# Music by Genre > Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk >  define a strathspey

## Jim Nollman

When I first got serious about learning traditional fiddle tunes on mandolin, I recall my teacher, (who was not what you might call a sophisticated musician), telling me to beware of two kinds of tunes.  He described hornpipes as harder to learn than reels or jigs because too often, they casually add and subtract odd notes from "the proper" scale. He described the rhythm of strathspeys as being much too hard to do correctly, without bouncing your shoulders in a way that's likely to pull a muscle.

As these things go, I eventually learned all I could from the guy,and now, with years gone by, right now I find myself especially attracted to learning new hornpipes that make ample use of incidentals, and often sound more like Scott Joplin rags than what you;d expect from mere "folk music". 

I may already be playing some strathspeys without even knowing it. But the tune I'm learning right now, Cropie's Strathspey, is the first I've encountered that actually announces it's category.  I got attracted to the tune, not because it's a strathspey, but because the fiddle, at least in the Abbie Newton version, sounds to my ears, more like a bird call, then anything I've ever heard from a fiddle. I've been performing at the intersection of animal calls and music all my life, so this tune really got my attention. I thought it would be great fun to figure out how to translate the fiddler's eccentric bird calling style onto a mandolin.

OK, here's my question. As i listen to the recorded version, my ears can't quite pick up any unique syncopation that would let me understand what makes a strathspey a strathspey. i don't have that problem with hornpipes, where the bounce seems rather obvious. What part of the meter do I need to be accenting to develop this tune correctly? I think it's easier to attach the proper meter to the tune at the start of the learning process, rather then try to attach it after i already know the melody on mandolin. So what, precisely, defines a strathspey?

Maybe you can all guess from this description, that I learn tunes entirely by ear.

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## Vigee

I don't think you can ascribe a single rhythmic profile to all strathspeys as one would hornpipes.  There are several techniques that make up the rhythm patterns and syncopation of each tune.  Once you get used to snaps, burls, linked notes and shifting accent patterns, you'll have a better sense of what your hearing on various recordings.

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## Jim Garber

The best is to listen intensely to native players of Scottish or related (Cape Breton) music. Abbie Newton is an excellent player but she is American and you are listening to her versions thru the filter of her culture. Not that there is anything wrong with that.  :Smile: 

FWIW, from Wikipedia:




> A strathspey is a type of dance tune in 4/4 time. It is similar to a hornpipe but slower and more stately, and contains many dot-cut 'snaps'. A so-called Scotch snap is a short note before a dotted note, which in traditional playing is generally exaggerated rhythmically for musical expression. An example of a strathspey would be the song "The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond", provided it is sung staccato:


Primarily, these are dance tunes so the rhythms would be suitable for dancing. There are certain subtleties that distinguish strathspeys from hornpipes and that may just be in the emphasis of rhythms or perhaps other melodic distinctions.

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## foldedpath

Like Vigee said, it's all about the "snap" and shifting accents. Listen for the snap within the 4/4 meter in the first two strathspeys (Mary Scott and Moxham Castle) played here by Natalie MacMaster, before she goes into the reel at the end with a more straight-ahead feel:

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## Brent Hutto

One hint. When playing that idiomatic "dot-cut snap" rhythm, I find it better to think in terms of making the dotted eighth note longer rather than only making the short note shorter. 

At slow tempos it's played more like a 64th followed by a triple-dotted eighth (i.e. really exaggerated) while at a brisker pace it is only slightly exaggerated. But in any case it is too easy to rush the short note then play only a normal dotted eighth, thereby making the entire figure take up less than its full beat.

And I'd imagine you already know this but if you see notation for a Scottish tune which includes grace notes they are played with the grace note on the beat rather than immediately before the beat as is customary in much classical music.



Here is the great Paul Anderson playing a set that starts with the well-know Peter Milne composition _James O'Forbes of Corse_, a lovely slow Strathspey. The other two tunes also give a sense of the rhythmic feel of tunes played by a fine fiddler in the Northeast tradition. For that matter listen to Anderson's opening comments and you'll hear a hint of "speaking in Strathspeys" in his voice.



This second YouTube clip has the _Brig o'Feugh_ tossed off with an exquisite rhythmic "snap" in my opinion.

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## John Kelly

I had the pleasure of spending a day with Paul Anderson at the start of the summer when I was helping out at the Oban and Lorne Music Festival and he was judging the fiddle competitions.  His advice and encouragement to the players, especially the young ones, was invaluable and all his critical comments were delivered in a very positive way.  I especially liked his advice to the younger players during the slow airs when he was stressing that use should be made of the whole length of the bow - Paul's comment was that since the players bought the bow and paid for it, they should use all of it and not just the middle bit!  Think how that will be remembered by the young ones! 

Sarah Naylor, a Scottish Fiddle champion who judged the Oban competition last year spoke about how she enjoyed a "dirty strathspey" with a good rasp to it and powerful bowing.

A piping friend and colleague who is a top teacher and judge of piping always says that the strathspey is best played in a Strong/Weak/Medium/Weak pattern and this has stood me in good stead when playing strathspeys.

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## Jim Nollman

thanks for all these comments. I now realize that it is precisely these unique snapping notes placed so perfectly within the melody of Cropie, that caught my attention as reflecting a bird's call. The fact that it also reflects transients within a Scottish brogue (or Gaelic) seems pertinent as well, kind of like the way jazz slurs vaguely reflect the cadence of black southern dialects. 

