Rothiemurchus Rant strathspey

Nice reel in G that I picked up off of Blazin’ Fiddles

Cheers for posting, you might want to add repeat bars in though (although it is obvious I know!)

X:1
T: Rothiemurchus Rant
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K:Gmaj
G|EDED EG (3GGG| cGAG cGAc| EDED EG (3GGG|AcGc EDD:|
|: g| e2 dede dA| cded cAcG| A2 ag e2 dc|AcGc EDD:|
|: g|egga gagd|eaag abae|egde cdec|eage d3:|
|: g|e2 dc de a2|geed c2 Ac| GAcd e2 dc| AcGc EDD:|

Gah! Forgot you needed them both ends. That’s the ABC changed now anyway, thanks for pointing that out 🙂

🙂

Its Irish counterpart (“The Graf Spee”):

https://thesession.org/tunes/581

The notes need to be grouped properly for the sheetmusic to come out correctly, e.g. e2de dedA in bar 2 of the B-part. The key is Cmaj. You can edit these details by going to “edit abc”.

Changed again!

The note groupings in your last part are still wrong.

Really? It looks and sounds OK (as much as the midi ever does) over on concertina.com

Rothiemurchus Rant is composed by 19th century northern Scottish fiddler, Peter Milne, and of course did make its way into the Irish repertoire as The Graf Spey, Grand Spee and a few other closely related name versions. A rant is indeed a reel but Rothiemurchus Rant is in all collections as a strathspey and played as such in Scotland, Cape Breton and beyond. Interestingly, Indiana fiddler, John Summers (1887-1976) recorded an unusual but closely related version of this tune “unnamed”. It’s hard to know what his source was for the tune because I have heard no other American renditions of it other than Summers’.

“Rothiemurchus Rant is composed by 19th century northern Scottish fiddler, Peter Milne” - genuinely curious as to know the evidence for that statement.
“A rant is indeed a reel but Rothiemurchus Rant is in ALL [ my emphasis ] collections as a strathspey and played as such in Scotland……” - no , it’s not.

Peter Milne was born in 1824, but “Rothiemurchus Rant” can be found in Joshua Campbell’s Collection (1788). I have never seen Milne suggested as the composer so, like Kenny, I’m curious as to where this can be seen.

John Summers played with Franklin George, who spent some time in Scotland (and even played the bagpipe). It’s possible, I guess, that Summers learnt the tune from George.

A manuscript with various Scot airs and tunes, compiled by Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus (1797-1885) and dedicated to Ferdinand von Thinnfeld in 1817 (the manuscript is preserved at Thinnfeld Castle in Styria), also includes “Rothiemurchus Rant”. As the author claims that “this air was composed by my Great-grandfather James Grant Esq. of Rothiemurchus”, the tune may date back to the first half of the 18th century.

https://youtu.be/l30JFPzAKIo

play video

A version close to the 3rd one on this page may be found in Part First of Niel Gow’s “Complete Repository of Original Scots Slow Strathspeys and Dances”, which was first published in 1799. It is the third tune on p. 18 of this volume, and is titled “Rothemurchue’s (sic) Rant, a Strathspey”. It is a great tune, and surely an old one.

Ach, two years later I have forgotten where I had gotten the (mis)information that Peter Milne had composed Rothiemurchus Rant. I now believe even beyond a couple of the responses to my comment, that Mr. Milne did not of course compose the tune. From the previous comment about the Grants and: http://tunearch.org/wiki/Grant_of_Strathspey_(The)
it’s enough to realize that the tune pre-dates Peter Milne’s artistry. On another tune note, I learned that Indiana fiddler John ‘Dick’ Summers who played an interesting version found it in his copy of Ryan’s Mammoth Collection called The Grand Spy (nicely close to The Grant of Strathspey), while adding his own signature of notes and phrases to it as he had done to some of his other renditions of pieces.

This tune was taken and adapted by Robert Burns as the melody for his poem ‘Lassie Wi’ The Lint-White Locks’, which was duly arranged and published as a song. Burns acknowledged the borrowing, as he habitually and conscientiously did when he used pre-existing lyrics or melodies. Karen Matheson, Phil Cunningham and others do more than justice to the song in this YouTube clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a6V6FhYyjw

play video

I believe that this tune is a Strathspey, not a reel. Alasdair Fraser playes it as a Strathspey.

It’s played both as a strathspey and as a reel. It’s the predecessor to the tune Graf Spee https://thesession.org/tunes/581