5 Tunes I Wish I Had Written

December 19, 2008 on 7:27 pm by Michael Grey | In Music, Stories | 4 Comments

We all have our favourite tunes, pieces of music that we love to play or love to hear – or both. Pipe tunes are such short little things – pibroch aside – it’s hard to keep a Favourite Tune List brief. My own FTL changes a fair bit, and often. I think it depends on what I’m listening to, what’s on the radio, what I’m practicing, what the band is playing, my mood; I think all of these variables are among the drivers of my FTL.

A different sort of thing is the “tunes I wish I wrote” list. This list changes less frequently. Different from the FTL, for me this list is a very reflective acknowledgement, or recognition, of the genius in a composition: the turn of phrase, the melodic line, the phrase construction or just a certain indescribable je ne c’est quoi.

5 tunes I wish I had written, in no particular order:

“Brown Haired Maiden” (March) – Okay, so it’s really a pipe version of the Gaelic song “Ho Ro Mo Nighean Donn Bhoidheach”, I don’t care, it is a firm part of the Great Highland Bagpipe repertoire. It’s one of the Tunes of Glory; simple, stirring with a melody that works at a vast range of tempi. When played well this is one of those tunes that makes the pipe speak.

“Pipe Major George Ross’s Farewell to the Black Watch” (March) – Composed by Willie Lawrie at the start of the 20th century this isthe most technically challenging 2/4 competition marches ever made. This is a “power” tune in every way: tonality, rhythm and phrasing all emanate with every step. This is one of those tunes that almost feels like a story is being told through the notes. I put Lawrie’s other masterwork, “Captain Carswell” on the same level.

“The Little Cascade”(Reel) – George Stewart McLennan’s greatest composition.This has genius stamped all over it. There’s a playfulness to the melody, an interplay of phrasing, that reminds me of two kids teasing each other in the school yard: listen to part four and its almost like a kid taunting, “na-na na-na naaa”.Probably the greatest non-pibroch tune ever made by a piper for the Great Highland Bagpipe.

“Susan MacLeod”(Strathspey) – This tune by Donald MacLeod and his “Duncan Johnstone” hornpipe a toss up as the great man’s best compositions. Written in the 1950s for his daughter, MacLeod managed to create a compelling, original and evergreen strathspey long after the golden age of strathspey composition.  This is the most melodically sophisticated tune in the competition piper’s strathspey repertoire.

“Mist Covered Mountains” – (Slow Air) – Another stroke of minor key brilliance with Gaelic roots, the standard pipe version is lifted from the immigrant’s song, “Chì mi na mòrbheanna”.Like most of the best airs there is an irregular structure to the melody, no cookie-cutter A-B-A-B melodic line, the tune is one seamless melodic surprise that never fails to move – or get old. As a by-the-way: the 19th century songbook compiler, Archibald Sinclair, notes that the tune is called “Johnny Stays Long at the Fair,” and that it was composed in 1856, by Iain Cameron.I suggest 150 years isn’t really a long time in the context of music so perhaps this melody is far from “traditional”.

So there you go. My covetous list. Next up: 5 tunes I’m glad I never wrote.

M.