news

A Highland Port by Rory Dall

Today is Burns Night, so what better tune to look at than “Rory Dall’s Port”, as used by Burns for the original setting of his lovely poem “Ae Fond Kiss”.

The only source for this tune I have ever found is two publications by James Oswald. I do not know the exact date of either of these books; they are both from around 1750.

This is the famous “Caledonian Pocket Companion” (book 8, p24):

And here it is with a baroque bass for harpsichord or cello, in “A Collection of 43 Scots tunes with variations”:

This tune is often claimed for either Ruaidhrí Dall Ó Catháin or Rory Dall Morrison. On the other hand, various authors including John Purser and David Johnson have suggested that it looks more like Oswald’s own work.

I have played this tune for a while – I included a complete version with Oswald’s variations on Clàrsach na Bànrighe, and I have played it to accompany Sheena Wellington singing “Ae Fond Kiss”, but have always thought it was not particularly convincing as a piece of ancient harp idiom. My suspicion was strengthened when I read recently about Oswald’s common use of pseudonyms when publishing tunes (a common enough thing in mid 18th century Scottish literary circles I understand). Perhaps we should simply add “Rory Dall” to the list of Oswald’s pseudonyms alongside “Rizzio” and “Dottel Figlio”.

Pìobaireachd – what it might mean for the clarsach / John Purser

At the Edinburgh Harp Festival on Tuesday April 9th, 11:00 am, at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, John Purser is giving this interesting presentation:
Pìobaireachd – what it might mean for the clarsach

I have already booked a ticket – it will be fascinating to hear what he has to say. John has been working with Bonnie Rideout for some time now on the fiddle pibroch repertoire (see Bonnie’s CDs in my Emporium) and so I hope he will have some useful insights about harp ceòl mór.

I was thinking about who has already been working on this and there are quite a few people who have recorded piobaireachd on the clarsach – Alan Stivell, Alison Kinnaird, Ann Heymann, Violaine Mayor, and more recently a number of youtube experimenters including Brendan Ring, Dominic Haerinck, Chris Caswell (who passed away very recently), and Sue Phillips. Quite apart from Grainne Yeats and Charles Guard who have recorded Burns March – in my opinion the archetypal Gaelic harp ceol mor.

Both of my previous CDs included ceol mor or pibroch – but the next one will be “wall to wall”. I have also put some experiments on youtube – here’s a very early and rough version of a classic piobaireachd that I adapted for harp:

I’ll be on site during the harp festival week with my Emporium bookstall – if you are there do come along and say hello.

MacCrimmon, Piobaireachd & clarsach traditions

“…I had the good fortune to meet a direct descendent of the Borreraig MacCrimmons,
 … he told me that the clarsach influenced the pipe pointing out how the [pipe] music of the late 16th or 17th century stood above all others [later] in merit.
He went so far as to say that piobaireachd renderings on the clarsach were common at one time…”

From The Oban Times, 26 August, 1933, via pmjohngrant.com

Maol Donn

At the moment I am working on Maol Donn. This lovely pibroch is often given the romantic English title “MacCrimmon’s Sweetheart”. Its original title means brown or tawny hummock, or rounded thing, perhaps referring to the bald hornless forehead of the cow that was lost in the bog, which some stories say is the origin of the tune. I like the story of Ranald MacDonald of Morar composing this tune to a smooth brown seashell he found on the beach.

There are a number of recordings available of this tune played on the pipes. The oldest is played by John MacDonald of Inverness in 1926:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/musicfiles/mp3s/jmcd-mcswthrt.mp3
from Ross’s Music Page

My favourite is played by Calum Johnston in 1955:
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/53368/1 

Here’s the traditional song that goes with it, sung by Kate MacDonald in 1970:
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/92097/1 

Daniel Tokar and The Willow Forge

Daniel Tokar is well known in the historical Gaelic harp world, as a superb artist and craftsman who has made some of the best quality metal harp fittings I have ever seen. Daniel made the silver studs on my Queen Mary harp replica. He also has done a lot of work on making historical metal wire harp strings, the results of which are written up in his book Dialogue on Historical Wire for Gaelic Harps (with Ann Heymann).

