Grant Lamb’s reel

Transcription: B.Black
Source: “Traditional Irish Music” (K.Tweed)

Ahhhh thanks for posting up the reel…was just giving a listen to Verena Commins and Julie Langan again today, musing about how I would love to play this tune.

Cheers…

On my recording Brid Harper says that this reel is French Canadian, learnt from fiddler Denis (Dinny) Langtou.

Thanks to a very generous member of thesession.org, I just got my grimy hands on that recording Dow mentions above. The source she refers to is indeed Denis Lanctot, a fellow resident of Ottawa. I’ve really liked this tune for a long time but had no idea that it is French Canadian in origin and that it came to Brid via Denis. Must shake down Denis for the real title next time I spot him. If he can tell me, I’ll post it here.

Here’s how I’ve been starting off this tune lately.

X: 1
T: Brid Harper’s
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: C
EF|:Gc c/c/c AcGc|ecgc egce|fedc BGAB|cdea g2 EF|
|GcBc AcGc|ecgc (3efg ce|fedc BGAB|1 dcBd cAEF:|2 dcBd cAGE :|
|:CDEC A,CG,A,|CEGc AGEG|cAGE AFDC|B,CDE ~F3D|
|CDEC A,CG,A,|CEGc AGEG|cAGE AFDC|1 B,CDB, C2 G,A,B, :|2 B,CDB, CDEF ||

Transcription from a recording of Brid Harper:

K:C
EF|:GcBc AcGc|ecgc egce|fedc BGAB|cdea gGEF|
GcBc AcGc|ecgc egce|fedc BGAB|1 ecBd cGEF :|2 ecBd cG,A,B,||
|:CGEC A,CG,A,|CEGc AGEG|(3cBA GF AFDC|B,CDE DB,G,B,|
C2EC A,CG,A,|CEGc AGEG|(3cBA GF AFDC|1 B,CDB, ~C3G,:|2 B,CDB, CDEF||

Denis Lanctot here. I’ve come across my name a couple of times on this site so I thought it might be a good time to sign up.
Brid Harper did in fact learn this tune from me at a session here in Ottawa in the mid 80’s. It is in fact not French Canadian but Brid may have made that association simply because I’m originally from Quebec and didn’t learn english until I was 17.
The tunes is actually Canadian “Old-tyme” style and although I’m not great with names (just way too many!!), I’m 90% sure this tune is called Grant Lamb’s Reel written by Grant Lamb himself……….and I think he’s from western Canada.
Can anyone out there verify this?
Denis L.

Denis, welcome to the big yellow board! Your name (and music) pops up in three different genres I’m familiar with: Irish, bluegrass, and contra dance music. Nice to see you here.

Well Denis we’ll take your info and run with it. It’s about time you showed up here! I’ll be in touch shortly.

Good to be here…….thanks for the welcome!!
Will, I find it interesting that my name or music is floating around the bluegrass genre - who knew?

Denis, there’s no shortage of French Canadian tunes that have filtered into American music--Mouth of the Tobique, for instance, is popular with fiddlers in bluegrass, old timey, contra dance, and Irish. We live in a time of great cross fertilization among musical genres.

“we live in a time of great cross fertilization”

I love that, Will, can I use it? Every time I’d like to say something wise and enigmatic?

Sure, it’s yours. Of course, I was talking about angry copulation amongst musicians from different countries….

(Denis, see what you’ve stumbled into? 🙂

“the time of great cross fertilization” part I’ve always understood and welcomed. I was just a bit surprised to hear that my name turns up in places I’ve never been as I’ve never taken to the stage………..but I guess music does have its own way of making it around the world.

Yes - you’ve been inadvertently fertilizing the trad community all over the world, Denis. One has to be careful in these musically dangerous times.

Which leads to all kinds of interesting mental pictures. (Musical condoms! Musical versions of sexual diseases!)

I think I caught a case of the sharpies from the flute players on Monday…

….and a mild squawk infection from a fiddler…..



O_o

…a bad case of drones from a piper…

The clap from an enthusiastic punter.

I put this one in the database in 2003 as Dermot Byrne’s Hornpipe, transcribed in G from Cathy Custy’s recording. Glad to find out so much about it.