Caroline Davies' Walkabout / Mazurka Migrane
Chris Wright and I recorded this set on a demo in 2004 as part of a project called Musion. Caroline Davies' Walkabout is a tune I composed for a Welsh friend of mine of that name and it flows nicely into this modern Flemmish mazurka composed by Wim Poesen.
Chris Wright - 10 string Cittern
Dan Houghton - Bouzouki, A Whistle & Border Pipes
Am Mathan Crùbach Am Mathan Crùbach or ‘The Crippled Bear' was originally an ironic title since I composed the tune for a friend of mine who is anything but crippled or a bear. It struck me later that the title could also be a very non ironic but metaphoric reference to the now endangered species called Winter. Then there are the polar bears...well, at least for the moment.
I recorded this on my own whilst trying to figure out how to use Garageband. The producton is not exactly orthodox but it was fun so I put it up here.
Dan Houghton - Flute, D Whistle, Border Pipes, Guitar & Bouzouki
MacKinnon's Brook / Mrs. Stewart of Grantuly / Kissin' is the Best of A' / Dr. Ross's 50th Welcome to the Argyllshire Gathering
This set fo Strathspeys & Reels is the final cut on Cantrip's new CD, ‘Piping the Fish'. As far as we know all the tunes are trad with the exception of Dr. Ross's which is by P/M Donald Macleod and (ar/rear/de)ranged by myself.
Jon Bews - Fiddle
Gavin Marwick - Fiddle
Cameron Robson - Guitar
Dan Houghton - Highland Pipes
The Swallow's Tail / Beg ar Vann / The Potential Well / An Gille Ruadh
This is another set of tunes that I came up with whilst mucking about with ideas. The pipe track was recorded on a cold damp evening at the Folk Society rooms at Edinburgh Uni. The Backing was recorded several months later in my bedroom in Vermont. The first and last are traditional and quite well known. An Gille Ruadh is also known variously as The Red Hair'd Boy or The Jolly Beggar. Beg ar Vann and The Potential Well are both my compositions.
Dan Houghton - Highland Pipes, Guitar & Bouzouki
Steppin' Thyme
This wee set which consists of Steppin' on the Bridge (trad), Pressed for Time (G. Duncan) and Sheepskin Beeswax (trad), was the product of a late night experiment at Iain MacHarg's croft in Marshfield, VT. The Point of the exercise was to determine whether small pipes should, by nature of their physical and acoustic characteristics, be played differently from highland or border pipes. The first two tunes happened to be in my head because I was rehearsing the hell out of them for a gig and the last one, tacked on ad hoc, is an old Cantrip favourite.
Dan Houghton - Small Pipes, Border Pipes, Guitar
Highland Reels
This set opens with a tune from Gunn’s Collection called Tha Buaidh’ air an Uisge Bheatha (The Charms of Whisky) followed by an Irish tune, Pig Town which I first heard set for the Highland pipes by Paul MacNeill of Iona, Cape Breton.
The third, fourth and fifth tunes are all the same tune but in different keys and different modes. The tune is from the Patrick MacDonald Collection wherein it is called, very simply, Harris Dance. Several pipe versions have been recorded and published most notably by Ian, Allan and Dr. Angus MacDonald of Glen Uig. Their versions, like the opening one here, use a C sharp thus putting it in the A Mixolidian mode. Playing a cross fingered C natural puts it into C Major for the first part and A Minor for the second and it is thus that Patrick MacDonald transcribed it. Moving the tune up a step to D Major and B Minor allows one to preserve the mode of the tune as written without having to resort to cross fingering though it is at the expense of the top most note.
The final tune in this set is called Teigeis agus Dealg Innte (The Haggis with a Pin in Her) and it may be found written in the key of C in the Knockie Collection. Despite writing it out in this key Fraser states that it is a pipe tune and with only slight modifications to Fraser’s setting a very playable pipe tune is recovered.
Dan Houghton - Highland Pipes, Guitar
Influences
Alan MacDonald of Glen Uig, Fred Morrison, Gordon Duncan, Iain MacInnes, The Corries, David Francey, Gordon Bok, Richard Thompson, AC/DC, Jean Michel Vellion, Cillian Vallely, Jacob Fournel, Brian Yates, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Brian Finnegan, Ryans Fancy, Mes Souliers Sont Rouges, Tommy Makem, Liam Clancy, Barry Shears, Black Sabbath, Edward Abbey, Harlan Ellison, James Thurber, Johnny Cunningham, Dave Foreman, La Boutine Souriante, Rua, Steven Vincent Benet, Phil Cunningham, Farley Mowat
TO A MOUSE –on turning up her nest with a plough
Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An' never miss’t!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new yin,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December's winds ensuin’,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin’ fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell-
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Robert Burns
GRASS
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work–
I am the Grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Carl Sandburg
EPITAPH FOR A POLITICIAN
Here, richly and with ridiculous display
The politician’s corpse is laid away.
