Annotation:Pretty Marion
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PRETTY MARION. Scottish, Canadian; Pipe Strathspey or Reel (whole time). Canada, Cape Breton. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Glen): AABB (Gunn). A popular multi-part pipe reel also played as a strathspey by Cape Breton fiddlers, who typically play it for dancing as a two-strain piece (beginning with the second turn of the bagpipe setting). The dotted notation of the pipe reel setting appears strathspey-like, but the tempo is reel-time, and not the slower strathspey speed; however, some versions of both settings resemble each other.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources:
Glen (Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music, Book 12), c. 1890; No. 35, p. 17.
William Gunn (The Caledonian Repository of Music Adapted for the Bagpipes), Glasgow, 1848; p. 72.
Norris (Glendaruel Collection of Bagpipe Music), 1951; p. 50.
Cairngorm Collection: Highland Bagpipe Music, Book 3, 1999; No. 24, pp. 58–59.
W. Ross (Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music, Book 1), c. 1949; pp. 48–49.
Recorded sources:
CAT-WMR004, Wendy MacIssac – “The ‘Reel’ Thing” (1994).
Nimbus Records, John Morris Rankin & Howie MacDonald – "Traditional Music from Cape Breton Island" (2006).
Rounder 7059, Alex Francis MacKay with Gordon MacLean – “Gaelic in the Bow” (2005).
Rounder CD 7003, John Campbell – "Cape Breton Violin Music."
Rounder SFW 40491_111, Kinon Beaton – "The Heart of Cape Breton" (2002. Various artists).
Angus & Kenneth MacKenzie – "Pìob is Fidheall."
Natalie MacMaster – "Cape Breton Girl" (2011).
See also listing at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recordings Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]
Hear a Highland Bagpipe setting of the reel on Tobar an Dualchais [2] [3](Last tune in set).