Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 15 Aug 24 - 10:11 AM

Echoing the thanks to Molly for putting the record straight, and yes, I shall keep playing it (slowly of course).
Btw, I didn't learn it originally from sheet music, but from my own transcription having bought the recording of Major John Perkins playing it, after hearing it on Classic FM.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 14 Aug 24 - 05:12 AM

Molly Mason's intervention reminds me of a scene from 'Annie Hall' where a knowall in the queue for a Marshall McLuhan event was loudly giving his doubtful opinions about the man. Woody Allen was also in the queue, and frustrated by this, so left the queue, asked Mr McLuhan IN PERSON about the man's opinions.

McLuhan gave a very negative view of this idiot & Woody Allen then turned to the cinema audience and said      'wouldn't YOU like to do that?'

thank you Molly Mason, now can we just get on with just playing this lovely tune?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Lang Johnnie Mor
Date: 14 Aug 24 - 04:57 AM

To lighten the discussion a bit, "Ashokan Farewell" used to be a favourite tune of my mother. She lived in Perthshire, and sent a request for it to be played on a local radio station in Dundee, however, she asked the presenter if he would play "The Shocking Farewell". :)
He had a good laugh at this, and I think he got in touch with her to ask if he could use it on the programme. That was OK, and he sent her the CD which had the tune recorded on it. { don't remember who it was, I'm afraid ]. Good result all round.
Carry on.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 14 Aug 24 - 03:13 AM

We have seen the best and worst of Mudcat in this thread.

Thanks to Molly Mason for providing the background to the tune that we have been seeking.

Thanks to Tattie Bogle and Johnny J for their memories of the early work of the Scottish Music Group.

Thanks to Reinhard, Lighter and others for digging into the records with such determination.

Thanks to everyone who has made a positive contribution to the discussion.

Jack Campin, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 08:41 PM

Yes, thank you Molly and Jay. I have played music with a group of friends just for fun for 40 years and Ashokan Farewell is one of our favourite tunes.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 04:20 PM

Thank you, Molly Mason, for providing the copyright information and the timing of various events in the history of the tune.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 04:20 PM

Thank you, Molly and Jay, for Ashokan Farewell!

We were lucky enough to see Walt Michael & Co at Girvan Folk Festival in the late 1980s - Walt Michael, Frank Orsini, Evan Stover and Tommy Whetmore.

Evan Stover took Ashokan Farewell with him from Fiddle Fever and performed it with the group. We have enjoyed it ever since.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Molly Mason
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 04:05 PM

Ashokan Farewell- (written in’82, copyright in ‘83 when we put it on our
second Fiddle Fever album.) Ken Burns was given a coupe of that
Record& became interested in the tune for his future big project.
When that project ( the Civil War series came out Sept.of 1990,
That’s when Mel Bay and other companies got interested in
Putting out versions of it.
Is there confusion with Copyright date and publishing date?
For sure, not many folks were interested in the tune for the first
8 or 9 years, unless they had been to music camp at Ashokan
Or were Fiddle Fever fans! We did have lots of gigs back the.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 03:26 PM

Helen; From: Helen Date: 13 Aug 24 - 12:22 PM
Guest, henryp, the "piece of shit" comment was made anonymously by GUEST Date: 11 Aug 24 - 07:40 PM.

"WorldCat lists far more different formats and arrangements for that piece of shit than I have the patience to sift through. The 1983 date is the copyright date for all of them, be it print, electronic, braille or translated into Amharic. Look for sites that sell sheet music and you will immediately come across printed ones with the 1983 publication date."

Thank you, Helen. Are you familiar with Amharic? I wonder how many people are.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 02:19 PM

Jack Campin says;
henryp: https://www.melbay.com/Products/95056/ashokan-farewell.aspx
Does that look electronic? Can you read the date?
Now fuck off.

Jack, the date may say 1/1/83. But this particular edition was published after the broadcast of The Civil War series in 1990!

"In addition to Jay Ungar's authorized solo edition as performed in the documentary series, this folio contains the touching Civil War era "Sullivan Ballou Letter" and Lincoln's famed Gettysburg Address."

Thanks to Lighter who has found that the U.S. Copyright Office asserts that the earliest Mel Bay publication of "Ashokan Farewell" was registered on July 6, 2010.

PS This wouldn't be the first Mudcat thread to be taken down after Jack Campin's outbursts.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 01:19 PM

On the off chance that anyone still cares, the U.S. Copyright Office asserts that the earliest Mel Bay publication of "Ashokan Farewell" was registered on July 6, 2010:


https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=3&ti=1,3&Search%5FArg=ashokan%20farewell&Search%5FCode=TALL&CNT=25&PID=WObHGx

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Johnny J
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 01:17 PM

Re the comments about "learning it from paper" at The SMG...

I first learned it there by ear from Angus Grant Junior in the early nineties. He told us the tune's history too and also about the Civil War film connection.

We would have been among the very first ALP students to play this tune and we all learned it by ear.
Angus always taught this way and didn't even hand out sheet music at his classes. Sometimes, one of his class members might transcribe it but that was as close as we got.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Johnny J
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 12:47 PM

Hee, hee.
This is a fun thread. ;-))

I don't think Jack minds this tune too much except the change to C natural in the second part.
;-))

I don't know about paying the going rate but I'm very sure that Nigel would have obtained permission from the composer and ensured it would be OK to include the tune in his collection.

As I recall, it was very strict in the early days of The ALP and one of the reasons for focusing on "teaching by ear" was as much to do with copyright issues as being the so called "traditional way" to do things.
I even remember some tutors learning tunes themselves off by heart "from the dots" before teaching it to the students by ear. "Hand written" music was also another good trick.
;-)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 12:22 PM

Guest, henryp, the "piece of shit" comment was made anonymously by GUEST Date: 11 Aug 24 - 07:40 PM.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 12:15 PM

henryp: https://www.melbay.com/Products/95056/ashokan-farewell.aspx

Does that look electronic? Can you read the date?

Now fuck off.

GUEST:
So no interpretive subtleties in this then here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kZASM8OX7s

No idea, I couldn't watch it here even if I wanted to waste my time on sentimental fakery. From Steve Shaw's description after taking one for the team and actually watching it, I presume it isn't a straight video from a session like the Edinburgh or Ashokan ones, which were what I was talking about.

