Just recalled I'd done a low whistle demo of this + Jug of Slugs some time ago. Yur 'tis. If any details are different from stuff I've written above, I'll apologise now and you can shoot me when you're ready. FWIW, the octave control is a whole bunch easier on flute than whistle because it isn't primarily done by breath pressure....
I think that's how fiddlers play it (Ace ... Adf ...). On pipes I only heard the Ace ... Bdf ...benhall.1 wrote:In the many years I've been playing that tune is sessions around the UK and Ireland, I've never heard the start of the second part played:
Ace Ace | Bdf Bdf |
It has always been:
c/B/ | Ace Ace | Adf Adf |
Never mind the grace notes, it's the A chord followed by the D chord that matters.
JackCampin wrote:It was originally a slow march with an even slower section in the middle in duple time (one old title for the tune is "The Duke of Athole's Pibroch", which doesn't exactly suggest jig speed). I have never heard that duple time bit played.
Fascinating stuff, Jack, with the closing bars of the Tapp version sharing the essential contours of that third part variant I was liking in the Logan's setting. But I'm not getting what you mean by 'an even slower section' or 'duple time' (thought you meant simple as opposed to compound time!) in either when everything still adds up to 6/8 (technically already duple) in both?JackCampin wrote:Found where I've put my version of the Arsehole Highlanders with that funny-metre bit:
What you are not getting is that I misremembered the time signature. But surely that odd section should go slower?I'm not getting what you mean by 'an even slower section' or 'duple time'
Seriously, I've played it with loads of pipers. They all play it the way I suggested. I see that Jack's slightly different (older?) versions, linked to in his post above, also have the same pattern. It strikes me that Ace Ace | Bdf Bdf is probably just a mistake, somewhere along the line. Such things happen.hans wrote:I think that's how fiddlers play it (Ace ... Adf ...). On pipes I only heard the Ace ... Bdf ...benhall.1 wrote:In the many years I've been playing that tune is sessions around the UK and Ireland, I've never heard the start of the second part played:
Ace Ace | Bdf Bdf |
It has always been:
c/B/ | Ace Ace | Adf Adf |
Never mind the grace notes, it's the A chord followed by the D chord that matters.
The book "Highland Tunes for The Fiddle" has it notated as Ace ... Adf, and with that A D chord sequence (and the whole thing dotted, not even).
What is IME?
But almost every pipe performance I've heard has been the other way, with the fiddlers favouring your way...benhall.1 wrote:Seriously, I've played it with loads of pipers. They all play it the way I suggested.
Yes, noted. But then you could make an equal case for retaining the rest of those note-for-note, couldn't you? (And who's to say that they're not from a common 'faulty' source?)I see that Jack's slightly different (older?) versions, linked to in his post above, also have the same pattern.
And such is the nature of the tradition. Which surely means that neither version is 'wrong'.It strikes me that Ace Ace | Bdf Bdf is probably just a mistake, somewhere along the line. Such things happen.
Sorry Mr Guru, I did the math wrong!MTGuru wrote:If that tempo is accurate, then it's also crazy, except as a bad joke.andref wrote:So we play it (not me though!) at "blazing speed"! Using your way of measuring a jig's tempo (which makes sense) we are playing it around 180-190 bpm. That's why it's so hard!
I edited the post above to make it clearer. It's more on the line 120-130 bpm, if counting 2 beats per bar!
