I first heard this tune just last week played by The Fiddleicious Orchestra from Maine who are at present on tour over here in Scotland. My home town of Dunoon was their first venue on Tuesday 5th July, and they entertained us with an eclectic selection of traditional tunes from many parts but with a strong Scottish flavour. The tune was composed around 1800 by William Shepherd, an Edinburgh musician who published two collections of his compositions in 1793 and in the early 1800s and set up a music selling business with the famous fiddler and composer Nathaniel Gow. Shepherd died in 1812 My version, on mandolin and octave, is based on a score I downloaded from the Fiddleicious website where they have made available a vast amount of material and is certainly worth a browse. https://fiddleicious.com/
Nice to hear those instruments that have similar tones, yet different ranges. I like those textures, sounds good.
Nice guitarless arrangement, John!
Sound like a great show. Your version is wonderful John, and nicely inspired by live music.
Thanks for a beautiful song John. Lovely tones on your instruments and I enjoyed the arrangement as well. I will look up that web site.
That’s really good to hear Ginny, makes me happy. Hope each day improves. Looking forward to hearing (and seeing) your next tune.
The combined sound of pure mandolin family instruments here has a suprisingly pacifying effect - vacation for the mind. The Fiddleicious Trailer video and their YT appearances are just gorgeous - they sound like one giant SRS, with the spirit and humor of two. And they're keeping time without a conductor!
Very nice tune, and great playing, John. Also thanks for the website that I hadn't seen before. Lots of interesting arrangements. Martin
Many thanks, all. The tune just appealed to me when I heard it last week and the fiddler who introduced it described it as a tune they had never heard played anywhere and had no idea of who The Honourable Mrs Buchanan might have been. Shepherd wrote many tunes dedicated to many patrons, as was the practice at that time, and a great many of his dedications are to ladies. Bertram, not only was there no conductor but they played without the encumbrance of music stands - all the music was committed to memory. This removes a barrier between performers and audience, I reckon. They had a very fine piano player who gave them a lot of drive and stability and played very much in the way of Scottish dance band pianists.
BTW Simon, Ginny's new tune is out now, on her channel since the early morning CET today.
Thanks Bertram, and great playing on that one too, John. Very grand, relaxing Scottish! And nice to hear you and Ginny playing together.
Thanks, Bertram and Simon. Here are links to the two videos you are mentioning here. Ginny and I posted a version on YouTube back in September 2018 with pictures of the very idiosyncratic buildings of the new Scottish Parliament. https://youtu.be/iDZDS3zl3Vk Ginny has just released the same soundtrack we recorded back then as the musical backing to her time-lapse video. Interesting to compare how different visual elements can give the same soundtrack a different feel. https://youtu.be/RWFhBe3-uuI