Back at it -- practising

Subject: Back at it -- practising
From: Charmion
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 11:25 AM

Once again, I'm back to picking tunes after an extended period of don't-wanna.

This time it was lockdown and the low-grade dread that went with it, followed by everything cancelled and no-one to play with. But the other day I received a text from a fiddler I met last summer at the Goderich Celtic College; would I like to come over and play some diddly music?

Would I ever.

We sat six feet apart in her back yard and played Spootskerry (which she learned from me) and Jerry Holland's version of The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre (which I learned from her) for almost two hours. Then we made a date to do the same thing next Tuesday at my house.

I'm flat-out astonished how much perkier I feel.

How 'bout the rest of youse out there?

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 12:41 PM

yes i played music with someone outside yesterday

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 12:47 PM

What a great story, Charmion. Thanks for sharing.

Of course I had to find out what Spootiskerry is - a reel from the Shetlands, 1980's. Here's a link; music starts at 31 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag7Lm9q9ykM

Myself, I'm working on the faux Renaissance dance that they play on Time Team when excavating Tudor sites.

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: Mo the caller
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 01:56 PM

Always think of a group of children with their teacher who played at Bromyard Festival. They knew that tune as 'spooky scary'

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: gillymor
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 03:06 PM

We follow The Banshee with it and they work well together. For now I play alone, it's too dang hot and humid down here in South Florida to play outside, bad on you and your instruments.

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 03:33 PM

spooteskerry means skerry rocks? its a great tune, as is the banshee

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: treewind
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 03:46 PM

The Spoot o'Skerry (Spoot = Spout)

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 05:03 PM

Spootiskerry (G) is a Shetland reel, and an early composition of Samuel Ian Rothmar Burns, known as Ian Burns (1932-1995). It was written in the early 1960s, and published along with many other tunes he wrote on a self-recorded cassette entitled “Spootiskerry” (1980). Ian Burns lived in Tingwall, but the title of this tune is the name of his family croft (i.e., farm) near the town of Sullom, in the north west of the Shetland Islands – though the Burns family is from Unst in the far north of the Shetland Islands. Nigel Gatherer writes, “It was originally spelt “Spootskerry”, but over the years an “i,” an “a,” or an “o” has been added.” So, it might show up as “Spootiskerry,” “Spoot O’Skerry,” “Spoot Askerry,” and sometimes mistakenly as “Spoots O’Kerry,” or some other strange thing. It has become extremely popular throughout the world. Razor clams (Ensis directus), or what the French call couteaux (knives), are long cylindrical clams having shells with sharp edges, and known in the Shetland islands as “spoots” – they spit out water as a defense mechanism. Roof gutters are also called “spoots” in the Shetlands and its vicinity. A “skerry” is a group of rocks a few feet below sea level, but sometimes visible at low tide. Duncan Ross Cameron offers this as the reason for another title, unfamiliar to me, “The Fateful Head.” In Scottish sessions this tune is often paired with another Shetland reel, “Willafjord.” At sessions in Canada it is often paired with “Reel de Montreal” (G) – which is the reel version of the hornpipe “Navvies on the Line”

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: Charmion
Date: 13 Aug 20 - 08:44 PM

I play Spootiskerry with Willafjord and The High Road to Linton — nice transition from G to D to A.

I’ve never played it with the Reel de Montreal. Maybe tack that on the end of the string to end up back in G.

Subject: RE: Back at it -- practising
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Aug 20 - 04:39 AM

charmion it goes quite well with far from home and the shetland reel the full rigged ship, sometimes i put far from home in the middle