The Braes Of Tulliemet strathspey

Isn’t it surprising this great tune isn’t on this site yet? I heard it once or twice in Tokyo. It seems some fiddlers learned it in Cape Breton. And as far as I know Ashley MacIsaac recorded it at least twice. Maybe it’s more popular in Cape Breton than in Scotland.

I think Golden Keyboard is a nice tune to play after this strathspey. Then, you can move on to Micho Russell’s in G (aka. Sean Reid’s Fancy). All the tunes share the same phrase and go reall nicely togehter.

I’m just wondering if the reel version of the tune is played anywhere. I think it’s really fun to play it fast as a reel especially on fiddle.

Great strathspey! I think Cooley’s goes well after this one, too.

It seems usualy played in Ador in Cape Breton.

K: E Dorian
|: d c>d |
B>E (3EEE B>AB<d | F<DA>D B>DA>D |
B<EE>A B>^AB>e| d<BA>F E :|
g f>g |
e>Be<g e>B (3efg | d>Ad<f d>A (3def |
e>Be<g e>Be<g | d<BA>F E>gf>g |
e>Be<g e2 (3efg | d>Ad<f d2 (3def |
g2 (3fed e2 (3edc | d<BA<F E ||

K: A Dorian ~ GROWL!!!
|: G F>G |
E>A, (3A,A,A, E>DE<G | B,<G,D>G, E>G,D>G, |
E>A,A,>D E>^DE>A | G<ED>B, A, :|
c B>c |
A>EA<c A>E (3ABc | G>DG<B G>D (3GAB |
A>EA<c A>EA<c | G<ED>B, A,>cB>c |
A>EA<c A2 (3ABc | G>DG<B G2 (3GAB |
c2 (3BAG A2 (3AGF | G<ED<B, A, ||

Slosh, slosh, now I definitely need to clean my Wellies and throw out these socks, pew!

Or …. you can just play it slowly Slainte! : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv57bJanjxc

play video

😉

Lovely… Thank you! 🙂

Lovely. I think I need to relearn this tune in the near future.

I think this is the ancestor of Cooley’s reel, actually. In the book the Blooming Meadows a story about Joe and Seamus Cooley is recounted, how they visited some old concertina player - his instrument was so worn out some of the buttons had been replaced with "cigarette ends"! - he played some old reel, they subsequently forgot the 2nd part and had to reconstruct it. If you speed up the Braes the 1st part could fill in nicely for Cooley’s 1st, no? Actually the tune as it stands would make for a lovely reel.

This tune gets played exclusively in G dorian in Cape Breton. I’ll provide the setting I learned from Andrea Beaton soon.

Written by Robert Mackintosh c1745 -1807 from Tulliemet, a small village high on the east side of the Tay Valley, north of Dunkeld. He was a contemporary of Niel Gow from Inver a few miles doon the valley.

Morning Joddy. Red Rob composing this tune - where do you get that info?

I’m pretty certain Robert Burns used this tune for a song he collected or wrote. I’ll try and locate it tomorrow.

James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd" (1770 – 1835), wrote a tune called "Birnie Bouzle" to this tune. Perhaps that’s what you’re thinking of, Ampocarbuile?

You would have thought if Robert Mackintosh had composed this he would have put it in one of his four books.
But he didn’t.

This source offers a different composer for the tune, but then rejects it:
https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Braes_of_Tullymet_(1)_(The)
And another gives the tune as "traditional" but to be found in various collections.

And here’s the song referred to by Nigel, along with more notes re origin:
https://sangstories.webs.com/birniebouzle.htm

John Rea plays this as a Highland on his LP. We learned off that version and like to play it in Em. The lead doesn’t play a C or C# but I think the backing sounds good when it goes to a C major in the 2nd half of the B part.