Annotation:Highland Skip (1) (The)

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HIGHLAND SKIP [1]. AKA and see "Honorable George Baillie's Strathspey." Scottish, Reel. F Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Glen, Surenne): AAB (Athole, Gow). Composed by Daniel Dow, an Edinburgh composer and music teacher who lived from 1732 to 1783, perhaps most famous as the composer of "Money Musk." "The Highland Skip" was considered among Dow's best compositions, in the opinion of Mr. Troup of Ballater [Baptie, Musical Scotland, Past and Present, 1894, p. 46). Dow published a collection of Scots tunes called Thirty-seven new reels and strathspeys (1775) which appears to be the first collection to include the word "strathspey" in its title. His family is known to have stayed in Strathardle and his son (John Dow) was born at Kirkmichael. Dow, whose first name has been given as Daniel or Donald (both acceptable translations for the Gaelic 'Domhnull') was buried in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh on January 20th, 1783. "Highland Skip" appear in Dow's 1776 collection (p. 22). Some believe Niel Gow plagerized the tune when he retitled it "Honorable George Baillie's Strathspey" in his First Collection (1801), though Alburger (1983) believes the tunes are not the same. However, it received the correct attribution to Dow by the Gows in their Repository, Part Third, 1806.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 428. Davie (Davie’s Caledonian Repository), Aberdeen, 1829-30; p. 20. Glen (The Glen Collection of Scottish Dance Music), vol. 1, 1891; p. 13. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 3), 1806; p. 31. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 216. Surenne (Dance Music of Scotland), 1852; p. 111.

Recorded sources:

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