Tunes by Bill Clement MBE


25 March, 1923 - 17 June, 2012

Bill Clement was the first person to be awarded an MBE for services to piping and Scottish Country Dance.

This directory contains a number of tunes that he has composed. Many of these are listed as the standard tunes for dances. They were sent to me by his Japanese wife, Atsuko, whom he met in 1981 at the RSCDS Summer School. Both have been very active leaders of the Scottish Country Dance community.

The ABC transcriptions here include the version for the Highland pipes, from the images sent by Atsuko. These have names that end in "_Hp.abc". They will produce printed versions with two sharps in the key signature, for the benefit of those not familiar with the standard Highland pipe notation that doesn't usually include the key signature. I've also converted them to a form more useful to non-pipers, in the files with names ending in "_A.abc" or "_D.abc". These have the pipe ornaments removed, and I've added some basic chords that may be used or embellished as you like.

There are two versions of The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, because Atsuko earlier sent me a handwritten version of the tune, and its ornaments differ slightly from the later published version.

If you'd like to contact Atsuko about these tunes, you can send email to atsukoclement@aol.com, or call her in the UK at +44 1848 330 671.

All the tunes here are in ABC format. If you don't have ABC software, you can CLICK HERE to use a tool that converts the tunes to other formats. This will return the page you're looking at now, with the ABC files expanded to show all the tunes, and each tune will have a line of links to return it in a number of different formats.