# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  why so stingy?

## mandolirius

Give The Fiddler A Dram. 

I just looked up dram as a unit of measure. In fluid terms, it's one-eight of an ounce. Come on. I know we don't want him or her to get hammered but one eighth of an ounce? That barely gets the lips wet.

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## Mike Bunting

Fear not!
"But let’s not forget that poor, thirsty, fiddler:
Come on people give the fiddler a dram, Come on give the fiddler a dram, Come on people give the fiddler a dram, Come on and give the fiddler a dram.
And he’s not expecting a drink of iced tea. A dram is the traditional Scotch whiskey measure. The Scotch Whisky Association claims ‘A dram can only apply to a measure of Scotch Whisky, the size of which is determined by the generosity of the pourer’, though in some areas of northern Scotland a dram is taken specifically to mean a quarter gill (the amount a shot glass will hold). Begg writes that whilst the term now has an imprecise definition in terms of quantity, ‘in most Scottish bars a dram is usually, but by no means always, a “large”, or “double”, measure of whisky.
The Welsh celebrate Saint David’s Day, the feast day of the patron saint of Wales, on March 1st, with a dram of whiskey. On St. Patrick's Day, March 17th, Irish beer and whiskey flow with a little encouragement from the leprechauns. ~Ray Mathes

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## Paul Kotapish

It's all metaphor. A "wee drop" is half a bottle, a dram is a bit more than that, and "just two fingers" refers to the fingers on a outfielder's glove.

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## catmandu2

> Give The Fiddler A Dram.


Dram per...what?  Per tune?  Per set?  That might be enough   :Wink:

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## journeybear

I think the problem is if you give the fiddler too much - I'm sorry, if ye gie the fiddler a wee bit too much - you run the risk of him getting a bit sloppy. Can't have that. You know how fiddlers are ... give 'em a drop, they'll take the whole bottle.  :Wink:  Leastways, that's how I've always seen it - give him a little, already, but not too much. Something to do with a reputation for inebriant tendencies, deserved or not, accorded musicians since time immemorial. Thank goodness those days are long gone.  :Whistling: 

The definition cited in the OP is from the apothecary measures, I believe, which are different from the ones cited by Mike. There are any number of imprecise measurements out there - my favorite is barrel which varies widely - even in the current post-metric age - depending on, of all things, the contents.  :Disbelief:  Barrels of whiskey, oil, beer, and other liquids - different sizes. Crazy stuff. This was one of the reasons the metric system was devised to begin with, yet there are many industries and cultures that resist adoption of that standard.

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## Mandolin Mick

First time I ever heard the word "dram" was when I was in Scotland. Seemed like using it was a requirement when asking for whisky ...  :Wink:

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## Markus

I suppose the banjo equivalent of this tune is `Get the banjo a taxi'?

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## mandolirius

> Dram per...what?  Per tune?  Per set?  That might be enough


At an eighth of an ounce, I'm stopping mid-tune for a refill.   :Laughing:

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## catmandu2

Shouldn't this be in the Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks section anyway?   :Wink:   (pertaining as this does to _music basics_...)

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## Josh Kaplan

From Wikipedia:
"Dram is also used informally to mean a small amount of liquid, especially Scotch whisky. In this case the 'dram' will usually be 30 ml - see Alcoholic spirits measures."

From Little Maggie:
"Oh, yonder stands little Maggie,
With a dram glass in her hand . . ."

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## journeybear

> Shouldn't this be in the Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks section anyway?    (being as this pertains to _music basics_...)


Ha!  :Laughing:  Good one! Hadn't noticed. At least it should have been in Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk, perhaps even Classical, Medieval, Renaissance - I believe it goes way back; at least the sentiment expressed does.  :Wink:  Hmm ... yes, indeed - "Tips and Tricks," for insuring a good performance, provided it doesn't lead to the fiddler becoming tipsy ...  :Grin: 

Josh - That's a good sight better than an eighth of an ounce, which would be closer to 3.7 ml, if i compute correctly. 30 ml is a shot, corroborated by Mike's post - though his source also avers a dram could (even should) be a double. Hard to imagine Little Maggie's dram glass would contain a dram of the small variety; hardly worth the making. Wonder if whoever concocted the term had had a wee dram or two along the way ...  :Wink:

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## catmandu2

What's more?

A tinker's dam*, or a fiddler's dram...

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## Markus

> HI believe it goes way back; at least the sentiment expressed does.


The `roots' part of the forum seem broad enough to go as far as you want ... either that, or `roots' is a deceptive category as I always through roots went deeper than anything.

It just appears to be contagious, applying to many.

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## journeybear

I thought "Roots" as generally used here (as a genre) pertains to "Roots Music," defined more or less as ambiguously as "Americana Music."  :Wink:  Naw, I think cat got a good one in there. +1 from me.