Anybody can add layers of interpretation to anything. And any sufficiently large group of fiddlers can turn any tune into a dogged expressionless routine. Slow airs performed en masse in sessions nearly always lose the whole point

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 11:46 AM

Beautiful Irish or Scottish airs sound lovely when played plainly, often with little or no accompaniment, when played in sessions or other informal settings. In the first playthrough in that video the "beautiful" melody was pulled to pieces (I was scratching my head in places), rescued in later playthroughs by greater or lesser ornate accompaniment. It's an arrangement, a performance, lovely I'm sure on a record. I'm at a loss to see how it can be regarded as even vaguely Scottish-sounding. A very nice construction of one of my least favourite tunes, I thought. All just opinion from me.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 11:28 AM

From Tattie Bogle; I was referring to when [Nigel Gatherer] first published it in his Session Tune books in 1999. Nigel says, “We’ve had contributions from world-famous musicians such as Jay Ungar, the illustrious American fiddler,……” Nigel further goes on to record his gratitude for Jay’s permission to publish it, and to say that “this beautiful air has captured the hearts and imagination of musicians from all around the world”.

Thanks for that. The Civil War was first broadcast to air on PBS in 1990. Nigel Gatherer dealt direct with Jay Ungar in 1999. This appears to conflict with Jack Campin's assertions about Mel Bay publishing Ashokan Farewell;

1. "Ashokan Farewell" was published by Mel Bay on 1 January 1983. Must have made Ungar a fair bit in that form, before the Civil War royalties started rolling in.
2. I don't have that print collection but I doubt it varies one little bit from what all the thousands of Ashokan fiddle camp participants played as their final number over the next 40 years.
3. I would expect that ALP/SMG paid the going rate to Mel Bay but I wasn't there to check.
4. There were reprints that referenced the TV series. There were a lot before that, and they were the ones I was talking about.
5. WorldCat lists far more different formats and arrangements for that piece of shit than I have the patience to sift through.

So Jack Campin has not found any entry on WorldCat to support his claim.
And Nigel Gatherer considers Ashokan Farewell a beautiful air, while Jack Campin does not.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 09:50 AM

it would have been safer for Nigel Gatherer to call his collection 'Tunes played in Scotland' -the way it's done in Ireland 'Songs Sung in Ireland'.

Such vagueness means you can include stuff from everywhere & they can't touch you for it, mate

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 06:57 AM

So no interpretive subtleties in this then here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kZASM8OX7s
It's all in the dots?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 06:42 AM

Thanks for the clarification. I've no quarrel with Nigel Gatherer. He has made a great contribution to keeping folk music alive - and what an appropriate name for a collector! But it is interesting that he has found a place for Ashokan Farewell in his Scottish Collection.

We still have not established when the sheet music for Ashokan Farewell was published. Jack Campin has been unable to find anything to support his claim that ""Ashokan Farewell" was published by Mel Bay on 1 January 1983. Must have made Ungar a fair bit in that form, before the Civil War royalties started rolling in."

I don't know why Jack thinks that the size of the royalties is relevant. And I don't know why he thinks that his more disagreeable posts contribute to the discussion, e.g. "WorldCat lists far more different formats and arrangements for that piece of shit than I have the patience to sift through."

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 05:57 AM

Henryp, Nigel’s various great collections have only appeared in much more recent times.
I was referring to when he first published it in his Session Tune books in 1999, which many ALP Scots Music Group students would have bought, myself included. It appears in Session Tunes Book 2. In the introduction to the book, Nigel says:
“The second collection of session tunes is slightly different from the first booklet. As well as the standard tunes popular in sessions, we are fortunate to be able to include some more recent compositions. We’ve had contributions from world-famous musicians such as Jay Ungar, the illustrious American fiddler,……”
And at the back of the book, he has further notes, including details of how the tune came about, as detailed in other posts above, the famous quote from Ungar himself - “he sometimes introduces it as -a Scottish lament written by a Jewish guy from the Bronx -…. (See also RA’s comment!)
Nigel further goes on to record his gratitude for Jay’s permission to publish it, and to say that “this beautiful air has captured the hearts and imagination of musicians from all around the world”.
Why am I telling you all this? Just felt the need to clarify that Nigel knows what he’s talking about, and gave all the correct details in his FIRST publication of the tune. What he has put on his website and into his various collections since is fine by me and many others who use this valuable resource.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jim McLean
Date: 13 Aug 24 - 04:23 AM

To my ear, it sounds like a play on the Rose of Tralee.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: meself
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 05:18 PM

"The tune was not intended to have interpretive subtleties." Should anyone care about that? On the odd occasion I find myself having a go at it - always with some external prompt; it's not a favourite of mine - I give it what I think could charitably be characterized as "interpretive subtleties"- or less charitably as "interpretive stumblings", I suppose .....

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 05:10 PM

The copyright date of the piece (1983) is not necessarily the date of the sheet music publication - especially when that publication references Ken Burns's "The Civil War.'

There were reprints that referenced the TV series. There were a lot before that, and they were the ones I was talking about. You can just go on Abe or Ebay and buy one if you want. Hint, this was published a bit before Keira Knightley could feature on the cover:

Pride and Prejudice

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 02:43 PM

GUEST, RA; That's a splendid sentiment! Alas, not all the messages posted on this thread are as charitable;

WorldCat lists far more different formats and arrangements for that piece of shit than I have the patience to sift through.

It was written to be played en masse by a fiddle school (as their closing number).

The tune was not intended to have interpretive subtleties.

I have an ambition to play it as a jig to get it over with faster but haven't figured out how yet.

"Ashokan Farewell" was published by Mel Bay on 1 January 1983. Must have made Ungar a fair bit in that form, before the Civil War royalties started rolling in.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 12:53 PM

Well, maybe it's been accepted as Scottish now! We're not an ethnonationalist state, after all - all who make their home here are Scots.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 09:09 AM

henryp; But did they not recognise that it wasn't actually a Scots tune?

Tattie Bogle; Correction 1: many people who attend(ed) Scots Music Group got the dots for Ashokan Farewell from one of their tutors’ books.
Nigel Gatherer sought permission from Jay Ungar to publish the score before printing it in said book. So they will know it is not a Scottish tune.

