Given that on top of everything else his party has done over the last 14 years Sunak has called the election for a day when I won’t be able to poll clerk and thereby done me out of a day’s extra earning, I’ve resumed my previous attempt at learning this tune of @squeezyjohn ’s - I think I’ve more or less got it: #FuckTheTories
Time for another auld tune. Jack Lattin was once popular all across these islands. Composed in Ireland sometime in the early 1700s it quickly spread across the Irish Sea and appears in many music collections of the 18th century.
Here’s a cracking Jean Blanchard tune I can’t believe I don’t remember before hearing it on Mel’s #MelodeonMonday yesterday so I have to share for #TuneswapTuesday - Boite a Frissons
Always like stopping at Hamish Henderson's childhood home in Glenshee, which backs right onto the kirkyard.
Henderson was a major organiser of the Scottish Folk Revival in the 1950s-70s. Some of his interest in folk culture came from his upbringing here and around
Blairgowrie, where he heard his mother
and their neighbours singing traditional songs.
I heard this and thought “Gallopede” but apparently this called “Knife’s Edge” except that if you search for that you find another tune instead… so I don’t know what I’m sharing this #TuneswapTuesday except that it is early #Blowzabella.
And now the last of my 40 settings from the manuscript. I enjoyed creating pipe friendly settings, I can't say I enjoyed recording them. I don't think recording tunes that I am unfamiliar with does the tunes or my piping justice.
A quick play through of my setting of Unfortunate Jock from The Drummond Castle Manuscript, Book 1, dated 1737.
Right, after a week at carnival in Portugal and a week recovering it's time to get back to the auld tunes. This is another from the manuscript that was already in my repertoire although I've always played it as a standard reel without those semi-quaver runs.
A Ranting Highland Man from The Drummond Castle Manuscript, Book 1, dated 1737.
"Thunderstruck" became part of the Scots pipe tradition because of Gordon Duncan, who died in 2005, age 41.
Two of his students, Ali Hutton (here on guitar) and Ross Ainslie are amongst those keeping Gordon's memory alive.
Martyn Bennett, who died of cancer age 33 in 30 January 2005, playing a tune composed in 1745 and given words the following year to mourn the piper's death on a battlefield.
Martyn's last album was Grit, a collage of samples from Gaelic & Scots culture woven into something both old and very new.
Scottish musicians, trad and classical, led by Greg Lawson, joined together to celebrate Martyn in live performance of a special arrangement of the album. It was filmed and shown on BBC but is impossible to find now.
The limited choices I could find are subdued, but this is the best for sound quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI7pQsukzks
“La Roulante” by Jean Blanchard - with my usual pedantry that it is a simple and easy basic courtesy to call tunes by the name their composer gave them at least while they’re still alive.
It must be #TuneswapTuesday
NPR's Tiny Desk concerts began almost 15 years ago as a way of platforming rock and folk musicians. Now, they're a beloved institution and feature unknown and world-famous artists from around the globe, in every genre. Here's the Associated Press's story on how they became cool, the rules, and how they get taped. Tell us in the comments if you have an all-time favorite Tiny Desk concert.
The latest Tiny Desk concert goes back to the series' folk roots, with singer Cinder Well. She was born and raised in California but now lives in Co. Clare, Ireland. Her music is described by NPR as "reflect[ing] the Laurel Canyon's wandering spirit and the droning qualities of Irish folk music."