It’s a retreat march composed by James Haugh of the Scots Guards - so it’s a Scottish piping tune. The pdf score gives the ornaments that a piper would use. It’s up to the fiddler to decide which are approriate on the fiddle.
# Posted on January 18th 2008 by lazyhound
I quite liked the tune, and there aren’t that many 3/4 retreat marches on site here. This one is simple and sweet…
Learned this tune in a Calum Stewart workshop
Or at least I think I did, I don’t read ABC very well
Does anyone have any information on the title or the composer?
It’s very pretty, but I bet the first note is actually a pickup.
Now I’ve seen the dots, I know it is the same tune. The first note was in the version I learned.
Sorry reenactor, there’s no way it’s a pickup…
Right, you don’t mean ‘1st note’, you mean ‘1st beat’
I just ABC’d the source given above, as it was, by the Atholl Highlanders, their transcription…
So, I eat my words, I followed their lead blindly ~ but I agree with your wisdom here reenactor. Pain has me a bit thicker than usual, agony in the back. Music is the distraction but in this case I missed the obvious, trusting that website and that transcription…
At least, along with reenactor, that makes more sense to me. I have also ‘corrected’ the ABCs… Sorry reenactor, again, I went the way of trusting what I’d found in print, a weakness I’m not usually guilty of. In this case I can cry ~ literally ~ AAAAA!!! ~ my aching back…
Mea culpa! ~ mea culpa! ~ hail Mary full of grace ~ ~ ~
🙁 I missed a ‘lead-in’, me, of all the fools in the world, or here on site, I missed a ‘lead-in’, how can I ever live it down, or make true restitution, will I ever be able to show my face again? Where’s Dow when I need a really good taking down? 😉
Ghb & Gbh
Every highland bagpiper I’ve ever known was bigger than me and a bit unhinged, so I have a slight hesitance about questioning anything they do, but also a certain reverence for bagpipes in general. That said, I’ve known some really awful instruments and players and you’d think that would have shaken the reverence. Yes, it has, but I still find people that are bigger and scarier than me make me a bit more hesitant to ‘act’ on anything, let alone question something like a wee bit of notation… Without the Internet between me and the Atholl Highlander lot, and some element of ‘anon’, a whole pack of GHB-ers and potential GBH, well, I might have remained shtrum… 😏
If they come after me I’m giving them reenactor… 😉
& the composer’s with the Scots Guards ~ OUCH!!! ~ all that association with the police and the military… 🙁
Upbeat
Many GHB retreat marches are incorrectly scored with the upbeat as part of the first bar. It’s more than once been a subject for discussion on the bobdunsire.com ‘Music’ forum. All sorts of interesting theories are put forward. IMHO it’s a simple case of illiteracy - it doesn’t affect what people play as they learn at least partly, often mainly, by ear anyway, but it doesn’t make for clear musical thinking.
Thanks Matt, appreciated, useful comment and information…
If you are a member of The Session, log in to add a comment.
If you aren’t a member of The Session yet, you can sign up now. Membership is free, and it only takes a moment to sign up.