One thing i didn't mention earlier, is that the Strathspey I am learning does sound like a slow hornpipe to my ears, which was causing me to be confused. Wikipedia seems to verify that hunch.

Abbie Newton is a very creative player. In her version of the Cropie, it is the fiddle player who sounds so much like a bird. UUnless she plays violin and cello. Her version of the waltz: Drunk at Night/Dry in the Morning  was addicting to me a few months back. I kept playing it over and over to learn it by ear, until I got to the point that I started rearranging all the very fine individual phrases of the tune in different orders. Every time i play it now, it comes out with a slightly different melody, and yet it remains  identifiable. It may be a waltz, although the verses display a rather eccentric length. Someone in another thread described it as a slip waltz. Probably incorrect terminology, but I do understand what he means.  


I recently saw a documentary of Itzhak Perlman teaching in China, and he tells the students the same thing: to use every cm of their bow.

And if i may augment my original question: does anyone here feel they are effectively interpreting that fiddler's snap onto mandolin? I'd love to hear how other's are doing with it.

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## Brent Hutto

Kevin MacLeod and Alec Finn: Mackenzie Hay
Dagger Gordon: The Annie R. Lord Set

If I had my computer I could give you more examples from these two Cafe denizens...

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## Dagger Gordon

'Define a strathspey'.

I dunno.  Best to listen to some and you should get it.  

A couple of comments:

There can be quite a bit of variation in style on these.  Fiddlers from the North East style in Scotland play a bit differently than the West Coasters.  Cape Breton fiddlers play them in a very rhythmic fashion.

If I were you I would listen to Scottish country dance bands and also pipers.  `People who regularly play them for dancing (they are basically dance tunes, remember) know how to play them.

The rhythm is very important, and sometimes I have heard fiddlers really over-exaggerate what they think a Scotch snap is.  I think John Kelly gave good advice with the Strong Weak Medium Weak rhythmic pulse description.

I wouldn't compare them to hornpipes.  They are much closer to reels with a different rhythm.  Many tunes can be found in both strathspey and reel versions.

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## kmmando

Tricky area this, as Strathspeys work best on the fiddle, and we don't have the long note on the mandolin - tremolo-ing it would not be nice.

The Sobell type instruments at least have a ring in the note which allows an approximation of the longer notes, and the plectrum can be controlled to get the "snapped" crochets with a bit of learning.

Phrasing Strathspeys is, as Dagger implies, another issue altogether, and Scottish dance band musicians will subtly play them differently from a concert playing fiddler, or Cape Breton musician - just depends what you'd like to hear I suppose. 

There can be a bit of rhythmic fluidity in a strathspey for a Scottish country dancer, where the phrasing matches the strathspey step in the dance, which is how I was taught by great exponents of this style in the past, a very subtle movement in the tempo. Actually, I was castigated by some ignorant reviewer for this variation in tempo, in a review of the album with Alec Finn - quite an irritating ignorance of the style and tradition.

I'd suggest you are best to listen to masters like Paul Anderson - he is an exceptional player and a very fine guy too.

KM

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## Jim Nollman

When I listen to that second Paul Anderson video (in post #5) the bounce of the melody gives me a pretty good idea how the  dancers probably move in response. When I hear such stuff, (and its certainly not limited to Irish or Scottish music) I often tend to refer to it as a wobble, because it reflects what KM describes as a "very subtle movement in the tempo".  

I have a tremendous respect for the keepers of musical tradition. I also believe, up to a point, that certain local musics can never be played to local satisfaction by outsiders, as a result of the unmistakable relationship between musical cadence and the cadence of local dialects. You can hear something similar in country blues, Indian ragas, and African high life. Local breeds local.

Rather than trying to attain traditional (or local) accuracy of any style, these days I'm mostly attracted to learning new tunes on mandolin, when they display the possibility of providing a new musical challenge. The learning of them can  take me to a new place in my music. _Copie's strathspey_ caught my ear because the combination of those fiddle snaps wedded to the otherwise simple melody sounded a lot like a bird calling, (actually certain finches). To learn it on mandolin, suggested that I would also be learning how to make a mandolin sound more like a bird. I hadn't considered if it would make me sound more like a Scot. Someone else needs to judge whether any version I learn makes the tune less Scottish. 

I imagine most every musician relates to this expressed desire to keep learning music, whatever the source, or community of origin. Where this delving into other people's local traditions can get tricky, is when I choose to record a tune and release it on CD. KM from Edinburgh, if you encountered a sour reviewer who displayed ignorance of local rhythm mechanics when he panned your wobbly sense of time, imagine that same reviewer weighing the merits of my eventual recorded version of the Copie's, with its cadence altered in a different way, to more closely mirror the probable addition of sampled finch calls into the arrangement. :Smile:

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## Brent Hutto

Jim,

If you want a rhythmic adventure, go find Paul Anderson's _The Journey Home_ on iTunes and grab the track titled _The Countess Cathleen/Norman & Alice Anderson of Tarland/Calliope House/Stealing The Flags/The Lark In The Morning/The Humours Of Tulla/Jean's Reel_. Especially the first tune "Countess Cathleen" is mighty confounding to try and count out.

