Miss Sarah Drummond Of Perth strathspey

Composer. Niel Gow
Transcription: g.m.p.

I know,
It’s only a scottish tune
but I like it…

Nice tune, but I haven’t mastered it yet.

Is it true this is Niel Gow’s composition? I’ve never heard of that. I’m sure this is a quite international tune with Scottish origin, played in Donegal and Cape Breton as well.

I found a version of this tune somewhere in the web as a Niel Gow composition, but I also never heard of that before.

It’s known as a Niel Gow composition by most people. Whether that’s actually true or not is probably impossible to prove for sure. It *is* quite an international tune played in Donegal and Cape Breton, but then a lot of Scottish tunes are. Doesn’t make them any less Scottish. What does “only a Scottish tune” mean? I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of as long as it’s posted as such 🙂 :-|

Sometime I heard this tune with a variation in the end of the second time of the second part, but I can’t remember it…Does someone know it?

I think it always goes into a little high E minor bit something like:
a2 e>a gg|aB A2 A…

??????That so isn’t what I just typed. Try again:
a2 e>a gg|aB A2 A…

???????? For some reason it’s not letting me do the left arrow thing. The notes are a2ea gbeg|aegB A2

Yay

It’s popular with Cape Breton players. The c-sharps in the B-part are sometimes played slightly flat - perhaps as much as a quarter-tone.

The B part, a second ending, as transcribed by Doug MacPhee from the superb playing of one of Cape Breton’s finest fiddlers, Mary MacDonald. The full transcription can be found in the book “A Cape Breton Ceilidh”, compiled and edited by Allister MacGillivray, Sea-Cape Music Ltd., 1988, ISBN 0-9692208-1-2…

Dow’s attempts of olde ~
* = “SNAP”
| a2 e>a g*be>g | a*eg>B A2 ||

“The Skye Collection of the Best Reels & Strathspeys Extant”
Compiled and Arranged for Violin and Piano
by Keith Norman MacDonald ~ 1887

page 115 ~ Miss Drummond of Perth ~ Strathspey ~ Neil Gow
edited from “The Skye Collection”:

K: A Dorian
|: za | AAe>d B>d e2 | dgB>g d*gB*G | AAe>d B*de>a | g>eg>B A2 :|
|: A^g | a2 e>a c*ae>f | g2 d>g B>gd>g |1 a2 e>a c>ae>a | g>eg>B A2 :|
2 aae>a bbe>g | aegB A/B/c/d/ e>a ||

a>^g | a2 e>aa c>ae>f |

variants (the repeats) from “The Skye Collection”:
A-part - Aa |AAe>d B*d e2 | d*gB>g d*gB>G | AAe>d B>de>a | g>eg>B A2 |
B-part - a>^g | a2 e>aa c>ae>f |

I’ve also known it with c sharp (^c) in the B-part…

& from Cape Breton

|: za | e*Ae>A (3Bcd e2 | d*gB>g d>gB*G | A*Ae>A (3Bcd (3efg | (3agf (g*B A2 :|
|: (3efg | a2 e*a c*ae>a | g2 d*g B*gG>g |1 a2 e*a c*ae>g | (3agf g*B A2 :|
2 a2 e*a g*b (3efg | (3agf g*B A2 ||

& another key and a few variants via Eire & yours truly,
I quite like it that 4th step down & though not shown, I swing and snap it…

K: E Dorian
|| (3EEE BE GABG | AdFd AdFD | (3EEE BE GABc | dBAF BE (3FED |
(3EEE BE GA B2 | AdFd AdFD | (3EEE BE (3GGG Bc | (3dcB (3AGF E2 ||
(3Bc^d |
(3efe Be GeBe | (3ded Ad FdAd | (3efe Be Ge (3ABc | (3dcB AF E2 e^d |
e2 be Bebe | d2 ad Adad | (3bbb (3Bcd (3aaa (3ABc | (3dcB Ad e2 z2 ||

This is also played in Ulster for the dance and as a “Highland Fling”, the usual 16 bars with a two bar second ending for the B-part…

Oh lovely, THANKS, Ceolachan! Now I see why you were slagging Mark for not realizing what tune it was… 🙂

Who me? ~ slagging dear Markus/Dow? You forgot to mention the other one, Willhelm! Does that halve the intent? If there was any slagging it was accidental, or out of love and appreciation for them both.

Whew! ~ weird second ending. It must have been raised ozone levels in my little cubicle here. I’ll have to come back with something a bit saner, though the earlier ones given are in my realm. That last up-and-down madness is just that, an ‘occasional’ lapse of sense… 🙂

Oh yeah I forgot about this tune! See Zeens I tolds you you should ask ceolachan!

