Scottish tunes for mandolin

[JP07]

Hi,

As you know, I am playing ITM.

I want to increase a bit my repertoire with a few scottish tunes. I know only one, McLean of Pennycross, which I have learned from a Sean Keane version. I am looking for about ten scottish tunes, which are used to be played in sessions, and pleasant to play on mandolin.

If you have a couple of nice classic scottish tunes to suggest to me for mandolin, thanks very much.

[Dobes2TBK]

Other than the ones that are listed under Tablature pages here, a couple I can think of off the top of my head are Scotland the Brave, and Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond being a nice fit in ITM in that with a few rhythmic changes, at least, it becomes the Irish based Red is the Rose. Also MacPherson's Farewell. Throw Flower of Scotland into the mix - which is the national anthem. A u-tube search of The Corries will give you some more ideas.

Loch Sloy!

Connie

[John Kelly]

Go to Nigel Gatherer's great site, The Gathering: www.nigelgatherer.com and you will find lots of good popular Scottish tunes ready for your enjoyment. Also have a look at www.thesession.org for abc and standard notation tunes, or look for the very many Scottish fiddle music sites. You are really spoiled for choice when you decide to play Scottish music! The Song-A-Week group on this site has lots of Scottish stuff too and you can watch the videos of many of us playing the tunes there.
Good luck with your search.

[Jim Garber]

I am no expert on the repertoire of Scottish players today, but I am particularly enamored of strathspeys which are (I think) pretty unique to the Scottish repertoire.

[Adam Sweet]

Angus Campbell is one of my favorites, also Campbell's Farewell to Red Gap. You can find music and chords for both in the Fiddler's Fakebook (sorry I don't do tab).

Many Cape Breton tunes are actually Scottish originally - so anything you've heard Ashley MacIsaac or Natalie McMaster do is a good bet

[Jim Nollman]

strathspeys +1

[Jim Garber]

Strathspeys:





(tunes start around 2:40)

[Dave Hanson]

Get a copy of ' The Scottish Mandolin Tutor ' by Dagger Gordon, it's full of great Scottish tunes and comes with a CD.

Dave H

[Bertram Henze]

There's Scottish tunes sometimes in the Song-a-Week group, such as High Road to Linton (reel), Leaving Glenurquhart (march), or Sweetness of Mary (strathspey).

[John Kelly]

As Adam pointed out, many Scottish tunes link closely to Cape Breton tunes and vice versa, and the one you mention above, Bertram, The Sweetness of Mary, is a Cape Breton tune composed by Joan MacDonald Boes. I play it along with Glencoe Village Hall (another Canadian tune, by Dan R MacDonald, in spite of its name - the Glencoe is apparently on the US/Canadian border) and have it posted on YouTube at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD73NamUjOE

[Bertram Henze]

...Glencoe Village Hall (another Canadian tune, by Dan R MacDonald, in spite of its name - the Glencoe is apparently on the US/Canadian border)

Scots are everywhere. At least, I guess, there were no MacDonalds killed in that particular Glencoe...

[John Kelly]

At least not the two composers. Don't think they are related, Bertram, but then the world had many MacDonalds; our own accordion player is a Macdonald from Inverness! I still always get loads of fun from your linguistic gymnastics and your really spot-on sense of humour.

[Ravenwood]

I play it along with Glencoe Village Hall (another Canadian tune, by Dan R MacDonald, in spite of its name - the Glencoe is apparently on the US/Canadian border) and have it posted on YouTube ...

Here's a little side note of trivia. Glencoe is a very popular name for small towns in Canada. It seems like there are two or three so named towns in every province. There are two that I know of in Ontario, at least one that I know of in Nova Scotia, and one on Cape Breton island not far from where Dan lives. They hold dances in the village hall there so I suspect that would be the subject of the tune.

[ptritz]

There's a Glencoe here in Minnesota too.

[Mike Snyder]

Glencoe township here in Kansas.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Farewell to Whiskey
Flowers of Edinburgh
Mairi's Wedding
Captain Norman Orr-Ewing
Hector the Hero

[Ronny]

As a former bagpiper, I love to play highland bagpipe tunes with my mandolin... I read it directly from the score (for example : http://www.celticscores.com/instrume...ttish_bagpipe/) : it'mando friendly, you only use the two higher courses (+the G on the second courses - 5th fret)...
I have tabledited 2 tunes for the mandolincafe: the Clumsy Lover and Hecla...
Nigel Gatherer website is an amazing resource, too.

[Jim Garber]

Ronny: Do you attempt any of the ornamentation to transfer to the mandolin? Like this one?

[jdyoungca]

I play mandolin with a Celtic group in Ottawa once a week. Our tune books are mostly Irish but there are quite a few Scottish tunes as well

http://home.bendbroadband.com/bellro...%20Volume1.pdf

http://www.corkeryroad.ca/Carp/addendum_may_2012.pdf

Road to the Isles, The Atholl Highlanders, Flowers of Edinburgh are all good Scottish tunes from the first book. Lots of Scottish stuff in the second book, including several Strathspey's.

Jeff

[John Kelly]

Jeff, two really great wee books of tunes there! What a collection for anyone starting out, or indeed building on their existing repertoires. Thanks so much for putting them here for our perusal. You are a fine gent indeed!

[Bertram Henze]

I forgot a classic jig set Jig of Slurs /Atholl Highlanders; typical pipe tunes, but can be done on the mando:

[Dagger Gordon]

Well those guys certainly look the part, Bertram! They sound pretty good too.
The funny thing is you don't really see people who look that in Scotland very much.
When we wear kilts we aren't usually going for such a (trying to think of the right word - Braveheart maybe?) look.

But Jig Of Slurs and The Atholl Highlanders are certainly great Scottish tunes which everyone should probably know.

[Bertram Henze]

Dagger, those guys are the Dutch band Rapalje, who are into a rough image (watch their version of Drunken Sailor) and seem to actively go for the Braveheart look, aka feileadh mor (as opposed to the less cumbersome feileadh beag, which is more modern but still was invented long before Mary Quant was even born...)

[Dagger Gordon]

Wow! Incredible! I'll need to start doing that kind of thing - we've obviously been far too sedate. And we've even managed to get Mary Quant into the thing ...

What a start to the day!

[Jimdalf]

The Trumpet Hornpipe and The Lamb Skinnet are both great tunes.
There was a (I think) called Carron water from the Mel Bay Celtic Mandolin Encyclopaedia which I really like, though I can't find it played anywhere else.