Miss Girdle reel

I picked up this gorgeous Scottish pipe tune this morning from the CD “The First Harvest” by Iain MacDonald and Iain MacFarlane. It really sounds great on their flute and fiddle duet. I love the bouncy feel of the whole tune and the ending of each phrase.

Does anybody think of good Irish tunes which go well with this reel? Some Donegal reels might have similar effects.

Great tune. The a’s in the second part are all normally in the upper octave.

The first part has a strong Lydian feel.

My first outing with ABC so I thought I’d keep it easy. This is the normalised version of this tune as published in the William Ross Collection and The Seaforth Highlander’s tune book, amongst others. You can hear a highland session style (as opposed to formal bagpipe style) rendition here at 3min 57s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLezwQy7YyA

play video

And here again with fiddle etc at 2mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oi8zraThAU

play video

That video is brilliant. Thanks for posting it.

You’re welcome! Angus Nicholson is giving a masterclass in borderpipe/bellows pipe playing, for anyone with an interest, in this session. The tuning is spot on, the pressure control comfortable and exact but the stillness of every part of his posture with the instrument is absolutely amazing. The fingers are going 20 a dozen but the chanter barely moves. Fabulous in so many ways and not just technically either, the tune selection is awesome and really quite a feat for a 9 note piper to hit a sweet spot in the repertoire with so many tunes well known to that number of fiddle players and other musos. His music with the Trio and Seudan is well worth a listen if you enjoy this.
Cheers or is that Slainte?

PS. Did that fiddle player in the video really think he’s English?!! I’m an English piper of many a year and whilst I’ve heard many a decent English “Highland” piper I doubt there is any English Borderpiper anywhere near the musicality enjoyed by our Northern cousins on this kind of repertoire.