One of the problems I find is that playing a tune you and to repeat it a few times which is fine if you are playing with a group of musicians with different instruments, who can take the lead in turn and increases the duration of the tune,. For an individual player I think that sets are the way to go, playing two or three tunes together would make more sense. 
The difficulty I have is deciding how to combine tunes into sets. Nigel's "Joy of Sets" books gives an insight but is there an etiquette to follow when it comes to combining tunes, i.e. Jig set, reel set or can you have a mixed set jig reel Jig etc. and what about key? I find it all quite confusing. so any advise would be appreciated.

Alcuith

Here is my attempt at Phil Cunningham's air, Gracelands.  I could not find out any information about the tune.  
https://soundcloud.com/chris-wilson-1221...-harmonica

I'm still in shock. I've just had a video chat with Caterina Lichtenberg - one of the top mandolin players in the world. She was absolutely charming and delightful. To top it off, Mike Marshall came on and had a wee word! Little old Nigel speaking with such giants - wow. I mean, wow!!!

Tune of the Week Volume 5

It's astonishing to think, but the Tune of the Week started eight years ago. There have been many hiccups on the way, but we have reached tune number 100. That mean it's time for the fifth collected ToW book. Visit this page to download Volume 5 and, if you're looking for Vols 1-4, they're there too!

www.nigelgatherer.com/pigpipe/tow-books.html

Tune of the Week #100: The New Dawning



This tune was composed by fiddler Alister McCulloch after he’d graduated with his music degree. At the same time the Scottish Parliament was inaugurated, and he felt that both Scotland and himself were beginning a new chapter. Thanks to John Kelly and Alcluith for the suggestion. 

The New Dawning Tune Page

The video of John's arrangement of the tune:

It looks like for the rest of the year at least, there will be very few classes in 'real life'. Most of my scheduled classes aill be online for the next term, with the hope that things might return to near normal in the new year. This requires a good bit of thinking and planning. It's a strange new world...

Since lockdown started I have been very busy creating and presenting online classes, sessions and workshops. This week I'm on holiday. Heuch! I feel I deserve it... Anyway, I've started thinking about what's going to happen next, as it looks like much of my online work will continue. 

I did two regular sessions which were successful, attracting people from places beyond Edinburgh and Glasgow (e.g. Philadelphia, Washington State, Nova Scotia, England, Ireland...). One germ of an idea is to develop the Wednesday Slow Session in a fun way: give it the name of a fictional pub, or a virtual tavern, into which people could drop in for a beer and a tune. 

That's it - as I said, just the germ of an idea, which I'll be working on. Any suggestions, ideas or requests would be most welcome.

Tune of the Week #99: Cropie's Strathspey



This is a cracking tune which improves with the playing. I may have got it originally from Middleton's Selection, first published in 1870. Another name for the tune is Mr Douglas of Springwood Park, for which the composer is given as Alexander Givan of Kelso (1752-1803).

• Standard Notation with chords
  
• Standard Notation with mandolin tablature
  
• MP3 Soundfile of me playing Cropie's Strathspey on Mandolin
  

Found this one on John's youtube page and thought I would try it.
https://soundcloud.com/chris-wilson-1221...-harmonica
Having trouble with Soundcloud which seems to upload things twice.  Strange.

Have been playing around with this very old tune for a while now, but still having a bit of a problem with the second part. Nevertheless still a very nice tune to play on the mandolin


Alcluith

Attached Files

  Port Lennox.pdf (Size: 39.54 KB / Downloads: 9)