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'The Alistair McCulloch
Collection' is now available for purchase.
The book includes
an accompanying CD which contains all 40 tunes.
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Here's what the reviewers had to say about the 'Alistair McCulloch
Collection':
A new traditional tune is a bit of a paradox.
Given a limited range of rhythms, structure and melodic and harmonic
conventions, it is a challenge to produce something which bends
the rules just enough to be memorable.
Much of Alistair McCulloch's music keeps well within the conventions.
The result is a workmanlike collection of forty Scottish tunes
with Irish and American seasoning. It's not the kind of thing
you might feature in an instrumental stage set, but they're good
tunes for all that. The first three tunes, for example, are straight
down the middle: an Irish reel, a jig and a Scottish march. Several
others have echoes of well-known tunes, and so would make good
alternatives for a dance set: 'Cliffs of Moher' is a classic two
step, 'Wee Bouncing Betty' would fit with 'The Banks' and other
hornpipes in the flat keys, and 'The Small Isles' seems to take
a motif from 'The Dark Island' and develop it as a slow air.
Some tunes are subversive enough to stick in the ear. 'Basil
the Retriever' is a fine jumping jig based on Bm and G; 'Liz Kane'
is a good-going minor reel with a bit of Georgia/Irish shuffle
in the B part. Alistair is particularly good at introducing this
sort of unusual phrasing, and two of the later reels in the book
- 'Gary Blair's' with an almost rag feel, and 'Callanish' really
stand out because of that.
A CD accompanies the book, which is great: it ain't what you
say, it's the way that you say it. Mere tadpoles on telegraph
wires have never been enough for folk music. Buy this book if
you want to swell your repertoire, especially if you're playing
sets of tunes for dancing, but there's one or two little gems
here too, which might just tickle your fiddling fancy.
Fiddle On
This is Alistair's first volume of traditional
tunes. Over the years he has penned around eighty tunes and we
get forty of the finest in this collection, with jigs, reels,
marches, slow airs and waltzes. What an absolutely fantastic collection
it is too! I can honestly say it is one of the very best collections
I have reviewed to this date. Maybe it's something to do with
Alistair being a fiddler, so the tunes lie better for me to bash
out; or perhaps it's because of his style of composition, all
the tunes are very catchy with plenty of dunt to them. Testament
to this is, as Alistair says on his cover notes, "Over thirty
of the tunes have been previously recorded by dance bands, folk
groups and fiddle orchestras". That must be a great sense
of achievement to any composer, when other musicians appreciate
your work.
Some of the compositions have second fiddle parts written out
and all have chords and ornamentations written in. There is also
a CD, which comes with the book, with accompaniment from Morag
Macaskill and Angus Lyon sharing the tracks. This is an excellent
idea as we hear how the composer wanted his tunes to be played
interpreted. I have played through the book and listened to the
CD and there is a host of real quality tunes here, useful tunes
for any dance bands to include in their sets. This is a brilliant
collection of tunes and all musicians involved in playing for
dancing need to get a hold of this book.
Box and Fiddle
