We finished off the term for the FluteFling Improvers group with two strong Irish reels that are great for building up technique and lifting a session. They both make use of arpeggios to create a riff that drives the music along.

The Humours of Ballyconnell is a three part reel in D that fits well on flute, whistle and uilleann pipes alike. Affectionately known in Scotland as The Humours of Billy Connolly, it is named after a small town in County Cavan that sits on the Shannon waterway near Lower Lough Erne, close to the border with Northern Ireland. It’s a place I have been to many times when traveling to places like Clare and Roscommon and it is often a good stopping off point for getting Euros and lunch.

I can’t recall where I first heard this tune, but there is a great recording of it by Noel Hill and Tony Linnane in 1978 that features Matt Molloy on flute and is highly recommended.

I don’t know much about the history of the tune, but in a discussion on The Session, Aberdeen flute player Kenny Hadden says:

I remember discussing this tune with Fintan Vallely some years ago. He said he’d come across it in “Neil Stewart’s Collection Of Scottish Music”, published around 1765, and that it was called “The Duke Of Atholl’s Rant”, which means it was being played in Scotland over 200 years ago. He plays it on a tape he made called “The Starry Lane To Monaghan”, which also features quite a few other tunes from the same collection.

It’s an interesting thought. Certainly the tune structure is common in Scottish reels of that period, but is it is most certainly an Irish reel now. Also on The Session is a link to O’Neill’s Maggot, a tune that appears to be The Humours of Ballyconnell in jig form. Maggot is word that used to mean a whimsical idea or even an inpiration (look out for the left-handed flute player in the link, original source here).

Incidentally, the word Humours appears in many Irish tune titles and can be taken to mean the ‘spirit’ or character of a place or object.

The Drunken Tinker is a reel that would go well after The Humours of Ballyconnell and it doesn’t get played very much. I first heard it on a recording by Irish band Oisin (not to be confused with Scottish band Ossian) and I think that Altan have also recorded it at some point. Again, it features arpeggios that help drive the tune along.

The resources for these tunes can be found over at The Flow website as usual

Photo of Ballyconnell waterways by Michael Hanisch, some rights reserved.

Last Sunday saw the summer excursion of the Edinburgh-based FluteFling and Scots Music Group traditional flutes and whistles. We boldly returned to Hailes Castle in East Lothian, having endured a very wet trip last year and couldn’t have had better weather.

On these trips we like to play tunes from our common repertoire and enjoy the space and surroundings. These aren’t concerts and aren’t really sessions either, although they are informal.  As usual, we recorded the experience and I am hoping we will be able to share some of this year’s music too.

Just a small group this time round, not all of whom knew each other. Thanks to Alan Chan (flute), Vicky Pearson, Usui Miyoko and Pierre-Marie Costa (whistles) for helping to make it such a memorable day. Our previous trip was in December to Dalmeny Kirk and we look forward to other trips later in the year.

Photo of FluteFling Ensemble at Hailes Castle (c) Gordon Turnbull

This week in the Improvers class we looked at a slip jig as a companion to The New Claret, which we learned earlier in the term. The main focus was The Peacock Followed the Hen, a Northumbrian tune that is known in Scotland. We also took time to learn a slip jig melody for a Gaelic song, Rachainn a shuiridh’ air Oighrig.

The Peacock Follows the Hen appears in the William Vickers’ Great Northern Tunebook of 1770, which features tunes from Scotland and Northumberland. It also appears in numerous Northumbrian piping collections, which are incidentally worth checking out  from a flute and whistle perspective due to their friendly keys.

The tune has many titles and Johnny Get Brose and Brose and Butter are alternative titles for a Scottish version of the tune. Slip jigs seem to be strongly associated with song and in this case both Scottish and Northumbrian versions have bawdy lyrics associated with them.

The tune itself is short and very simple consisting largely of repeated rhythmic phrases or riffs. In this case, the c natural and A relationship is very prominent and it is a good way to practice that transition.

