A composition put together in Audacity to test new parts.

The Gael

This is a Lowland interpretation of the traditional Scottish melody, which has been adopted to serve many musical functions.  You find will a Northumbrian treatment of the same melody on my page.  The Scottish small pipes are in the key of C and are played with Northumbrian small pipe drones.

Ow’r the Water to Charlie

The classic tune, "The Girl I Left Behind Me", played as a slow air and set in a minor key.  This is my contribution to the NSP FB forum Tune of the Month for December 2024.  

The Girl I Left Behind Me

"Tha mo rùn air a’ ghille", "Tha'm buntàta mór", "Leis a bhrioguis uallach ho ri o ri", "Ruighleadh mo Nighean Donn", "Daddy Long-legs": Tunes from the Scottish Gaelic tradition, mostly.  Rough translations are "My young man that I love," "The potatoes are big", "The burdensome trousers", "The brown haired girl's reel", and "breabadair".  The first four tunes are traditional, but the last tune is my own composition.  The middle three tunes are Puirt à beul, or mouth music.  I picked up the first tune off a recording by Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac.  I found the second, third and fourth tunes in a manuscript written down in the middle of the 19th century.  The last tune celebrates one of the creatures, a species of pholcid, we find skulking in dark corners in the PNW as well as the British Isles.  You will find all of these tunes in the book I published in 2010.  
This is my imperfect homage to Gaelic piping.  I don't pretend to be a "Gaelic Piper" or to have even a passing understanding of Scottish Gaelic.  I am not even a Scottish piper.  These days it's common for pipers who have no cultural connection to Cape Breton, for example, to call themselves Cape Breton pipers, so it's important to identify just what I am, a piper from Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest, nothing more.  I'm not appropriating Scottish Gaelic culture here, or pretending to participate in it.  I am trying to make interesting music that doesn't depend on identity.  
These wonderful pipes were made by Murray Huggins in Oregon, the state in which I was born, with a substantial history of Scottish piping.  Murray makes instruments of the highest quality and his silver engraving is in demand by pipe makers all over the world.  No matter how bleak the state of the world, playing these pipes always makes me happy.  Making music, being creative, being thoughtful is the best way I have found to respond to the seemingly inexorable madness around us.

Gaelic air and puirt a beul: Highland bagpipes

This is a popular session tune.  It’s a very old tune, dating back to at least the early 18th Century, and has taken root in musical communities all over the British Isles, and the diaspora.  Like most old, timeless tunes it is known by a lot of different names and has many versions in several different keys.  “Jenny’s Chickens”, “John Byrne’s Cake”, “Drowsy Maggie”, “Noel Hill’s reel” and “Jenny’s Rambles” are some of the names given this melody.  It lends itself well to variations, so I added a few of my own.  No one owns a traditional tune like this or even a part in it, no matter how hard some people try.  These tunes are elemental like trout in a primordial river.  The pipes were made for me by Murray Huggins of Colin Kyo Bagpipes in Oregon.

Sleepy Maggie - Highland bagpipes

Dick Gaughan, the Scottish folk singer, composed "Both Sides the Tweed," which draws heavily from James Hogg (1770-1835) lyrics in JACOBITE RELICS (1819).  Here in the Pacific Northwest the Winter Wren have long and complex songs.  They creep and flit among the Douglas firs around our house.  I made this tune to celebrate the small little birds that bubble like the Northumbrian small pipes.  Northumberland is the northern most county in England, bordering on Scotland.  I bought my first set of Northumbrian pipes while studying at the University of Edinburgh in 1979, then about 25 years ago the master pipe maker, Ray Sloan, made this wonderful set for me.

"Boths Sides the Tweed", "Winter Wren" - Northumbrian small pipes

"Hector the Hero" composed by James Scott Skinner; "My Home" an old Gaelic air; "Going Home" taken from Dvorak's 9th Symphony, which was inspired by music he heard while visiting Scotland.  The Highland pipes were made by Murray Huggins at Colin Kyo Bagpipes.

Slow Airs: Highland bagpipes

Three marches played on the Scottish small pipes with geegaw accompaniment.

The Battle of Waterloo, A Man's a Man for A' That, The Haughs of Cromdale

From the Traditional Tune Archive: "Also known as "Bruachan Mhelinis." The Braes of Mellinish are on the north coast of Scotland on the west side of Loch Tongue (also spelled 'Melness'). The popular march version is sometimes attributed to Captain MacKay (although others have been credited as well--Pipe Major John MacDonald from Melness, Sutherland, for one, although this claim is denied by the tune's mid-19th century publication). The attribution to McKay/MacKay first appears in Glasgow piper, pipe teacher and pipe-maker William Gunn's (1795-1867) Caledonian Repositiory of Music adapted for the Bagpipe (1848)."
I've taken the heavy ornaments out because they muddy up the tune when played on the Scottish small pipes.

Braes of Mellinish

Set: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus/Simple Gifts/Ode to Joy

A set I put together for an Easter sunrise service.  Messed up the transition from Come Thou Long Expected Jesus and Simple Gifts.


Easter Set

DannyBoy2k

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