Review of Music Book 7

Music for Book 7 Plus 2 Dances for 2009

David Cunningham and his Scottish Dance Band This is an excellent recording. The sound is full, clean and light, and the instruments blend and balance well. The first accordion stands out relative to the second accordion accompaniment which marks the rhythm, helping the dancers to beat the time. The melodic range is good. The keyboard timbres change from track to track providing many different sounds: from the classical piano to the electric, from the pipe organ to the electronic. The keyboard performance is really enjoyable. From the first hearing, some characteristics are immediately evident: the nice change of tonality, the interesting changes from major to minor chords, some syncopated rhythms in reels, some accordion and keyboard virtuosities, and a fine rest before the last sequence in track 5. There are 2 jigs, 3 strathspeys and 9 reels, with the opportunity to choose the number of repetitions (4x32, 8x32, 8x40 etc.). All the original tunes are used with well-matched secondary tunes, and the result is a modern product of traditional music of an excellent quality that can be easily used when (alas!) there is no live music. The reels are really beautiful. The strathspeys have an evident staccato but not much sense of depth and solemnity so are less appropriate for performances. All the tunes are good but those which exhibit virtuoso variations and syncopation are not suitable for teaching steps. The CD also includes music for two of the dances published for the Homecoming Year in 2009. In The Grassmarket Reel, the experienced composition of James Gray will immediately be noticed. This characterizes the whole dance with a delicious piano melody that accompanies the first accordion, but has the personality to be the co-star. The Homecoming Dance, is really fluid, thanks to the composing ability of George Meikle, and fully reflects the character of the dance. It’s a 4x32 reel, and both the dance and the music will tempt dancers to wait for the MC to raise a forefinger and say, “Stay where you are please, once more!” Alessia and Samuele Graziani, Northern Italy Branch