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## Jim Nollman

Brent, How'd he do that? 

There is no "counting" as we know it, because that first tune showcases a quantum mechanics version of musical time while you and I  are stuck in Newtonian time.  

The most profound part of this PA medley, is that each of the tunes within it showcases a very different melody and meter, but they all have one specific phrase in common.

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## Brent Hutto

Yep, I think that captures it. Every bit as mind-blowing for me as some far-out jazz improvisation. And a good deal more listenable!

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## Jim Nollman

I recently recorded a version of one of the tunes in that PA medley, _Calliope House_. My research indicated that this tune is probably from the New England contra dance scene, although I'd be interested to get our Scottish friends to chime in about that claim. I strung _Calliope House_ into a medley with _Tobin's jig_ and _Morpeth Rant_. My version has a drummer who plays in that fat bebop style that features a low resonant kick. As in bebop, he doesn't carry the beat so much as he plays inventive figures that accent the melody lines.

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## Dagger Gordon

Calliope House is written by Dave Richardson of The Boys Of The Lough.

BTW, I see you're from Friday Harbor.  My son Neil was over there on a kayaking/ cycling/camping/whale watching trip last year.

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## Charlieshafer

> I recently recorded a version of one of the tunes in that PA medley, _Calliope House_. My research indicated that this tune is probably from the New England contra dance scene, although I'd be interested to get our Scottish friends to chime in about that claim. I strung _Calliope House_ into a medley with _Tobin's jig_ and _Morpeth Rant_. My version has a drummer who plays in that fat bebop style that features a low resonant kick. As in bebop, he doesn't carry the beat so much as he plays inventive figures that accent the melody lines.



Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas have a great version of Calliope House, and any of Alasdair's CD's are a great intro into Strathspeys. Might as well go to the source, though, James Scott Skinner

Make sure to scroll through the manuscripts to see many of his compositions in his own hand. He may not have invented the format, but he's definitely the king. The Hurricane is a great piece to get acquainted with to see twists and turns involved. As kmmando says, they're not written for the mandolin, and won't translate well. You can't get the proper length of the various notes, and the flicks don't translate at all to the mandolin; a quick tremolo doesn't cut it. 

If you need a Scots kick, I really like a lot of the accordion dance tunes written by Bobby McCloud, or the newer compositions by Phil Cunningham. Try "Jean's Reel" which is a beautiful piece when played on the mandolin

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## raulb

I am surprised that no one, unless I missed it, suggested listening to James Scott Skinner, the Strathspey King.

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## Dagger Gordon

Have a closer look at the post immediately above yours.  Charlieshafer provides a link to Skinner.

Skinner certainly wrote some great ones, but the form goes back a long way.  The dance 'The Highland Fling' is done to a strathspey, for example.

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## Jim Nollman

Dagger, kayaking and whale watching are popular tourist experiences here in Friday Harbor. Yesterday went salmon fishing and set a couple of crab traps. Picked up a 5 Ib pink salmon and 6 dungeness crabs in a few hours.

Charlie, I first learned _Calliope House_ by playing along with the Alasdair Fraser version. 

Raul, I'm well familiar with Skinner, although had no idea he was the Strathspey king, because the form is new to me. My upcoming CD includes two tunes by Skinner, _Earl Haig_ and _Rosebud of Allenvale_. The latter is simply one of the most elegant waltzes I have ever heard.  We do it with mandolin, piano, drums, and jazz guitar.

I learned _Earl Haig_ also by playing along with the Alasdair Fraser version, although my recorded rendition is apples to Fraser's oranges. Haig was commander of British Forces in World War 1, and ultimately responsible for sending several hundred thousand soldiers to their deaths by ordering them to charge into German machine gun fire. Whereas the Fraser version is a splendid example of the performer's usual virtuosic filigree, mine is dark as smog, recorded on MIDI mandolin, which triggers several layered tracks of raspy, reedy, and harmonically dissonant synths and samplers.

Sure, I agree, the Strathspey fiddle-snap is an expression of drawing a bow across strings. Tremolo would not be a suitable technique to simulate this effect on mandolin. However, as I continue to master _Cropies_ by playing along with the Abby Newton version, I notice myself making use of "pulling off" the string smartly, wherever the snap occurs. It's not the usual straight up and down pull-off, but more diagonally slurred towards the next lower note, and pulled off at the moment my finger crosses over the fret. Try it, and tell me if you agree that it fits. I've also been playing that melody with a cross-picked bluegrass technique of banging back and forth between adjacent string sets, with the D set often serving as a drone while the A set carries the melody including most of the the slurred pull-offs. The overall effect is a kind of jingle-jangle bluegrass mandolin with jarring staccato accents. It works good because my oval hole has such a world class pop to it. Sorry I can't describe this emerging technique more clearly.

I think I'll pass, for now, on trying to incorporate the confounding changes in time that are so evident in that Paul Anderson video. If I ever venture to Scotland someday to sit at the feet of a master of the form, I'd definitely be up to attempting it. As you might expect, that Scottish (and/or finch) dialectical cadence is nowhere heard in the Abby Newton version.

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## Bren

> If I ever venture to Scotland someday to sit at the feet of a master of the form, I'd definitely be up to attempting it.