Will would have got it though did he? I think he plays it on a regular basis. Not as a bluegrass boomchuck hornpipe though I’m sure 🙂

…although maybe he does - we all know about his dark and sordid past!

Will told me it sounded like fifteen jillion other flings/hornpipes/strathspey type stuff he knows so he couldn’t figure out a name any more than you could. :-p

Really, all I ever play is highstrathflinglandspeys, in a very authentic Orkney style, from my decades spent as a crofter on Papa Westray….
*smirk*

Besides, as Brendan Bulger is wont to say, all A Dorian tunes sound the same, so just play Sligo Maid.

LOL -- something like that. *snort*

Help! I need to stop laughing so I can catch a breath. "Orkney’!? ~ that figures… 🙂

Isn’t there a rare illness affecting certain proto-Orkneyites, a version of mode-deafness? Supposedly symptomatic of this is a fixation on The Sligo Maid. Some have folks have ascribed this illness to their migration to the USA and bluegrass…

“Proto-Orkneyites” -- LOL

All bluegrass is in one mode: “mountain minor.” And they instill rhythm in you by strapping you in a seat at a NASCAR race and not letting you leave till you can hear the pistons hammering up and down as the cars go by.

LOL -- can I quote you on that one, Will?

God no. But you can link your readers to this page….

Will, you forgot to mention ‘where’ ~ bottom row next to the lights… ~ very quotable! 😉

“Hugh Gillespie” Classic Recordings of Irish Traditional Fiddle Music"
Track 7~ Highland Flings: “Finnea Lasses” / “Gurren’s Castle”

On this recording the second tune “Gurren’s Castle” is “Miss Sarah Drummond of Perth”, with a second ending, 16 bars in total. Hugh Gillespie repeated the mistake of others of repeating the B-Part for the first tune in the set, making the tune 24 bars instead of the usual 16 bars for the various dances known as “Highland Flings”. Here is that other tune of the ‘Killarney Wonder’ set:

“Finnea Lasses”
Key signature: A Dorian
Submitted on October 11th 2002 by incommunicado.
https://thesession.org/tunes/1028

Listen to Mary Jane Lamond’s beautiful singing: http://www.maryjanelamond.com/audio/trees/11.m3u

There was debate between Niel Gow and Wm. Marshall as to who wrote it--each said that he wrote it and the other stole it. Gow’s name for it stuck, and there seems to be a general consensus that he, in fact, wrote it.

This is a duplication brought back from the future and a potential “POOF!”

Key signature: A Dorian
Submitted on March 3rd 2007 by Carabus.
https://thesession.org/tunes/6888

K: A Dorian
|: (3efg |
a2 e>a c>ae>f | g2 d>g B>gd>g | a2 e>a c>ae>f | g>ed>B B>AA>g |
a2 e>a c>ae>f | g2d>g B>gd>g | a>fg>e f>de>d | B>gd>B B>A :|
|: A>f |
e>AA>B c>de>d | g2 G>A B>AB>d | e>AA>B c>de>d | g2 G>A B>AA>a |
e>AA>B c>de>d | g2 G>A B>AB>d | e>AA>B c>de>d | g2 G>A B>A A2 :|

& the above in reduction (mine - ceolachan’s) ~
|: (3efg |
a2 e>a c>ae>f | g2 d>g B>gd>g |[1 a2 e>a c>ae>f | g>ed>B B>A :|
a2 e>a c>ae>f | g2 d>g B>gd>g |[2 a>fg>e f>de>d | B>gd>B B>A ||
|: A>f |
e>AA>B c>de>d | g2 G>A B>AB>d | e>AA>B c>de>d | g2 G>A B>A :|

Hello,
I should appology because I know this is from Québécois répertoire and not ITM. I did post this in the discussion but it got deleted. I am also not sure if this is barndance or hornpipe… I play this tune that comes from Joseph Allard. It is called ‘Danse Écossaise’. Since lot of the tunes Québécoises, especially in Allard’s repertoire, come from overseas, I was wondering if you know/play a tune that is similar to this. Did Allard take this from Irish, Scottish repertoire? I did a search in thesession.org and could not find matching tunes.

This abc is a version transcribed by Yvon Cuillerier and is not exactly Allard’s rendition. You can hear Allard playing this under the following (first) link. Much more alive than the transcription. I like to play it a bit slower, but maybe it is just that I cannot play all the variations I want if I go too fast. The occasional roll on the quarters make the tune more lively. The abc version in ‘Fiddler’s Companion’ (lower link) is very similar but notated differently. Is there something similar in the ITM répertoire? I decided to put it as a hornpipe!

