Annotation:Don Side
Tune properties and standard notation
DON SIDE. Scottish, Strathspey. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Surenne): AABB (Perlman): AABBCCDD (Athole, Bremner, Gow, Kerr, Skye). Glen (1891) finds the earliest printing of the tune in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection (pg. 63). Don side refers to the River Don in Scotland. The famous Scots fiddle-composer, James Scott Skinner, told an old joke about a drunk who boards a train trying to get home to his home 'on the Don side.' He boards a first train for Stonehaven and is quickly shown the door by a guard-he tries another, only to be told its going to Ballater and he is once again mistaken. Finally he pours himself into the compartment of yet another train, one that happens to be occupied by the then-famous evangelists Moody and Sankey, on their way to revival meetings in Peterhead. "Naturally, in his drunken state, the man made himself a bit of a nuisance," says Skinner. "Moody gazed at him, more in pity than in condemnation, and then spoke slowly and deliberately:
"Do you know where you're going to, sir?" he said.
"Na," came the answer.
"Well, you're going to perdition," was the stern rejoinder.
"Eh?" exclaimed the maudlin one, waking up somewhat; "I'm in the wrang train again!"
The strathspey was recorded on a 78 RPM disc by Cape Breton fiddler Angus Allan Gillis.
Source for notated version: Eddy Arsenault (b. 1921, St. Chrysostom, East Prince County, Prince Edward Island) [Perlman].
Printed sources: Bremner (Scots Reels), c. 1757; p. 63. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 1, 1799; p. 11. Kerr (Merry Melodies), vol. 2; No. 120, p. 15. Lowe (A Collection of Reels & Strathspeys), 1844. McGlashan (Collection of Strathspey Reels), c. 1780/81; p. 21. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 93. Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; p. 187. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 166. Surenne (The Dance Music of Scotland), 1852; pp. 132-133.
Recorded sources: Rounder 7103, Joseph Cormier - "Joseph Cormier and Friends: Old Time Wedding Reels and Other..." (1992). Rounder 82161-7032-2, Bill Lamey - "From Cape Breton to Boston and Back: Classic House Sessions of Traditional Cape Breton Music 1956-1977" (2000). See also listings at Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index [1]