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Welcome to the Traditional Tune Archive
    The Semantic Index of North American, British and Irish
 traditional instrumental music with annotations, formerly known as
                          The Fiddler's Companion.
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Regarding the title, a rock is a distaff, a device that holds the flax strick or the fiber for spinning. It is called a rock because the weight, or whorl, was frequently a shaped and pierced rock. A ‘wee pickle tow’ is a small piece of prepared short flax fibers combed from longer fibers called "line".
A rock and a wee pickle tow

Played by: Max Carmichael
Source: Soundcloud
Image: A rock and a wee pickle tow round

A rock and a wee pickle tow

...thus it was a spinning song, the tune of which proved popular and served many purposes over the years.

Christine Martin (2002) notes that “rocking meets” were held in some parts of Scotland, in which all spinners gathered in one house in the village to spin.

It was used as a march tune under many different titles, and was one of the favorite songs of the early 19th century in Lowlands Scotland, according to Peter Mackenzie, "the genial reminiscer of Glasgow" (Emmerson, 1971).

John Glen, in his Early Scottish Melodies (p. 197), traces the tune to the 1663 edition of Playford’s Musicks Hand-Maid where it appears under the title “A Scotish March.”

Playford later printed the same tune as “Montrose's March” in this 1669 Musick’s Recreation. The title “A Rock and a Wi Pickle Tow” first appears with the melody in Oswald’s Curious Collection of Scots Tunes (1740), finds Glen.

A similar air exists in Shetland as "Bride's March (The)" as played by John Stickle of Unst. Under the title variant "Rock and Pickal o' Taw" it is one of the "missing tunes" from William Vickers' 1770 Northumbrian dance tune manuscript, and the title appears in Henry Robson's list of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes ("The Northern Minstrel's Budget"), which he published c. 1800.

Fifer John Buttery (1784-1854) entered it into his large turn of the 19th century copybook after he joined the 24th Regiment of Foot.

...more at: A rock and a wee pickle tow - full Score(s) and Annotations



X:0 T:Rock & a wi pickle Tow, A M:3/4 L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Slow" S:McGibbon - Scots Tunes, book II, p. 55 (c. 1746) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:G V:1 clef=treble name="0." [V:1] D2 | E2G2A2 | B4d2 | (e>fg)B2 | A4 T(f>e/2f/4) | g2G2A2 | TB3A (B/c/d) | B2G2(GA) | G4 :||: (gf) | e2e2g2 | e2 efg2 | T(e>de)fgf | Te3dB2 | d3ed2 | d2e2f2 | g2fedc | {c}TB2 AB G2 | c2B2c2 | d2e2f2 | (gf)(ed)(cB) | TA4 T(f>e/2f/4) | g2G2A2 | TB2 (A<G) (G>A) |G4 :|]

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Who Builds the TTA

Who Builds the TTA

Although we are not trained musicologists and make no pretense to the profession, we have tried to apply such professional rigors to this Semantic Abc Web as we have internalized through our own formal and informal education.
This demands the gathering of as much information as possible about folk pieces to attempt to trace tune families, determine origins, influences and patterns of aural/oral transmittal, and to study individual and regional styles of performance.
Many musicians, like ourselves, are simply curious about titles, origins, sources and anecdotes regarding the music they play. Who, for example, can resist the urge to know where the title Blowzabella came from or what it means, or speculating on the motivations for naming a perfectly respectable tune Bloody Oul' Hag, is it Tay Ye Want?
Knowing the history of the melody we play, or at least to have a sense of its historical and social context, makes the tune 'present' in the here and now, and enhances our rendering of it.
Andrew Kuntz & Valerio Pelliccioni

Please register as a user to make the most of the many functions of the TTA, and enjoy the many ways that information about traditional tunes can be elicited and combined, from simple to complex situations. Users may make contributions, which, when reviewed by an editor, become part of this community project. Serious user/contributors may become editors through the TTA's promotion process, in which quantity and quality of entries allows increased levels of permission to edit and review the entire index.
Above all, the developers wish you joy in the use of the TTA.

Help Getting started

Navigation: Registered users can navigate the Traditional Tune Archive for information in a number of ways.

  • Search. The Search function is located at the top right, and can be used to search the entire index for any key word. See Search help pages
  • Alphabetically by tune title. Under “The Archive” on the SideBar on the left is “The Index”. Click on it to open up the list of tune titles in the TTA arranged in alphabetical order, 200 titles to a page. At the top of the page is an alphabetical breakdown that serves as a shortcut to pages. Clicking on any title will bring one to the music and tune fields. Once the tune appears, clicking “Tune Discussion” at the bottom of the page (below the notation) will open up the narrative information on the tune.
  • Query the Archive. The “Query the Archive” function under “The Archive” in the sidebar can be used to draw down reports from the TTA in either in single items or in a number of combinations. One might, for example, use a single item query to run a report in the TTA for a particular composer/core source. Clicking on the arrow at the right of the bar draws down a list of composer/core sources, or one may be typed in. For example, clicking on “Bill Pigg” and then the “Run Query” tab at the bottom left will result in a list of all compositions listed in the TTA that the Northumbrian piper either composed or is the core source for. Reports may also be run in combinations, as, for example, by selecting “William Marshall” as a composer/core source, “Three Flats” for the number of accidentals, and “Major” for the Key/Mode. This will result in a report of all Eb Major compositions of Scottish fiddler/composer William Marshall that are indexed in the TTA.
  • Tune Books/Magazines in the TTA can be accessed under “Publications” in the left side bar. These are reproductions of publications for which access has been granted to the TTA by the copyright holder, under the Creative Commons license.