I have written some suggested simple harmony lines for beginners, but it became quickly apparent that there is good scope for variation with this tune and I feel we might be revisiting it at some point. For example, the A and B parts can be played simultaneously, as in a round, to good effect.

I played this tune at the tutors’ concert at last year’s Border Gaitherin’ in Coldstream. The full set of tunes consisted of: The Duke of Gordon’s Birthday/ The New Claret/ The Peacock Followed the Hen. For that I was accompanied by bodhrán player Paul Dorricott and guitarist Graeme Armstrong. We were thrown together and had just one rehearsal in the afternoon, but went really well.

The festival is on again this weekend and after I finish work on Saturday morning I’ll be heading down for an afternoon catching up with Paul, Graeme and other friends — and hopefully playing some tunes too. If you can make it, it’s a festival I have been attending for many years and is highly recommended.

The second tune we looked at I learned from a recording by the Gaelic group Cliar on their album Gun Tàmh (Restless).

Rachainn a shuiridh air Oighrig (I would go courting Oirigh) is a piece of mouth music and while I haven’t heard this played in Edinburgh, it fits the flute and whistle well and once more there is scope for arrangement. I have written out parts for beginner and more advanced players.

Once again, resources for these tunes, including recordings and PDF and ABC files of the music can be found on The Flow.

Photo of peacock feathers by Maia C, some rights reserved. Photo of Gordon Turnbull, Paul Doricott and Graeme Armstrong by Philip Whittaker, from the Border Gaitherin’ Facebook page.

A distinctive feature of this tune is the opening of the B part, which is a long c# that cuts across the main rhythm and comes as a surprise to the listener.

As this is a relatively weak note on the flute and whistle, sometimes with suspect tuning, a big sliding grace note bends from B through c natural to further enhance the tune at this point.

This tune has  a very strong Scottish connection as it appears to be a version of The Hopeful Lover. The version I have recorded and added to the class resources tune list comes from the Fourth Ceilidh Collection for Fiddlers by Christine Martin and Anne Hughes. Nigel Gatherer has a version closer to our Irish polka and gives Isle of Mull accordionist Bobby MacLeod as his source.

How it got to Ireland and changed is open to speculation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Jimmy Shand was involved in some way as he was as well-known in Ireland as elsewhere in the world. Jimmy Shand and Bobby MacLeod most certainly played together, as this photo nicely captures, (from this tribute web site to Scottish Dance accompanist David Flockhart).

The Barren Rocks of Aden, Mairi’s Wedding and Farewell to Whisky are other examples of Scottish tunes that lead a double life in Ireland as polkas.

Resources for both versions of this tune can be found over at The Flow. Check out the Scots Music Group web site for details of next term’s dates and booking details as they go up. FluteFling classes continue until the end of June.

Photo of Bobby MacLeod from the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame, all rights reserved.

Amble comes from the Boehm flute tradition, but also plays wooden flute and tin whistle. A particular interest of this project is how to arrive at the dark, reedy sound beloved of traditional flute players and how this differs from the more open and bright sound associated with classical music. As well as looking at wooden flutes, we’ll be exploring different headjoints for her Yamaha Boehm. She brought along a grenaditte headjiont, grenaditte being a form of plastic designed to have similar properties to wood.

As often in these situations, it’s an exchange of ideas, a dialogue or discussion. I have always been interested in tone, almost above everything else. I am self-taught, play with an assymetrical embouchure left-handed on a right-handed simple system flute, so I have questions of my own. By better understanding my own approach I can better communicate that to others.

For many years I believed that only one sound was possible on a Boehm flute, that associated with classical music. This is largely because my experience of that flute has been almost exclusively been through players from that tradition. However, it was hearing Joannie Madden on the radio that convinced me otherwise as I had no idea she was playing a metal Boehm system flute.

So on a rainy Saturday afternoon we tried various combinations of flutes and piccolos, including those by Yamaha, Wilkes, Olwell, Rudall and Rose, Cotter, Thibouville-Lamy and Camac. We broke for tea and whistle duets on Burke whistles.

Some things I noticed from our first session.