You'll find Paul at the Tarland pub of a Tuesday night, hopefully you'll get a seat on a chair! It's definitely a challenge to play strathspeys and "Scotch snaps" on the mandolin. Coming from the more amateurish end of the spectrum , even though I get to play with some of Paul's students and Paul himself occasionally it's still a struggle. 

One thing I've found, while noting Dagger's comment that some fiddlers overemphasise the snap, is that I have to over-emphasise it to what seems to me like a comical degree when practising alone, to arrive at the right sound when playing in combination with a fiddler or accordionist (especially when playing the banjo at dances). Or maybe that's just certain players - possibly to do with the local inflection as Paul theorises. However it's quite rewarding when you see the dancers responding with extra spring in their step.

I recall on one of Kevin's CDs where he seems to slow the tempo for  the triplets - is that what you referred to in #10 Kevin?
I might have asked about it before. It sounds lovely.

Lastly, while some of the recordings referred to are very challenging, there are some relatively simple strathspeys like Smith's a Gallant Fireman that are easier to get started on for a mandolinist.

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## JeffD

> A piping friend and colleague who is a top teacher and judge of piping always says that the strathspey is best played in a Strong/Weak/Medium/Weak pattern and this has stood me in good stead when playing strathspeys.


I agree with Dagger, this kind of captures an effective way of thinking about it. While a "snap" is accurate, it makes more sense as a bowing technique, while S/w/M/w feels like what I do on the mandolin.

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## Jim Nollman

Over-emphasizing the snap seems a worthy learning technique for someone new to the music. We all tend to accentuate any difficult cadence as we immerse ourselves in the process of re-making the foreign as our own. Only by learning it well, are we then able to know the caricature for what it is, and finally let go of it. Our Scottish friends seem to be advising that it's not a respectful move to play this music in public, and  announce that the caricature we are playing is a genuine Strathspey. 

That would be like describing Pat Boone's watered down cover of Blue Suede Shoes as rock and roll.

When i listen to Paul's video, I hear the snap as a very short note, followed by a long note. I'm not sure what you all mean when you describe the same thing as Strong/weak. Clearly, my ears are not yet up to the task of of hearing this music as it is. Can someone explain?

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## Dagger Gordon

'Our Scottish friends seem to be advising that it's not a respectful move to play this music in public'

Certainly didn't say that.

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## Charlieshafer

Hmm; having spent a lot of time at our workshops with Scots fiddlers like Alasdair or Hanneke Cassel, I'll try to weigh in with an aggregate of what's been taught. It seems like a bit too much thought might be put into what you're calling a "snap." The fiddlers I talk to refer to it as a "flick" which is a pretty accurate description of the motion you give it with your wrist. A quick flick of the wrist, and you're off onto the next note. If it's a strong/weak thing, it's only because the initial flick digs into the string a little more, while as your wrist rebounds to the neutral position, no real force is being applied downward by the bow, it's just brushing the string as it relaxes back into position, and then the note is forgotten as you get the heck out of Dodge and onto the next passage. It's weak, not because there's an intentional de-crescendo in volume, it's simply weak as there's a lot to do so you'd better get on it.

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## Niall Anderson

> When i listen to Paul's video, I hear the snap as a very short note, followed by a long note. I'm not sure what you all mean when you describe the same thing as Strong/weak. Clearly, my ears are not yet up to the task of of hearing this music as it is. Can someone explain?


Jim,

I think there are actually 2 different concepts being discussed here (Dagger, tell me if I'm talking rubbish...). The Strong/ Weak/ Medium/ weak idea describes how to place emphasis on each of the 4 beats in one entire bar of the strathspey, whereas the snap is a 2 note phrase that is played within/ on one of those beats. Thus you might have 4 snaps in a bar, the first of which would be played with strong emphasis, the second "much" weaker, ...

Niall

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## Dagger Gordon

Hi Niall,

As I understand it, the strong/weak/medium/weak idea refers to the rhythm of the tune.  

In a march/strathspey and reel setting - particularly in a North East fiddle style - the strathspey may often be played in a less rhythmic fashion that you might find in a dance situation.  To muddy the waters a bit further, in Scotland we have a dance called the Highland Schottische, which is danced to strathspeys played in quite a fast rhythmic way which is different from the somewhat measured way you might hear them in the North-East fiddle style - particularly if played for a competition.

An example of a good tune for a Highland Schottische would be Orange and Blue - also known as Brochan Lom.  In fact quite a lot of Gaelic favourites are in this rhythm, such as Calum Beag.  

Once you get the feel of the rhythm, the whole thing becomes easier.

Listen to this new piping recording by Seudan playing Tullochgorum:

http://www.footstompin.com/products/cds/seudan

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## Charlieshafer

So, I missed the strong/weak point entirely! Not unusual though, I'm used to it. To all the Scots on this forum, your music has a HUGE following here in New England, and not as much from the Cape Breton influence as you might think. Quite a bit of it is due to Alasdair Fraser's Valley Of The Moon camp, where folks like Hanneke Cassel and Laura Cortese, along with Lissa Schneckenburger met, and then they all moved to Boston, and that helped it all to mushroom. There's one camp in particular, going on right now, which is fantastic. Boston Harbor Fiddle Camp. 

