Key signature: Dmajor
Submitted on May 25th 2001 by Jeremy.
This tune has been added to 264 tunebooks.
Also known as Poor Scholar, The Poor Scholar, Scholar, The Scolair, The South Shore.
Recordings of a tune by this name:
X: 1
T: Scholar, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
|:dfaf gfeg|fdAG FGA=c|BGFG EFGg|fdec dcBA|
dfaf gfeg|fdAG FGA=c|BGFG EFGg|fdec d4:|
|:a2af dfaf|dfaf bagf|g2ge =cege|=cege afgf|
a2af dfaf|dfaf bagf|g2gf gbag|fdec d4:|
This is a tune of many faces. I've heard played as a hornpipe. I've heard it played lovely and slow. I've heard it played at breakneck speed.
Try playing with different tempos and phrasing to find the one that's right for you.
A nice little variation is to replace the opening two notes (d and f) with one long d note.
I really like the way that natural c note sticks out, especially in the second part.
Here's a great variation on the second part courtesy of Will Harmon:
a2 af dfaf| cfaf Bfaf|g2 ge cege|Bege Aege|
a2 af dfaf|cfaf Bfaf|g2 gf gbag|fdec defg|
# Posted on June 2nd 2001 by Jeremy
Goes well with the Teetotaler's Reel.
# Posted on December 3rd 2002 by lazyhound
True Story
Let the contest begin!
I've added some details, omitted from the original version to keep it short.
Some people say they would be annoyed if a person walked into their session expecting to play jigs and reels on their saxophone or Moravian nose flute. Well, those aren't the worst instruments ever uncased. To wit:
A "musician" once came to a session here in Montana (in Missoula, actually), intent on playing his rocks--or as Zina puts it, getting his rocks off. Yep, stones--not bones. That's not a typo. This guy had picked up two baking potato-sized cobblestones from the Clark Fork River and claimed they were "finely tuned" (which is more than we could say about him). They were nice, rounded river-polished lumps of granite, suitable for paperweights, or stops for your screen door.
But when the circle launced into the Scholar, he proceeded to bang his rocks against each other as loud as possible and in no discernible rhythm--kinda like "uber" bones played by a manic chimp.
He became very irate when the session leader asked--no, *told*--him to stop. Now that I think about it, the leader said something to the effect of putting the rocks back where they came from, down as deep as they'd sink--and then under his breath suggesting that the with any luck the rocks would be in the player's own pockets when they hit bottom.
To top it off, the rocker, er, stone-ist, swore his head off as he left, calling the leader (a friend of mine) a &$%#@ing elitist $%#&* with no musical taste.
I've always enjoyed the Scholar, but it's a shame we weren't playing the Rocks of Cashel, the Stoney Step, Rocky Road to Dublin, Gravel Walks, Eleanor "Plunkett" (sorry ;o), or perhaps--wistfully--the Rolling Waves....
# Posted on March 10th 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
The South Shore
I learnt this as a James Hill hornpipe called "The South Shore":
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/1752
# Posted on June 14th 2003 by Dow
Comments
These comments are crap. Hope I don't know any of you personally. Come to Ireland for a long time and play in a few more sessions, learn how to think about Irish music !
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Adrienne Lee
Sorry, your comments don't make any sense to me.
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by slainte
(*
*)
Maybe it's the stone banger slainte? They may have missed in their exuberance, raising their hands up high and accidentally catching their head between the two stones?
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by ceolachan
No doubt what Adrienne is missing is that my comments appear here out of context. Five years ago, someone started a discussion thread about "worst session experiences," and that jogged this incident loose in my memory. Because the stone banger came unhinged during The Scholar, I added this to the comments here.
It's not a critique of the tune, or of percussionists in general. Just a silly anecdote about one particular participant at a session once.
If Adrienne wants to take it personally and get his knickers in a twist over it, that's his choice. No skin off my nose....
# Posted on August 26th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=23189
Second tune of the set
# Posted on November 30th 2008 by Brad Maloney
Mick Foster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YzdZXWcLho&feature=channel
# Posted on June 13th 2009 by upmine3