Oh, yeah, "tinker's dam," or "tinker's damn," as the case may be. I have seen that parsed rather contentiously somewhere, mudcat maybe. A lot of old colloquialisms have origins lost to the ages, thanks to the oral tradition. Gone with the wraggle taggle gypsies, ye might say.  :Grin:

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## Gerard Dick

Tinkers dam: a miniscule rivet of negligible value used to repair a pinhole in a tin pan. A tinker repairs tin. A very cheap fix and only good until next time.  Therefore to not give a tinkers dam means to not get even minimally emotionally involved, as in could not possibly care less. :Mandosmiley:   Freedom and whiskey gang tagither. Take off yer dram. or something like that by Robbie Burns

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## journeybear

Right. The argument I referred to was divided into at least two camps, one ascribing to something along those lines, the other believing it was actually "tinker's damn," a reference to how little the tinker cared about the "repair." That is, to not give a damn to a greater (or lesser) extent than a regular person would. Presumably, though, the tinker made enough to buy himself a dram.  :Wink:

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## catmandu2

> Freedom and whiskey gang tagither. Take off yer dram. or something like that by Robbie Burns


Yessir.  Seemed to be a natural correlation in the moment, too...   :Wink:

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## Malcolm G.

OK, Robbie Burns' Auld Lang Syne (sp), second verse = And we'll raise a right good "willie waught" or something like that.
What the heck is that?
I sing this at the end of my sets at our Legion, and wince each time as I have no idea what I'm singin'.

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## allenhopkins

_Wikipedia's_ explication of the last verse of Robert Burns's original poem (1788):

_And theres a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie's a hand o thine!
And well tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne._

And the "minimalist" English translation:

_And theres a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o thine!
And well take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne._

So, a "dram" shared in friendship.  Here's to the Cafe, and all who post on it!

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## Markus

I have the feeling after a couple drams of good will, what comes out of my mouth sounds closer to `gude-willy waught' than `good-will draught'.

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## journeybear

Just wondering, is this song considered a fiddle feature? You know, the way tunes like "Orange Blossome Special" and "Listen To The Mockingbird" serve to showcase a fiddler's skills, or "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and such for a banjo player. Is the crowd supposed to shout out "Give the fiddler a dram!" to encourage him, perhaps even profer some libation in the hope of getting an exciting performance?  :Confused:

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## journeybear

Doing jest a tetch of research, I find myself answering my own question (sort of), and some others: Looks like this song is of Appalachian origin (of course, the melody could be much older), so I would aver this is the right forum, after all.  :Wink:  The lyrics vary a bit, of course, but it does seem as though it describes a scene in a tavern or some such libatory (is that a word?) where hard-working people have gathered to relax and enjoy some time off from their tasks, perhaps with a little music. Drinks are being offered around, and the suggestion to offer some to the fiddler to liven the proceedings seems most appropriate in this circumstance. Or it just paints a picture of some folks getting plowed and look to share the wealth and whiskey. In fact, they don"t seem all that stingy, offering that shifty fiddler to join the revelry.  :Mandosmiley: 

Of course I inferred this plotline from the lyrics, but it seems plausible. Also, the answer to my previous question would be no, at least not originally - no indication of such intent in the lyrics - though it may well be that some fiddlers would like this to be a feature, with the suggested reward built in, as it is.  :Wink: 

BTW, I did not know before this that The Byrds and The Youngbloods recorded this - if you can believe what you read on the interweb.  :Whistling:  I larned it from The Holy Modal Rounders, of course.

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## Psyberbilly

> I suppose the banjo equivalent of this tune is `Get the banjo a taxi'?


That's a GOOD one !!!

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## mandolirius

> _Wikipedia's_ explication of the last verse of Robert Burns's original poem (1788):
> 
> _And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
> and gie's a hand o’ thine!
> And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
> for auld lang syne._
> 
> And the "minimalist" English translation:
> 
> ...


I'll drink to that.

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## journeybear

Huh? Wha' ya shay? Oh ... too late. I awreddy done drunk to thet ...   <hic!> ... Cheers!

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## Gerard Dick

A coupla drinks makes the fiddles play better.  A few shots improves my playing immensely.  The drunker I sit here the longer I get.

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## Elliot Luber

> _Wikipedia's_
> 
> So, a "dram" shared in friendship.  Here's to the Cafe, and all who post on it!


And here's to you, our trusty friend!

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## Jim Nollman

That's why they call it sipping whiskey.

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## Beanzy

I count at least a dozen orders for a dram in that song.
Assuming he's knocked each one back before he asks for another the fiddler will be fluthered by the end of the song.

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## RSO'Brien

I have found within my family there is pretty much no confusion with such a topic.  Must be in our DNA  :Smile:

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## Willie Poole

After having a few "drams' in my drinking days I accused a bartender of using a 3/4 oz shot glass when mixing drinks instead of the standard 1 oz glass...I was ushered out of the place and warned never to come back....I guess if they could cut a drink by 1/4 oz each time every fourth drink would like saving one shot for profit and I doubt if most drinkers could even tell the difference....