Recently, we've had a few Cape Breton kids pass through Berklee, like Kimberly Fraser, and I've wanted to get a few other Scots over for the concert/workshop series. One young fiddler we're admiring right now is Jenna Reid 

Anyway, Dagger and the crew, thanks to you and your ancestors!!

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## Bren

> in Scotland we have a dance called the Highland Schottische, which is danced to strathspeys played in quite a fast rhythmic way


Ah, I should have remembered that. We did Orange & Blue for the Highland Schottische on Saturday night. Finished with Laird of Drumblair, which did not sound very pretty on the banjo at that speed. My favourite for that dance is Cathkin Braes. I think that goes pretty well on the mandolin or banjo.

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## Niall Anderson

> Listen to this new piping recording by Seudan playing Tullochgorum:
> 
> http://www.footstompin.com/products/cds/seudan


Yes, the Seudan recording is really interesting - I picked it up a week or two back. The style there is definitely different (more Strong/ Medium/ Medium/ Medium!), which is a result of the influences of Uist and Cape Breton piping traditions and the requirements for playing for stepdancing (as opposed to ceilidhs/ RSCDS). I'm sure Hamish (Moore) must have written up some stuff on strathspey playing that would be of interest to folk here: I've certainly heard him talk about this side of things a few times, although admittedly it's perhaps taking the discussion in another direction entirely...

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## Jim Nollman

Yes, thanks for that clarification. Getting input from our Scottish contingent about the local meaning of strong/weak..etc, makes better sense to me. Listening to that Seuden cut also makes me wonder if most of this bagpipe-originating music, started out life as marches. 

What I mean, is that when someone first mentioned the strong,weak,medium,weak cadence, it immediately brought to mind the marches I already do play, for instance _Bonaparte crossing the Rhine_. My own quartet plays this tune regularly, and given our admittedly imprecise (or unsophisticated) manner of relating to any and all traditional cadences, we call our version a march because the "bounce" is strong/weak/medium/weak. We got there mostly by thinking of how your feet move while marching. Plus, I use the mandolin to good effectiveness in this "march" by banging out a tremolo during the rests, specifically to emulate a snare drum. 

I guess my question is: does a march cadence play any role in the origins of a Strathspey cadence?

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## Dagger Gordon

'I guess my question is: does a march cadence play any role in the origins of a Strathspey cadence?'

Arguably, I suppose, but we think of strathspeys and marches as different.  For that matter, we differentiate between different types of marches - eg 2/4,  6/8 etc.

Anyway, Tullochgorum - played there by Seudan- is a strathspey.

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## Niall Anderson

> I guess my question is: does a march cadence play any role in the origins of a Strathspey cadence?


In my (highly inexpert) opinion, the closer relationship is to reels - cf the number of strathspeys that also translate directly and easily into reel time... There's also the observation that a few old tune collections have tunes identified as "strathspey reels", which may perhaps be a geographical attribution (that's certainly one origin for the Strathspey that I've heard people propose - that they are a style of reel as originally played in that area of Scotland... Caution advised with accepting that, though!).

Note that there are probably lots of counterexamples to my assertion above - Caber Feidh for example, which exists in versions in just about every tune type. There's a march, strathspey, reel, jig, ...

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## Jim Nollman

Still following this winding path to properly play a Strathspey; listening more closely now to the form in order to get good enough at it so, hopefully, a knowledgeable Scot won't roll his eyes to hear me, and I won't pull a muscle in my shoulder attempting to translate the snap onto mandolin. I haven't felt so compelled to learn a new cadence since I attempted playing high-life guitar arpeggios with a room full of djembe drummers.

Some observations from listening to excerpts of 30 or more strathspeys on itunes.

1. About 2/3 of the strathspey recordings on itunes are performed on bagpipes and snare drums. Most of the other 1/3 feature fiddles. Makes me suspect that the snap is a technique invented by good fiddlers trying to synthesize some aspect of the bagpipe sound. So translating that snap onto mandolin may be just another form of synthesis.  

2. those snare drum rhythms are quite incredible. Perhaps oddly, some of them reminded me of hip hop. is that possible?

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## Brent Hutto

Jim,

Wouldn't your first point argue in favor of ignoring how fiddle players "snap" and instead make your best, most artistic mandolin interpretation of the feel that pipers give a Strathspey?

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## Jim Nollman

The fiddle snap's resemblance to a birds song is what got me interested in the form in the first place. The fiddle sounds much more like a bird than anything the pipes do. 

My past musical compositions and CDs, should make it clear why I'm as much interested in the specific bird that most resembles that fiddle snap, as I am with a perceived relationship between snap and pipes. 

http://interspecies.com/

The statement about the fiddle snap potentially evolving as a way to emulate a breathing-push in the pipes, is merely an outsider's observation of what my ears make me consider — albeit imperfectly — within the music. Whether the snap is actually an emulation of pipes, or its own original expression, can only be answered by historians of the music. 

I am always enthusiastic to discuss the subtleties of any deep musical tradition with the keepers of that tradition. To keep the conversation honest, its critical that I remain transparent about my own aesthetic intentions. Keepers of tradition are fierce protectors of their tradition getting lost or corrupted. If I am a keeper of anything, it is of the so-called "avant-garde", which seeks a very different end product than any poorly played rendition of tradition. I could be having the same conversation with a keeper of Bluegrass, or even a keeper of Newgrass. It's all historical to me, although almost none of it goes as deep and rhythmically mysterious as these Strathspeys. 

