Tag Archives: Portobello

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.

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.

 

 

Spoots and Salmon

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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.

Winter-Spring term 2015

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The new dates for the term can now be found on the Diary page and the Booking form has been updated too.

The term will begin with a couple of instrument technique classes that will allow people to spend some time just focusing on the techniques for their instrument. Low whistle players will find the whistle class more relevant than the flute class.

Another change this term is that Amble Skuse will take the class for a week when I have to be away and she will also be able to take the class over the February break when I will also be away.

So for the first time ever the classes won’t skip a week, which I hope makes for easier planning for everyone. It also means that there is an opportunity for a combined class at the end of the term, for which I have plans.

Photo: Snowdrops by Cams, some rights reserved.

A Shetland midwinter tune

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Da Day Dawn marks a fitting end to the term and the year. A Shetland tune traditionally played by the nightwatchman in the streets of Lerwick before dawn on New Year’s Day, Mairi Campbell describes it as a generous tune that can take all interpretations.

Although I had come across it in tune books in the past, I didn’t really look at it properly until I came across it in the Scots Music Group’s Songbook in which there was an arrangement of a song that was written to this tune. The song was arranged by Mairi Campbell for the Sangstream choir with instructions for a free and loose arrangement, which immediately caught my imagination. The modern lyrics are by Jane Hazelden and catch something of the spirit of people sharing hospitality in midwinter while moving out of darkness and towards Spring.

So I adapted the idea, transcribed the tune into a flute-friendly key and added some very simple harmonies in the spirit and take an approach inspired by Mairi Campbell’s arrangement.

I learned this on a melodica at first, then flute, piano, whistle. I find that each time I play it, it is different, which is always attractive about a tune. Here’s a version I recorded on a Bb flute with Sean Paul Newman on keyboards:

There are a number of versions of the FluteFling group playing this together on my Soundcloud page. Resources are up for this, with Adelheid Cooney playing the melody on the recording after learning it at the class last week.

This week we’ll be at the Dalriada Bar in Joppa from 9pm to have a few tunes at the end of the class. Hope to see you there if you can make it.

Photo: New Year’s Day 2012 – Sunset over Standing Stones of Stenness (c) slynkycat Some rights reserved.