June 8, 2009, 3:11 p.m. (Message 56050)
Malcolm Brown wrote: > "The Peat Inn" is published in "24 Graded & Social Dances", where at the > front of the book it says that Muriel Johnstone advised on the choice of > tunes, and that many of them can be found in her books "A Score and More" > and "Two Score More". Yes, but these two books contain just Muriel's own tunes, so no »Mrs/Misses Gordon«, by Scott Cameron. My suggestion would be to ask George Meikle, who is probably putting the e-mail in question together as I type this :^) Incidentally, the two books in question seem to have been reissued as a one- volume ring-bound A4-sized collection (similar to Muriel's other, newer books), with just the melody lines and chord symbols -- no written-out left hand for the piano. Now of course people are in two minds as to whether full piano arrangements of SCD tunes are worth the trouble as far as Real Life™ is concerned (Muriel's are actually quite nice), but the original two books were always among the ones that we recommended to pianists who want to get started with Scottish music. Here in Germany, most pianists have received strictly classical training and are way out of their depth when it comes to extemporising a left hand accompaniment from chord symbols (let alone a both- handed »vamp« backup with no melody at all), so the apparent move away from piano scores to melody+chords, both with Muriel's and the RSCDS's publications, while not much of an issue if your instrument is anything except the piano, is a bit disconcerting. It certainly doesn't help with getting pianists interested in playing for SCD. (There's always »Any Good Tune«, of course, and the old-issue numbered RSCDS books.) Does the same problem exist elsewhere and how do you tackle it on behalf of your pianists? Anselm PS. I swear that the quote on this message was randomly selected. -- Anselm Lingnau, Friedberg, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic. -- Winston Churchill