• When I pick up a flute to play I need to securely locate the bottom D and find as much room as I can with it. For me this is the touchstone of the flute and seems to inform everything else.
• I need to stretch out in that space to know its limits and I do this by giving as much energy to that note as I can, overblowing without forcing it into the next octave. That point where the octave breaks is in interesting one, full of hidden harmonics. It’s like a house with a hidden room.
• How easy is it to locate that area and then remain there are key to both the flute and my relationship with it.
• That area is where some of the ‘dirty’ or ‘dark’ sounds come from. I need to explore that idea bit more. It may be that ‘dark’ comes before ‘dirty’. Dark and dirty are terms used to describe the accenting of lower harmonics as opposed to upper harmonics in a sound.
• Space and room are terms I find useful in thinking about the tone. I tried a headjoint by Chris Wilkes once that I felt provided more headspace by raising the ceiling. It allowed me to become more expansive and flexible in tone and volume without compromising my core tone.
• We may all have our own ways of visualising our own sounds. Amble thinks in terms of shape — smooth roundedness and edgy corners.
• Square embouchure designs on flutes appear to promote the open, brighter tone. The more closed, darker tone appears to be associated with elliptical designs. This is supported by what Abell flutes (and others) say about their designs. The square embouchure design is the default one on Boehm system flutes and I believe this not only makes the sound easier to obtain, but is helpful with volume.
• The Rockstro position is helpful, but it then depends on what you do with your shoulders and arms.

More questions arise, but I’ll leave it there just now. Amble’s blog has sound clips, more discussion and observation and some photos. We’ll add more as the project progresses.

Photo of Amble Skuse  and flutes by Gordon Turnbull.

He didn’t have a name for either tune at the time, but Not for Joe and Mrs. Crowley’s are two titles that I have recently found for it. Conal Ó Gráda has a very powerful and distinctive style that turned the heads of many people when they first heard his initial recording The Top of Coom. He now plays with The Raw Bar Collective and their web site has a great introductory 16 minute video that is worth checking out.

I originally taught this tune as part of the original FluteFling afternoon workshop in 2012 and the music for the tunes that day can be found here (PDF). It’s also here in some tunes I put together for set dancing (ABC format).

Meanwhile, the regular FluteFling Improvers group looked at the second of two Terry “Cuz” Teehan highland flings, The Road to Glounthane. Solidly in A major, but conveniently avoiding G# and interestingly D as well, I suspect that parts of it may well be in E major, but in an an ambiguous mode. Things went so well in the class that we ended up recording it, so thanks to everyone for agreeing to share it.

Resources for the tunes can be found on The Flow as usual, which is my Irish/ traditional flute resource site.

Photo of Conal Ó Gráda CC Michael Curry, some rights reserved.

The SMG whistle class this week took a look at Kate Dalrymple, well-known reel that can often be heard in ceilidhs. As was pointed out in the class, this is used as the theme tune to BBC Scotland’s Take the Floor, the Saturday night ceilidh show on the radio.

The tune is well-known and appears in various collections, including Kerr’s Merry Melodies for the Violin. Usually it is in the key of A with more parts than just the two we are learning that go with the song.

Our version of it is in the more accessible key of D and comes from Fran Gray’s book Hands on Scottish Tin Whistle, which can be found in various specialist places such as Coda Music in Edinburgh, Scotland’s Music and in Gaelic at Fèisean nan Gàidheal. I have found it to be a useful teaching tool and I use it with my Saturday morning children’s class.

Some information and another setting in A from The Session. That site quotes from The Fiddlers Companion, where is is given as being first printed in 1750 as The New Highland Laddie. It is also known as Jinglin’ Johnnie.

According to flutetunes.com, the words were written by William Watt (1792−1859), and as a song the piece becomes something of a tongue-twister for those unfamiliar with the Scots language. When I play this tune I hear Jack from Sandy Bell’s singing it to a silenced bar. Jack was a well-known figure, who I learned has since passed away.

According to Wikipedia, the Kate Dalrymple of the title was a renowned society figure of her day, although the words of the song are less than flattering. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other titles were also associated with songs.

