Ashokan Farewell - A Scottish Lament (??)

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: 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: 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,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,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,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: 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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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
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: 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,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 - 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
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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,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,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 - 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,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,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,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,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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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,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: 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
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: 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,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: 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,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: 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 - 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.