Mrs Lily Christie

  1. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    This is a great 6/8 pipe march composed by Pipe Major Donald Shaw Ramsay and dedicated to Mrs Lily Christie, wife of PM Jim Christie of Wick. PM Ramsay originally wrote the tune for Jim, but learned that there was already a tune for Jim, so Mrs Christie became the recipient of the tune! My version is on my octave with guitar backing.
  2. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Very jaunty, making the pipe band skip and hop over swords sticking out of the ground in a somewhat licentious manner
  3. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    I never cease to wonder at the verbal gymnastics you regularly perform in your comments, Bertram. This one is no exception, being jaunty and licentious. You brighten our days! Thanks.
  4. John W.
    John W.
    Nice tune, John, and I like it played on the OM. Following Bertram’s comments, from here on I shall be imaging sword dancing pipers when I listen to ‘Scottish’ tunes.
  5. Simon DS
    Simon DS
    Fine musical interpretation with good continuity and flow.
    I can imagine you giving a very honorable performance of this tune at a session, John.
    No need for swords there.
  6. Christian DP
    Christian DP
    You are the master of hammered on grace notes. John!
  7. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Thanks, all. The octave gives more scope for using hammer-ons and its better sustain helps with the pipe tunes,as the bagpipe notes sound for as long as they are being fingered and the drones are a constant backing sound.
  8. Gelsenbury
    Gelsenbury
    You make the tune sound as if it were never intended for anything but the mandolin family.
  9. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Thanks, Dennis. Much appreciated. Hope you are fully recovered from your Covid isolation now.
  10. Frankdolin
    Frankdolin
    Fun tune with hammer ons for days! Love it!
  11. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Thanks, Frank. Glad you enjoyed the tune.
  12. Don Grieser
    Don Grieser
    Very fine John. I could march to that, with maybe a little hippie interpretive dancing thrown in when no one was watching. No swords though.
  13. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Thanks once again, Don.
  14. Jill McAuley
    Jill McAuley
    Great tune indeed and so nicely played by ye John!
  15. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Many thanks, Jill. Looking forward to your own next posting.
  16. Bren
    Bren
    A fiddler asked if I knew this at a session the other night, and I said I'd heard someone play it recently but didn't know it.

    He was quizzing me as to who that was, since he'd learned it at a fiddle workshop somewhere and hadn't come across anyone in Aberdeen playing it, and I couldn't for the life of me think of who at the sessions was playing it.

    Then just now I realised it was John on here!
  17. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Bren, this is just like the man who dreamt he ate a giant marshmallow, and when he awoke his pillow was gone...
    Such is musical memory, and it explains why so many tunes carry the name not of the composer but of the person you learned them from.
  18. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Bertram and Bren, this is a very common phenomenon with lots of us. The first time I heard that great 2/4 march The Balkan Hills it was played to us by one of our session regulars who is a piper and accordionist, and for a week or two we just called it Gordon's tune as he brought it to our attention. Link to it here: https://youtu.be/tPogXXE2EvA

    It is interesting that we all have certain tunes we know well and have memorised but somehow the title evades us. Maybe we can blame advancing years, though in my case it has been there a long time!
  19. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    There is a saying in our sessions: if you can remember the names of tunes, you're not playing enough of them yet. I once met a player who completely had given up on naming, refused to answer questions like "can you play Swallowtail Jig?" and would say "just start playing".
  20. Bren
    Bren
    My example is another facet really: can remember the name of the tune, and having heard it and liked it - but not how it goes or who played it.
    Also how you fictional internet people are intruding into memories of real life. :-)

    Or ... can it be ... you are real?
  21. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Bren, all fictional characters can appear in real life. I once saw Beavis and Butthead in a hotel bar in Denver, Co.
  22. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Therein lies one of life's great philosophical enigmas, Bren and Bertram. As Descartes put it (originally in French) Cogito, ego sum - I think, therefore I am. In our case we post, therefore we are. Or are we?
    How did a pipe march develop into this thread?
  23. Bren
    Bren
    It's like a Flann O'Brien novel.
  24. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    I wasn't aware of Flann O'Brien , just ordered one of his books, might be a brother in spirit. Thanks for the hint, Bren.
  25. Bren
    Bren
    I also love that Descartes originally in French is speaking Latin.
  26. Bertram Henze
    Bertram Henze
    Indeed, Latin could steer us back to Scotland in the Scottish kings' motto "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" ("you better save your ass, 'cause I won't)
  27. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    When shall we three meet again, B and B? Just bringing in Macbeth here after Bertram's quoting of the motto of the Royal Household of Scotland. I believe our friend René turned from "Je pense, donc je suis" to Latin to add more gravitas to his proposition. Bertram, I love your translation of the Scottish motto. In Scots we have it as "Wha daur meddle wi me". Amazing where a pipe march can transport us to in the SAW Group. Time for this thread to expire gracefully?
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