Peter Milne, the Tarland Minstrel: strathspeys and reels

About Peter Milne

Milne was born at Kincardine O'Neil, on Deeside, on 30 September 1824, and taught himself the fiddle at about seventeen. Within a few years he was playing at the Theatre Royal in Aberdeen, and in his mid-twenties he was leading its band. He befriended the young James Scott Skinner and employed him as a cellist, and the two went to Edinburgh together, where Milne led theatre bands and toured England; he took opium for rheumatism during those tours and later worked the Forth ferries until the bridge opened in 1890.

He settled at Tarland, six miles north-west of Aboyne, and was known as the Tarland Minstrel. Skinner, who became the more famous of the two, called him the founder of the present style of strathspey playing and the best all-round player and composer of his day, a judgement recorded in Skinner's own manuscript notes and now held at the University of Aberdeen. Milne spent the last ten years of his life in hospital in Aberdeen after an accident and died in 1908.

Only a few dozen tunes survive, and the catalogue reflects how they travelled: as fiddle settings, often without harmony, gathered from printed collections and manuscripts. John McNeil's Reel, better known as Big John McNeil, and Gillan's Reel, usually called Muir o' Gellan, are the two that went furthest. Where the catalogue holds several copies of one tune, the titles differ in wording rather than in music, so compare the first page before deciding that you have found a variant.

Listening and playing notes

Strathspeys want the snap: the sixteenth-note pair after a dotted note is played short-long, and the effect comes from the bow rather than from tempo. Reels want the opposite, even quavers and a clear accent on the beat. In Milne's tunes the second part usually answers the first in the same register, so shape the phrase ends instead of adding dynamics. Play the written dotted rhythms literally: they are the style, not an ornament.

Selected scores

1. Dean Brig Reel

   The most-viewed entry, and the tune Skinner insisted was Archie Allan's rather than Milne's.

2. Muir o' Gellan

   Also printed as Gillan's Reel, and one of the two Milne tunes still played well outside Scotland.

3. J.O. Forbes of Corse

   A strathspey for the Forbes family of Corse, in the Aberdeenshire countryside where Milne worked.

4. The Marchioness of Huntly

   Named for the wife of the Gordon who owned Aboyne Castle, a few miles from Tarland; the catalogue holds three copies.

5. The Earl of Crawford's Reel

   One of several tunes tying Milne's repertory to the Crawford family and their Dunecht estate.

6. Cropie's Reel

   A reel with a local name that does not appear in the usual lists of his compositions.

7. Frank Gilruth

   A strathspey named for a contemporary, in the habit of dedication that runs through his output.

8. Cropie's Strathspey

   The strathspey counterpart of Cropie's Reel, and the clearest case of one tune filed twice.

9. The Countess of Crawford (Dunecht House)

   Titled for Dunecht House, the Crawford seat west of Aberdeen, and set in the catalogue with the article displaced.