at the September workshop. (c) Gordon Turnbull

September saw the return of the Edinburgh FluteFling workshops to Tribe Porty, while Glasgow also saw the first of Sharon Creasey’s monthly workshops.

The main focus for Edinburgh’s workshop was on developing our skills in learning by ear, exploring ways to listen and understanding the music.

We looked at a traditional Northumbrian tune in 3/4 time, Sir John Fenwick’s Floo’r Amang Them A’. This delightful, almost stately, tune was new to most of the group and it may be less commonly known than I thought, but it proved to work very well for us.

Sir John Fenwick’s, as it is usually known, has an interesting history (link to history of the tune here and here and also here for background on Sir John Fenwick himself) and may indeed be from 17th Century. It also became known as The Flower of Yarrow and Mary Scott, appearing in early 18thC Scottish collections. Resources (recording, PDF and ABC format) for this can be found in the Resources section.

We began by listening to the tune a few times in order to familiarise ourselves with it. Some time spent singing and moving to the music then helped to deeper internalise the tune before we began to see how this might even fit on the flute.

The process, which was opened up to me by Conal O Gráda when he taught a workshop at Cruinniú na bhFliúit in Ballyvourney earlier this year, follows the natural process of acquiring a tune and it should be straightforward to incorporate into learning from home.

I learned this tune from Newcastle guitarist Sean Paul Newman, basically on stage while performing with Absolutely Legless. His setting is in D and is a little more complex than the older versions in G or D that can be found. However, I have only heard others play this version, so it seems to be popular.

In the workshop we learned the tune from a rehearsal recording from a promising but short lived group in Portobello I was part of. Called Transverse, the trio consisted of Pamela Carr (flute, whistles, concertina), Ann Ward (flute, whistles, concertina) and myself (flutes, whistles) and played just a couple of local performances.

The recording was of a set and the tune that followed was a Breton waltz, which we also had a look at. I learned that waltz from a recording of the band Shegui and Valse de Galorn can be found in previous teaching information here, here and here).

The next Edinburgh workshop will be on Saturday 27 October. You can find out more, book tickets and also learn about the Glasgow workshops on the Workshops page. The 2nd FluteFling Aberdeen weekend will take place 16-18 November. More details and tickets can be found here.

Spoots and Salmon

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Gordon

This week we consolidated the two tunes that Amble Skuse taught the class while I was away. She focused on examples that are built on the pentatonic scale, illustrating with the Shetland reel Spootiskerry and the march/ rant/ polka Salmon Tails Up the Water.

Spootiskerry is so well known that it is easy to forget that it is a modern tune, written by Ian Burns from Shetland and named after his farm. A skerry is a shoal of jaggy rocks usually found offshore protruding out of the water (from the Old Norse language and also found in Gaelic), while a spoot is a razor shell, which can be found and harvested on beaches.

The reel fits the flute and whistle very readiily and has some syncopated phrases that are quite distinctive. My version is a little different from Amble’s, and it may be one that I have developed in order to emphasise that rhythmic play. However, the version that I have recorded is Amble’s.

There is some good discussion on it at The Session, including an intriguing comment from Kenny Hadden who suggests that it fits the whistle in A as well. I haven’t tried that but it is very tempting. Kenny will be teaching again at this year’s Flute Day on 9th May.

Amble’s other tune, Salmon Tails Up The Water, I am less familiar with to play, but I have been aware of it for many years and should have known it. It is one of at least two tunes going by this title and this version is also known as The Banks of Inverness. I have seen it in Scottish collections, (but possibly the other tune with this title) and it feels to me like a march, but I see online it is claimed by Northumberian pipers as a rant, written in the 18thC by piper Jimmy Allen, who sounds like a colourful character.

There is once more some decent discussion on The Session, where it has also been associated with Irish singer and mandolinist Andy Irvine, once of the influential Planxty. It seems that the tune may be part of The Siege of Ennis set of Irish ceili tunes, probably as a polka. Good tunes tend to stick around and gain acceptance in other traditions.

We consolidated the tune and explored a couple of settings of it, one as taught by Amble, the other published by Nigel Gatherer in one of his many fine tune books. I have recorded and provided music for both of these, as well as music for Spootiskerry, on the Resources page for this year. Thanks are due to Amble for teaching these fine tunes and to Sarah and Adelheid for joining me on the recording.

Photo: Salmon Jumping by Karen Miller, some rights reserved.

FluteFling

traditional flutes and whistles in Scotland

Tag Archives: Northumbrian