A
strathspey is a type of dance tune in 4/4 time. It is similar to a
hornpipeThe term hornpipe refers to any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and elsewhere from the late 17th century until the present day. It is said that hornpipe as a dance began around the 16th century on English sailing vessels...
but slower and more stately, and contains many dot-cut 'snaps'. A so-called
Scotch snapThe Lombard rhythm or Scotch snap is a rhythm associated primarily with Baroque music, generally consisting of a stressed sixteenth note or semiquaver followed by a dotted eighth note or quaver. This effects a reverse of the dotted rhythm normally used in notes inégales, in which the longer value...
is a short note before a dotted note, which in traditional playing is generally exaggerated rhythmically for musical expression. An example of a strathspey would be the song "
The Bonnie Banks O' Loch LomondLoch Lomond is a well-known traditional Scottish song . It was first published in 1841 in Vocal Melodies of Scotland.Loch Lomond is a large Scottish loch located between the traditional counties of Dunbartonshire and Stirlingshire...
", provided it is sung
staccatoIn musical notation, the Italian word staccato indicates that notes are separated in a detached and distinctly separate manner or short and separated, with silence making up the latter part of the time allocated to each note. The rhythm is not affected. Notes identified as staccato are often...
:
- "You'll tak the high road, and I'll tak the low road, and I'll be in Scotland afore ye"
Other examples are the tunes to
Auld Lang Syne"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song...
(based on Sir Alexander Don's Strathspey) and
Coming through the rye (based on an old strathspey tune called
The Miller's daughter).
Because the strathspey rhythm has four strong beats to the bar, is played quickly (generally ranging from 108 beats per minute, for Highland Dance, up to 160 beats per minute, for stepdance), and contains many dot-cut 'snaps,' it is a rhythmically tense idiom.
A
strathspey is a type of dance tune in 4/4 time. It is similar to a
hornpipeThe term hornpipe refers to any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and elsewhere from the late 17th century until the present day. It is said that hornpipe as a dance began around the 16th century on English sailing vessels...
but slower and more stately, and contains many dot-cut 'snaps'. A so-called
Scotch snapThe Lombard rhythm or Scotch snap is a rhythm associated primarily with Baroque music, generally consisting of a stressed sixteenth note or semiquaver followed by a dotted eighth note or quaver. This effects a reverse of the dotted rhythm normally used in notes inégales, in which the longer value...
is a short note before a dotted note, which in traditional playing is generally exaggerated rhythmically for musical expression. An example of a strathspey would be the song "
The Bonnie Banks O' Loch LomondLoch Lomond is a well-known traditional Scottish song . It was first published in 1841 in Vocal Melodies of Scotland.Loch Lomond is a large Scottish loch located between the traditional counties of Dunbartonshire and Stirlingshire...
", provided it is sung
staccatoIn musical notation, the Italian word staccato indicates that notes are separated in a detached and distinctly separate manner or short and separated, with silence making up the latter part of the time allocated to each note. The rhythm is not affected. Notes identified as staccato are often...
:
- "You'll tak the high road, and I'll tak the low road, and I'll be in Scotland afore ye"
Other examples are the tunes to
Auld Lang Syne"Auld Lang Syne" is a Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1788 and set to the tune of a traditional folk song...
(based on Sir Alexander Don's Strathspey) and
Coming through the rye (based on an old strathspey tune called
The Miller's daughter).
Because the strathspey rhythm has four strong beats to the bar, is played quickly (generally ranging from 108 beats per minute, for Highland Dance, up to 160 beats per minute, for stepdance), and contains many dot-cut 'snaps,' it is a rhythmically tense idiom. Traditionally, a strathspey will be followed by a
reelThe reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
, which is in 2/2 with a swung rhythm, as a release of the rhythmic tension created during the strathspey.
It has been hypothesized that strathspeys mimic the rhythms of the Scottish Gaelic language. Among traditional musicians, strathspeys are often transmitted as
canntaireachdCanntaireachd is the ancient Scottish Highland method of noting classical pipe music or Ceòl Mòr by a combination of definite syllables, by which means the various tunes could be more easily recollected by the learner, and could be more easily transmitted orally...
, a style of singing in which various syllables stand in for traditional bagpipe ornaments.
The dance is named after the
StrathspeyStrathspey is the area around the strath of the River Spey, Scotland, in both the Moray council area and the Badenoch and Strathspey committee area of Highland....
region of
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, in
MorayMoray is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland....
and
Badenoch and StrathspeyBadenoch and Strathspey is a local government ward of the Highland council area and a ward management area of the Highland Council in Scotland...
. Strathspey refers both to the type of
tuneTune can refer to:* A melody or tune-family* A tune , a short piece of instrumental music, usually with repeating sections, and often played a number of times.* British slang term, often said when referring to a piece of music that is enjoyed....
and to the type of
danceDance is a sport and art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
usually done to it (although strathspeys are also frequently danced to slow airs). The strathspey is one of the dance types in
Scottish country dancingA Scottish country dance or "reel" is a form of social dance involving groups of mixed couples of dancers tracing progressive patterns according to a predetermined choreography...
. A Scottish country dance will typically consist of equal numbers of strathspeys,
jigThe Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the sixteenth century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s and
reelsThe reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
. The strathspey step is a slower and more stately version of the skip-change step used for
jigThe Jig is a form of lively folk dance, as well as the accompanying dance tune, originating in England in the sixteenth century and today most associated with Irish dance music and Scottish country dance music...
s and reels. The strathspey also forms part of the musical format for competing pipe bands. Modern high grade bands are required to play a march, a strathspey and a reel for competition purposes.
The strathspey was originally conceived for the fiddle, using a peculiar bowing technique that would produce its unique "scotch-snap" rhythm; many newer strathspeys were written in the 18th and 19th centuries by composers such as
William MarshallWilliam Marshall is regarded as one of the greatest composers of Scottish fiddle music.Marshall was born in Fochabers, Scotland. He entered the service of the Duke of Gordon, eventually becoming the Factor to the Gordon Estate. James Hunter's The Fiddle Music of Scotland credits Marshall with...
and
James Scott SkinnerJames Scott Skinner was a Scottish dancing master, violinist and fiddler.Skinner was born in Banchory, near Aberdeen. His father was a dancing master on Deeside. James was only eighteen months old when his father died. When James was seven, his elder brother, Sandy, gave him lessons in violin and...
, who utilised the full range of the fiddle to produce many memorable tunes. Skinner distinguished between dance tunes, which retained the staccato bowing (Laird o Drumblair), and
airsAIRS may refer to:* Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, a weather and climate instrument flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite* Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere, a guidance system designed for use in the LGM-118A Peacekeeper ICBM...
which were for listening (Music of Spey). More recently, Muriel Johnstone has written some elegant piano strathspeys. These days there are at least four, some would say seven, varieties: the bouncy
schottischeThe Schottische is a partnered country dance, Bohemian in origin.Schottische was popular in Victorian era ballrooms and left its traces in folk music of countries as distant as France, Spain , Portugal , Italy and Sweden.The schottische is considered by the Oxford Companion to Music to be a kind...
, the strong strathspey, the song or air strathspey, all three of which can be enjoyed for dancing, and the competition strathspey for the
Great Highland BagpipeThe Great Highland Bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland, which has achieved widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world....
, primarily intended as a display of virtuosity. Although band and solo competition bagpiping generally involves a complicated, heavily ornamented setting, traditional pipers often play simpler, more rhythmically driven versions.