Daniel Dow: strathspeys and reels from eighteenth-century Edinburgh

About Daniel Dow

Dow was born in 1732 in Kirkmichael, Perthshire, and became a music teacher in Edinburgh, where he taught the violin and the guitar and organised his own concerts. In December 1774, at Kirkmichael, he married Susanna Small of Dirnanean; they had four children. He died of a fever on 20 January 1783 and was buried in Canongate churchyard. A benefit concert for his widow and children followed at St Mary's Hall in Niddry's Wynd, where he had often performed, and his son John also became a fiddler.

His publishing was short and concentrated. Around 1775 he issued Twenty Minuets and Sixteen Reels, and in 1776 two collections appeared in Edinburgh: A Collection of Ancient Scots Music, sixteen pieces for violin, harpsichord or German flute, which included ports, salutations, marches and piobaireachd and was among the first publications to print music for the bagpipes; and Thirty Seven New Reels & Strathspeys, the first collection to put the word 'Strathspey' on its title page.

Monymusk is his best-known tune, printed in 1776 as Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk's Reel and named for the Grant estate near Monymusk in Aberdeenshire. It travelled: in New England it became 'Money Musk', and it is still played across Scotland, Ireland and North America. Nathaniel Gow and other editors reprinted many of Dow's tunes under new names, which is one reason the attribution of individual pieces is not always secure.

The 30 files are single-line dance tunes, 28 filed as classical and two unclassified, with no arrangement credits.

Listening and playing notes

A strathspey is defined by the Scotch snap, a short accented note followed by a long one, and by a tempo that is pulled rather than metronomic, so practise the snap plain before adding lift. Reels want the opposite: even quavers and a steady pulse for dancing. Most of these tunes are a single line with no harmony, so the repeats are where you shape them — vary the second time through. On fiddle, keep bow changes out of the snapped pairs.

Selected scores

1. Monymusk

   Dow's best-known tune, first printed in 1776 as Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk's Reel and named for the Grant estate in Aberdeenshire.

2. Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk's Reel

   The original title of Monymusk in Thirty Seven New Reels & Strathspeys; the catalogue holds two files under it.

3. Daniel Dow - Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk's Reel

   A second file of the same tune, with an identical title — compare the settings before choosing between them.

4. Captain MacDuff

   A strathspey from the Edinburgh collections; a second file spells the name 'McDuff'.

5. The Highland Skip

   A short dance tune; nothing in the file identifies the collection it was printed in.

6. Mr Ossian

   Filed without Dow's name in the title, unlike the rest; the attribution rests on the catalogue record alone.

7. Miss Grant of Grant

   Another tune named for the Grant family, the same connection that gave Monymusk its title.

8. The Countess of Sutherland's Reel

   One of three files of this tune, two of them differing only in the apostrophe of 'Sutherland's'.

9. Daniel Dow's Strathspey

   A tune carrying the composer's own name; the file uses a curly apostrophe, and a second entry is spelled without it.