Scotland The Brave polka

OK, it’s corny and overplayed but it’s still a good tune and somebody had to post it so…

Oh, yeah, and it’s not a Polka but a march, technicaly, but there’s not category for ‘March’ but the polka time signature and rythm fits best out of the other categories.

This is a popular ring tone melody, but certainly not a session tune.

What a remarkable statement - Slainte!

This certainly is a traditional tune (although I think the words were added a bit more recently - in the last 100 years or so) and therefore it’s perfectly acceptable as a Session tune. It is also played as a reel at ceilidhs making a good tune to which you can dance The Gay Gordons.

Just because something has become popular as a ring tone is no reason to denigrate the tune. I’ve heard Beethoven as a ring tone but that doesn’t mean it suddenly not classical music.

"slainte" having spent some time in Edinburgh, I’m sure is well aware that it’s a Scottish traditional tune. I think what he’s telling you is that this is not a tune which is often played in sessions, and I agree with him. Pipe bands will certainly play it, and as you point out, it may often be played at ceilidh dances, but in a session ? I’ve been playing in sessions for over thirty years, and have never heard this played in any session in Scotland. The only time I have heard it played was at the Irish Club in Adelaide in Australia. By all means, play it in your session if you want to, but don’t be surprised if you get some funny looks.

It is certainly played at ceilis for the Gay Gordons. I played it myself just last week at a ceili mor. But as it is, a march and not as a reel. How do you play it as a reel?

There’s a hornpipe version or a reel version knocking around somewhere, which I think is a Sean Ryan tune or something. Am too tired to look it up today but I think it’s here somewhere.

"The Swan", alias "Sean Ryan’s":
https://thesession.org/tunes/1036

& for those who like the quirky, an oddball transcription that somehow hasn’t yet been axed by Jeremy, and yet another more recent alias, "Aggie White’s":

https://thesession.org/tunes/3532

I and attending others have and also play this march to ‘the Gei Gordons’, as well as often dancing to it, including in ceilis in Eire…

Right here in The Session discussion of "Common Session Tunes" scottythefiddler says (https://thesession.org/discussions/110):

"The session at the Lionshead Pub in Hamilton, Ontario, has been changed again, this time from Thursday nights, to Tuesdays, and as a result, I have a list of tune sets prepared by the session leader."

He includes Scotland The Brave in the list.

Also look at: http://www.irishtune.info/session/march.htm
which represents a random web sreach to see if anybody else lists it as a session tune.

So, we’ve established that this is a traditional tune often played at ceilidhs (and ceilis). I will also accept that it is not commonly played in sessions but to say flatly that this is not a sesion tune is not correct when clearly people on this list do play it in sessions (even if rarely).

Whatever………………..

One of the *daggiest* tunes on this site.

unless you take it all too seriously, so seriously that you’re easy to wind up… (so serious ‘smiley’s’ aren’t allowed…)

Funnily enough, this got played at a session I went to last week.

I like it! Good busking tune, which I’ve sometimes played with a polka-ised version of the song tune "Hot Asphalt" after. An essential ceilidh band tune for the Gay Gordons, one of the core dances in the ceilidh repertoire, in Scotland and Northern England anyway: it’s one of those dances which, with a good caller, those of us who are only occasional dancers can actually do.
I suppose few Irish tunes go to that rhythm (can’t think of any, offhand), which would make it hard to introduce to Irish sessions, and it may have a cliche / cringe factor for Scottish ITM sessioneers; but it’s still a good tune, whose rhythm is shared incidentally by a number of Scottish and Northumbrian tunes.

"Not a tune which is often played at sessions"

Actually, this statement is true for the majority of tunes even some of the very good ones. It just depends what is either "fashionable" or, on the other hand, the accepted common repertoire (may be very unfashionable and obscure to anyone else) of a particular group of musicians.
I’d agree that S the B would be extremely unlikely to fall into either category.

Of course, players will sometimes play a lesser known or different tune from time to time but I don’t think it would be this one.

Found in the Darley & McCall Collection (1914) as "The Irishman’s Toast". Their notes say, “This air was adapted to the Fenian ballad “General Burke’s Dream”, a broadsheet published by Nugent & Co., Cook Street, Dublin.” Slightly further back in the Gesto Collection (1893) it goes under the title "Scotland For Ever" or "Brave Scotland", and is described as a "Trumpet March".

I was surprised there weren’t more settings of this very common tune. Not my favourite ever tune, but one I have played for every Gay Gordon’s set I have ever played. This is the setting I have most commonly heard, though I used to play a pipe version that stays within one octave, only going up to the D for the B part.