Keepers of tradition have nothing to fear from me, and hopefully they have something to gain by aiding me in my search for unexpected and hidden linkage. Hopefully, my past work verifies my sincerity as a bridging person between cultures, species, art forms.

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## Dagger Gordon

"although almost none of it goes as deep and rhythmically mysterious as these Strathspeys. "


I really do think you are making it seem harder than it is.  This is traditional music from Scotland, and has been a natural part of ordinary people's lives for centuries.  It is not something that most Scots would think of as 'mysterious'.

There is a collection of fiddle tune books called Kerr's Merry Melodies For The Violin, four volumes in all, which I have used to learn tunes for much of my life - in particular Vol 1 which I recommend.  The biggest section in these books is 'strathspeys and reels', where they are written out alternately - strathspey followed by a reel, by another strathspey and so on.  It would seem that there are as many strathspeys as there are reels.  It really is not some sort of obscure corner of Scottish music - far from it.

Niall noted that "In my (highly inexpert) opinion, the closer relationship is to reels - cf the number of strathspeys that also translate directly and easily into reel time."  This is true.  There are a number of tunes which are played as both.

Sometimes it's good to consider how a strathspey rhythm can work as a song - something I alluded to a little when talking about Highland Schottisches and Gaelic favourites like Brochan Lom and Calum Beag which are very popular Gaelic songs with a rhythm which everybody is familiar with.

Another example in English (or at least Scots!) is the classic reel Jenny Dang The Weaver.  There was a good version sung by the band Jock Tamson's Bairns to a strathspey rhythm which was quite catchy if you get a chance to hear it.

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## Jock

"It really is not some sort of obscure corner of Scottish music - far from it"

There's even a corner of Ireland where you'll hear the strathspey played as an aspect of their tradition also. Strathspeys in Donegal are known as "Highlands". Much is made of the difference of approach, but actually the Donegal Highland playing to my mind is really just another school of strathspey playing as you'd find here in Scotland, all be it classed as Irish rather than Scottish. Whilst many highlands started out life as Scots tunes and stylized into the Donegal way of playing them, there are very many that have been composed in Ireland and are therefore, first and foremost, essentially Irish tunes. Their Highlands would be termed strathspeys in Scotland. Just another twist.

Pipes & fiddles are by far the most popular instruments in play in traditional music in scotland, we should also add accordion to that as well. The mandolin family of instruments are well represented also but usually in the longer scale manifestation and generally used for accompaniment. But thats not to say the music isn't suited to other instruments, especially mandolin. 

Here's some good old traditional strathspeys that embody many aspects of the style and both tunes that sit well on the mandolin. They can be played swung, fast or slow, as scored in the abc, or with a slowly building tempo in anticipation for a change into another SP or the change into a reel. Not the easiest tunes to play and there are many many simpler tunes in the idiom but just pop these into an abc editor and have a listen.    

X: 1
T: Roes Amang The Heather, The (aka, the laddie with the pladdie)
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: strathspey
K: Dmaj
|:f>gf>e d>ed>B|A>FA>d c<e e2|f>gf>e d>ed>B|c>de>a f<d d2:|
|:A2 (3FED F<A A>d|B>AB>d c<e e2|A2 (3FED F<A A>d|c>de>a f<d d2:|
f2 (3agf e2 (3gfe|d2 (3fed c2 (3edc|B2(3dcB A>df>a|g>fed c<a a2|
(3fef (3agf (3ede (3gfe|(3dcd (3fed (3cBc (3edc|(3BAB (3dcB A>df>a|g>fe>a f<d d2||

Another old favorite, borrowed from the session.org:

X: 1
T: Devil In The Kitchen, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: strathspey
K: Amix
a|:e>A A/A/A e>A (3fed|e>A A/A/A g2 f<a|
e>A A/A/A e>A (3fed|1B>G d/c/B g2 f<a:|2B>G d/c/B g2 f>g||
a>A A/A/A e>A A/A/A|a>A A/A/A g2 f>g|
a>A A/A/A e>A (3fed|B>G d/c/B g2 f>g|
a>A A/A/A e>A A/A/A|a>A A/A/A g2 f>g|
(3agf g>e f/af/ e>c|B>c d>e g2 f<a||

You can run them together to hear how they sound, like so;

X: 1
T: both together
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: strathspey's
K: Dmaj
|:f>gf>e d>ed>B|A>FA>d c<e e2|f>gf>e d>ed>B|c>de>a f<d d2:|
|:A2 (3FED F<A A>d|B>AB>d c<e e2|A2 (3FED F<A A>d|c>de>a f<d d2:|
f2 (3agf e2 (3gfe|d2 (3fed c2 (3edc|B2(3dcB A>df>a|g>fed c<a a2|
(3fef (3agf (3ede (3gfe|(3dcd (3fed (3cBc (3edc|(3BAB (3dcB A>df>a|g>fe>a f<d d2||
K: Amix
|:e>A A/A/A e>A (3fed|e>A A/A/A g2 f<a|
e>A A/A/A e>A (3fed|1B>G d/c/B g2 f<a:|2B>G d/c/B g2 f>g||
a>A A/A/A e>A A/A/A|a>A A/A/A g2 f>g|
a>A A/A/A e>A (3fed|B>G d/c/B g2 f>g|
a>A A/A/A e>A A/A/A|a>A A/A/A g2 f>g|
(3agf g>e f/af/ e>c|B>c d>e g2 f<a|| 

Over here, as Dagger is saying, the influence of the strathspey in the music is everywhere, no mystery just variations on a theme  :Mandosmiley:

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## Dagger Gordon

As the tune Cathkin Braes and the song/strathspey Jenny Dang The Weaver have been mentioned, you might be interested to hear snippets of both on Amazon by Jock Tamson's Bairns.