Nigel Gatherer has compiled a large collection of American Music with seven different sections. But Nigel must have thought it more appropriate
to put Ashokan Farewell in The Scottish Collection in the section Airs & Song Airs;

Ashokan Farewell slow air/lament
        
This tune was composed by Jay Ungar in the style, he has said, of a Scottish lament, and descriptive
of his "sense of loss and longing" at the end of one of the Ashokan Music & Dance Camps.

This set is part of the following collections: Nigel Gatherer's Scottish Collection.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 07:36 AM

One last time:

The copyright date of the piece (1983) is not necessarily the date of the sheet music publication - especially when that publication references Ken Burns's "The Civil War.'

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 04:56 AM

henryp; But did they not recognise that it wasn't actually a Scots tune?

Jack Campin; They've never confined themselves to Scots material. Look at Nigel Gatherer's site, he included lots of (better) Americana early on.

Nigel Gatherer's wonderful collection does indeed have a large number of tunes under the heading American Music but, oddly, Ashokan Farewell is included in The Scottish Collection under Airs & Song Airs.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 12 Aug 24 - 03:43 AM

Correction 1: many people who attend(ed) Scots Music Group got the dots for Ashokan Farewell from one of their tutors’ books. Nigel Gatherer sought permission from Jay Ungar to publish the score before printing it in said book. So they will know it is not a Scottish tune.
Correction 2: “some” or even “a few” (not “a lot”) of people have not memorised the tune in 40 years, but vast numbers have. I, for one, have been playing it from memory for years: the only time I use the dots is when playing the very nice harmony part that another tutor wrote.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 11 Aug 24 - 08:07 PM

It was played in Edinburgh sessions long before the Civil War series came out. Those session players got it on paper from the Scots Music Group (SMG) of the Gorgie-Dalry Adult Learning Project (ALP).

So now we know! That's where Jay Ungar gained those lucrative early royalties from - the Scots Music Group of the Gorgie-Dalry Adult Learning Project!

Local folk music organizations the world over reproduce stuff from commercial publishers all the time.   I would expect that ALP/SMG paid the going rate to Mel Bay but I wasn't there to check. They often explicitly credit copyright holders.


But did they not recognise that it wasn't actually a Scots tune?

They've never confined themselves to Scots material. Look at Nigel Gatherer's site, he included lots of (better) Americana early on.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 11 Aug 24 - 07:51 PM

A lot of those players are still reading it from the books having not managed to memorize it in nearly 40 years.
That may be a sign of the way they were taught.

Sort of. It's a sign of how the organization has failed to meet its original objectives. If you visit Edinburgh, PM me and you can see for yourself what's gone wrong. They aren't the only one, but it didn't need to happen.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 24 - 07:40 PM

The WorldCat entry is for an ebook. They didn't exist in 1983.

The 1983 copyright date of the tune is clearly not the same as the date of the Mel Bay publication.

WorldCat lists far more different formats and arrangements for that piece of shit than I have the patience to sift through. The 1983 date is the copyright date for all of them, be it print, electronic, braille or translated into Amharic. Look for sites that sell sheet music and you will immediately come across printed ones with the 1983 publication date.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 11 Aug 24 - 06:37 AM

> A lot of those players are still reading it from their
> books having not managed to memorize it in nearly 40 years.

That may be a sign of the way they were taught. As I've said elsewhere, my godmother used to play the piano for school assemblies; whenever I lamented that I couldn't sight-read, she complained that if a hymn had four verses, she had to sight-read it four times.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 11 Aug 24 - 02:37 AM

From: GUEST,Jack Campin Date: 09 Aug 24 - 08:49 PM: "Ashokan Farewell" was published by Mel Bay on 1 January 1983. Must have made Ungar a fair bit in that form, before the Civil War royalties started rolling in.

From: GUEST Date: 10 Aug 24 - 08:19 PM; It was played in Edinburgh sessions long before the Civil War series came out. Those session players got it on paper from the Scots Music Group (SMG) of the Gorgie-Dalry Adult Learning Project (ALP). A lot of those players are still reading it from their books having not managed to memorize it in nearly 40 years.

So now we know! That's where Jay Ungar gained those lucrative early royalties from - the Scots Music Group of the Gorgie-Dalry Adult Learning Project! But did they not recognise that it wasn't actually a Scots tune?

Many folk musicians are poorly rewarded financially for their work. I am therefore very pleased to learn that Jay Ungar has earned both respect and financial rewards for all his efforts to preserve and promote folk arts.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 08:52 PM

The WorldCat entry is for an ebook. They didn't exist in 1983.

The 1983 copyright date of the tune is clearly not the same as the date of the Mel Bay publication.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 08:19 PM

Mel Bay themselves say Ungar wrote it in 1982:

https://www.melbay.com/Author/Default.aspx?AuthorId=37874

WorldCat lists the publication date by Mel Bay as 1983. It can't have been in purely oral circulation for more than a few months and I suspect the period is more likely to have been measured in hours before he wrote it down.

It was played in Edinburgh sessions long before the Civil War series came out. Those session players got it on paper from the Scots Music Group (SMG) of the Gorgie-Dalry Adult Learning Project (ALP). A lot of those players are still reading it from their books having not managed to memorize it in nearly 40 years.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 03:18 PM

The "issue" isn't the copyright date. It's the publication date of the sheet music, which freezes the tune.

Before that, people could have learned the tune only by ear, either from the Fiddle Fever recording, from Jay Ungar in person, or at one or more removes from someone who'd learned it from him.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Reinhard
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 01:38 PM

The Mel Bay Publications website says "Date Published: 1/1/1983" too, so Amazon may have got the date from that. But the actual music sheet says "©Copyright 1983 by Swinging Door Music / This arrangement ©Copyright 1992 by Swinging Door Music"

And the Mel Bay publication comprises not only the Ashokan Farewell sheet music but also the Civil War era "Sullivan Ballou Letter" and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I can't believe that this combination would have been offered for sale seven years before the Civil War TV documentation.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: DaveRo
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 12:56 PM

It appeared on the 1984 LP 'Waltz Of The Wind' by 'Fiddle Fever', which included Jay Ungar and Molly Mason:
https://www.discogs.com/release/6522303-Fiddle-Fever-Waltz-Of-The-Wind
So 1983 is a very plausible copyright date - i.e. the date when Ungar or his agent made the copyright deposit.

