Flute for Scottish Tunes?

hans · Post by **hans** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 3:37 pm

Andrew wrote:Why assume that there was any native tradition of playing instruments by the Scottish peasants in the 18th century or early 19th, any more than there may have been in Borneo ?

Ahh, but there is quite an old tradition of flute playig in Borneo, I believe. Looking at a nose-flute on my wall which a friend bartered from a tribal flute player in Borneo, this instrument is so primitive, flutes like that could have been made thousands of years ago.

Maybe the Scots or for that matter the Irish had simple flutes made and played by peasants for a long time, in addition to bags of goatskin driving air through a screetching reed

andrewK · Post by **andrewK** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 4:07 pm

Borneo may not have been a good choice, but what time scale have you evidence of. We read about 70,000 year old flutes. It must have been some sort of folk music, unless it was devotional, or for communication , or stopping traffic at intersections.
I should perhaps have said North America where primative instruments have been made for years !
Have you any evidence of early Scottish folk instruments ? If you have more than assumptions it would be interesting to know.

Perhaps they used the bag of the goatskin to prevent somebody else from making a drum out of it. Public spriritedness ?
I am yet to see evidence of an early folk music traditon other than vocal and maybe harp and crwth in celtic regions.
The Breton folk "tradition" started with M. Veillon, I believe !
So he told me ( Ha Ha Glauber ! )

hans · Post by **hans** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 5:04 pm

Andrew, I don't know if there were any type of flute in common use in Scotland before the 18th century. I imagine kinds of whistles. The recorder has been in use much longer before the flute, in upper society.

Here are some intersting pages:
Scottish Music in the 18th Century
Folk Music in Scottish Society

According to these in the towns in lowland Scotland (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling are mentioned) there was a mingling of classes, and folk tradition went aside classical music and was known to the upper classes. The flute arrived only from about 1725 onwards, and was taken up by amateur upper class players (i.e. parlour music) playing both classical and folk music.

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:12 pm

andrewK wrote:The name being James Oswald ?

Ah, Jim Oswald Molloy!

andrewK · Post by **andrewK** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 10:52 pm

Should Mr Molloy not be quoted ( I hope it is not misquoted ) as his upbringing in homebased music making has been touched upon in another thread and such home based folk music is relevant to this one ?
I have long known the dear boy, so do not need to pretend he is a stranger !
I have even sold him things long ago to help to sustain the Irish economy !

Wormdiet · Post by **Wormdiet** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 11:38 pm

Just my $.02

Anything available in the GHB repertoire can be played on a flute, in "the same" key - A Mixolydian. (Although as is commonly known, pipes are usually actually tuned to Bb or b)

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:42 am

Yeah, I can over-analyze sometimes.

Strathspeys on flute, listen to what fiddlers do. A lot of Scots fiddlers use rests to accent some of the highly-stressed beats in a strathspeys. Those are excellent opportunities to take a big puff of air. If they don't insert a rest then they play the big note louder. Those are excellent opportunities for breath pulsing. But alas, it's true that one needs a good G# to play a lot of Scottish tunes.

The main thing with Scottish tunes, especially strathspeys, is getting that snap and lift. There's no fancy tricks to get it right; it's all expression.

I haven't heard Chris Norman's approach to piobaireachd on flute but on Martyn Bennett's breakthrough album, Bothy Culture, he plays a lovely ground of Red Hector of the Battles on whistle.

Piper/Innovator Finlay MacDonald displays some lovely flute playing on his self-titlled CD too.

As for bagpipe tunes, I try not to comingle my piping and fluting. If you want to play along with a piper use an Eb flute.

Cheers,
Aaron

hans · Post by **hans** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 4:05 am

In class Chris Norman encouraged us to experiment with supple time changes to bring a strathspey to life, to speed up some notes and slow down others and not stick to a mechanical interpretation of the changes in syncopation. He called strathspeys the tango of Scottish music, and emphasised to play it with fire, so it really gets under your skin. I really like his strathspey playing style, and was tremendously encouraged to start learning strathspeys, which I avoided before since the rhythmn seemed so difficult.

~Hans

hans · Post by **hans** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 5:14 am

Here is a great strathspey which Chris Norman plays on The Caledonian Flute: The Darling
Very good to practise a snappy g#!

