The Rights of Man

The tune from June 9th, as requested by Mary D, The Rights of Man. This is a hornpipe that was first published in the 1870s, it’s played widely across Ireland, Scotland and England. I’ve included two chord progressions (as PDFs), we will examine the effects of these next week, amongst other things.

Here’s a video (with focus on violin left hand) with some of the variations we tried, there are also some interesting sound recordings on the TuneArch.org page.

The Rights of Man 1Download
The Rights of Man 2Download

Lucky Scaup

A cheerful tune to start back, this is Lucky Scaup, or Lucky Scaupie, a Scottish tune that I got from a Jimmy Shand album.

I believe that Lucky Scaup refers to an old Folly in Tayport, near Dundee. It was built in the 1860s and demolished in the 1979 when it had become unstable and potentially dangerous.

The structure is AAB, as the B section is long and references the A at the end. The D/F# chords (and others in this format) mean play a D chord with an F# in the bass if possible.

Lucky Scaupie PDFDownload

Here is the recording I learned it from, our tune starts at 1:08.

Throw the Beetle at Her

A slip jig (9/8) played in Scotland and Ireland. The beetle in question is “the name in parts of northern Ireland and Scotland for a heavy wooden implement shaped like a pestle or club that was used to mash potatoes (sometimes called a ‘potato-beetle’), and colloquially used as a verb meaning ‘to give a beating to’, as in “I’ll beetle him!” (Source; The Trad Tune Archive).

Throw the Beetle at HerDownload