   I have heard that the reason for a golf course being 18 holes is that after every hole the players in Scotland took a drink and that there was 18 shots in their fifth, in the U.S. there is 28 shots in our fifths so we should be playing 28 holes instead of 18...I wouldn`t be playing after the fourth hole I imagine....I need more info on this Allen, got any?

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## journeybear

Sounds far-fetched, but who knows? Can't really see them pouring shots rather than swigging, though.  :Wink:  Maybe those duffers were using jiggers instead of shots, that being 1 1/2 oz. That would bring it up to 27 oz, leaving one in the bottle for the caddy. Or the fiddler ... ;-)

But wait - are we talking imperial or US systems? Because a US gallon is 128 oz so a fifth is 25.6 oz. But an imperial gallon/quart is 1.2 US gallons/quarts, and an imperial quart is 40 imperial oz or 38.43 US oz ... That's kind of nice - 18 shots would be doubles, with about 2 1/2 left over for the caddy. Maybe I had better stop right there, because it just gets worse ...

Man! I think I need a drink. Is the sun over the yardarm yet? It's past noon by now, anyway ...  :Whistling:

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## Dagger Gordon

In Scotland, if you are asked back to someone's house for 'a dram', I think everybody understands that it is not just one dram and that no-one will be measuring it exactly.

It's a bit like 'a piece of string' or something like that.  

In a bar it's maybe different.  A whisky is sometimes referred to as a half-gill.

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## journeybear

You're quite right. There is a grey area between colloquial usage and exact measurement. I learned this way back when, just starting out performing, when someone asked if he could buy me a drink. I soon realized he wanted some of my time as well - that is, the time to have a drink together, with someone I might not want to. (OK, so I'm a bit socially inept.) I soon figured I could minimize that if we were having shots. Or a dram, as it were.  :Wink:

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## allenhopkins

> ...I have heard that the reason for a golf course being 18 holes is that after every hole the players in Scotland took a drink and that there was 18 shots in their fifth, in the U.S. there is 28 shots in our fifths so we should be playing 28 holes instead of 18...I wouldn`t be playing after the fourth hole I imagine....I need more info on this Allen, got any?


Apparently the standard of 18 holes is based on the expansion of the St. Andrews course in Scotland to that number of holes during the 19th century.  Here's a partial explication from the _Scottish Golf History_ website:
_
Many people have asked why golf courses have eighteen holes.  The early golf courses all had different numbers of holes.

Leith Links had 5 holes in 1744 when the Honourable Company, as they would come to be known, held the world's first recorded golf competition and they added 2 holes later.  Blackheath followed Leith in having 5 holes and expanding to 7 holes.  Bruntsfield Links also had 5 holes at this time, but, because of space, could only expand to 6 holes in 1818.  Musselburgh Old Course had 7 holes for many years, added an 8th in 1832 and a 9th in 1870. Montose Links had 7 holes by 1810; 14 holes by 1825; 11 holes by 1849; and 25 holes by 1866, though these were reduced sometime shortly after 1874.

St Andrews (Old Course) had 12 holes by 1764, and probably much earlier.  The holes were laid out in a line and 10 holes were played twice - once 'out' and once back 'in', making a 'round' of 22 holes. However, in 1764, the golfers decided to combine the first four holes into two, which produced a round of 18 holes, though it was really 10 holes of which 8 were played twice.  Therefore, when Prestwick was built in 1851 with only 12 holes, it did not look out of place.

By 1857 however, St Andrews had put second holes in the 8 double greens of the Old Course, creating a proper round of 18 holes, and in 1858 the St Andrews club laid down a round of 18 holes for matches between its own members._ 

You can read more *here.*  Seems like an accident of history, sorta, but of course we can't _disprove_ that the St. Andrews staff were influenced by their consumption of whiskey...

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## journeybear

Indeed. In fact, that account sounds so full of willy-nilly reasoning and counting there very well might have been whiskey involved.  :Wink:

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## Charles E.

Here is a tune that addresses the topic.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpbGCu6ruEA

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## catmandu2

> ... a partial explication...


Well, yes, I suppose this is plausible.  However, I always thought Robin Williams' explication made sense...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwzFagy7i3E *warning*: "olde" english colloquialisms (and worse, much miuch worse...seemingly appropriate though for conveying the angst of sport)

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## Charles E.

> Well, yes, I suppose this is plausible.  However, I always thought Robin Williams' explication made sense...
> 
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwzFagy7i3E *warning*: "olde" english colloquialisms (and worse, much miuch worse...seemingly appropriate though for conveying the angst of sport)



 :Popcorn:

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## Willie Poole

I got a headache, and not from drinking....Allen, does it tell how golf got its name?   Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden....Now that might just an old wives tale also, I never read much except for e mails...and Mandolin Cafe responses....

    Willie

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## allenhopkins

> ...Allen, does it tell how golf got its name?   Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden....Now that might just an old wives tale also...


Consensus seems to be derivation from the Dutch word _kolf,_ meaning a club or bat.

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