This week's winner is The Battle of the Somme, which was submitted as a Scottish tune by J. S. Skinner. I'm not sure about the J. S. Skinner part! One place I found this: Written as a retreat march by Pipe-Major William Lawrie, 1881-1916. I found it on thesession.org. Here it is from John Chambers collection on abcnotation And another from abcnotation Looks to me the hardest part, is going to be remembering just how the timing goes, with those dotted eighth notes in different places!
Oh, I think I'll have to have a go of this one on the mandola once I get the new bridge on it and new strings this weekend!
Great to see this one coming up, Barbara. I'll post a new version on mandolin only as soon as I can. The tune is indeed by PM Willie Lawrie rather than Scott Skinner. In the meantime here is a link to a version I did a few years back, on octave and tenor guitar. First tune is PM John McLellan's "Bloody Fields of Flanders".
Very nice, John, your octave sound great. Here's a link to this tune as an "other" from 2010: https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/g...330&do=discuss My original post is mysteriously absent, I will go and try to find it.
Here it is in the key of C.
Nicely done Maudlin. I found my original post but I didn't like the backup so I re-recorded it with new backing on cittern, bass & organ.
Well done, gents. Two different interpretations you have put your own stamp on. As promised, here is my updated offering, on mandolin with guitar backing.
I love all your versions, and I love the way it sounds played 'straight'... however, since this is a Scottish tune, and the version I found (notation) has it with all kinds of syncopation, and I remember my music teacher friend, telling me about Scottish Snaps... I decided to record this that way! I have no idea if this is how anyone else plays it... but here goes!
Your interpretation of our Scottish snap is admirable, Barbara. I try to achieve it by hammer-ons and pull-offs, easier to play on Octave with its longer scale. You might hear it in the first video I posted above of the pipe march set. Fiddlers always talk of the snap and it is the element which gives the Strathspey its very distinctive style. The Strathspey only exists in Scottish music, as far as I am aware, and in the world of bagpiping the pipers talk of the dot and cut (dotted quaver followed by semi-quaver) , or cut and dot, which is the first one reversed. It is common in lots of our pipe tunes such as 2/4 and 6/8 marches, etc.
David, John and Maudlin... everybody is here, and now our guardian angel is playing a Scottish tune. P. P. Rubens foresaw this when he painted heaven.
Absolutely lovely version Barbara!
setting the bar high with this one folks, some beautiful versions there, well done all
This is a great tune, fairly easy on the fingering and not too fast. It's a fine example of why I have lurked around for years. Thanks to all for their submissions so far. It is truly enjoyable to hear it played in different ways.
This is indeed a great tune. I listened to all the versions and I wonder if there are more of these kind Scottisch tunes. It keeps me practising. John, you give the tune the drive that make's me wanna dance (a bit strange, I never dance). David, you made a wonderful production as always. Have you ever made a weblog, or thought about making one with all of your tunes like I did last week? I never knew making one was so easy and you have made so much beautiful productions, there must be some archive anywhere. Barbara an Maudlin, you both did good work on the tune, and I agree with John about the Scottisch Snap in you playing Barbara. That's how it has to be played!
I began with the first, 'straight' version from The Session. The more I listened to Barbara's version with the Scottish Snaps (thanks for naming them.. I learned something) I began working on one of those very syncopated versions. It certainly adds a lot to the fun of the tune.
I've posted this tune as a set with "The 72nd's Farewell To Aberdeen" yesterday here. For future reference, repeated in this thread: 1. Battle Of The Somme (retreat march) 2. The Boy's Lament For His Dragon (The 72nd Highlanders Farewell to Aberdeen) This is a set of two Scottish pipe marches, played on octave mandolin first solo, then doubled on mandolin. From Nigel Gatherer's setting: https://www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes/...Somm/BSomm.pdf Photos taken on a short walk from my home today showing Wat's Dyke and the landscape around our village in the snow. I recorded these tunes a couple of weeks ago but decided not to use the video footage -- it was shortly after my recent eye operation and my swollen eye was still looking a bit garish. So, landscape photos it is. Mid-Missouri M-111 octave mandolin Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin Vintage Viaten tenor guitar https://youtu.be/CGJBKd5zu5w Martin
Nice playing and snowscape! I hope your eye is healing well.
Thanks, Dennis. I've just finished my course of eye drops and now waiting for the gas injected into my eyes to be absorbed. At the moment I have the weird experience of having a gas bubble in my field of vision that moves with every head movement, like a human spirit level. Very uncanny! The gas should be gone in another week or two, I hope. It's six days since I took those snowy photos. On the same short walk today, the field shown at 2:26 in the video now looks like this: Lovely warm and sunny early spring day today! Martin
I feel for you, Martin. I have been through exactly that - it is weird, with everything refracted in an odd way. For me, when the bubble started to shrink it suddenly did so very quickly, so that is something to look forward to.
Fine playing, Martin, even with a swollen eye. Wish you all the best for further shrinking of the gas bubble!