The first printed sheet music may have followed years later, when The Civil War popularised it. Perhaps he xeroxed a few dozen copies for his students in the '80s. Perhaps they played by ear.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 11:05 AM

In my experience, Amazon publication dates often state "Jan. 1" when they don't know the precise day of the year.

But year 1983 for the Mel Bay sheet music on Amazon may be incorrect. The cover says, "Theme from the Soundtrack of the PBS Series 'The Civil War,' a Film by Ken Burns....Also includes the Sullivan Ballou letter...."

If there was an earlier 1983 printing, without the "Civil War" material, I haven't located it.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 07:45 AM

You can buy the sheet music from Amazon, who clearly state that the publication date was Jan 1 1983.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 02:47 AM

Jay Ungar has provided us with the story behind this waltz, mainly performed by solo violin, with guitar and bass accompaniment: “Ashokan Farewell was named for Ashokan, a camp in the Catskill Mountains not far from Woodstock, New York. It’s the place where Molly Mason and I have run the Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps for adults and families since 1980. Ashokan is the name of a town, most of which is now under a very beautiful and magical body of water called the Ashokan Reservoir...

“I composed Ashokan Farewell in 1982 shortly after our Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps had come to an end for the season. I was feeling a great sense of loss and longing for the music, the dancing and the community of people that had developed at Ashokan that summer. I was having trouble making the transition from a secluded woodland camp with a small group of people who needed little excuse to celebrate the joy of living, back to life as usual, with traffic, newscasts, telephones and impersonal relationships. By the time the tune took form, I was in tears. I kept it to myself for months, unable to fully understand the emotions that welled up whenever I played it. I had no idea that this simple tune could affect others in the same way.

“Ashokan Farewell was written in the style of a Scottish lament. I sometimes introduce it as, ‘a Scottish lament written by a Jewish guy from the Bronx.’ I lived in the Bronx until the age of sixteen.” - Program Note by Foothill Symphonic Winds concert program, 8 March 2015

This gorgeous melody became famous as part of the soundtrack to the television mini-series The Civil War. Composed by Jay Ungar for solo fiddle, the piece works perfectly for concert band. - Program Note from publisher

Jack Campin writes; "Ashokan Farewell" was published by Mel Bay on 1 January 1983. Must have made Ungar a fair bit in that form, before the Civil War royalties started rolling in. I don't have that print collection but I doubt it varies one little bit from what all the thousands of Ashokan fiddle camp participants played as their final number over the next 40 years.

1 January 1983? Are you sure, Jack? This doesn't ring true to me. And, as you say, you don't have that print collection. I'm not surprised! Jay Ungar wrote the tune after the summer of 1982, and says he kept the tune to himself for months. The tune could not possibly have been widely known by January 1983. I don't see how Mel Bay could have published it then. In that case, it would be wrong to say that the royalties started rolling in then too.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 10 Aug 24 - 01:38 AM

Ruth [Ungar], before she and Mike performed the tune, talked a little about it, how it paid for her way through university and how her dad is still surprised after all these years with its success. She talked about meeting a street performer in Scotland and how performing Ashokan Farewell on his fiddle always brought the best money. “My dad would be so pleased,” she said. [Stereo Stories by Luke R Davies October 2019]

Filmmaker Ken Burns used it in two of his documentary films: Huey Long (1985), and The Civil War (1990), which features the original recording by Fiddle Fever. In the UK, Classic FM broadcast it frequently. In 2013, the performance by solo violinist Major John Perkins of The Band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines was voted no. 36 in Classic FM's (UK) Hall of Fame.

The royalties come from sheet music sales and recording and performance rights, and we can only guess which are greater. Nor can we be sure whether more musicians have learned the tune by ear or from the printed page. But my guess is that most have learned it by ear.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 08:49 PM

"Ashokan Farewell" was published by Mel Bay on 1 January 1983. Must have made Ungar a fair bit in that form, before the Civil War royalties started rolling in. I don't have that print collection but I doubt it varies one little bit from what all the thousands of Ashokan fiddle camp participants played as their final number over the next 40 years.

Print doesn't have to be used that way. Almost all the standard ceilidh band repertoire got into it from a paper source; the selection of good tunes was usually very quick, folk processing didn't come into it. Think about "Staten Island"; Desert Dancer and I had a discussion about it here where we pinned down its origin to the aftermath of the Battle of Long Island in 1776. It had to have been created for a dance assembly in New York celebrating the British triumph (which later became one of history's greatest examples of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory). Those repeated C naturals are British cannon shots smashing into the American forces (play them with feeling). That tune was in print in the second volume of Aird's collection in Glasgow in the very early 1780s. It was an immediate success and has been played pretty close to the way Aird had it ever since. There was no time for it to get refined by an extended process of oral transmission: some danceband leader in NYC thought it up, somebody passed on to Aird in a notebook with the regimental marches used in the battle and Aird just engraved the whole lot with zero effort at arrangement. It got more variation than Ashokan Farewell (somebody tried to lose the C naturals and retitle it; posterity told them to get stuffed) but even with no known composer shepherding it along the way Ungar does, it stuck.

One example of a tune that did follow Steve's model: "The Dashing White Sergeant". If you look up Henry Bishop's original song you will notice (a) it's rather crap and (b) nobody could ever dance a reel to it. I don't know how it got into its modern form (as in Kerr, late 1870s) but the change was drastic and much for the better.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 05:47 PM

Thing is, you're talking about "arrangements." If you play an arrangement, you play the notes on the page and your ability as an instrumentalist to put your interpretation on the music has all but disappeared. If you play in a big bunch of unison players, likewise. As far as I can make out, this was Jack's take, more or less. That doesn't take away from the fact that you can do what you like with the tune if you're playing it solo in or in a very tight agreement with one or two others. But how dull. And if you do it in a session it becomes a mess. Doing your own thing in traditional tune-playing, with reactive listening to your fellow sessioneers, is a time-honoured, collaborative, ego-free and fun process. No room for predetermined arrangements, less still, dots.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 09:12 AM

Jack Campin; Whatever makes you think that Ashokan Farewell was not intended to have interpretive subtleties? When did Jay Ungar say that? And I've never heard before that it was written to be played en masse by a fiddle school (as their closing number). What makes you think it was?

