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Issue 1844: Correction to lead tune

Object
Dalkeith's Strathspey (Recording)
Submitter
Mark Dancer (Aelfric)
Assigned to
Viktor Lehmann
Priority
Normal
Disposition
Fixed
Description

The lead tune, given as Earl of Dalkeith in the CD booklet, is the same music given as Dalkeith’s Strathspey #364 in Book 9.

The problem arises because when Dr. Wiseman arranged the music for Book 9, he took the Earl of Dalkeith, which Gow wrote and published as a reel (performance here: https://youtu.be/aJWDO0d2qkY?t=89), and arranged it as a strathspey.

Probably the correct solution is to credit Dalketih’s Strathspey as Neil Gow arranged Dr. Herbert Wiseman, and create a new tune for Dalkeith’s Strathspey (as “Earl of Dalkeith”) for this recording (there are other recordings given as Earl of Dalkeith that I can’t comment on, so they would have to be left as they stand).

Sources: the CD recording and Book 9.

Previous Actions

  • Date  Nov. 17, 2019, 2:01 a.m.
  • User  Mark Dancer (Aelfric)

New issue submitted

  • Date  Dec. 19, 2022, 11:16 p.m.
  • User  Viktor Lehmann (tone2tone)

Assigned changed to »tone2tone« (previously »None«)
Disposition changed to »Needs help« (previously »New«)

Hi Mark, this isn’t as easy as one would think and I want to liaise with the team first. The arrangement doesn’t play any role in our setup. Never. It is about the tune and its composer. If the tune is basically the same and just rearranged, it is still the same tune and we don’t need to distinguish between the two of them, even if it is used in different tempi and arrangements. All in all it would be more “correct” to merge those entries altogether which I won’t do, I think. I added a note to both dances for the time being.

  • Date  Dec. 20, 2022, 10:59 a.m.
  • User  Anselm Lingnau (anselm)

Scottish dance tunes can be “genre-fluid” – some show up as both reels and strathspeys under the same title, and there are also common instances of reel X being the obvious “reel version” of strathspey Y, as in “Angus Campbell”/“The Laird o’ Drumblair” (or even strathspey/jig – consider “Orange and Blue” (strathspey) vs “Hot Punch” (jig)). This is particularly non-remarkable given that as far as country dancing is concerned, the reel/strathspey distinction only really came in during the later half of the 18th century (when hooped skirts went out of fashion and posh ladies were able to dance more quickly), so with anything from before (and into) that era, it’s basically “take your pick” between reconstructing a dance as a strathspey or a reel. (Famously, The Montgomeries’ Rant was originally published as a “strathspey reel”, and if you work from the original 18th-c. instructions you can come up with a pretty nice strathspey.)

It would be nice if the database could track more of these fascinating musical interconnections but we’re somewhat out of our depth with tunes as we are already. So we will probably have to leave this to the likes of the Traditional Tune Archive, at least for the time being. As far as I’m concerned, while we’re here already, there would be nothing wrong with adding a note to the tune entry stating that it has been used as both a strathspey and reel.

  • Date  Dec. 20, 2022, 11:30 a.m.
  • User  Mark Dancer (Aelfric)

I’m happy to have a note for the the tune and hook it up to recordings regardless of whether they’re Strathspey or quick time.

  • Date  Dec. 20, 2022, 11:52 a.m.
  • User  Viktor Lehmann (tone2tone)

Disposition changed to »Fixed« (previously »Needs help«)

Thanks guys for all your input. As I already made such a comment to both tunes, I think we can consider this issue fixed.