Simon Thoumire Make Good Art

Here are 2 jigs and a reel. The two jigs - The Duke of York's Camp / Mrs Roy of Nenthorn's Favourite are sourced in Hardie's 'A Fiddler's Book of Scottish Jigs' and 'The Reel of Tyrie' came from the Highland Music Trust's 'Highland Collections'. I recently purchased a copy of David Baptie's Musical Scotland, Past and Present: Being A Dictionary of Scottish Musicians From About 1400 Till The Present Time. Present time is 1894!!! Using the book I found out that John Clark who wrote The Duke of York's Camp was born circa 1740 and published a collection called Flores Musicae in 1773. Robert Mackintosh wrote Mrs Roy of Nenthorn's Favourite. He was also known as 'Red Rob' and was born in circa 1745. He published four collections of music - the first in 1792. The Reel of Tyrie was written by dancing master, violinist and composer William Christie. He was born in 1778 and he published a collection of seventy-one pieces - sixty eight which were his own!!

This beautiful tune was written by fiddler Alexander Troup from Ballater, Aberdeenshire. Troup was a contemporary of J Scott Skinner (he played in a band with Skinner's brother). He judged violin competitions at Grantown-upon-Spey with Charles Grant (student of Marshall) in 1880s and was David Baptie's source for a lot of info about fiddlers in the book Musical Scotland, Past and Present: Being a Dictionary of Scottish Musicians, from about 1400 Till the Present Time (1894). Thanks for all this precious information Ronnie Gibson (@scat4230), Dr Karen McAuley (@karenmca) and Stuart Eydmann (@EydmannHeritage). Cluny Castle, situated in the tranquil undulating farmland of Aberdeenshire known as Gordon Country, is hidden from view by over two hundred acres of landscaped policies. Dating back to 14th century it continues to be a much loved home of the Gordons of Cluny. Between 1820 and 1870 a smaller castle was transformed into the magnificent crenellated mansion that exists today. The name “Cluny” originates

Here are three strathspeys from the pen of legendary fiddler Angus Fitchet (1910-1998). The tune are Miss Jessie Moreen, Allan Gibb, Strong Tea (for Norrie Whitelaw). I learnt them from the National Association of Accordion and Fiddle Clubs publication 'The Music of Angus Fitchet Volume 2). If you would like to read more about Angus follow the link below. https://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/hall-of-fame/angus-fitchet-1910-1998/

This is three reels from the fabulous Scottish tune book - The Athole Collection. Its compiler, James Stewart Robertson of Edradynate, Perthshire, was a founding member of The Edinburgh Highland Reel and Strathspey Society and its president from 1881. He published his collection of 870 strathspeys, reels, jigs, hornpipes and country dances in 1884. The collection was reprinted in 1961, but for many years was out of print, and although scholars and players were aware of the book, it was difficult to obtain direct access to it. It was later reprinted in 1996 by Inverness's Balnain House and reprinted again by Highland Music Trust where you can still buy it here! http://www.heallan.com/athole.html The reels are: The Yetts of Muckart, John Angus and Mrs Duncan.

I'm back for more weekly music and I think I'm going to stick to Scottish traditional tunes for a while. These two tunes from Book 3 of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. They are St Patrick's Day (Gow) and The Rock And The Wee Pickle Tow. It says in the book that they were both originally sourced from Allan's Ballroom Guide from 1905. You can read about that here! http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/search?title=Allan%27s+Ballroom+Guide#.V7sdojb2HVE.twitter I'm very lucky to be joined by my son Charlie on bodhran for this set.

Here's simple wee tune. That's it really.

On Friday night me, Rua MacMillan and Mark Maguire were very lucky to be invited down the Lapraik Poetry Festival in Muirkirk. We had a great night of poetry, song and music in the village. This is a strathspey and two jigs we performed on the night. Read about our visit here https://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/handsupfortrad/lapraik-festival-muirkirk/

I set myself a goal of recording / writing something new every week and sometimes Thursday arrives and I have no new ideas. I still make myself sit down and work something out and this is it!! I got out my marimba and came up with a little tune. I then (hopefully) complement it with another little tune on the concertina backed by my mellotron.

I was planning a track to record this week when the The East Neuk of Fife sprang to mind from J. Scott Skinner's 'The Harp and Claymore' Collection. I was just going though the variations when I noticed the tempo - 136bpm! It is ridiculous. I actually think it is too fast - I preferred 130bpm but in homage to the great man and composer here it is at 136 :-)

A couple of weeks back I was lucky enough to be teaching at Feis Rois Adult School. What a great bunch of people. Anyway in our morning groupwork class we were learning an old tune of mine - starjump and whilst we were talking about arrangement I came up with this little bridge. It has now become its own entity and I hope you enjoy it!

Last Sunday I played with my son Charlie at the All Scottish Fleadh where lots of young people (and some older) compete to win through to the All British Fleadh. This is one of the tunes we played in the bodhran competition. All players in the competition were great but I was chuffed to see Charlie win!

This is a wee noodle of a tune that came to me very quickly! It's a wee conversation between myself and the concertina. Sometimes I know what to say sometimes I don't!

This is a version of an air from my piece The Merry Lads of Ayr which is being premiered tomorrow night (Friday 8th April) in Stirling Tolbooth as part of the Distil Showcase. I put this together for last Saturday's concert in Ennis, Ireland. If you would like to come along and hear this and many other new pieces performed by Mr McFall's Chamber you can get the details here http://tolbooth.stirling.gov.uk/tolbooth/whatson/april2016-3/distil16.htm

As I practice for my Saturday concert and workshop at CONSAIRTÍN (http://consairtin.ie) in Ennis this weekend I thought I might play Atom Blaster. It's an old tune by jazz guitarist Barney Kessel and I recorded it on YouTube a few years back. Not that I was thinking it at the time but with today's announcement by UK Govt that they are planning on sailing 700kg of Nuclear Waste from Dounreay across the Atlantic Ocean without heed to any of the dangers a spillage could cause - Atom Blaster is probably quite a fitting tune.

After a week of writing my string quintet for Mr McFall's Chamber (to be performed at Distil Showcase on 8th April, Stirling) I still felt I should make something different and totally rockin... So here it is - 32 seconds of pure rock. At last here is something to compete with the 140k streams of Dave Milligan and my's Freedom Come All Ye Track.

This is an idea for a new piece I'm writing based on reel The Merry Lads of Ayr from the Athole Collection. If you listen carefully you will hear the alarm telling me to turn the chicken...

This is a track I wrote last year in a caravan in Pitlochry. Ian Carr and I have been playing it on our tour this week. I really like it - he's not so sure... More music at www.simonthoumire.com

A tune about a goat's house.

Here are a couple of reels from Neil Gow's book. Can't beat a bit of Bb and F in reels. I can't see a concertina in this picture - it must be outside the picture.

It's good to find things that are sore! This definitely was - better spruce up my technique :-)