(Tracks 15 and 17)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lasses-Fashi...3760622&sr=1-1

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## Jim Nollman

I think Dagger has hit on a few things of  importance in regards to us non-Scots attempting to understand Strathspeys well enough to to play them competently. His point that this has been a local folk music and dance for centuries means it's insinuated itself into the very blood of the locals. That explains why I listen to the very straightforward rendition of _Cathkin Braes_ and easily pick out the cadence on mandolin. If that's all there is to it, why am I making such a big deal? On a similar level, there's another thread here about defining Quebecois music. I perform some of those tunes without problem, but for an odd reason. To my ears its simply reels and jigs filtered through a pushy New Orleans street cadence I've been moving to ever since I first heard Fats Domino as a kid. 

When I listen to the masters of the Quebecois style, its a different story. I haven't found any good way to emulate on mandolin, that Cape Breton accent of banging the bow on the strings. I would guess that some local player started doing it, maybe after a few too many. Others liked it enough to follow the example, until as years passed it became a hallmark of the tradition. Kind of like blues players picking up Hawaiian slides back in the 1920s. 

In almost all the Strathspey examples given here prior to the _Jock Tamson's Bairns_, I was being asked to listen to world class fiddlers showcase their formidable arsenal of  tics, accents, snaps, and fillers, brought to bear on this "simple" Scottish music. I mean can we all agree that Paul Anderson's playing of a Strathspey is a difference in kind, not of degree, from the _Bairns_.

One interesting thing about the Mandolin Cafe, is that its a forum for players. I started this thread because I heard a Strathspey that I wanted to learn well enough to record, and felt uncertain about how to translate the birdlike "snap" onto mandolin. So I came here to ask if maybe someone else here had already made that translation from fiddle to mandolin. I also wanted to know if the snap might have a true connection to a specific birdcall. It's a fair question to ask about any so called folk music. I once asked that question to Ali Akbar Khan, and he answered that certain ragas were composed as realtime improvs with specific birds. 

It is now confirmed for me that the fiddle snap is, indeed, a part of the Strathspey genre, and that there are good ways to snap and poorly (overly accented) snaps. However, when the same tune is more commonly performed on the  pipes, the snap is nowhere to be found because, truly, it's a fiddle technique.

I'm still curious about one thing. Doesn't anyone else hear the similarity between the snap and bird calls?

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## Dagger Gordon

If you want to compare Scottish music to ragas, I would suggest you have a look at Pibroch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pibroch

I can see what you mean about the birdcall and the strathspey snap, although I had never made such a connection before.
However, I can see that certain bagpipe chanter techniques such as a taorluath and the use of grace notes could perhaps suggest bird sounds.
I'm not the man to ask about piping techniques, however.  

There is incidentally, a pibroch (piobaireachd) called The Desperate Battle Of The Birds.

http://www.last.fm/music/John+Burges...Birds+(Pibroch)

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## Jim Nollman

I'd like to qualify one thing i said in my last post. I've been listening to lots of Scottish fiddle players lately. In general,  I am struck at how often these aforementioned virtuosic "tics, accents, snaps, and fillers," are incorporated in most of this music. The little fillers between odd notes is especially wonderful to hear.

I'm now suspecting that the "fiddle snap" is not really specific to Strathspeys. Rather, it is  specific to Scottish fiddle music, as interpreted by some of the world's most talented and playful bowers.

Makes me wonder how a player like Paul Anderson might add those same min-melody fillers into some tune  we usually associate with a jazz fiddler like Stephane Grappelli. 

 The concept of _Pibroch_ is entirely new to me.Dagger, thanks for that suggestion and Wikipedia link. Kind of like a melodic version of what reggae players do with "dub". I'd like to hear some fully developed examples. The link you included for listening, didn't go anywhere.

I can't seem to figure out how to include a youtube video, but here's one example of pibroch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NAkZPNtYJc

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## Jock

Here's the Frasar Fifield Trio doing a jazz interpretation of the Pibrocht "lament for the children";

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsEDWxbsDU8

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## Brent Hutto

> Here's the Frasar Fifield Trio doing a jazz interpretation of the Pibrocht "lament for the children";
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsEDWxbsDU8


Nice find, Jock. Love it!

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## Jock

Thanks Brent. I knew there'd be some appreciation for that sort of thing with the folks here. First heard it on our national radio station BBC Radio Scotland's "Pipeline" show, which I'm sure you can guess is devoted to piping. Anyway there was an eery stunned silence among the company in the house once it finished playing, even the presenter gave a suitable pause to allow it to sink in before getting into the next track (Mr Fifield is a renowned piper and trad musician as well as being a jazzer, so more power to his elbow for doing it). I guess this opens up the almost impenetrable word of pidbroch a little allowing the non piper (me) to hear the main melodic character in isolation. 

