Scottish music and Bluegrass

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 11:55 AM

Boab,
The fiddlers of Cape Breton have the distinction of keeping the old Scottish music alive. The music of Scotland has changed a lot in the last 200 years since the Cape Bretoners left there but on this side of the pond the old stuff has thrived. The same could be said of pipe music but there are less pipers thsn fiddlers here. If one were to listen to Barry Shears or Paul MacNeil pipe people would realize what has been lost in Scotland.
       Obie

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 01:04 AM

Och Malcolm! Well, many a top player scores an own goal some time----
    Here's an odd tidbit; I first became a Barbara Allen enthusiast when I was a kid of ten years of age, learnig it from the singing of the "auld yins". I'm talking now about the late thirties [go on---count on yer fingers!]. When I became heavily involved in Folk clubs and their artistes, I was one who was privileged to cross paths with Nic Jones more than once. Nic sang Barbara Allen in a West -country English accent. I was quite amazed to find it almost identical with the song I learned in Scotland 'way back then.
   George Seto---I had a wee natter with Ali Bain one time and was discussing his "Down Home" T.V. series. He related an experience which he had in Nashville, when he was invited to play in a local venue [a pub, I think]. Ali reckons he sat himself down and began to play reels and jigs from Shetland, Scotland and Ireland--and before he got very far into it he had a half-dozen sitting around him matching note for note! The only difference, apparently, was the name they gave to the tunes. Ali always insisted, incidentally, that the finest fiddlers on Earth DIDN'T come from Ireland, Shetland or any where on that side of the pond; he reckoned that Appalachia deserves that honour.

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 12:34 AM

Oh come on Bliss. It's the sound of the rolling green fields... beautiful.

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 12:32 AM

Thanks!

I'm grateful they ditched the bagpipes too...there's someone lives near me who feels it necessary to practise playing them at six am , though. I'm just not patriotic enough to put up with that...:0)

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From:
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 09:02 PM

Bliss, if you look at where the main Bluegrass (and for that matter Country & Western) music developed, you will notice a pattern where a lot of the immigrants had been from Gaelic speaking areas of Scotland and Ireland. They brought the themes, and rhythms of their music and singing to America. The places they settled, along with English settlers for the most part, were places where the music was kept alive. Places such as the Appalachians, Virginia, the Tennessee region, North Carolina, and such all benefited by the waves of relatives coming after the original settlers. As they mingled with the Black settlers not only was the music changed, but some of the dancing was passed along. There seems to be a migrant path for the Step-dancing of Scotland and Ireland with the American Tap-dance and Clogging. Also, Irish/Scottish Set Dancing became the American Square Dance.

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: GUEST,Obie
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 04:57 AM

Munro (and its spelling variations, Monro, Munroe, Monroe, etc. )is a Highland Scottish Clan . Somewhere in Bill Monroe's family tree that would be his heritage.
Also you must make a distinction between the music of the Highlands and The Lowlands, as the traditional stuff from each area is very , very different.
       Slainte,
             Obie

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: ThreeSheds
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 04:24 AM

I supposed we should be thankful for small mercies that the bluegrass boys and girls dumped the bagpipes

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 02:29 AM

Not quite; he heard it in London, and described it as "Scotch", which probably referred to the style rather than the provenance. Nobody knows whether it started out in Scotland or England.

Scottish music had a significant input into Old Time and, later, Bluegrass music, certainly; as did English and Irish music (though it's fashionable to downplay the former at the moment) and German and Scandinavian music too, come to that.

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 02:12 AM

That's one "Bonnie" who never had the remotest tie to Scotland, by the way.
   I believe "Barbie Allen" gets an airing now and again though. And that, according to Pepys the diarist, was sung in Scotland in the 16th-17th century.

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:37 PM

Thankyou! :0)

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Alba
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:26 PM

There was a great programme on BBC a few Years back about this very subject Blissy. It was brilliant and showed the Music trail from Scotland to the Folks that settled here in the US and developed it into their own Sound.
It showed how the Fiddle styles developed and the tuning in Harmonies.
Ill do a bit of investigating and see if I can find more info about it and let you know.
Blessings
Jude

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:24 PM

; ) Wouldn't you like to know? ...

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:22 PM

What i really want to know is, who is T H Eocean and why was Bonnie lying over him?

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Peace
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:20 PM

Earl had the breakdown because his Bonnie . . . .

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:17 PM

You probably won't either...

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Once Famous
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:11 PM

Guess I don't hear the similiarities between Earl's Breakdown and My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.

Sorry.

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:04 PM

Bet that's why it's all so melancholy, it was the ones that got clearanced who started it!

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:03 PM

Well, that's kind of what i thought...it's interesting to hear how it's evolved into something quite distinctive, but you can still hear the influences there.:0)

Subject: RE: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 10:01 PM

Sometimes they're one in the same, Miss Bliss... where do ya think we got it from?

; )

Subject: Scottish music and Bluegrass
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 16 Nov 04 - 09:54 PM

Anyone else notice some similarities between the two sometimes? I mean, the way the notes are put together, singing about death a lot?