Hello All,
John Dally has kindly invited me to choose the TOTM for February and it is:
The Keelman Ower Land
This tune has been a favourite since 1973 when (according to Johnny
Handle) Carole & I gave its first public airing in years. It is still
yielding up its secrets 38 years on.
3/2 tunes are becoming more popular and widely established as shown by
the following abstract from Stewart Hardy submitted to the North
Atlantic Fiddle Convention (A" Cos go Cluas - trans. aEUR~from foot
to ear') 2012
I think it might be of interest to some:
Working with Dinosaurs
Triple-time Hornpipes
Stewart Hardy
The triple-time hornpipes of the British Isles suffered a dramatic
reversal of fortune during the eighteenth century: initially one of the
most widely played tune forms, at its end the decline was such that if
"extinction" was not complete, then continued existence was "critically
endangered". Not until the last quarter of the twentieth century was
there a significant effort to reawaken interest in this type of tune. A
wealth of fabulous material has been unearthed, containing great energy
and appeal for performer and listener alike. Without an unbroken oral
tradition and with the disappearance of dances associated with these
tunes, there are significant challenges to developing historically and
contextually informed interpretations. Clues are found in the surviving
manuscripts and published collections, folk song and literary
descriptions of village dance. Attempts to reconstruct the dances also
provide illuminating material. Rediscovering and resurrecting
triple-time hornpipes presents an opportunity to observe the shift from
social process to aesthetic product in reverse - "from ear to foot"
rather than "from foot to ear". In this paper I will explore these
issues, demonstrate tunes and suggest some practical and well-founded
solutions to problems of interpretation.
Thanks for making the selection, Anthony. It's a tune that goes well on the Border pipes as well.