While all of his acquaintances quipped and slanged
I wept, for I had longed to see him hanged.
Hillaire Belloc
FOR ALL BLASPHEMERS
Adam was my grandfather,
A tall spoiled child,
A red clay tower
In Eden, green and mild.
He ripped the Sinful Pippin
From its sanctimonious limb.
Adam was my grandfather -
And I take after him.
Noah was my uncle
And he got dead drunk.
There were planets in his liquor-can
And lizards in his bunk.
He fell into the Bottomless
Past Hell's most shrinking star.
Old Aunt Fate has often said
How much alike we are.
Lillith, She's my sweetheart
Till my heartstrings break,
Most of her is honey pale
And all of her is snake.
Sweet as secret thievery,
I kiss her all I can,
While Somebody Above remarks
“That's not a nice young man!”
Bacchus was my brother,
Nimrod is my friend.
All of them have talked to me
On how such courses end.
But when his worship takes me up
How can I fare but well?
For who in gaudy Hell will care?
-And I shall be in Hell.
Steven Vincent Bienet
67.
pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable diseae:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
plays with the bigness of his littleness
-electrons defy one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born-pity poor flesh
and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specemen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopless case if - listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go
E. E. Cummings
Sounds Like
They with whom I'm playing and me playing together...
I am primarily a piper and flautist though I do on occasion make forrays into the territory of guitars and bouzoukis and I even sing from time to time. Much of my musical energy is dedicated to the band Cantrip (www.cantrip-music.co.uk) of which I am a founding member though I also play in various configurations and permutations of the set consisting of Cammy Robson, Jon Bews, James Gray, Chris Wright, Ewan MacPherson and Gav Marwick to name a few. In recent years I have also begun composing tunes.
I hold an undergraduate honours degree in Applied Mathematics and Geophysics which I got from the university of Otago in New Zealand and an MLitt in Gaelic Poetry and Language from Edinburgh Uni. I have just recently moved back to Edinburgh from Toulouse where I was working as an English instructor and translator and I have recently begun working in web design (see www.pipingtool.co.uk).
After you've finished here, you may like to hear this poem sung on myspace...
Poem 2 of 230, WalkaboutsVerse (please see my blog): WALKABOUT WITH MY PEN
Once drove an old sedan, up north, From a place in Sydney to Cairns; Then to Kuranda I went forth, By train, to look without set plans.
I browsed through the trendy market, With fresh fruits of tropical kind; Walked to the creek through lush thicket - Nature’s hand giving peace of mind.
I dined in a scenic cafe; Then, outside, as I wrote for yen, Some passing Kooris called-out: “Hey, You go walkabout with your pen.”
Request or question, I don’t know - Assured voices, elderly men. That’s now several years ago, And I’ve seen the world - with my pen.
Thanks for the Ad. I truly enjoyed your music at the Burning Down the House event...litterally brought tears to my eyes, the wisky may have induced some of that also lol. Either way it's all good!
...as usual...i'm a bit slow...but.. happy new year dan!!! how is 2009 treating you so far? bummed missed u at the back end of last year...hopefully see you before too long! all the best, kjx
Bonjour, je vous invite à passer la nouvelle année en musique. Extrait du concert en première partie de Tri Yann à Auxerrexpo. N'hésitez pas à nous laisser vos impressions. Merci et à bientôt. Christo pour Maltavern .. Maltavern Gavotten ar Koadour
hey dan hope its all going well... hope you come back here at some point so we get to see you :-) love R x ps did you hear we have got a house in galloway from 1st october? its great, big farmhouse with 6 acres and stables! so plenty of room for visitors...
Hey, meant to tell you: You do a pretty damn good Dubya Bush imitation. Hope it doesn't bring Homeland Security down on your head -- "foreign subversive" and all, you know.
NOUVEAU!!!! Disponible sur Myspace! Un morceau extrait du nouvel album du groupe Maltavern "Douce Tornade" Sorti le 28 Juin 2008 Bonne écoute! A bientôt Et bon vent... Christo pour Maltavern
Thanks, Dan, for the add. We hope to hear you again at Randolph. Come and session with us if you're ever in the Saratoga, NY area. See myspace 'saratogapancelticsession' page for our local venues. Vonnie from 2 Bits (hammered dulcimer and piano).