You can hear Allard here (scroll down to Danse Écossaise):
http://www.udenap.org/groupe_de_pages_06/allard_joseph.htm

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/DAN_DAR.htm

# Posted on March 3rd 2007 by Carabus
https://thesession.org/members/31748

This quite simple version is played round South Donegal.
T:Martin Collection No 03 “The Glen Highland”
M:4/4
R:Highland
L:1/8
K:G
A2 eA ^cd ef|g2 dg eg dB|A2 eA ^cd ef|[1ge dB A2 A2:|[2ge dB A2 fg||
a2 ea ca fa|g2 dg Bg fg|[1a2 ea ca fa|ge dB A4:|[2(3agf (3gfe fd fa|ge dB A4||

X:1
T: Miss Sarah Drummond Of Perth
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
C: Neil Gow?
S: The Battlefield Band
R: strathspey
K:Amix
|:A2 e>d (3Bcd e2 |d<g B<g d<g B<G |
A2 e>d (3Bcd (3efg | a>f g>B B>A A>e:|
|:a2 e<a c<a e>f |g2 d<g B<g d>e |
|1a2 e<a c<a (3efg |a>f g>B {B}A2 A>e:|
|2(3agf g>e f>d (3efg| a>f g>B {B}A2 A>e||

First tune here? Tiarnan Ó Duinnchinn http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8blbyNHgpO8

play video

“There was debate between Niel Gow and Wm. Marshall as to who wrote it—each said that he wrote it and the other stole it. Gow’s name for it stuck, and there seems to be a general consensus that he, in fact, wrote it.”

Unsubstantiated, to the extent that it might be called myth.

“Miss Sarah Drummond Of Perth” can be found in Malcolm MacDonald’s 2nd collection from 1789, predating Gow’s publishing of it in his third collection of 1792 (Gow’s name as composer didn’t appear until the second edition of that book). There is no attribution in MacDonald, however, and he did publish tunes by other known composers, Marshall among them, without any names attached.

I can’t find a tune in any of Marshall’s collections like “Miss Drummond of Perth” (although there is another another tune by Gow, “The Hon Mrs Drummond of Perth” which some have claimed as a Marshall tune, “Miss Grace Gordon’s Strathspey” - but in fact that title was never used by Marshall for any tune).

While we may never know the absolute truth, there is a reasonable chance that this tune was, in fact, composed by Niel Gow. Mary Anne Alburger, in her book ‘Scottish Fiddlers and their Music“ (1983) makes a decent argument that the widespread - indeed, accepted - assertion that the Gows were plagiarists is unjustified. On the other side, J Murdoch Henderson says of Nathaniel Gow, ”…we question whether he will ever be forgiven for publishing other composers’ airs, particularly those of William Marshall, deliberately changing their names and suppressing their authorship. And in the case of several other airs associated with his name, how much more decorous it would have been for him to mention the original source of each…and add ‘Arranged by Nathaniel Gow’ instead of the too equivocal ‘Nath Gow’…“ JMH goes on to call Nathaniel ”The Greatest Preserver and Improver of the Age“. Also read my notes on ”Loch Earn" https://thesession.org/tunes/4961 where a tune published under a different name and predating the Gows’ publication, is almost identical to one claimed by Nathaniel Gow.

It should be said that I don’t believe Marshall ever claimed a tune which wasn’t his composition, so, as Weejie said above, the story of that dispute between Marshall and Niel Gow is almost certainly untrue.

The A quarter notes at in the last bar of each bar can be swapped for a cut (A/A/A). This tune is extremely well known in Cape Breton. Often paired with Muillean Dubh (https://thesession.org/tunes/4495) and Sir Reginald MacDonald (https://thesession.org/tunes/12621).

Setting #11 from the playing of Hughie Gillespie.

also known as ‘cripple malcolm of the glen’ and‘ cripple lad of the glen’

Is it just me or is the “Untitled Highland 1” heard on John Doherty’s “Bundle and Go” in fact a version of “Miss Sarah Drummond of Perth”? Having listened as well to Hugh Gillespie’s version, I think they’re certainly similar enough…

I see there is some discussion on the recording’s page linking the tunes. Weird though that the recording’s notes don’t mention it as such…

My transcription of the “Untitled Highland” off John Doherty’s “Bundle and Go” which appears to be a very involved version of “Miss Sarah Drummond of Perth”. Watch especially the even notes in the B part.

In some parts of Donegal, the highland version is known as ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’

This is a transcription of the version played on the Breabach’s album “The Big Spree”, which is close to the version in the Skye Collection.