When I was looking for "the devil in the kitchen" abc on the session to post above, in the comments section (always the first port of call for me) I came across a post recommending tapping the foot to each beat for getting into driving strathspeys, as opposed to once per two beats. I didn't think much of it at the time but last night I found myself doing just that. Might be worth a try..

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## Jim Nollman

Beautiful piece of music, thanks for posting it, Jock. Reminds me of some of the work of jazzman Charles Lloyd, who spent some time incorporating raga formats into his sax-based jazz.

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## Paul Kotapish

When playing dance tunes, I always find it useful to have a sense of what the actual dance associated with a tune type is. Some of the discussion about the pulses and snaps of strathspey rhythm make a little more sense when put in the context of folks actually dancing a strathspey. Here's a pretty good example. Not necessarily the most interesting dance or the most assertive rendition of the tunes, but a reasonable introduction of what you should be going for. 




I cut my musical teeth playing dances and consider the connection between the structure of the tunes and the dancers' feet essential to understanding what should be going on with dance tunes.

You can talk about "snaps" and "strong and weak" all night, but if your tune makes 'em want to dance, you're doing something right.

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## Jock

> Reminds me of some of the work of jazzman Charles Lloyd, who spent some time incorporating raga formats into his sax-based jazz.


There are a couple of scottish players over here collaborating with a couple of indian players in the band "India Alba", they're incorporating all sorts from both traditions with good results (Alba: gaelic for scotland).

Here's a link to the band playing the late great Gordon Duncan pipe composition "Thunderstruck" which incorporates that wonderful AC/DC guitar riff from their number of the same name (Gordon Duncan was a huge AC/DC fan and this was his tribute to the band)

Hope you enjoy;

>>>>INDIA ALBA<<<<

The pipes in play here are scots border pipes.

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## Jock

Jim, I found this which offers a good explanation of strathspey playing, fiddle but very relevant to the discussion (feeling the need to atone for getting off topic above  :Laughing:  This lass, Kimberley, features a great tune in this introductory free online lesson "Munlochy Bridge". 

Great stuff <<<<<<<Here>>>>>>>> 


Well worth listening to.

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## Charlieshafer

Kimberly Fraser's a great young fiddler. From Cape Breton, she was (maybe still is) a student at Berklee, and does a lot of teaching in the Bostin area as well as back on the Cape.

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## Jim Nollman

Thanks for both those postings. I was hoping you'd chime in here at some point, Paul, and give this discussion your usual grounding in what's really essential to play traditional musical forms. That video shows just about everything a player would need to know to play an authentic Strathspey. In an odd sort of way, it makes me realize that with a very slight change in emphasis, you could dance a foxtrot to a Strathspey. And Jock, that link to Kimberley is fantastic. She sums it all up at about 1:40 — "da-dum, dum, da da dum, da dum". Hearing her say that out loud, is more helpful then reading it 1000 times. 

The very musical connection between ragas and pipes makes so much sense, although ironic  after reading months of discussion in another thread about the quasi-legalistic etiquette of session playing. 

Right now I'm attracted to melodies that bridge the traditional and classical worlds, and also that showcase styles of ornamentation that offers my own playing new challenges. Whether that ornamentation is a bowing technique, or a mandolin fingering doesn't matter at all to me. In my last record, I used a mandolin to play a tuba part, and wasn't concerned whether the result sounded like a tuba or a mandolin.  

Understanding original rhythms is an essential aspect of my own learning process, but mostly to get the proper feel and history of the tune and its tradition. Once understood, playing the syncopation purely, is not so essential in terms of what I might lay down onto tracks in response. In my last CD, the choice for drums was not founded on either keeping tick-tock time or showcasing dance syncopations, but rather to add ornament as fiddles most often do in so much of this music. It's a choice derived from my love of bebop drumming. It is the mandolin's task to emphasize both the melody and the bounce.

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## Niall Anderson

> The very musical connection between ragas and pipes makes so much sense, although ironic  after reading months of discussion in another thread about the quasi-legalistic etiquette of session playing.


I'm probably going to re-start the endless session thread, but I'm not sure it's entirely fair to compare a band/ performance situation with an unarranged, cooperative, improvised musical gathering. I know one of the members of India Alba quite well - he has spent many years studying Indian music, including annual trips there to study sitar and sarod. What they do is based on strong understanding of both the similarities and differences between the 2 musics and on very careful rehearsal and arrangement. I don't think it's something that could be made to work "on the fly". 

A session (in the sense I'm used to, at least) needs some ground rules and conventions (shared expectations?) to work well, so it's a very different beast. The rules (such as they are - can't say I've ever been issued with a session manual) seem to me to be about enabling people to play together in that unstructured way whilst avoiding musical train wrecks. That's surely a good thing?

Anyway, apologies for taking a throw-away comment so seriously, and I'll step off the hobby horse now...

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## Jim Nollman

Yes  it was a throwaway comment, and I needed to be called on it. I am as much a refugee of sessions as anyone else here. Who among us has never felt cranky when someone holds the group hostage by trashing the simple  "ground rules".

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