Bonnie Dainty Davie reel

This is a Shetland “spring” transcribed from the playing of Whalsay fiddler Gibbie Hutchison on his first (!) album, recorded at age 80, “Shetland Springs Fae da Bonnie Isle”. It may or may not be related to the Scottish folk tune, with lyrics y R Burns, with a similar name.

I’ve played it as a polka and I’ve played it as a reel,
I’ve played it over and over but I’ll tell you what I feel!
“it’s a reel”

M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
ge || dBAB G2G2 | G2BG dGBG | BcBA GEED | E2ed e2ge | dBAB G2G2 | G2BG dGBG | BcBA GEED | E2ed e2ef ||
g2g2 fgag | fdd2 fgag | efge agfd | egfd e2ef | g2g2 fgag | fdd2 fgag | efge agfd | egfd g2 ||
putting in the double bar line at the end of bars 8 & 16 helps to show the phrasing of the tune and I think helps when the abc is transformed into notation. Anyway I always use a double bar line to signify where ‘A’ music ends and ‘B’ music starts and ends.
I would have loved to have heard the recording before making comment but my gut reaction is with it being a reel.

Mine too, altho’ it would probably also make a nice fling.

I’m sure ‘c’ will chime in with a fling variant eventually. He won’t be able to resist. I bet you.

I bet he puts loads of triplets in and arrow signs and he’ll probably compose his own 2nd time B-part and make it all nice and cute for us. You just watch.

Actually I bet he doesn’t now I’ve said it. Just to be annoying.

Ahem!… 😏

This already has a quiet little second ending to the B-part…

I too am ‘already’, in being irritated by daft contributions of transcriptions on site here by people who profess openly that they can’t read music anyway, dots or ABCs, and ask us to forgive them if they’ve screwed up in any way…. And then, daft as bleach soup, they transcribe and AIR!? If you could call it that… GRRRRRR!!!

Not you guys, ‘dubh’ in the shadows… What are they drinking, smoking, injecting??? 😏

I suspect, am pretty sure, I have a Shetland recording of this myself…

Well it surely isn’t the song that I know (Burns?)

Hey Spin, I somehow expected you’d show up. That ditty is elsewhere… 😉

Okay, guys, point taken, I’ll be carefuller next time. My command of the niceties of theory is still rudimentary and when I went to write it out, it just sounded more in 2 then in 4. Then when I went to post the abc (my first), I found that 2 was only available for polkas, so I went for it. My next venture will be one that is clearly a jig, so no controversy on that front, anyway.

Perhaps I should have been a bit more explicit. “Spring” is a term used in Shetland, mostly by the older fiddlers, to refer to the type of tune commonly known elsewhere as reels. Ceolachan, would you care to enlighten me as to what makes you think that this tune is in fact an air?

Finally got around to remedying some of the screw-ups here. It is now posted as a reel, but to know how it should go, you would probably need to know something about how reels are played in Shetland. Hope this is an improvement

I would say that this tune is a variant of the one that Jack Campin has transcribed from “Anderson’s Pocket Companion Volume 2” which appears to be have been a 19th century publication in Perth.

X:218
T:Dainty Davie
S:Anderson’s Pocket Companion v2 p67
M:C
L:1/8
Q:1/2=100
K:G
g|d>cBA GEG2 |GdBd GdBg|d>cBA GEG2|Ggfd e2g:|
d|gbgb gbb(a/g/)|fdad faaf|g>abg agfd|egfd e2g:|

It wouldn’t surprise me if this tune has been used for a (possibly) earlier pre-Burns) version of the song “Dainty Davie”.

‘reedy grins’ ~ yes, it is an improvement, and thanks for making the effort. And an interesting take on it from Anderson’s Weejie.

I think I might have a Tom Anderson transcription for it somewhere. I’ll see what I can find. Shetland reels and other dance tunes definitely get my toes going and raise the urge to join in as musician or dancer. I love it…

reedy, there are still problems with your transcription, a missing bar line and the convention to place things in 4 bar phrases ~ using your transcription, wishing I had the recording to confirm things with ~

X: 1
T: Bonnie Dainty Davie
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Gmaj
ge |\
dBAB G2 G2 | G2 BG dGBG | BcBA GEED | E2 ed e2 :|
|: ef |\
g2 g2 fgag | fd d2 fgag | efge agfd |[1 egfd e2 :|[2 egfd g2 |]

Thanks ‘c’, once again. I wish I had more time to dedicate to learning how to do abc properly, but the list of tunes to learn just keeps getting longer so other amusements tend to get shoved aside. Cheers

Honest, it doesn’t take much effort, very little if you can already read the dots. There are some decent sites online for help, but I’m also willing, as best I can, to offer help…

Best of luck! ~ ‘c’

This is a strathspey version from Honeyman’s Strathspey, Reel & Hornpipe Tutor:

X:1
T:Dainty Davie
S:Honeyman Strathspey Tutor
M:C
L:1/8
R:Strathspey
K:F
f|:\
{d}c>BA>G F>D F2|F<cA>c F>cA<f|{d}c>BA>G F>D F2|
|1f>g a/g/f/e/ d>ef>d:|2f>g a/g/f/e/ d>efe|
f<af<a f>a b/a/g/f/|e<gc<g e>g a/g/f/e/|f<af<a f>a b/a/g/f/|
e>c a/g/f/e/ d>ef>c|f<af<a f>a b/a/g/f/|e<gc<g e>gc>e|
(3fga (3gab (3agf (3ed^c|d/e/f/g/ a/g/f/e/ d>e f||

New version of the abc, February 2012, courtesy of ceolachan. Thanks

Thanks for sending the MP3, I enjoyed it…

There’s a simple version in the James Winder (Wyresdale, Lancashire) ms and is on the village music site in https://www.village-music-project.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/WinderJa29-3-15.pdf as Denty Davie.

I was looking for the tune because I came on some strange goings-on in the Lancaster Gazette of 6 September 1834 where witnesses were called to demonstrate that a Mr Marsden at Hornby Castle was not of sound mind and had been bullied by a Mr Wright. One of the witnesses was Mr Winder, Dancing Master, who said: “that he knew Mr Marsden for a number of years, during which time he often entertained him with ”Dainty Davie“ on his fiddle, though it was not played well - It certainly could not be played worse. In point of fact, he was quite ignorant of harmony.” There was then some rubbish about borrowing a violincello. It seemed to me that I could probably play it worse and that it was a bit hard to take being a bad fiddler with no knowledge of harmony as a sign a man was soft in the head.

There’s a recording of Dainty Davie, I would say as a strathspey, as the second tune on https://youtu.be/ZXWj1npJsCY.

play video