John Chambers' Scottish Country Dance Music Collection

This directory and its subdirectories contain the abc source for a collection of Scottish Country Dance music. Files are named for the dance. So if you want a medley for General Stuart's Reel, fetch GeneralStuartsR.abc, feed it to your abc software, and you should get the tunes on your screen.

Individual tunes are all in subdirectories named for a rhythm: reel, jig, strathspey, march, etc. This directory's Makefile made the medley pages from them and from the hdr/*.hdr files that produce the dance title and other information at the top of the page.

You can find out all about the abc music software at the abc home page. Also, check out the FAQ for abc. Here's a collection of Scottish dance-related links. An excellent site for information about dances is the Strathspey Server, and of course there is the RSCDS site.

Some of the *.abc files here contain only the primary (title or recommended) tune for a dance; some contain complete medleys. The single-tune cases mostly have a '0' (zero) at the end of the name, while those that end with a higher digit contain sets of tunes for the dance. But the naming here isn't very consistent yet.

An important warning: This is a personal, "working" collection. Its contents may change at any time. So if you see a medley you like, grab it now. It may change tomorrow.

Copyright comments: Some of the main tunes here are recent and are under copyright. I and the others who have contributed to this collection have generally worked under the assumption that the composers want their tunes used for the dance, and will therefore have no objection to having the tunes here in abc form. If this is not true for some tune, let me know and I'll remove the tune. If you suggest an alternate tune, I'll try to use it; otherwise I'll find another similar tune to use instead. I've tried to include the names of composers when known.

If you like seeing your tune here, but you would like to have your email or web address in the tune, tell me and I'll add them to the abc header. I can add your copyright notice, too, if you like.

I always try to get full information about the origins of tunes, so if you know something about a tune that's not in the headers, send it to me and I'll add the info to the tune.