Scottish Tunes & Tutorial

Whistle
1

This may be old news to most of you but this site has lots of info about Scottish Whistle playing. My husband is a Scot and I’ve been serenading him nostalgically all night - I guess I should stop now, his ears are bleeding… :astonished:

List of session tunes:
http://www.nigelgatherer.com/sess/ss3.html

http://www.nigelgatherer.com/sess/ss2.html

Whistle Tutorial from the Scottish perspective:
http://www.nigelgatherer.com/whistle/tut.html

Peace,
Fran
:sunglasses:

2

A thousand thanks, Fran. And might I suggest to you that for a mere $14.95 you can get an absolutely wonderful book called “Antiquities of Scottish Music.” You’ll find it here → http://www.gaeliccrossings.com/store/index.php/cat_16 (scroll about halfway down the page.

I own this book and it’s wonderful. I say “book” but it’s a book within a book. The piano accompaniment book is tucked inside and comes right out as a separate book. It’s got guitar cords and everything, and all the songs are written in either D, G, or A. An absolute gem of a book. AND the lyrics are definitely Scottish … not Scots Gaelic, but written out in the style of speech. Anyway, money well spent in my opinion.

Best to you Fran,

Little John

3

Excellent…thank you! I will pick that up for sure.

Peace,
Fran
:sunglasses:

4

A few other Scottish music sites I’ve run across:

http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_index.htm

http://www.glasgowguide.co.uk/wjmc/wjmc-a.shtml

http://www.springthyme.co.uk/ballads/childballads_enter.html

http://www.springthyme.co.uk/wwwboard/index.html

5

In addendum to Nigel’s Strathspey tutorial, these tunes have a rhythmic pattern of strong-weak-medium-weak. This means the first beat has a stronger accent, the second weak, third medium, and 4th weak.

So on the first and third beats you hold the dotted notes longer and cut the cut notes shorter. If you really want to push the idiom you can actually hold the first and third beats a shade longer than the others provided you compensate by shortening the other beats. You have to hear it to get it.

Bagpipe music for Highland Dancing is the most demonstrative. Check out A High Cut Above by pipers from the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band or The Competing Highland Dancer by Stuart Liddell.

6

Thanks, Aaron! That helps. I am quickly learning that the Scottish music is decidedly different than the Irish (big duh on my part). Oddly enough, it somehow seems easier for me to play. It flows under my fingers. Perhaps it’s the difference in the modes that are used.

Peace,
Fran
:sunglasses:

7

Mike,

Thank you for the links. My obsession grows. I don’t know if my husband will love it or wish to go back to Scotland for some peace and quiet. :wink:

Now all I have to do is take up piping!

Peace,
Fran
:sunglasses:

8

I’ve collected up those links and put them into the Clips site. For future reference, go to the Irish and Scottish music links on the left column of the News page.
Tony

9

Thanks, Tony!

Fran
:sunglasses:

10

this is simply the most usefull topic i could ever ask for :slight_smile:

thank you all :party: