Vince Janflone
My interpretation of “One of the Cragich” (ii, 72) from the Campbell Canntaireachd. A podcast with some background and a rendition of the tune, along with the set score is at this link:
“Hodin Hiotra” — “One of the Cragich”
Enjoy!
“Hodin Hiotra,” One of the Cragich from the Campbell Canntaireachd
Delighted to see you promoting a ‘small’ tune that doesn’t fit the competition mould! This is one of my personal favourites – I’ve performed it many times; the first occasion was, I think, in Amsterdam for Frans Buisman in 2000. You can hear me singing it at http://youtu.be/JofojLWxTPs . This was filmed after giving a canntaireachd workshop for the Dudelsak Akademie. I taught it to all first year students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2010 and 2011 – not just the pipers, but orchestral and jazz musicians too – in a module called Dynamic Voice.
The source facsimile has been online here since 2007. My interpretation of Campbell’s notation differs from yours in three significant ways:
1. “Hodin” has a tilde (squiggle) on the “o”, which I understand means it is definitely short and normally wouldn’t have an introductory E, just a G grace (or plain). I don’t recall any published discussion on Campbell’s use of the tilde. It would be worth comparing all instances in tunes that also appear in the MacArthur-MacGregor, Donald MacDonald, Peter Reid and Angus MacKay sources. A definitive study would be useful to settle the question.
2. “ha” following low G should have a G grace because plain D would be “ba”.
3. From what I know of the repertoire, “bari” in this context is more likely to be a throw to high G (egfgH) than a leumludh (dgH / daH / dgaH). Frans Buisman used lower case letters for grace notes (g a b c d e f h i) and capitals for melody notes (G A B C D E F H I), a system he developed which I find works well.
Campbell’s notation is often ambiguous on whether a note should be plain or could have a G or E grace. Your decisions aren’t the same as mine, but I don’t think Campbell would have been too fussed otherwise he would have found a way to specify these details.