2 weeks ago Daniel’s workshop was burned down and his tools and materials were seriously damaged. This is a bad time for him – of course before Christmas he was working hard on many orders. Now he has to spend a few months rebuilding the workshop instead of pressing ahead with his work.

Photo on the right from The Journal.

Daniel’s website is  http://www.willowforge.com/ – there are contact details there if you can help him in any way.

Ann Heymann in Dundee

Ann Heymann was in Scotland this past week, at the end of her successful 3-month visiting fellowship at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

I went into Edinburgh on Thursday for the seminar presented by Ann and Charlie which aimed to summarise and present their Galway work on combining medieval syllabic poetry performance with harp accompaniment.

On Saturday they were in Dundee. The duo performed the morning cappuccino concert for the Friends of Wighton. Then in the afternoon Ann led the usual weekly harp class in the Wighton Centre. It was a nice change for me to be able to sit at the back watching!

These photos are from the harp class. Numbers were down due to some regulars being either ill or travelling.

Flowers of the Forest

At the harp class in Dundee yesterday we looked at the old song, the Flowers of the Forest.

The main focus of the class was playing the oldest setting, from the Skene mandore manuscript.

But we also looked at some later versions including the one in the Scots Musical Museum, and we sang through the version written by Jean Elliot, using Ritson’s 1794 print:

You can get Ritson’s book here on Google Books.

Here’s a mp3 of me singing it through:
simonchadwick.net/music/Flowers.mp3

Here’s a PDF of the Skene manuscript version with transcription:
earlygaelicharp.info/sources/flowers.pdf

Here’s a Youtube of it on the harp:
youtube.com/watch?v=contsP6oXTs

Range and gamut of small harps part 2

I restrung my tiny Anglo-Saxon “Winchcombe” harp. Because it is so small, its pitch is rather high – middle c as the lowest note.

This led me to think, a miniature harp has two possible different roles. Of course, a miniature harp like this can be used as a musical instrument in its own right, and many musicians and indeed harpmakers have this intent for their mini instruments. If you are less interested in the historical harp traditions and want to work on contemporary or traditional music then that is fine.

On the other hand, a mini harp is cheaper than a full size one, and so a student of the old Irish and Scottish harp traditions may well consider that a mini harp such as an Ardival Kilcoy is a lot more affordable than a full size instrument such as a HHSI Student Queen Mary.

Personally I think that a Queen Mary design instrument is quite manageable even by an 8 year old child – it is not too big. I have tended to dissuade people from purchasing the miniature designs for studying the old Gaelic harp curriculum partly because of ergonomic issues – a miniature harp has a number of posture and touch differences from a full size instrument. But the main reason to avoid a miniature design is because they simply lack the important bass range. In the first lesson, we start by finding the sister strings (na comhluighe) and placing our hands on the strings above and below them. This can instantly cause problems if your instrument has one of the sister strings as its very lowest note!

 If you are determined to use a miniature harp for studying the old Irish and Scottish harp traditions, I wonder about the possibility of thinking about it as sounding an octave high in pitch – a 4-foot or ottavino harp if you like. This will of course make everything very squeaky and shrill sounding, though that is pretty much inevitable anyway on a tiny harp with no bass.

For example, a 19 string Kilcoy design might be tuned as follows:

1   c”’
2   b”
3   a”
4   g”
5   f”
6   e”
7   d”
8   c”
9   b’
10   a’
11   g’
12   g’
13   f’
14   e’
15   d’
16   middle c’
17   b
18   a
19   g

Simply by turning strings 1 to 11 down one note. No need to change any of the strings.  Now this is enough notes to play Burns March and all its variations. Accept that it sounds squeaky, as a 4-foot or ottavino instrument is meant to, and you should do fine! You will also be able to fit in with a class of people playing full-size instruments no problem, you will just sound everything an octave higher than them.

If anyone tries this on a miniature harp, let me know.