The Kishie Needle Set:

These are short reels - the sections are only four bars long, compared to the eight bars in a usual Scottish reel. They make up for it though, by having a greater than usual number of notes to the bar! As usual, the sections are doubled (as indicated by the repeats in the music), so the tunes are played AABBAABB. The exception is "Shelder Geö", which has an eight bar B section, played once.

On the CD, "The Silver Bow", this set lasts 1'53".

The first reel, "A' da Ships Ir Sailin'" does not end on the root note of the tune, i.e. it is written in G but does not end on G. This is not a problem since it is not the last tune in the set, but it would sound incomplete if it were. A linguistic equivalent would be a sentence which didn't properly...! In his book, "Ringing Strings", Tom Anderson suggests that a solution would be to play the tune 1½ times, i.e. AABBAA. Others have in other tunes swapped A and B parts round, starting the tune on the B part and ending on the A. Many argue that the written notes are only a point of departure.

A Shelder is a bird known elsewhere as Oyster Catcher. A Kishie is a straw basket, woven using wooden needles. Dye is a dialect word for "grandfather".

A' da Ships Ir Sailin'
Shelder Geö
Mak a Kishie Needle, Dye

(midi) (hi-res for printing)
(midi) (hi-res for printing)
(midi) (hi-res for printing)