Key signature: Fdorian
Submitted on April 20th 2008 by Lykos.
This tune has been added to 24 tunebooks.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: Miss Gordon Of Gight
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Fdor
G,| G,CEG cgec|B/c/dBG FDB,D| CEGF/E/ DFBG|FDB,D EC C:|
d| egbg agfe|defg fdBf | egba/g/ agfe|dBfd cd cd|
egbg agfe|defg fdBf | gfed cdec|BGFD EC C ||
Actual Key / Background
This tune is in Cmin, but the system we use to submit tunes here at "The Session" wouldn't let me submit in Cmin or Eb, so Fdorian was the closest I could get.
I found this tune on "Return to Kintail" by Alasdair Fraiser and Tony McManus (track 3; second tune).
As far as I've gathered, the tune is a Scottish Fiddle Reel from around 1780.
It's a really profound tune; and it'a easier to play in Dmin
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by Lykos
Miss Gordon
According to Peter Barnes in his second volume of English country dance tunes, this is a tune by Isaac Cooper c. 1790. We play it for the dance called Easter Morn by Erna Lynn Bogue. It's a beautiful melody. My band transposed it to Dm, but I prefer it in the original key.
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by vonnieestes
Published in 1783 in "Thirty New Strathspey Reels For The Violin or Harpsichord Composed by Isaac Cooper".
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by DonaldK
Isaac Gordon was a well known Scottish fiddler teacher of his day, from Banff, Aberdeenshire. Miss Gordon of Gight it seems was the mother of the poet Lord Byron.
# Posted on April 26th 2008 by niall_kenny
Dance instructions
My dance card for "Easter Morn" for this tune is at http://thedance.net/~roth/DANCES/english/easter_morn.rtf. (You might need OpenOffice or something that can read the old RTF format to open it.) I was a beta-tester for the dance when it was written, and it's one of my favorites to dance and to call.
# Posted on December 28th 2010 by roth45
Fraser started a trend of playing this tune at a funereal pace, and everybody I have heard doing it has followed suit. There is absolutely nothing in the original publication to suggest that. It's a reel. It ought to go FAST.
I have the story behind it in the "Embro, Embro" pages on my website: it is named after a wealthy young woman who seems to have been publicly emotional to the point of hypomania. Combine that with the historical situation she was in, and the obvious way to see it is as a frenzied explosion.
# Posted on March 9th 2012 by Jack Campin