Annotation:Carrick's Rant

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CARRICK'S/CARRACK'S REEL/RANT. AKA and see "Berwick Lasses," "Bonny Lass" (Kennedy), "Clurie's Reel," "Mary Scott (1)," "Smith's a Gallant Fireman (The)." English, Reel; Scottish, Strathspey. Scotland, Lowland region. England, Northumberland. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Honeyman, Johnson, Seattle/Vickers, Skinner): AA'BB' (Athole). Seattle (1987) classifies "Carrick's Reel" as one of a family of tunes using the same melodic material in different meters (versions of the Northumbrian "Sir John Fenwick" also belong to this group). A popular version in modern times is "The Smith's a Gallant Fireman,". Compare also MacDonald's Skye Collection (p. 44); Kerr, vol. 1 (p. 4); Hunter's Fiddle Music of Scotland (No. 1112). Stenhouse (notes to the 1853 edition of Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, LXXIII, "Mary Scott") traces the tune back to the original melody of "Mary Scott the Flower of Yarrow" (as, for example, in Bewick's Pipe Tunes, No. 6), which began as a single strain to which another was appended in the beginning of the 18th century. "The same subject was afterwards formed into a reel or dancing tune, to which my late esteemed friend, Hector M'Niel Esq., wrote a very pretty song, beginning 'Dinna think, bonnie lassie, I'm gaun to leave you'." (p. 78). A note in Gow's Repository remarks, "The old Scotch Song of Mary Scott is taken from this Tune." Stenhouse says "the converse of this supposition is the fact, for Carrick's Rant is nothing else than 'Clurrie's Reel', printed in Angus Cumming's Collection. But the tune of Mary Scott was known at least a century before either Clurrie's Reel, or Carrick's Rant, were ever heard of" (p. 78).

John Glen (1891) finds the tune first in print in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection (p. 94). A variant called "Berwick Lasses" is to be found in a MS collection by fiddler Lawrence Leadley (1827-1897) of Helperby, Yorkshire. Anne Gilchrist ["Old Fiddlers' Tune Books of the Georgian Period", JEFDSS, vol. 4, No. 1, Dec. 1940, p. 18] noted that, in her experience, the Rant was a name rather loosely applied of various lively dance-tunes, but properly seemed to her to have belonged to a quick 2/4 time melody. However, as this strathspey suggests, it was applied to a variety of meters. See also the related "Sir John Fenwick's the Flower Among Them All."

Source for notated version: Gow (Complete Repository, Part First) [S. Johnson].

Printed sources: Davidson (Davidson's Gems of Scottish Music), n.d. (c. 1830's); p. 27. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 1), 1799; p. 3. Honeyman (Strathspey, Reel and Hornpipe Tutor), 1898; p. 10 (appears as "Carrick's Rant"). Manson (Hamilton’s Universal Tune Book vol. 1), 1854; p. 136. S. Johnson (A Twenty Year Anniversary Collection), 2003; p. 38. Seattle (Great Northern/William Vickers), 1987, Part 2; No. 315. Skinner (Harp and Claymore), 1904; p. 87 (includes variation sets by Skinner). Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 104.

Recorded sources:

See also listings at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]

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