Jay Ungar describes the song as coming out of "a sense of loss and longing" after the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps ended. Before its use as the television series theme, "Ashokan Farewell" was recorded on Waltz of the Wind, the second album by the band Fiddle Fever (1984). The musicians included Ungar and Mason.

Jay Ungar and Molly Mason included it on their album Harvest Home, released in 1999. Jay Ungar (fiddle) & Molly Mason (guitar, piano) play it on Fiddle Hell Online Jam #27 July 12 2020; the focus is on "Favorite Tunes from the Ashokan Camps" (which they have founded and have run for 40 years). Another arrangement, featuring Ungar, Mason, and their family band, is performed with two violins, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo, with the piece beginning with a solo violin. Then there is the performance on Transatlantic Sessions.

All these performances, with a certain amount of expressive refinement, presumably give some indication of how Jay Ungar imagined that his tune might be played.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 08:12 AM

When it comes to traditional Irish music (and Scottish and Northumbrian too), playing from dots doesn't work. If you have 500 or 1000 tunes under your belt already that you've learned by ear, then maybe, just maybe, you can fast-track the learning of a new tune from dots. Otherwise, it's anathema. There will be those of us here (me included) who have sat with pretty decent musicians used to playing music from other genres requiring a more formal approach who try to play "our stuff" from dots who simply don't get it. As the estimable Alan Ng said on his website (forgive a possible slight misquote), learn it by ear and learn it right.

As for Ashokan Farewell, it's not a traditional tune but that doesn't mean you can't meddle around with it if you're playing the melody on your own. But that isn't exactly the folk process at work. Every time I've heard it played by a bunch of people trying to do their own thing with it, it's been a bit of a mess. Maybe in a hundred years' time it'll evolve nicely. I doubt it.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 06:09 AM

GUEST, I was describing how the tune is actually played, and how it always has been played. When it's done by massed fiddles it makes absolutely no difference whether they're reading from a score or playing from memory. No individual expression gets through. And Ungar wrote it to be played by massed fiddles.

I have an ambition to play it as a jig to get it over with faster but haven't figured out how yet.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 06:06 AM

Jack Campin "The tune was not intended to have interpretive subtleties. It was written to be played en masse by a fiddle school (as their closing number). Expressive refinement doesn't happen when there are 20 or 30 people playing in unison. There can't be anything there that isn't in the notation."

I don't think Jack is correct here. He may dismiss it as a tune to be played en masse by a fiddle school - is that such a bad thing? But that doesn't mean it was deliberately written as one. As we have seen, it can lend itself to many different performances.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 05:54 AM

*Agree*, Helen. I drove my piano teacher spare, because my ear was (and is) so much faster than my eye that I would learn a piece by ear,* then play from memory, rather than sight-read. It didn't help that I have astigmatism, so the lines of the stave tend to run into one another.

Apologies for having said all this elsewhere. But as they (are alleged to) say in the Forces: One size fits nobody.

* Or piece the dots out *very* *slowly*.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 05:29 AM

A little story:

One of the members of our music session group is a slave to the dots. He does not "get" traditional music, I think.

One day he started playing Tansey's Fancy, as written, and we told him to stop because that isn't how the tune goes. In fact I didn't recognise the tune from the way he played it.

On the other hand, I have dyslexia and I cannot recite poetry, remember lyrics, or play music by ear or remember the melody of more than a handful of tunes. I need the dots. One thing I learned when I was a teacher is that everyone has a different learning style or different capabilities and a one-size-fits-all approach can make it difficult for people with different learning capabilities.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 05:10 AM

Helen- I think were on the same page musically! But Jack Campin I could not disagree more. Your approach is the classical one rather than traditional & no doubt why so many Scottish 'sessions' feature music stands! A dot is a dot & is technically correct, but you simply cannot say that the tune was 'not intended to have interpretative subtleties' It HAS, whether the composer meant it to or not!!

And as for the statement that 'there cannot be anything there that is not in the notation' I simply despair - I doubt if even classically trained musicians would claim that & in the context of traditional music, it is totally against the whole context of ANY kind oftraditional music

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 09 Aug 24 - 04:49 AM

The tune was not intended to have interpretive subtleties. It was written to be played en masse by a fiddle school (as their closing number). Expressive refinement doesn't happen when there are 20 or 30 people playing in unison. There can't be anything there that isn't in the notation.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 06:31 AM

Well Guest, as I often say to my musical friends, the music notation (i.e. the dots) are only a mnemonic to remind us of the notes to play and we really need to know how the music goes to play it properly. That is especially true of a lot of Irish music. Playing it as read can sound mechanical and soulless, but playing it as heard brings a whole different feeling to it, in melody, in rhythm, in culture and in soul.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 05:38 AM

Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. I haven't heard their names for many, many years. I saw them perform live in Newcastle, Oz a long time ago. Brilliant!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 05:34 AM

Helen- I get what you say BUT if you play or sing any song from the dots, you are getting it second hand. The dots cannot express the subtleties of a live performance by the source, and that is true in any context.
You will interpret the dots your own way & then it is third hand. Much better to hear Jay Ungar play it (I think you've done that?) forget the dots & then do it your way, and certainly in all cases do not slavishly follow the dots- such a policy is totally against the whole concept of traditional music & I'm sure Jay Ungar would agree

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 04:56 AM

P.s. One set of lyrics above in the DigiTrad: just click on the link. The other set were by Cleo Laine and John Dankworth.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Aug 24 - 04:52 AM

There are already two sets of lyrics at least, which I found some years ago on Mudcat here: they have been approved by Jay Ungar. You would have to ask him if he would approve yours.

Quite hard to sing, with a range of over two octaves unless you do some octave-jumping! We did just this at another session the other week, with some brave singers using the two sets of lyrics that I mentioned.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 07:33 PM

Having watched Ken Burns' Civil War, I wrote some lyrics to the tune. I'm not sure what to do with them. I don't know very much about copyrights.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 07:16 PM

That was beautiful. Thanks gillymor.

The last comment on that page was, "Instructions: 1. Close eyes. 2 Listen to the end. 3. Let out deep sigh" but I would add 4. Wipe a tear from your eye.

And when they all play that lovely accidental in unison at 3 mins 40 - transcendental!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 06:27 PM

Aly Bain starts it off with Ungar and ensemble at the Transatlantic Sessions. Ashokan Farewell

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 02:36 PM

Thanks Tattie Bogle and Guest. I especially liked Molly Mason playing the melody on the guitar and her gentle chord riffs for the rest of the tune.

