November Tunes - 2025
Marchy marches, and Ian Powrie:
Click on the tune name for the notation, on the audio link for the music.
This retreat air is the composition of Scottish dance band leader Jim MacLeod (1928-2004). Jim was a well known television and radio musician in the 1960s and 70s, and a committed charity fundraiser.
Tigh na Gorm (The Blue’s House) - audio
Composed by fiddler and band leader Ian Powrie (1923-2011), this retreat march is named for the Perthshire house of his button box player Jimmy Blue.
Powrie was born in 1923 at Strathardle, near Blairgowrie in Perthshire. His father, Will Powrie, was an accomplished melodeon player, and recorded several excellent sides for Beltona during the early 1930s. At age twelve Ian was playing in his father’s dance band, but on piano accordion!
In 1949 he formed his first band, this time playing fiddle while his brother Bill played accordion.
Jimmy Blue took over from him after Powrie emigrated to Australia in 1966. Powrie returned in 1984, and stayed at a farmhouse in Corrieburn near Auchterarder.
Skye Gathering is a traditional 2/4 pipe march first published in Logan’s Collection of Bagpipe Music, vol. 6, c. 1910; No. 12, p. 7, also in Martin (Ceol na Fidhle, vol. 1&2), 1998; p. 53. - audio
Lord Huntly’s Cave, another 2/4 pipe march was composed by violinist J. Scott Skinner. It commonly follows Gay Gordons when the round-the-room couple dance is played. Skinner classes this a quickstep (mm=112). Published in (The Scottish Violinist), 1900; p. 34 and (Harp and Claymore), 1904; p. 25 (with variation sets). - audio
The cave is situated about two miles north of Grantown-on-Spey in a rocky glen George Gordon, second Marquis of Huntly (1590-1649), hid in this cave during Montrose's campaign of 1644-45. Huntly was born in to a Catholic family and was loyal to King Charles I.
Despite his role as King's lieutenant in the north he was reluctant to take a stand against the Protestant Covenanters. He refused to support the Marquis of Montrose who had originally fought for the Covenanters but had changed sides. Huntly was eventually beheaded 22 March 1649 when the hard-line protestant regime gained power in Scotland
