Name: THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME by Camus
Duration: 4 min 56 s
Description: A set of variations for Northumbrian small pipes by Chris Ormston, of The Lass that Made the Bed to Me, a song by Robert Burns.

Ian Mearns is the Member of Parliament for Gateshead.  His whistle can be heard loud and shrill in the Gallowgate End a St James's Park.

Ian Mearns's Whistle

The Twa Corbies performed by Cobblers Last in about 1980.

Twa Corbies Mp3

A tune I wrote in honour of Tom the train driver, who brought my pipes back from King's Lynn after I left them on the train; and for Mandy in Lost Property, who rescued them and handed them to Tom. I played them for Tom at Cambridge station, where he told me that his uncle played Northumbrian small pipes. The tune references "Tom, Tom the piper's son".

TOM THE TRAIN DRIVER - AND MANDY AT KING'S LYNN.

TOTM FOR December. Simple tunes on a simple 3D printed chanter

Walter Ogilvie's Album

I Love nae a laddie but ane/Herd On the Hil

A set of variations for Northumbrian small pipes by Chris Ormston, of The Lass that Made the Bed to Me, a song by Robert Burns.

THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME

The first thing that came to me when thinking about Colin Ross was his reed-making in his workshop in Monkseaton and a recorder on which he would play C# (first two fingers, left hand) to test that the reed was crowing at the right pitch – C#. I therefore wrote a tune with a heavy emphasis on C#. I wanted the tune to be bitter-sweet: waltzes are somehow bitter-sweet to me. They conjure up an image of the last pair dancing on, late on a wet Saturday evening, when all the band wants to do is go home. Since the focus was going to be on C#, I wrote in D major, which makes the C# the 7th, or leading note, in the scale and somehow poignant and yearning. It wants to resolve onto D, particularly with D drones sounding, so I placed it prominently on many down beats to emphasise the dissonance and also threw in a couple of bottom C#s - one of the richest notes on the extended chanter – for good measure. The repeated notes perform a similar function and are a prominent feature of the tune: they are effectively leaning notes (or appoggiaturas) and delay the resolution of the harmony. The B part was written first, from the original fragment sketch, with its long sustained notes, so I wanted the A part to have a slightly different character. This tune and requires a few extra notes: middle G# and bottom C#.

The Crow

6 - 8 March V2

I took inspiration from Ann's Farrington's variations on Bonny at Morn E minor and the cross-rhythms she introduced, switching between 6/8 and 3/4. I also like the transition from darkness to light that switching from minor to major brings. E major is not often encountered on NSP.

Cymbeline's Castle is the remains of a motte-and-bailey castle in woods north of Great Kimble in Buckinghamshire. It's somewhere we often go walking with the dog and is special for a number of reasons: there is a large natural box woodland - important in musical instrument making; it skirts the grounds of Chequers, the country residence of the PM - very much in the news this week; it has the most amazing views over the Vale of Aylesbury - silent in the current lockdown.

Cymbeline’s Castle

A piece inspired by the poem Adelstrop by Edward Thomas and based on the morris tune Old Tom of Oxford. We are heading towards the 75th anniversary of VE Day during a period when birdsong can be heard more clearly over Oxfordshire since, perhaps, the Great War.

Yes. I remember Adlestrop
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat, the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

All The Birds Of Oxfordshire

Auld Wife Ayont The Fire

A tune for Northumbrian small pipes by Andrew Burn.

JENNIFER'S JIG

We're a 4-piece Cambridge folk band: English, Irish, Scottish, Shetland and Northumbrian tunes and songs. Greg Smith (fiddle), Andrew Burn (melodeons, Northumbrian small pipes), David Somerville (Northumbrian small pipes, keyboards), and Brian Cleary (guitar, gazouki).
More at www.camusmusic.net

THE LASS THAT MADE THE BED TO ME

Camus

Related tracks