Tattie Bogle, the instruments in your group of friends would sound good.

And Guest, our group of musical friends have the dots but they are the same as played by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. There was a very old copy (decades, not just years) of the music from a tune book, so possibly straight from the source.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 01:54 PM

thats the right message Helen- go to the source for the way it's done....for English tunes, go to Scan Tester rather than getting it from others or in other contexts Harry Cox or Charlie Poole or Jimmy McBeath or Tom Anderson - or worse still, from the dots

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Aug 24 - 06:49 AM

Thanks Helen, for the link. Yes, that’s the way to do it!
Played it with a group of friends yesterday morning, nice and slow. 5 fiddles, 3 concertinas, 1 each of piano accordion, melodeon, guitar and octave mandolin.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 08:26 PM

I'm a bit biased because my diatonic instrument of choice (a low D harmonica) can't play that Cnat cleanly enough, but I would agree withJack (if that's what he thinks) about that note. Maybe it sits well enough in the context of an American tune but, to me anyway, it sounds oddly out of place. Almost, but not quite as bad as, that note in the Padstow Lifeboat or the ones in Staten Island. ;-)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Helen
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 07:57 PM

I like it played this way:

Folk Alley Sessions: Jay Ungar & Molly Mason Family Band

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 07:46 PM

Nicola Benedetti just happens to be our foremost Scottish classical violinist, recognised the world over, and current director of Edinburgh International Festival: not bad, eh? The tune does get played in differing ways by different violinists and fiddlers: different tempos, phrasing, more or less double-stopping, more or less harmony with other instruments, etc.
As for what Jack Campin thinks (friend of mine), I know he doesn’t like the tune in question, especially that C Nat: he has been known to describe it as a “leave the room moment”. If he sees this thread, he’ll probably confirm that in no uncertain terms!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 02:25 PM

Guest Johnmmc

Not Tongue in cheek at all. I never heard the violinist's name and even if I had I wouldn't have known if she was well known or not.

As I mentioned above I prefer Fiddle players to violinists. Buddy Thomas for example.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: DaveRo
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 01:40 PM

As I already posted.

The arrangement played by Ms Bendetti in the BBC program heard by the OP and the interview with Laura Kuenssberg I mentioned is different.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 12:05 PM

Homecoming - A Scottish Fantasy Release Date: 7th Jul 2014 Catalogue No: 4786696 Label: Decca Length: 70 minutes

Nicola Benedetti (violin, fiddle), Phil Cunningham (accordion, piano), Ewen Vernal (double bass), Tony Byrne (guitar), Éamon Doorley (bouzouki), Duncan Chisholm (fiddle), James MacIntosh (percussion), Julie Fowlis (vocals), Aly Bain (fiddle), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rory Macdonald

Ungar: Ashokan Farewell Work length 3:42 Nicola Benedetti (violin)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rory Macdonald
Recorded: 2014-01-21 Recording Venue: City Halls, Glasgow

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,johnmc
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 09:07 AM

"An apparently well-known violinist ".
Tongue in cheek, surely.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 04:48 AM

Different versions you hear may or may not be played with Scotch snaps...

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST,RA
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 04:38 AM

To me, as a Scottish person, it does actually sound as though it has a few characteristics in common with certain Scottish slow airs. I'd say that the composer is definitely familiar with the work of Niel Gow, for example.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 04:22 AM

to rephrase I said earlier, it's in the ear of the listener! We are attuned to the material we have heard over the years & judge accordingly, based only on that unless we want to engage in baseless pseudo-intellectualism

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 03:51 AM

I do not think it sounds like a scottish air.
Jack Campin seems to be an authority on Scottish tunes, I would value his opinion

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 06 Aug 24 - 03:28 AM

GUEST,German Bight said
> Richard Mellish, airs are common in the Irish Tradition, as well as the Scottish Tradition.

Indeed they are, but this discussion has been about how Scottish or not the tune seems: no-one has suggested it could be Irish.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Aug 24 - 08:13 PM

I made a mistake in my last post, referring to "Aeolian" when I meant "Ionian!" Thanks for being such a restrained bunch in not correcting me out loud! Anyway, in every regard except for that C natural, it's an Ionian mode tune (OK, so the tonic is D, not C, you purists!) and, after my decades of having to play it, it wasn't until I read this thread that I've heard it described as "sounding Scottish." Not to my ear it doesn't!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Aug 24 - 07:05 PM

I had heard the quote given by DaveRo above, about it Jay Ungar (not Jungar!) himself saying that he wrote it “in the style of a Scottish lament”. As a Scot, I don’t find it particularly Scottish sounding, and that one Cnat doesn’t really make it a mixolydian tune, if you compare it with our many “mix” pipe tunes.
I do think it is a lovely tune, but needs to be played slowly - yes, as a lament - with lots of expression, rather than romped through mechanically as a swingy waltz which happens in too many pub sessions.
I was somewhat gobsmacked to hear a different arrangement the other week, when it was put into an up tempo 4/4 almost reggae rhythm: almost unrecognisable: I hope Jay got his royalties for that!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,German Bight
Date: 03 Aug 24 - 07:29 AM

Richard Mellish, airs are common in the Irish Tradition, as well as the Scottish Tradition.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 03 Aug 24 - 04:58 AM

I wonder what I was thinking when I wrote this! It should, of course, be guitar. Nobody made fun of it, thank you.

[Evan Stover] took it with him when he joined Walt Michael & Co, who were very welcome guests at the Girvan Folk Festival.
Walt Michael - hammered dulcimer/pencil, Frank Orsini - fiddle, Evan Stover - fiddle/viola, John Kirk - bass (I think!)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,German Bight
Date: 03 Aug 24 - 02:24 AM

The BBC once again displays its Ignorance.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 24 - 05:14 PM

Fair point from Steve Shaw maybe. It would only be a flat 7th if it was mixolydian, which is where the later-appearing 7th often figures. Without those other unstressed non-flat 7ths maybe it would sound more Scottish.

