Issue 3201: Incorrect tune. The Malcolm Macdonald tune you link to is not the tune used by the RSCDS

New issue submitted

Assigned changed to “murrough” (previously “None”)
Disposition changed to “Being handled” (previously “New”)

Thanks Meryl! Trying to investigate a bit I searched for Lady Baird in the traditional tune archive and found quite a choice. I assume those without a named composer can be considered as “traditional”:

Lady Baird’s New Reel (traditional?): https://tunearch.org/wiki/Lady_Baird%27s_New_Reel_(1)
Lady Baird’s New Reel (Robert Mackintosh): https://tunearch.org/wiki/Lady_Baird%27s_New_Reel_(2)
Lady Baird’s Strathspey (a.k.a Lady Baird): https://tunearch.org/wiki/Lady_Baird_(2)
Lady Baird’s Reel (Malcolm MacDonald): https://tunearch.org/wiki/Lady_Baird%27s_(3)
Lady Baird’s (traditional?): https://tunearch.org/wiki/Lady_Baird%27s_(4)
and the one you mentioned:
Lord St. Clair’s Reel (traditional?): https://tunearch.org/wiki/Lord_St._Clair%27s_Reel

The score of the last one certainly looks most like (but not identical to) the score in the 1955 edition of Book 18 I have.

Before taking any further action though I wondered:
(a) If the RSCDS is aware of this confusion? Is it clear in newer editions of Book 18?
(b) Which of this proliferation of tunes is actually used in the Colin Dewar recording for the dance (https://my.strathspey.org/dd/recording/592/)?

Here are the answers to your questions:

1. The “current” version of Book 18 is from 1984. It says “Music arranged by Dr. HERBERT WISEMAN and Muriel A. JOHNSTONE, B. Mus., L.R.A.M.”, although it is reasonably safe to say that Muriel didn’t actually have a hand in the original 1955 edition. In any case, the music for Lady Baird’s Reel in the book looks suspiciously like it could have been lifted from the 1955 book. It’s also in F major, which is a bit weird (the version cited in the TTA is in G, which makes more sense). It only says “R. Mackintosh” at the bottom of the page, and that may refer to the second tune printed immediately above, which is in fact by Robert Mackintosh. (Back in the day the Society used to be really bad at attributing things.)

Right now the Society seems to be actively trying to clear out their stocks of older “numbered books with music”, many of which are currently being given away for free (or postage). Certainly when I was on Membership Services some of these books were already gone altogether, and there was very little appetite for reissuing them – the thinking seemed to be that teachers, many of whom didn’t read music anyway and considered printed music in dance books an expensive waste of space, would prefer the combined A5 editions without music, and musicians would just have to shell out for Originally Ours. So I wouldn’t count on the Society expending a lot of mental energy on dealing with this sort of problem. The current get-them-while-they-last drive may be another symptom of the “nobody wants old numbered books with music” philosophy mentioned earlier, it may be in preparation for a big reissue drive (unlikely if you ask me), or they may just need the downstairs space in 12 Coates Crescent for something else.

2. The tune on the Colin Dewar recording in question is indeed “Lord St. Clair’s Reel”.

Disposition changed to “Needs help” (previously “Being handled”)

Thanks Anselm.

I have added a new tune Lord St. Clair’s Reel and thought it might help in searches to give it an alias “Lady Baird’s Reel (own tune)”. And I updated the dance to link to that tune. I also added various extra info notes to that and the tune previously linked to the dance.

However when I tried to update the Dewar recording the alias for the tune was rejected as not one of the valid options despite it being the only possible one in the list. I will send a separate mail to Anselm.

So mostly, but not completely fixed.