Key signature: Gmajor
Submitted on September 9th 2006 by nicholas.
This tune has been added to 11 tunebooks.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: Herd On The Hill, The
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
R: polka
K: Gmaj
|:Bc|d2G2|B2AG|d2G2|g2e2|d2G2|d2cB|c2A2|A2Bc|
d2G2|B2AG|d2G2|g3B|c2A2|dedc|B2G2|G2:|
|:Bc|d2g2|B2g2|d2g2|G2AB|c2f2|A2f2|c2f2|A2Bc|
d2g2|B2g2|d2g2|G2AB|c2A2|dedc|B2G2|G2:|
The Herd On The Hill
It's a Northumbrian, or at any rate Northern English/Lowland Scottish, pipe tune of the kind playable on early Northumbrian pipes or Border pipes limited to an octave or so in range. I don't know its history or if it has a known composer. "Herd" here might mean a shepherd, which is or was Border Scottish parlance (I don't know about Northumbrian), but I don't know for sure.
It's beautifully done on The Kathryn Tickell Band's album "Air Dancing",
an all-out straight rendering of the tune three times through - for me the best thing on the disc: some of the album's more sophisticated pieces didn't do a lot for me, though I know how good the band members are as musicians.
# Posted on September 9th 2006 by nicholas
Classic dag.
# Posted on September 9th 2006 by Dow
Apparently this is a composition of Tom Clough. I've mostly heard the 2nd note of the 3rd bar as a G - |d2G2 d2cB|.
# Posted on September 9th 2006 by Dow
Classic dag, indeed! You know what they say...
...Anything too silly to be said, may be sung;
Anything too silly to be played on anything else, can be got away with
on the Northumbrian pipes.
( Wait till someone submits "Oh dear, what can the matter be?", with
all the variations!)
I take it this tune serves as a rant, like similar NE tunes.
# Posted on September 9th 2006 by nicholas
(No, it wouldn't have been playable on Border Pipes 'cos their scale has a flat seventh.)
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by nicholas
Yes it could!
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by No Cause For Alarm
Nicholas, if you want to transcribe it as a 2/4 tune, it would probably be easier to read if you write it the standard way for polkas and 2/4 marches where each note is a quaver, i.e. |dG BA/G/|dG g>e|dG...
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by Dow
OK Alistair, I defer - Noxious, I'll try to get round to changing the ABC layout.
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by nicholas
If you want to change it, it's best to do it ASAP because once Jeremy has converted it to sheetmusic, it's set in stone and you can't edit it, even if you plead with him desperately.
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by Dow
See? Too late.
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by Dow
Flown with the excitement of at last finding the vertical bar on my computer, I've submitted grotesque settings of tunes that have promptly come up in the dots - I alter the ABC's frequently, for what it's worth. I can see now what O'Neill was up against, as I try to dredge up tunes from what is left of my memory. But the tune I've submitted which I most want to see come up in dots - The Keelman Ower The Land, in 3/4 - hasn't done so, and I don't know why.
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by nicholas
Herd on the Hill
Good tune.
Its Northumbrian, dates from the interwar years (1928 I think off the top of my head) and is by Tom Clough.
Its a rant and thus really in four as the bars are asymetric - and | one, two thre, and |one ,two, three etc.
Noel
Angels of the North
# Posted on September 10th 2006 by noelbats
Dornach Links
Interesting connection here, I feel, between these two tunes with regard the 'A' music. 'B' music is quite different.
T: Dornach Links
M: 2/4
L: 1/8
R: Reel
K: A
a/2f/2 || eA cB/2c/2 | eA Aa/2f/2 | ec cB/2c/2 | fB Bc/2d/2 | e/2f/2e/2d/2 cB/2A/2 | ce ac | df Be/2d/2 | cA A :||
||: a2 ef/2g/2 | ae/2d/2 cB/2A/2 | a2 e/2f/2e/2c/2 | dB Be | a2 ef/2g/2 | a/2e/2f/2d/2 cB/2A/2 | df Be/2d/2 | cA A :||
I am uncertain if this is Scottish or Northumbrian, perhaps a border tune??
# Posted on September 12th 2006 by hetty
As far as my research here goes Dornach Links is not within the session archive. I collected it over 30 years ago along with a number of Scottish marches.
# Posted on September 12th 2006 by hetty