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“Arran Boat Song” is a slow air from the Scottish Highlands, the title is often misanderstood as the “Aran Boat song” and is therefore widely considered as trad irish, but is more often known as The Highland Boat Song. It is a very popular melody and although it was published in the collections of nineteenth-century music it was already known in 1700 and combined for example with Robert Allan’s poetry “Queen Mary’s Escape From Lochleven Castle“.
It is a melody that one learns to play on the tin whistle due to its relative simplicity of execution (see), but it is also a tune much loved by the harpists.
The arrangements of this sweet melody are endless, I propose only a small part, among those that I consider to be the most beautiful.
Arran is the largest island of the Firth of Clyde, the fjord of the river Clyde, nicknamed the Sleeping Warrior because its conformation seen from the sea is that of a sleeping giant. “While wandering around the island, whatever the chosen vehicle, one also realizes why the isle has been called “a Scotland in miniature”, thanks to its geological conformation, because the landscape is divided into Highlands and Lowlands exactly as it is, the larger the entire Scottish nation.
And it is definitely impressive how much the landscape changes between the south and the north of the island: the north is bristly, rocky and sharp; while the southern part is flat, covered with heath and green.” (translated from here)
LINKS
https://thesession.org/tunes/986
https://thesession.org/tunes/6478
http://www.folkrag.org/tunes/2013.html
http://www.irish-folk-songs.com/the-arran-boat-song-tin-whistle-notes.html
http://www.visitdunkeld.com/tour-arran-scotland.html
http://it-blackcatsouvenirs.blogspot.it/2014/09/lisola-di-arran-la-scozia-in-miniatura.html
