Your monthly news from the New Hampshire Scottish Music Club

Volume 36, No. 6, February 2025

“Having fun with Scottish Music”

Our February 9th Gathering

Paul and Sally Wells, fiddlers and scholars of fiddle music, will present this month’s workshop on a couple of traditional tunes that have had long, complicated lives. One is the 6/8 tune perhaps most often known as “The Campbells are Coming,” and the second is a reel or hornpipe titled “Portsmouth Hornpipe,” known in Irish tradition as “Off to California.” Click here for the music.

A New Editor of Granite Skyes

After over a decade of editing your monthly Granite Skyes, I am excited that Jasper Cottle has agreed to take over my job. I have enjoyed putting together the newsletter every month, keeping abreast of all that has been going on even while spending my winters in Colorado. Helping to design and implement our new website was great fun, as was the challenge of figuring out how to make the switch from a word doc newsletter to one coming directly from the website.

Thank you, Jasper, for being a quick study and being willing to take this task on.

— Connie Eppich

Tune Tales

Each month our Tune Master, Alan Wilson, writes a blog sharing the history of the new tunes we’ll be playing in the workshop, along with tips and fun facts. Click here to read about how to use the Theme Code Index to find alternate names of tunes.

January Workshop Recap

The most notable take-away from last month’s workshop with Skip Gorman was being regaled with stories from Skip’s long career playing not only Celtic music, but bluegrass and cowboy music as well. He cultivated an early friendship with Ali Bain in the 1970s and got to play with other musicians in Scotland and Ireland who, at the time, were not well known, but many of whom later became prominent figures in the Celtic music scene.

Last Chance to Share Your Original Tunes

Our next gathering, in March, will be dedicated to tunes written by members of our club. If you have an original tune you’d like to share with us, please send it to our Tune Master, Alan Wilson, before February 9. More details here.

Back Issues of Granite Skyes

If you are new to our organization and would like to learn more about us, or you have been with us for many years and are waxing nostalgic, you can read many years worth of our monthly newsletter, Granite Skyes, here.