Still a great tune though.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Sol
Date: 02 Aug 24 - 04:51 PM

Quote from recent Guest -" Yes, great tune. My "however" would be that the single late-appearing flat 7th is characteristically Scottish and for me the tune maybe wouldn't sound all that Scottish without it. "

I'm sure we're both referring to the same 'tension' note. I said '7th' as I would when referring to a guitar chord. It is a flat 7th, as you say.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Aug 24 - 07:44 PM

That Cnat in the B part is a pig for harmonica players. On a low D diatonic it's next to impossible to play with a bend or an overbend at all cleanly, especially as it's a long note. I have to resort to my D chromatic, which is what is less desirable. I can't agree that it "sounds Scottish." Scottish tunes might resort to mixolydian mode, but they don't usually chuck a nefarious accidental into an aeolian mode tune. Not usually... ;-)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: gillymor
Date: 01 Aug 24 - 09:27 AM

I hear elements of Scottish and American music in it and in the B section it sounds a bit like themes from Hollywood TV Westerns in the late 50's and early 60's.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Aug 24 - 08:38 AM

Whether it "sounds" Scottish to some and whether it "is" Scottish in fact are two different and independent questions.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 24 - 08:02 AM

(A different guest)

Great tune however, that 7th has always been 'the seller' for me. (Sol above)

Yes, great tune. My "however" would be that the single late-appearing flat 7th is characteristically Scottish and for me the tune maybe wouldn't sound all that Scottish without it.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 10:32 PM

I play this on my 107-year-old piano in the key of D. It has an Am in the middle of it which makes the song sound so American, and so 19th-century, that every time I get to that measure I see a huge green landscape with a little pioneer town with one steeple nestled between two hills.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 06:22 PM

Thanks DaveRo, I'll check it out. I've been using your excellent Linkmaker since you recommended it to me.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: DaveRo
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 02:58 PM

əˈʃoʊˌkæn

(You need my Browser Tools addon ;)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 01:18 PM

Sorry this bit "/?'?o??kæn/" is the phonetic pronunciation characters which did not copy into plain text. Please ignore that bit or look at the Wiki article for more info.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 01:16 PM

Guest, the original place of composition is well known for
Ashokan Farewell

"'Ashokan Farewell' /?'?o??kæn/ is a piece of music composed by the American folk musician Jay Ungar in 1982. For many years, it served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps, run by Ungar and his wife Molly Mason, who gave the tune its name, at the Ashokan Field Campus of SUNY New Paltz (now the Ashokan Center) in Upstate New York.[1]

"The tune was used as the title theme of the 1990 PBS television miniseries The Civil War.[2] Despite its late date of composition, it was included in the 1991 compilation album Songs of the Civil War."

Your link refers to an Indian restaurant in Ashton Lane, Glasgow so it isnot relevant to the discussion of the song.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 12:15 PM

How could anything named "Ashokan" be Scottish?

Ashoka in Glasgow

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: DaveRo
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 12:13 PM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021hbv

The comments are made by the interviewer, starting at 2:57:40

Certainly a somewhat free arrangement!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 11:32 AM

The programme that I was referring to was BBC Radio 4's TODAY programme. It was just before 9.00 am. I had just woken up at the end of an interview about the Edinburgh Festival the violinist said what tune she was going out with at the end of the interview and the announcer introduced it as I quoted above.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Jeri
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 11:27 AM

I once was hiding out from the rain at the Old Songs Festival a LONG time ago, and Jay Ungar was there. I told him I could immediately play it, the first time I heard it (in a session - never saw the Ken Burns program before then). I told him it felt like he plucked that tune out of some collection of all the music that ever existed. I still feel that way - the tune was just always there. It's probably the same reason some people are sick of it the first time they hear it. (Haha)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: DaveRo
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 07:56 AM

GUEST,patriot wrote: I'm not sure if DaveRo's quote is from her interview with Laura K or on the performance in question.

It's from a transcript of "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg" broadcast somewhere on the BBC on 21st July 2O24. She discusses arts funding in general, the Edinburgh Festival in particular, and seems to end with her playing this piece. Reading it again, I don't think that when she said "[it] pays homage to the Scottish mythology and the Scottish sound" that she was referring to Jay Jungar's intention - the tune's origins are well known and I sure she knows them - so much as the way she interprets it.

I don't know on what BBC program the OP heard the remark about it being traditional. Since the Kuenssberg interview was recent I thought it was possible that the performance was the same.

Benedetti has appeared on the Transatlantic Sessions and there a video of her and Aly Bain discussing their music, if you want to find out more.

Looking though some of the links prepended to this this thread, this morning, I came upon this quote, attributed to Jungar:

Ashokan Farewell is written in the style of a Scottish lament or Irish
Air. I sometimes introduce it as, "a Scottish lament written by a
Jewish guy from the Bronx." (I lived in the Bronx untiI the age of 16.)

From this post.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 05:31 AM

Evan Stover arranged "Ashokan Farewell" for Waltz of the Wind, the second album by the band Fiddle Fever, 1984.
Fiddle – Matt Glaser, Russ Barenberg; Fiddle, Mandolin – Jay Ungar; Fiddle, Viola – Evan Stover; Guitar – Molly Mason, Russ Barenberg

He took it with him when he joined Walt Michael & Co, who were very welcome guests at the Girvan Folk Festival.
Walt Michael - hammered dulcimer/pencil, Frank Orsini - fiddle, Evan Stover - fiddle/viola, John Kirk - bass (I think!)

In 1984, filmmaker Ken Burns heard "Ashokan Farewell" and was moved by it. He used it in two of his documentary films: Huey Long (1985), and The Civil War (1990), which features the original recording by Fiddle Fever in the beginning of the film. Wikipedia

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,patriot
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 05:19 AM

I'm not sure if DaveRo's quote is from her interview with Laura K or on the performance in question.

But that particular quote strikes me as only too typical of the current fad for pseudo-academic analysis of a simple and brilliant tune by a classical musician, almost as an apology for playing such a low brow tune, unfortunately written by a non-classical composer.

It is no more Scottish than Irish or Galician or Welsh or sri Lankan- it's just more pretentious crap with no basis is fact

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: DaveRo
Date: 31 Jul 24 - 03:25 AM

Having said that Benedetti's arrangement of Ashokan Farewell with the SSO (which crops up if you google the combination) sounds like a bad idea I thought I'd better listen to it. It's on a 2014 album based on Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, Op. 46, which presumably accounts for the presence of the SSO.

