The single-tune files are listed below.
If you just want a copy of the transcriptions, here are the ABC files:
If this is confusing, read the
Tune Files section below to
get an idea of how this is all organized.
(The music books the Gows left us are impressively complex with very
confusing terminology.)
If you'd like to see the originals, here are the IMSLP photo-copies:
Directory listing tools:
tune list -
session list -
collection list -
tool.
Niel Gow & Sons published 4 volumes of their tune collection called "Complete Repository".
The books' actual titles were slightly different in each of them,
and contained the usual lengthy list of dance types arranged for a list of musical instruments.
The tunes were originally published in small booklets every few years, from 1799 to 1817.
These were combined into the 4 "Complete Collection" books with about 40 pages and 90-115 tunes each.
They included a bass line "accompaniment" with all the tunes, and variations for some of them.
They eventually merged these into one large publication,
which was then republished (with slight editing) until about 1839.
It is an important collection in the history of Scottish (and British Isles) music.
Many of the tunes are regularly played today, by musicians who aren't always aware of their Scottish roots.
Many of the tunes were written by the Gows, or by friends and colleagues.
They include a composer's name for about 20% of the tunes,
but only credit a few of the accompaniments' composers.
The most notable case of this is in the old tune, Todlen Hame,
whose accompaniment they attribute to "the Immortal HAYDN".
I looked around for these books online for some years, and then in late 2020,
I discovered that photocopies had become available on several sites,
including imslp.org and the National Library of Scotland (nls.uk).
So I downloaded them and started a project of transcribing a page or two every few days when I had the time.
A major problem with this collection is that the terminology was quite inconsistent
from one publication to the next.
The 4 main publications were variously called Parts, Volumes, or Editions,
and all those terms were used with several other meanings.
There were also a number of other books published with subsets of this collection,
often undated, and with inconsistent book (and tune) names.
A lot of people have been trying to make sense of it all,
including when each tune was published, and what that book(let) was called.
See the Transcription Notes
for explanations that have been added as the project went on and
interesting and/or unusual notation features were discovered.
Tune Files
Below this are the ABC transcriptions of the tunes, one per file.
The filenames are of the form VPPN_Tune_Title.abc,
where V is the volume number [1-4],
PP is the page number [1-38], and
N is the tune's number on the page [1-4],
and Tune_Title is the title, without punctuation and with '_' for spaces.
Some of the tunes are transcribed in two ways,
for ABC's version 1 and 2 "standards".
ABC1 is still in use by a lot of software,
and it doesn't include multiple voices on a staff,
crescendo and diminuendo symbols, and a few other things.
These have file names ending in .abc1.abc and .abc2.abc,
and also use '-' or '=' after the VPPN prefix instead of '_',
to make life easier for the software folks.
Aldavaloch is the first tune like this.
And note that initial articles in titles are lower case,
which is also done to make some software simpler.