by Dally » Wed May 02, 2012 3:17 am
Prominent people in the NSP community select the tunes. If it generates discussion, that is good too.
Here's more detail from Ray:
'Captain Carswell' or 'Captain Carswell's March' - 4/4 march or Strathspey
This really swings as a march! Played in A minor.
I originally learned this from a 'Boys of the Logh' Album. It can be readily found with an internet search and is open to some interpretation when playing which is one of my reasons for choosing it.
This is a tune featured in my favourite set on my album 'Pipes Rods'N Reels'. The set on my CD is: Wild Hills O'Wannies - O'Neills March - Border Reiver (Capt' Carswell) played on 'G' pitch Northumbrian Pipes.
'Wild Hills' is a well known favourite of course and is also an example of the way in which tunes and their titles 'do the rounds' in Scotland/The Borders and Ireland. I was always told this was a tune written by a local Policeman in the village of Bellingham - Northumberland, but in later years I was told that it is in fact a Scottish tune called 'The Hills of Glen Orchie'...... This reminds me of the story that Jack Armstrong heard the Irish tune 'Boys of the Blue Hills' and decided it was 'too good to be Irish' so he renamed it 'The Lads of North Tyne'..... ! On another occasion I was playing at a house session in Newcastle which was held to celebrated the visit of the Uilleann Piper Mick O'Brien. I was playing 'Hexham Races' and he said to me 'What do you call that ?' When I told him he said 'No, that is an Irish tune called 'I will if I can'.....
A 'Reiver' is the old Borders word for a Clan bandit or robber; 'Reiving' of course in Northumberland and the Borders means basically 'stealing'. So, in keeping with this and the tradition of stealing tunes, on my album I did a little 'Reiving' of my own and 'stole' the tune 'Captain Carswell' and renamed it - 'The Border Reiver' .
The word 'Bereavement' is our own peculiar contribution to the English language.
"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." - George W. Bush