Homecoming - A Scottish Fantasy
Nicola Benedetti (violin, fiddle), Phil Cunningham (accordion, piano), Ewen Vernal (double bass), Tony Byrne (guitar), Éamon Doorley (bouzouki), Duncan Chisholm (fiddle), James MacIntosh (percussion), Julie Fowlis (vocals), Aly Bain (fiddle)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Rory Macdonald (2014)
   
There are samples - including of Ashokan Farewell - here:
https://www.nicolabenedetti.co.uk/recordings-details/homecoming-a-scottish-fantasy

Curiously the last two tracks are not on the 2024 re-release, Ashokan Farewell and this:
trad.: Chan e caoidh Mhic Shiridh (It Is Not MacShiridh I Lament)
Ewen Vernal (double bass), Nicola Benedetti (fiddle), Duncan Chisholm (fiddle), Phil Cunningham (piano)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 05:23 PM

No, I'm a frayed knot! :-)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 05:15 PM

Helen,
If you're Hase Waits I might just do that.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 05:09 PM

And Guest, perhaps you should re-read what DaveRo said on Date: 30 Jul 24 - 07:10 AM.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 04:41 PM

Guest,
When the play lists are submitted to the collection agencies they are the people who decide how the money collected in licensing fees is distributed to writers / publishers / performers.

I don't know to which discredited organisation you are referring.
"traditional arranged by" is used by a performer so that they can be paid as arrangers when using non cop material.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 03:56 PM

how can that be if they don't even know who wrote it- or is describing it as 'traditional' another moneysaving wheeze from this discredited organisation?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 03:16 PM

Guest, THE BBC does not pay royallties direct to artistes but to collection agencies such as MCPS and PPL in the UK and they will, have or should have the correct composer details.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 02:08 PM

Steve Gardham, come to our regular music session and we'll play it for you on whistle, harp - plus fiddle, mandolin & Irish flute. :-)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 02:02 PM

It doesn't matter whether it 'could pass for Scottish'. It was written by a man who deserves credit for it.

I would hope he chases the BBC for royalties on this broadcast performance on the BBC, who know Rockall about traditional music anyway.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 01:42 PM

To be fair, one does associate slow airs much more with Scotland than with the USA, and this one could pass for Scottish.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 01:40 PM

Played almost daily on Classic FM. I'd love to hear it played on whistle and harp.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: Sol
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 01:20 PM

Great tune however, that 7th has always been 'the seller' for me.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - [NOT] A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 12:21 PM

The first version of it I heard was a duet by the Northumbrian piper Pauline Cato and the fiddler Tom McConville, both on record and at a gig at Bodmin folk club when it was at the Garland Ox with Vic Legg running the show, so that dates it! Vic - now there was a man...

A version I can live with...

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 10:08 AM

I only heard he play the first few bars as I was on my way out but, when she started, I assumed she was still tuning up. I much prefer the Jay Ungar version.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: gillymor
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 09:17 AM

Yep, at our session we play it just once a year, usually at the Xmas party, so we don't wear it out. Playing it inspires a lot of warm feelings.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 08:33 AM

"Pays homage to Scottish mythology"?!

It pays homage to Camp Ashokan at the Ashokan Reservoir, near Woodstock in New York State.

I quit listening to it. Not because I got sick of it, but because I don't want it to pall! It's that good!

BTW, Burns released a new and expanded version of The Civil War a few years ago. Even better than before.

(But not as good as his Vietnam War series!)

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 08:09 AM

We must have played the damn thing hundreds of times in our pub sessions. In my view it doesn't bear the multiple repetitions it's often played with in various versions, many of which border on the dreary. Classic FM is not innocent! Nicola Benedetti played it well if not a little idiosyncratically. Mr Ungar is known to be solicitous as to getting the appropriate reward for the performances of his composition and I'm sure he'll get to hear of this!

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: gillymor
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 07:58 AM

Before they played it together on The Transatlantic Sessions Ungar told the great Shetland fiddler Aly Bain that he had Bain in mind when he composed it.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: DaveRo
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 07:10 AM

If that was Nicola Benedetti, who is director of the Edinburgh festival, she was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg recently. She (Benedetti) said:
"I’ll play Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar, which is an American tune actually but really pays homage to the Scottish mythology and the Scottish sound. So, it’s a personalised arrangement of that tune."

Does it? Anyway, she knows who wrote it. There are several recordings of her playing her arrangements online, including with the Scottish Symphony Orchestra - which sounds like bad idea to me.

I too always associate it with Ken Burns' Civil War films.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 07:01 AM

How could anything named "Ashokan" be Scottish?

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,G-Force, not logged in
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 06:33 AM

Makes a change from it being described as Irish.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 05:16 AM

I recently found out that I have been mispronouncing "Ashokan" for many years. Actually since the Ken Burns Civil War movie was released and I also bought the CD.

I thought it was pronounced 'Ash-o-kan, with the emphasis on the first syllable, but a fiddle player I met recently said it is pronounced Ash-'o-kan, with the emphasis on the "oh" sound. I checked a few online videos and I stand corrected. (In my defence, I am an Aussie and most of the place names here with traditional, First Nations history have an emphasis on the first syllable.)

Lovely tune.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 05:02 AM

The way it was played definitely did not have a traditional feel to it.

I was reminded of the occasion when an old time fiddler was being interviewed and he was asked if he could read music. His answer was "not enough to do me any harm". Quite.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: Neil D
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 04:58 AM

Beautiful melody composed by American Jay Ungar. Used to great effect in the Ken Birns Civil War documentary, which by the way is the best thing ever to appear on television.

Subject: RE: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: Helen
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 04:47 AM

Yes, Jay Ungar was the composer. It does have a traditional feel to it, so maybe Mr Ungar can take it as a compliment but he deserves to be recognised for composing it.

Subject: Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament
From: GUEST,Hootennanny
Date: 30 Jul 24 - 04:26 AM

Interesting to hear this morning's BBC Radio's essential news programme signing off an item about the up coming Edinburgh festival. They had just finished an interview with an apparently well known violinist and she signed of the programme and I quote with 'the traditional Scottish lament Ashokan Farewell'. It was described thus twice.
I hope that someone at the BBC or elsewhere will put them right and ensure that the royalties go to the composer and not to the 'traditional arranged by arranged by' violinist.
In addition to that, the way she performed it it was almost unrecognisable. But I guess that is down to personal taste. I prefer fiddle music.