The Fiddlers Companion makes a reference to Kate Dalrymple having a portrait by Gainsborough in the National Portrait Gallery in London. I couldn’t find it online, but the one included above is also by Gainsborough, possibly of a relative, Grace Dalrymple Elliot, who has her own colourful history.

Resources for this tune can be found at The Flow.

Portrait of  Grace Dalrymple Elliot by Thomas Gainsborough from Wikipaintings, public domain.

Booking is now taking place for the Traditional Whistle classes at Portobello Music School in Edinburgh that will continue next term after the Summer holidays.

Following on from a successful first year, there will be classes for beginners and those who are continuing on from this year’s classes. The classes run on Saturday mornings throughout term time.

The classes combine a number of approaches, including learning by ear and learning to read music. The focus is on a Scottish repertoire, but also includes music from other traditions.

Full booking details  can be found at the Portobello Music School web site.

A very unusual tune in its use of repetitive phrases and uneven structure, whistler and Nigel Gatherer mentions in this discussion that it may have first appeared in The Patrick McDonald Collection of Highland Vocal Airs (1784). A quick search reveals that this collection may be available as a PDF via a number of sources if you’re interested in hunting down some more of this music. I’m not aware that lyrics exist for this “song” and it it may be that they were never collected.

The version we’re learning is close to that of Iain MacDonald of Glenuig and former Ossian member that is included in the link above. Another version can be found on Ossian’s Seal Song, which is the first traditional album I bought. Here’s a link to the tune from the Ossian recording on Youtube.

The two part jig has an A part of just 8 bars, including repeats and a B part of 10 bars (8 or 16 would be expected). The B part also bears 4 of the bars of the A part, so that when going from the A part into the B part it becomes difficult to distinguish the parts. The effect however is of a groove that can feel infectious.

We’re going to be putting this tune into a set with our previous tunes this term: The Iona Boat Song/ Ciamar a nì mi a Dannsa Dìreach/ A Fisherman’s Song for Attracting Seals.

Meanwhile, the Thursday night FluteFling Improvers class has led to learning the first of two flings by Terry “Cuz” Teehan. I came across these in the 90s played as a pair, although I can’t recall who first popularised them as a set.

Flings occupy an uncertain place in Irish traditional music and appear to have a connection to Scotland. This discussion on The Session attempts to clears up a few questions. In Ireland they appear to occupy an area closer to hornpipes and barndances in terms of style, than Scottish strathspeys or even Donegal highlands. I sense that a connecting line can be drawn between them all, although I have no idea how accurate that might be.

As it happens, concertina player Niamh Ní Charra has just released Cuz - A Tribute to Terry “Cuz” Teahan. In addition, this original and out-of-print recording may be of interest. Some more background information here back at The Session.

As usual, all resources for the tunes can be found over on The Flow.

This one is a piece of Gaelic mouth music called Ciamar a nì mi an Dannsa Dìreach? (How Can I do the Dance Properly?) that is closely related to the four-part pipe jig Paddy’s Leather Britches.

Mouth music, or port-a-beul, is a form of dance music found today primarily in the Western Isles that came about due to the lack of an instrument to dance to. Instead, words were put to music and the singer(s) provided the music instead.

Here’s a version of our tune from the Tobar an Dualchais/ Kist o Riches archive, by Dr Allan MacDonald of Uig, Isle of Skye, recorded in 1953. The words ask “How can I dance properly, when the pin has come away from the bottom of my dress?”

I first heard this on a record by Sprangeen in in the early ’80s, where it was paired with Paddy’s Leather Britches. The version we are learning comes from Ceol nam Feis 2, a bilingual repository of tunes taught by Fèisean nan Gàidheal. This community-based Gaelic arts organisation runs events all over Scotland.

A key to learning jigs, especially when new to them, is to slow them down into 3/4 or waltz time. This retains the sense of the timing and relationship of the parts of the tune without feeling that it is about to run away too quickly.

Resources for this and other music we are learning can be found over at The Flow.

Photo: A Basket-full of Ceilidh Dancing by Derek E-Jay, some rights reserved.