Code: Select all

X:0
T:Darling, The
R:Strathspey
B:The Athole Collection
M:C|
L:1/8
K:B Minor
f|c<F c>B A<F F>f|c<F c>e f2 f>e|c<F c>B A>F F<f|e>c A<c B2Bf|
c<F c>B A<F F>f|c<F c>e f2 f>a|c<F c>B A>B c<f|e>c A<c B2Bd| 
c<f f>^g a>cc>B|c<f f>^g a2 g>f|c<f f>^g a>f c<a|e<c A<c B2 B>d|
c<f f>^g a>cc>B|c<f f>^g a2 g<b|f<a ^g>f e>c c<a|e<c a>c B2B||

It is from the Athole Collection, 1884, which contains over 800 Scottish reels and strathspeys.
You can download the whole collection in abc format from Scottish ABC Music

Aaron, The Darling is obviously a tune from the piping tradition, being constraint in one octave. And there are many others like this. Would you always prefer to play such tunes on the pipes rather than the flute?

~Hans

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 1:13 pm

andrewK wrote:Should Mr Molloy not be quoted ( I hope it is not misquoted ) as his upbringing in homebased music making has been touched upon in another thread and such home based folk music is relevant to this one ?
I have long known the dear boy, so do not need to pretend he is a stranger !
I have even sold him things long ago to help to sustain the Irish economy!

Good for you. No, i was just ribbing you a little for casually mentioning your acquaintance with someone that most of us can only worship from afar.

andrewK · Post by **andrewK** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 5:39 pm

Have a few meals with Matt, Glauber. He's quite jolly !
I haven't chased him over my proposed festival because Mrs Molloy promised to get him to ring, and I haven't been well enough to chase him. Jean-Michel says he'll do the festival for 1/10 th of the price ( but he isn't too well known here ).
I shall try again for next summer if I am still alive ! ( I am not sure I am alive now - the world seems very strange !).

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 6:03 pm

Hang in there, old fellow. I am.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 8:07 pm

The Darling doesn't fit on pipes. The lowest note is a first octave F and the highest note is a second octave B. That's just a hair out of range. But I would consider playing it on flute.

There are enough tunes so that I don't feel the need to play all pipe tunes on flute. Some tunes like the Jig of Slurs, Brenda Stubbert, and Jenny's Chickens (aka Sleepy Maggie) I will keep as pipe tunes. But I learned Gravel Walk on pipes first and now play it on flute.

Strathspeys are all about lenghtening the long notes and shortening the short notes. Here's a mp3 of a tune played as a strathspey then a reel. The beat of the strathspey is consistent but you can hear the Strong-Weak-Medium-Weak pulse.

Chuir i Glùin air a'Bhodach, Braes of Balquidder

Cheers,
Aaron

Father Emmet · Post by **Father Emmet** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:06 am

Isn't the Scottish tune "Hector the Hero" a strathspey? Laurence Nugent plays a great rendition on flute.

hans · Post by **hans** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:52 am

"Hector the Hero was composed by Scots fiddler James Scott Skinner to honour Major-General Hector MacDonald, who had a distinguished career in the British Army, starting off as an enlisted soldier and rising through the ranks. He committed suicide in 1903 after accusations of homosexuality."

Written in 6/8 time as a lament.

Lament him, ye mountains of Ross-shire;
Your tears be the dew and the rain;
Ye forests and straths, let the sobbing winds
Unburden your grief and pain.

Lament him, ye warm-hearted clansmen,
And mourn for a kinsman so true
The pride of the Highlands, the valiant MacDonald
Will never come back to you.

O, wail for the mighty in battle,
Loud lift ye the Coronach strain;
For Hector, the Hero, of deathless fame,
Will never come back again.

Lament him, ye sons of old Scotia,
Ye kinsmen on many a shore;
A patriot-warrior, fearless of foe,
Has fallen to rise no more.

O cherish his triumph and glory
On Omdurman's death-stricken plain,
His glance like the eagle's, his heart like the lion's
His laurels a nation's gain.

O, wail for the mighty in battle,
Loud lift ye the Coronach strain;
For Hector, the Hero, of deathless fame,
Will never come back again.

O rest thee, brave heart, in thy slumber,
Forgotten shall ne'er be thy name;
The love and the mercy of Heaven be thine;
Our love thou must ever claim.

To us thou art Hector the Hero,
The chivalrous, dauntless, and true;
The hills and the glens, and the hearts of a nation,
Re-echo the wail for you.

O, wail for the mighty in battle,
Loud lift ye the Coronach strain;
For Hector, the Hero, of deathless fame,
Will never come back again.